Excerpt from English Literature, 596-1832 We may now return to the literary develop ment in Wessex. Christianity was introduced into Wessex by Bishop Birinus in 634, and spread over the whole kingdom with marvelous celerity. The bishop's see was fixed at first at Dorchester, near Oxford; thence it was moved to Winches ter; before the end of the century it was neces sary to carve out another bishopric farther to the west, and the see was fixed at Sherborne. Win chester, Malmesbury, and Glastonbury were great and famous monasteries early in the eighth cen tury. The heroic Winfrid (better known as St. Boniface), trained in a monastery at Exeter, could not rest contented that Wessex should have re ceived the faith, but carried Christianity to the Germans. Great spiritual fervor, ardent zeal, and great intellectual activity, seem to have prevailed in every part of the little kingdom. The inter esting letters of St. Boniface give us tantalizing. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.