Indeed, in the time of St Wilfrid the peninsula
was probably nearly twice as big as it is to-day, and Selsey was
undoubtedly a little island, probably of mud, divided from the mainland
at least by the tide. It was here, St Wilfrid was shipwrecked in 666,
and it is from his adventures in Sussex that we learn of the
extraordinary barbarism of the South Saxons, two generations after the
advent of St Augustine.
St Wilfrid's ship, it seems, was stranded on the mud flats, and the
quite pagan South Saxons attacked him and the crew, and it was only the
rise of the tide which floated the ship that saved them, with a loss of
five men. It was not till 681 that Wilfrid, really a fugitive, came
again into Sussex, and this time as to a refuge, for Ethelwalch, king
of the South Saxons, and his queen were then Christians, though their
people were still pagan. There was a certain monk, however, probably an
Irishman, who had a small monastery at Bosham encompassed by the sea
and the woods, and in it were five or six brethren who served God in
poverty and humility; but none of the natives cared either to follow
their course of life or to hear their preaching.
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