And forasmuch as the aforesaid king, together
with the said place, gave him all the goods that were therein, with the
lands and men, he instructed them in the Faith of Christ and baptised
them all. Among whom were two hundred and fifty men and women slaves,
all of whom he by baptism, not only rescued from the servitude of the
devil, but gave them their bodily liberty also and exempted them from
the yoke of human servitude."
The church and monastery which St Wilfrid thus founded at Selsey,
thereby establishing the bishopric of Sussex, have long since
disappeared beneath the sea. Camden, however, tells us that
he saw the foundations at low water; they lay about a mile to
the east of the little church of Our Lady, which remained complete
until the middle of the nineteenth century, when it was all
pulled down except the chancel which we see to-day in the graveyard
which it serves as chapel. It is a work of the fourteenth century, and
within is the fine sixteenth-century monument of John Lews and his
wife. The old Norman font has been removed to the new church of St
Peter at Selsey, built largely out of old materials.
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