ANGLO-SAXON REMAINS date of Surrey's conversion from heathenism is nowhere expressly re- corded, the Chertsey Charter gives a date after which it is difficult to believe that the inhabitants of western Surrey can have remained long without baptism. The new faith would make itself felt in funeral observances ; and even before the cemeteries were removed to the conse- crated churchyard they would cease to be of service to archaeology. In the chalk area and generally in the eastern half of the county the Gospel had no doubt spread some years before, for being separated from Kent by no natural obstacle the inhabitants would probably have welcomed the priest even when they would have repelled the soldier. Indeed the Surrey finds bear independent testimony to early ecclesiastical activity in so far as the graves contained remarkably few ornaments ; and even the greatest seem to have been laid to rest with little but the weapons which they may have borne to defend the faith they died in. The presence among them of the great Mercian king, Wulfhere, must have deeply affected the political and religious condition of the inhabitants of Surrey. The grant of large estates to the Church would set the seal on their conversion, and his temporal power must have been evident to their eyes if the conqueror passed through their territory to that of the South Saxons, whose king, Aethelwalch, had been under his protection since 66 1. As Kent was ravaged by Aethelred in 676 l and the Bishop of Rochester driven from his diocese, 2 it is likely that the whole of Surrey had by that time passed under Mercian rule, so that it is all the more remarkable that Theodore when reorganizing the English Church should include Surrey in the West Saxon diocese of Winchester. The relations of that prelate with Wulfhere make it impossible to suppose that the over-lord disapproved of the arrangement, and the obvious inference is that Wessex had a strong and early claim on the Christian community of Surrey. As Mercian dominion south of the Thames may be fairly said to date only from the middle of the seventh century, the task for archaeology is to decide between the two rival claimants to the over-lordship of Surrey between the close of the Roman period and the reign of Wulfhere, an interval to which most of the burials already described may be attributed. The question is one that specially and almost exclusively concerns the antiquary, but exact inquiry in this field is of comparatively recent growth, and material is still wanted to provide a definite solution. At present a few indications of contact with either power may be noticed here and there, but nothing better than an open verdict can be returned. Of minor relics not connected with interments there are few to record in Surrey. Two however are of rare occurrence, and apart from their intrinsic value are of importance on different grounds. The first is a gold ring, not necessarily for the finger, found at Witley some years ago. It weighs 65 grains and belongs to a peculiar type, being of unequal thickness with a spiral groove in which is inserted gold wire. 1 Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under that year. 8 Bede, Ecclesiastical History, bk. iv. chap. xii. 271
