The diocese was founded around 679 by St Theodore of Canterbury at Worcester to minister to the kingdom of the Hwicce, one of the many Anglo Saxon petty-kingdoms of that time.

Since a reorganisation in January 2023 oversight passed to a new Bishop of Oswestry (Paul Thomas) who continues to serve the Worcester diocese in his place.

As well as undermining local rivals, the Mercian kings also derived revenue from church lands in this period.

Through this royal support the bishopric found itself in a position from which it was able to gradually extend its control over several of the other prominent minsters in the area during the 7th and 8th centuries.

Later in the period it was from Mercia, in particular Worcester, that King Alfred began to recruit priests and monks with whom to rebuild the church in Wessex during the 880s (Asser, ch.

[11] Bishop Roger attempted to support Thomas Becket in his dispute with Henry II over the independence of the Church.

Peter of Blois was commissioned by a Bishop of Worcester, probably John of Coutances, to write a significant anti-Judaic treatise Against the Perfidy of Jews around 1190.

[14] William de Blois, as Bishop of Worcester, imposed particularly strict rules on Jews within the diocese in 1219.

[15] As elsewhere in England, Jews were officially compelled to wear square white badges, supposedly representing tabulae.

In response, the papacy demanded that Christians be prevented from working in Jewish homes, "lest temporal profit be preferred to the zeal of Christ", and enforcement of the wearing of badges.

He resigned as bishop in 1539, as a result of a theological turn by Henry VIII towards Roman Catholicism, in the Six Articles.

There were 35 Benedictine monks plus the Prior Holbeach at the time of dissolution, probably 16 January 1540; eleven were immediately given pensions, while the remainder became secular canons in the new Royal College.

[22][23][24] The Charters of Worcester are one of the key sources for historians studying the period and are a major reason for information about the early Anglo-Saxon church.

95 of Cartulary A which shows the 8th-century king of Mercia, Ceolwulf II, granting the bishopric of Worcester exemption from royal dues in exchange for money.