The abbey became the seat of the Sussex bishopric, until it was moved to Chichester, after 1075 when the Council of London decreed that sees should be centred in cities not in villages.

[2] The exiled Wilfrid arrived in the kingdom of the South Saxons in 681 and remained there for five years evangelising and baptising the people.

Modern academics have suggested that this ambiguity is because Bede did not approve of Wilfrid and did not simply copy Stephen's "Life".

[8] Henry Mayr-Harting writes that it would have been easy for Bede just to copy from Stephen's "Life" into his own "Ecclesiastical History", but experience equipped him to deal with the "difficulty of sources".

[d][6] Also when Wilfrid arrived in Sussex, there was a small community of five or six Irish monks[e] led by Dicul in Bosham; however according to Bede they had made little headway in evangelising the local people.

[14] Kirby further speculates that Christianity may have secured a foothold in early Sussex via one of its sons, the South Saxon Damian, bishop of Rochester c. 660.

[14][15] A more recent hypothesis, posited by the historian Michael Shapland, suggests that "there were likely several British[f] churches in the area that predate the possibly biased historical accounts of Wilfred's successful Christianisation of Sussex".

[20] Abbot Eadberht of Selsey would have been president of the brotherhood in 709 and according to Bede was consecrated the first Bishop of the South Saxons Diocese by synodal decree.

[g][29] From the time of Wilfrid till after the Norman Conquest, when the See was transferred to Chichester, there were about twenty-two Bishops over a period of 370 years.

[33] Most of the documents that do survive are later copies or forgeries, which has made it impossible to reconstruct a detailed history before the Norman Conquest.

[33] The location of the old Selsey Abbey and cathedral church is not known for sure, although some local legends suggest that it is under the sea, and that the bell can be heard tolling during rough weather.

An excavation, in 1911, of the 'mound' that adjoins the current St Wilfrid's chapel yielded a 10th-century bronze belt tab of a type found in ecclesiastical contexts.

[40][38][41] Also various stone artefacts have been found in the area including remnants of Wilfrid's palm cross, that would have stood outside his cathedral.

The ringwork was possibly established soon after 1066 and as the bishopric was not moved to Chichester till after 1075, it is likely that it was constructed to protect Wilfrid's 7th-century church.

[47] As the monastery was also badly afflicted by this disease, the monks set apart three days of fasting and prayer to try to placate the Divine Wrath.

About the second hour on the second day of prayer and fasting, he was alone in the place where he lay sick, when, under divine providence, the most blessed Princes of the Apostles deigned to appear to him; for he was a boy of innocent and gentle disposition, who sincerely believed the truths of the Faith that had been accepted.

God in his mercy has granted you this favour at the intercession of the devout King Oswald, so beloved by God, who once ruled the people of the Northumbrians.Rudyard Kipling wrote about St Wilfrid and Selsey and in this poem where he refers to a service at Manhood End (Selsey) that was conducted by Wilfrid's chaplain and biographer Stephen of Ripon, referred to as Eddi in the poem: Eddi's Service (AD 687) Eddi, priest of St. Wilfrid In his chapel at Manhood End, Ordered a midnight service For such as cared to attend.

The storm beat on at the windows, The water splashed on the floor, And a wet, yoke-weary bullock Pushed in through the open door.

Till the gale blew off on the marshes And the windows showed the day, And the Ox and the Ass together Wheeled and clattered away.