Note 40 — SAXON CHURCHES IN LINCOLNSHIRE

Historical evidence which points to this conclusion has been summarised by Dr. Mansel Sympson (“Where was Sidnaceaster?”—Assoc. Archit. Soc. Reports, vol. xxviii., 1905, pp. 87 sqq.). A charter of Edward the Confessor, preserved at Peterborough, which contains the grant of the church, &c., at Fiskerton to the Abbey of Peterborough, is witnessed by several bishops and nobles, including Wulfwig, Bishop of Lindsey, who signs himself “Lincolie episcopus.” The charter, however, appears to be a copy of the original, in which “Lincolie” may have been written by error for “Lindisse.” But, if “Lincolie” is right, the use of the title by a bishop whose see was at Dorchester-on-Thames points to the fact that he looked on Lincoln as his true episcopal city. And the conviction of the present writer, on other grounds, is that “Sidnaceaster,” whose site was unknown even to writers of the Norman period, is simply a careless MS. corruption of “Lindaceaster,” or some allied Saxon form of “Lindum Colonia.”