Before the middle of the seventh century the heathen invaders were converted by St Birinus, and by the time of Ina Wessex was divided into the dioceses of Winchester and Sherborne, the latter including Somerset, Dorset, and part of Wiltshire. This was all that Ina did towards establishing the diocese of Wells; and it did not go very far, for the special boast of the diocese is that it consists of one county, Somerset, and of nothing else. And so it is that the honour of possessing Ealdhelm, the first bishop of Sherborne, who tramped about, an open-air preacher, in his diocese, belongs to Salisbury and not to Wells; although Doulting, where Ealdhelm fell sick and died sitting in the little wooden village church, is the very place whence afterwards the stone was quarried for the building of Wells Cathedral.
It was under that great warrior, Edward the Elder, that the diocese of Sherborne was divided, and the Sumorsaetas received a bishop of their own, whose stool was placed in the church of St. Andrew at Wells.
It is quite probable that the above tradition grew around Ina's name owing to his having really established a church with a body of priests attached to it; since we find in a charter of Cynewulf, dated 766, a mention of "the minister near the great spring at Wells for the better service of God in the church of St. Andrew." This charter is probably spurious, but it may for all that enshrine an historical fact, especially as it does not pretend to the existence of a bishopric. If this be the case, then Edward, who wanted a fairly central church for a diocese which had no important town, must have found Wells very convenient for his purpose. For while Glastonbury, besides being in those days an island, had an abbot of its own, this little body of secular priests would be ready to receive the bishop as their chief, and to become his chapter. At all events, the year 909 saw Wells with a bishop of its own.
Aethelhelm or Athelm, Bishop of Somerset, or Wells (909-914), a monk of Glastonbury according to tradition, was the first Somersetshire bishop; he is said to have been an uncle of St. Dunstan: he was made Archbishop of Canterbury in 914.
It will be convenient to weave the history of the foundation of Wells with that of the bishops. So here, at the outset, the reader must bear in mind that from the beginning the cathedral church was served by "secular" clergy, by priests, that is, who were bound by no vows other than those of their ordination, who did not live a community life, but had each his own house, and generally at this time his own wife and family. Wells Cathedral was not "built by the monks," and its chapter was never composed of monks; though some of the bishops belonged to religious orders, it kept up a pretty constant rivalry with the "regular" clergy of Glastonbury and Bath. It belongs in fact, to the cathedrals of the old foundation, whose constitutions were not changed at the Reformation; and its chapter has continued in unbroken succession, from the days when Aethelhelm first presided over his little body of clergy in the church of St. Andrew, down to our own time. But at first that chapter was informal enough, nor was it finally incorporated and officered till the time of Bishop Robert in the twelfth century. The number of canons does not seem to have been fixed, though in the next century we hear of there being only four or five.
The next five bishops are all little more than names to us. Wulfhelm succeeded Aethelhelm in 914: also translated to Canterbury; Aelfheah (923), Wulfhelm (938), Brithhelm (956-973), and Cyneward (973-975).