He was born in 681 not far from here, at Chidham, near Bosham, an important Anglo-Saxon missionary centre. His life was one of simple filial piety and charity. When his father died, he took care of his paralysed mother, making a special litter for her in the form of an elongated padded wheelbarrow, which he used to haul behind him by means of a rope over his shoulders; he lived with her as a hermit, but took to the roads to seek for alms. He settled in Steyning, near Shoreham, where he built a hut for his mother and himself, and later constructed a simple church. Here he died and was buried. King Edward the Confessor handed over responsibility for the Steyning church to the monks of Fécamp in Normandy; they enlarged the church, but took the saint’s remains back to their French abbey to be enshrined. He died at an unknown date in the 8th century. A local cult of his sainthood predates the Norman Conquest.