Early in Æthelred's reign, Theodore, the Archbishop of Canterbury, began a substantial reorganization of the church in Mercia. In 675 he removed Winfred from his position as Bishop of Lichfield, and over the next four years he divided the vast Mercian see into the five dioceses of Leicester, Lichfield, Worcester, Dorchester and Hereford. Æthelred was a devout king, "more famed for his pious disposition than his skill in war", and he made several gifts of land to the expanding church, including grants at Tetbury, Long Newnton, and Somerford Keynes. There is also a tradition that Æthelred was associated with the founding of Abingdon Abbey, in southern Oxfordshire.