 Initially the stable Anglo-British kingdoms of Wessex and then Northumbria followed the practices of Celtic Christianity however powerful figures such as Alfred the Great, who had been anointed by the Pope in Rome, tended toward Roman Catholicism especially after the Synod of Whitby drawing merchants, men of culture, artisans and educated Catholic clerics from the Latin West including Italy.After the conquest of Anglo-Saxon England in 1066, the first recorded Italian communities in England began from the merchants and sailors living in Southampton.The famous "Lombard Street" in London took its name from the small but powerful community from northern Italy, living there as bankers and merchants after the year 1000.