Milred became bishop of Worcester between 743 and 745 and died in 774 or 775. At the beginning of this period Æthelbald of Mercia granted him the toll due on two ships at London, where the bishops of Worcester may have been trading. The other bishops attesting Æthelbald's charter were Ingwald of London (d. 745), and Milred's own predecessor, Bishop Wilfrith (d. 744×745?), so presumably Milred had been appointed to succeed Wilfrith during the latter's lifetime; perhaps Wilfrith was incapacitated by illness or old age, for he had been bishop of Worcester at least since Ecgwine's death in 717, if not longer. Nothing is recorded of Milred's life before he became bishop, but we know something about his activities as diocesan. For example, we see him granting episcopal land at Sodbury to a certain Eanbald, on condition that his heirs returned it to the see if they did not take holy orders, and at the end of his life we find Milred granting the monastery of Withington to the abbess of Twyning, on condition that both monasteries revert to Worcester after her death. These were the typical everyday concerns of a bishop of Worcester. The much more unusual fact of his life, that he travelled to Germany in 753, is not noticed in extant English sources, and we would not know about it but for the preservation among Lull's correspondence of Milred's letter, discussed in ch. 8 above.