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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 March 2016
The first bishop of York in Anglo-Saxon history is a shadowy figure and, to some historians, not an altogether impressive one, but a conference devoted mainly to the ecclesiastical province of York perhaps provides an opportune moment to consider afresh one or two of the more interesting aspects of his career. We might discuss first what exactly Paulinus was about in his efforts to convert Edwin of Northumbria.
Paulinus was one of the monks of Augustine of Canterbury and he was sent north with Ethelburga of Kent, who was a Christian, when she married the pagan King Edwin—in 625 according to Bede. Edwin promised to think about taking his bride’s religion, but to bring him finally to the point of accepting Christianity in 628 proved, despite all Paulinus’s powers of preaching and prophecy, to be a Herculean labour.
Page 15 of note 1 H.E., II, cc. 9-14.
Page 15 of note 2 ‘The Conversion of Northumbria: A Comparison of Sources’, in Celt and Saxon (Cambridge 1963), ed. Chadwick, Nora K., 164 Google Scholar.
Page 16 of note 1 See Hill, Rosalind, ‘The Northumbrian Church’, in Church Quarterly Review 164 (1963), 165–67 Google Scholar.
Page 16 of note 2 Deanesley, Margaret, Augustine of Canterbury (1964), 34 Google Scholar.
Page 16 of note 3 ‘Bede and Northumbrian Chronology’, EHR, LXXVIII (1963), 522. Bede clearly had the date of Paulinus’s episcopal consecration, but Paulinus was not necessarily consecrated when he went North in the first place. However, my argument does not depend only on the date when Paulinus’s mission began.
Page 18 of note 1 H.E., II, c. 15.
Page 18 of note 2 Edwin’s victory over Wessex is no doubt an important factor in this. See H.E., II, c. 9, and Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, ed. Dorothy Whitelock (1961), 17.
Page 18 of note 3 H.E., II, c. 15.
Page 19 of note 1 A Life of Pope St Gregory the Great, ed. Cardinal F. A. Gasquet (1904), c. 16; and see Colgrave, B. in Celt and Saxon, ed. Chadwick, Nora K., 119–37 Google Scholar.
Page 20 of note 1 H.E., II, cc. 5-6.
Page 20 of note 2 See Erich, Caspar, Geschichte des Papsttums (Tübingen 1933), II, 517–18, 526Google Scholar.
Page 20 of note 3 As I shall try to show shortly in a book on the coming of Christianity to England.
Page 21 of note 1 Gregorii Magni Dialogi, ed. Moricca, U. (Rome 1924), II, c. 3, 80–84, trans. O. J. Zimmermann, New York 1959Google Scholar.