Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 44.djvu/109

 stranger who appeared to Eadwine was some Christian of Rædwald's court known to Paulinus (, Early English Church, p. 56), and others that he was Paulinus in person (, p. 38); if the last view is accepted, the appearance of Paulinus at the East-Anglian court, which must be dated before 616, would imply that he was then on a mission to that kingdom, undertaken possibly to reclaim Rædwald, who had fallen from the faith ( and, iii. 75). Eadwine recognised the sign, declared his willingness to adopt Christianity, and his witan having pronounced in favour of the change at a meeting held at Goodmanham, about twenty miles from York, he and his nobles openly professed their acceptance of the teaching of Paulinus, and sanctioned the destruction of the idolatrous temples and altars. A wooden church was hastily raised at York and dedicated to St. Peter, and there Paulinus instructed the king as a catechumen, and, on Easter day, 12 April 627, baptised him and many other noble persons, among whom were two of the king's sons. Welsh writers represent Eadwine and his people as having been baptised by a British priest named Rhun or Rum, son of Urbgen, or Urien (, p. 54; Annales Cambr. an. 182, i.e. A.D. 696) [see under ], and it has consequently been supposed that Paulinus was a Briton by birth, who had resided in Rome, and had been sent thence by Gregory to assist in the conversion of the English (, History of Northumberland, i. 77;, p. 36). This is, however, mere supposition, and is untenable ({sc|Haddan}} and, iii. 75).

In accordance with a grant of Eadwine, Paulinus carried out the ordinance of Pope Gregory by establishing his episcopal see at York. At his bidding, the foundations were laid of a stone church, which was built in the form of a square, with the little wooden church preserved in the middle of it; the walls were not raised to their full height in his time. He laboured unceasingly in preaching and baptising the people, moving about from one part of Eadwine's dominions to another, and everywhere meeting with signal success. On one occasion he visited Adgefrin or Yeavering, in the present Northumberland, then a royal residence, and remained there with the king and queen for thirty-six days, from morning till evening instructing and baptising the people, who flocked to him in great numbers, and were, after preparation, baptised in the river Glen, a tributary of the Till. Another visit to Bernicia is commemorated by the name of Pallinsburn or Pallingsburn in the same county. Deira, where he used to reside with the king, was the chief scene of his labours, and he was wont to baptise his converts in the Swale above Catterick Bridge, in the North Riding of Yorkshire. He is also believed to have preached at Dewsbury in the West Riding, and at Easingwold in the North Riding. At Dewsbury there was, in Camden's time, a cross with the inscription ‘Hic Paulinus prædicavit et celebravit’ (Britannia, col. 709); a successor to this cross was destroyed in 1812. His custom was to preach in the open air and near some river, brook, or lake, that served for baptisms, and his work was simply one of foundation. Throughout the whole of Bernicia there was not, in his time, a single church, altar, or cross, and as regards Deira, the notice of the wooden basilica with a stone altar, that he raised at Campodonum—probably Tanfield, near Ripon—implies that the building was exceptional. South of the Humber, he preached in Lindsey; and Blæcca, the ealdorman of Lincoln, having, with all his house, received the gospel, built a church of stone in that city. There, in 628, Archbishop Justus having died the previous year, Paulinus, who was then the only Roman bishop in England, consecrated Honorius [q. v.] to the see of Canterbury. The corrupted name of St. Paul's Church at Lincoln preserves the memory of Paulinus, and of the church of Blæcca. He baptised many persons in the Trent in the presence of Eadwine and a multitude of people near a town called Tiovulfingchester—probably Southwell in Nottinghamshire—where tradition makes him the founder of the collegiate church (Monasticon, vi. 1312). He is also said to have preached at Whalley in Lancashire, then in Cumbria. In these labours he was assisted by his deacon James, whose diligence and faithfulness did much for the spread of the gospel.

On the overthrow of Eadwine in 633, Paulinus, seeing no safety except in flight, left his work in the north and sailed with the widowed queen Æthelburh and the king's children to Kent. His flight is commended by Canon Raine, and, for reasons which he fully states, is condemned by Canon Bright in his ‘Early English Church History.’ Bede, while not pronouncing any judgment on the matter, seems to have held that Paulinus had no choice, and that he owed attendance to the queen whom he had brought with him to Northumbria (see Historia Ecclesiastica, ii. c. 20). If this was Bede's opinion, it should, in spite of Canon Bright's weighty reasons on the other side, be taken as absolving