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Begins TuesdayÌý18 October 2005 , 3.00-3.30 p.m |
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Sue Cook and the team answer listeners' historical queries and celebrate the way in which we all 'make' history. |
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Series 12 |
ProgrammeÌý12
3 January 2006 |
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Paulinus, Early Christian Missionary
A listener in north Nottinghamshire says that, according to Bede, the Roman Christian Paulinis baptised people in the River Trent at a place called Tiowulfingacaestir. Is this the place we know today as Littleborough?
Making History consulted Mike Bishop, Senior Archaeologist at Nottinghamshire County Council.
Paulinus, (c. AD 563-644) was the first Christian missionary to the kingdom of Northumbria. He came to England in AD 601 to help St Augustine in his work of conversion. For many years he did this in the south of England, but in 625 King Edwin of Northumbria, still a pagan, married the Christian Aethelburga, daughter of King Aethelbert of Kent who had received St Augustine. Paulinus went with her to her husband's kingdom and the story goes that Paulinus held a famous conference with the highest Northumbrian thegns, probably at a royal palace in Londesborough in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Here he explained to them the advantages of the Christian religion - such as life after death - and this won them over. This was no small achievement because of the size of the Northumbrian kingdom.
The kingdom of Edwin embraced the whole country from the Humber to the Clyde and the Forth, and there is evidence that Paulinus baptised people at Catterick and Brafferton (also on the Swale). He apparently built a church in Leeds (Campoduno), and ancient crosses at nearby Dewsbury and at Whalley were connected with his name. At Lincoln, in ancient Lindsey, Paulinus built a small church and, along with St James the Deacon, baptised people in the Trent at Littleborough in Nottinghamshire. He is also said to have founded Southwell Minster in the same county. In AD 633, King Edwin fell in the Battle of Hatfield Chase (Nottinghamshire). It was unsafe for the Queen to remain in Northumbria and Paulinus returned with her to Kent. He became Bishop of Rochester until his death on 10 October 644. He was buried in the chapter-house of the cathedral there and he became the great Patron Saint of Rochester.
It is Bede (AD 673-735) who mentions Tiowulfingacaestir, and it seems that the Victorian scholar Plummer was the first to associate Littleborough with Bede's Tiowulfingacaestir. According to local historian Andy Nicholson, it is not 100% certain, but there are good reasons why Littleborough probably fits the bill: it is a former Roman town on Tillbridge Lane, a major route between Doncaster and Lincoln, and Edwin used the event as a political statement to show his overlordship over the kingdom of Lindsey (north Lincolnshire) and north Nottinghamshire.
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Vanessa has presentedÌýscience and current affairs programmes for ±«Óãtv, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5 and Discovery and has presented for ±«Óãtv Radio 4 & Five Live and a regular contributor to the Daily Telegraph and the Mail on Sunday, Scotsman and Sunday Herald.Ìý