ECCLESIASTICAL 

 HISTORY 



THERE is no proof of the existence of Christianity during the 

 Romano-British period within the district now called the county 

 of Durham. When in later days the first English historian came 

 to tell the story of the beginnings of the Church in these islands, 

 he found himself without any definite information concerning the origin of 

 the faith in a district which was to him more interesting than any other 

 region of the English settlement. The Venerable Bede, in his slight sketch 

 of the earliest Christian centuries, was chiefly dependent on Orosius, who 

 completed the Historia in 417, writing it in Africa, where he was far removed 

 from Britain, and possessed no special knowledge of British affairs.^ We 

 cannot extort from Orosius, or from Bede, one single historical fact connected 

 with Roman Durham. Nor have any Christian relics of the Roman period 

 descended to us. Coins have been dug up at various times in Jarrow, Hartle- 

 pool, Chester-le-Street, and other places, and inscriptions have come to light 

 at Lanchester, but nothing that can be interpreted as Christian has hitherto 

 made its appearance.^ All we can say is that a Roman road passed directly 

 through the region, and that at Lanchester and Binchester there were military 

 stations. It is as difficult to suppose that Christianity was entirely absent as 

 it is to prove its actual presence. 



Bede is the first of a series of church historians connected with Durham.'' 

 He wrote his Church History of the 'English People in 731, when exact 

 details of the planting of Christianity in Northumbria were accessible to him 

 through the tradition of those who had witnessed the events in their boy- 

 hood, or had received their record from the previous generation. The first 

 definite contact of Christianity with English Durham must have taken place 

 when the Kentish Princess Ethelburga, otherwise Tata, came to the north as 

 bride of Edwin, who had lately drawn within his influence the various English 

 principalities. Bede tells in full the story of Edwin's wide sway ; of the 

 arrival of his bride ; of the king's acceptance of the faith ; of the subsequent 

 wide mission of Paulinus, the queen's chaplain. Paulinus must have traversed 



' For the authorities used by Bede, see C. Plummer's edition of the Works of Bede, (i) pp. xxiv and xliv. 



' An important resume of what can be recovered concerning Durham in the pagan period will be found in 

 Arch. Ael. vli, 89. Nothing is there traced of early Christianity. Raine's note on Haddan and Stubbs's 

 A'p'ptVtiXii. Monumental Remaitis of the British Church during the Roman Period %\im% up the admitted absence of 

 all information so far as Durham is concerned ,■ Hist, of the Church of York, i, p. xx. 



^ The other Durham chroniclers are Simeon of Durham, Geoffrey of Coldingham, Robert of Graystanes, 

 and William de Chambre. See Surtees Society edition of Tres Scriptores, p. vii. 



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