Kingship Society And The Church In Anglosaxon Yorkshire Thomas Pickles by Thomas Pickles 9780192550774, 0192550772 instant download after payment.

According to Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, in 655 a confrontation took place that was crucial to the conversion of the Northumbrians to Christianity and the building of an institutional church. Penda, pagan king of the Mercians, attacked Oswiu, Christian king of the Northumbrians. Oswiu offered Penda ‘an incalculable and incredible store of royal treasures and gifts as the price of peace’, but Penda rejected the offer. Oswiu turned to God for assistance:

Oswiu therefore bound himself with an oath, saying, ‘If the heathen foe will not accept our gifts, let us offer them to Him who will, even the Lord our God.’ So he vowed that if he gained the victory he would dedicate his daughter to the Lord as a holy virgin and give twelve small estates to build monasteries.

Penda and Oswiu fought at Winwæd (Went Bridge?):1 despite Penda’s superior forces and the defection of Oswiu’s former ally Æthelwald, Oswiu was victorious.

Then King Oswiu, in fulfilment of his vow to the Lord, returned thanks to God for the victory granted him and gave his daughter Ælfflæd, who was scarcely a year old, to be consecrated to God in perpetual virginity. He also gave twelve small estates on which, as they were freed from any concern about earthly military service, a site and means might be provided for the monks to wage heavenly warfare and to pray with unceasing devotion that the race might win eternal peace.2

Either as a result, or as a subsequent act, Oswiu founde