Edwin de Northumbrie

Edwin de Northumbrie , known as Saint Edwin (born towards 585 and dead the October 12th 633) was king of Northumbrie (an area of the Yorkshire in England) of 616 to its death. It converts with the Christianisme and established this religion in its kingdom.

Youth

Wire of the king EFTA de Deira of Northumbrie, Saint Edwin was only three years old with died of his/her father. He was then private throne by king Ethelfrith of Bernicie (Northern of Northumbrie) which seized the kingdom of Aella.

Edwin spent the thirty following years to the Wales and in Is Anglie. Still young man, it married Cwenburg de Mercie which gave him two wire. Finally in 616, with the assistance of king Baedwald (Redwald) of Is Anglie which had accommodated it during its exile, Edwin recovered its throne by beating and killing Ethelfrith with the battle of the Idle river.

Reign

Edwin directed with competence. In 625, his first wife having died, he married Ethelburge, sister of king Eadbald de Kent, a Christian woman. At the beginning, its proposal was pushed back, because it was not Christian. But, thereafter, a contract was drawn up, in which he was recognized in Ethelburge freedom of worship, and Edwin should seriously consider to join it in the Christian faith. Once the agreement found, Ethelburge took along with it in Northumbrie its confessor, holy Paulin, a Roman monk who had been sent by the holy pope of Rome Gregoire Ier the Large one, to help holy Augustin in his work of conversion of the England, and which had just been devoted bishop of York. The bishop saw an opportunity there to spread the faith in the Scandinavian parts of the island.

The pensive one and melancholic person king was not naturally inclined with precipitated acts, and so that took time before it converts. The examples of Christian virtue that he saw in his wife and his chaplain played a big role in its decision. But three particular events will be determining. The first, an attempt missed by assassination on behalf of the Saxon of the West. Then, the abandonment of the Paganism by the large Coifi priest. And finally, the recall by Paulin of a mysterious experiment that Edwin had lived a few years before during its exile.

Following these events, Edwin converts with Christianity into 627, and, as brings it back Bède Worthy the, was baptized by Paulin with Passover, after the birth of a girl. Many members of the court of Edwin and its subjects of Yorkshire and Lincolnshire converted too. Thus Christianity in Northumbrie settled. The pagan gods and gods already had been destroyed by the high priest himself.

King Edwin establishes the law and the order in the kingdom and quickly became most powerful king d' Angleterre. He extended his territory to north in the country of the Pictes, in the west in that of the Cumbriens and the Welsh, and towards Elmet close to Leeds. Worthy Bède reports that during the last year of the reign of king Edwin, there was such a peace and such an order in its possessions which a proverb said “a woman could transport its new-born baby through the island of sea to sea without any risk”.

Died

It could never carry out its intention to build a stone church in York - an event without precedent in this time - because its kingdom was invaded by pagan kings Penda de Mercie and Cadwallon of the north of Wales. Edwin was beaten and killed with the battle of Hatfield Chase in 633. The church was built, his head there is buried, and it became the center of its worship.

After its death, Northumbrie turned over to paganism and Paulin had to convoy Ethelburge and his children by sea to put them in safety in Kent where during the ten last years of his life, it embellishes his diocese of Rochester. The massacres and the chaos which followed the death of Edwin ceased with the accession of Saint Oswald into 634.

Saint Edwin is regarded as a tribal héro, a Christian king models and a Martyr. Although its festival was not included in least old liturgical books of Northumbrie having arrived us, there is at least an old dedication of church in its honor. In Rome, the pope Gregoire XIII will implicitly approve his worship by including Edwin among the English martyrs taken again on the mural frescos of the English College of Rome.

The worship of Edwin also exists in Whitby, which had a tomb with its body, that one said to be discovered by revelation and brought of Hatfield Chase. The abbey of Whitby was controlled thereafter by the girl of Edwin, holy Enfleda, and its grand-daughter, holy Elfleda. She became the place of burial for the royal members of the house of Deira and for the house of the first biographer of Gregoire saint 1st.

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