Bede's Ecclesiastical History of EnglandBede, the Venerable, Saint
History
Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England
Bede, the Venerable, Saint
England -- Church history -- 449-1066
These things happened in the province of the Bernicians; but in that of
the Deiri also, where he was wont often to be with the king, he baptized
in the river Swale, which runs by the village of Cataract;(241) for as yet
oratories, or baptisteries, could not be built in the early infancy of the
Church in those parts. But in Campodonum,(242) where there was then a
royal township, he built a church which the pagans, by whom King Edwin was
slain, afterwards burnt, together with all the place. Instead of this
royal seat the later kings built themselves a township in the country
called Loidis.(243) But the altar, being of stone, escaped the fire and is
still preserved in the monastery of the most reverend abbot and priest,
Thrydwulf, which is in the forest of Elmet.(244)
Chap. XV. How the province of the East Angles received the faith of
Christ. [627-628 A.D.]
Edwin was so zealous for the true worship, that he likewise persuaded
Earpwald, king of the East Angles, and son of Redwald, to abandon his
idolatrous superstitions, and with his whole province to receive the faith
and mysteries of Christ. And indeed his father Redwald had long before
been initiated into the mysteries of the Christian faith in Kent, but in
vain; for on his return home, he was seduced by his wife and certain
perverse teachers, and turned aside from the sincerity of the faith; and
thus his latter state was worse than the former; so that, like the
Samaritans of old, he seemed at the same time to serve Christ and the gods
whom he served before; and in the same temple he had an altar for the
Christian Sacrifice, and another small one at which to offer victims to
devils. Aldwulf,(245) king of that same province, who lived in our time,
testifies that this temple had stood until his time, and that he had seen
it when he was a boy. The aforesaid King Redwald was noble by birth,
though ignoble in his actions, being the son of Tytilus, whose father was
Uuffa, from whom the kings of the East Angles are called Uuffings.(246)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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