en no effort in the southern part of the kingdom, at least, to reclaim
the inhabitants from heathendom. York was chosen as the seat of the
metropolitan bishop in the north, entirely because of its importance as
a city. It is after this event that it becomes chiefly remarkable for
its ecclesiastical importance. Augustine died before he had followed
Gregory's instructions, and they were not carried out till 625. In that
year, Justus, the fourth bishop of Canterbury, was led by unusually
favourable circumstances to consecrate a bishop of York and to send him
to Northumbria. Edwin the king was over-lord of England, and he wished
to be allied with Kent, the only other independent kingdom in the
country. He therefore proposed to marry Ethelburga, the daughter of the
King of Kent. She and her father were Christians, and Edwin, though
still a heathen, agreed that she should be allowed to take with her a
Christian chaplain to Northumberland. Paulinus, perhaps a Briton by
birth, was chosen for this office, and was consecrated Bishop of York
before he set out. He has been identified with a certain Rum the son of
Urien. This enterprise met with great and immediate success, in which
political reasons probably played a considerable part; and on Easterday
627, the most important date in the ecclesiastical history of York, the
king Edwin, his family, and many of his court were baptised there in a
wooden chapel temporarily erected on the site of the present minster.
Immediately afterwards Edwin begun to build a church of stone, dedicated
to St. Peter, on the same site. The baptism of the king was followed by
a wholesale conversion of thousands of his subjects, and it is stated
that Paulinus was forced to stay over a month in one place to baptise
the crowds who flocked to him. Paulinus was confirmed in his appointment
to the see by the king, and immediately after received the pall,
together with Honorius of Canterbury, which authorised him to assemble
councils and to consecrate bishops. The pall was not given to any of his
successors until Egbert (732 A.D.). In view of the subsequent struggles
for precedence between the sees of Canterbury and York, the following
passage in a letter from the Pope to Edwin is of interest:--"We have
ordered," the Pope says, "two palls, one for each of the metropolitans,
that is for Honorius and Paulinus, that in case one of them is called
from this life, the other may, in virtue of this our authority, appoint