Born from the earlier wave of Christianity which took hold in the Celtic fringes when the Romans left in the fifth century, the power of Celtic influence in the north explains why Edwin, his Kentish wife Æthelburg and Bishop Paulinus went in hard with converting the region to Roman Christianity. The different worlds reconciled in the person of Cuthbert. He combined a Germanic warrior youth with an early religious career in the Celtic monastery of Melrose, then later a commitment to Roman Christianity during his time as Bishop of Lindisfarne. But it would take a woman – Hild of Whitby – to
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