Saint of the Day – 17 October – Saint Nothhelm (Died 739) Archbishop of Canterbury, spiritual writer, a friend and correspondent of both the Venerable Saint Bede and the great Missionary Martyr, Saint Boniface, it was Nothhelm who gathered materials from Canterbury for St Bede’s historical works. After his appointment to the Episcopate of Canterbury in 735, Nothhelm attended to Ecclesiastical matters, including holding Church Councils. Nothhelm was the author of a number of works, although these were later disputed. Of English birth (unknown place and date) and died on 17 October 739 in Canterbury where he is buried. Also known as – Nothelm.
Nothhelm, being aSt Bede’s friend and colleague, was happy to obtain information the later required for his historical works from the Papal Library whilst in Rome on a pilgrimage. He also researched, for St Bede, the history of Kent and the surrounding region. Before his appointment As the Archbishop of Canterbury, he whad been the Archpriest of the Saxon-built St Paul’s Cathedral, in London
Named to the See of Canterbury in 735, Nothhelm was Consecrated the same year. Pope Gregory III sent him a Pallium in 736. He may have been appointed by Æthelbald, King of Mercia, to whom Nothhelm had acted as a Counsellor. Nothhelm was one of a number of Mercians who became Archbishop of Canterbury, during a time of expanding Mercian influence.
Nothhelm held a Synod in 736 or 737 which drew nine Bishops; the meeting adjudicated a dispute over the ownership of a Monastery located at Withington. A significant feature of this Synod was that no King attended, but yet, the Synod still rendered judgement in the ownership even without secular involvement which was most unusual at that time in that country.
As the Archbishop of Canterbury, Nothhelm oversaw the reorganisation of the Mercian Dioceses which took place in 737. The Archbishop Consecrated Witta as the Bishop of Lichfield and Totta as the Bishop of Leicester. The Diocese of Leicester was firmly established by this action, although earlier unsuccessful ttempts had been made to establish a Diocese there. In 738, Nothhelm was a witness on the Charter of Eadberht I, the King of Kent.
St Bede addressed his work “In Regum Librum XXX Quaestiones“ to Nothhelm, who had asked the thirty questins on the Scriptural Bok of Kings which St Bede answered. Bede’s work “De VIII Quaestionibus” may have been written for Nothhelmtoo.
While Nothhelm was Archbishop, St Boniface wrote to him requesting a copy of the Libellus Responsionum of St Pope Gregory the Great, for use in Boniface’s missionary efforts. St Boniface also asked for information on the historical records of the English Gregorian mission to England.
Nothhelm died on 17 October 739 and was buried in Canterbury Cathedral. The antiquaries and writers John Leland, John Bale, and Thomas Tanner all felt that Nothhelm was the author of various works but later sources dispute these historians. A verse eulogy for Nothhelm, of uncertain date, survives in a 16th Century manuscript now at the Lambeth Palace Library.
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