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Biography

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Nothhelm (also spelled Nothelm) was an Anglo-Saxon priest and prelate who became Archbishop of Canterbury in the eighth century. No reliable source records the year or place of his birth, nor any details of his family or early education. He first appears in the historical record as a priest of the church of Saint Paul in London. In that capacity he was already known as a man of learning with a particular interest in the history of the English church and in the documentary sources that could illuminate it.

Bede of Wearmouth–Jarrow regarded Nothhelm as a valued collaborator. At Bede’s request Nothhelm travelled to Rome, searched the papal archives, and copied letters of Pope Gregory the Great and other pontiffs that concerned the Gregorian mission to the English. These transcripts, together with information Nothhelm assembled about the kingdom of Kent and the early archbishops of Canterbury, were used by Bede in the composition of the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Bede also dedicated to Nothhelm a short exegetical work answering thirty questions on the Books of Kings, confirming Nothhelm’s reputation as a biblical scholar as well as a collector of historical materials.

After the death of Archbishop Tatwine, Nothhelm was elected to the see of Canterbury in 735. He received the pallium from Pope Gregory III in 736, thereby obtaining formal recognition of his metropolitan authority. During a brief archiepiscopate he corresponded with the Anglo-Saxon missionary Boniface, then active on the Continent, and is recorded as having convened at least one synod, though the acts of that gathering have not survived. Few other administrative or pastoral measures of his tenure are documented in the remaining sources.

Nothhelm died on 17 October 739. He was subsequently venerated as a saint in the English church, his feast being observed on the anniversary of his death. The cult was of the local, pre-congregational kind typical of early medieval England; no papal canonization in the later medieval sense is known. Surviving evidence does not record his place of death or burial, nor any spouse or children; as a senior cleric of the period his personal life beyond his ecclesiastical offices remains unknown.

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