Nothhelm

---

title: "Nothhelm" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["archbishops-of-canterbury", "kentish-saints", "8th-century-archbishops", "8th-century-christian-saints", "739-deaths", "year-of-birth-unknown"] description: "Archbishop of Canterbury from 735 to 739" topic_path: "society/religion" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothhelm" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Archbishop of Canterbury from 735 to 739 ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox Christian leader"]

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	Saint
name	Nothhelm
title	Archbishop of Canterbury
appointed	735
ended	17 October 739
predecessor	Tatwine
successor	Cuthbert
consecration	735
other_post	archpriest of St Paul's, London
death_date	17 October 739
buried	Canterbury, Kent
feast_day	17 October
venerated
canonized_date	Pre-Congregation
::

| honorific_prefix = Saint | name = Nothhelm | title = Archbishop of Canterbury | image = | imagesize = | alt = | caption = | appointed =735 | ended = 17 October 739 | predecessor = Tatwine | successor = Cuthbert | consecration = 735 | other_post = archpriest of St Paul's, London | death_date = 17 October 739 | buried = Canterbury, Kent | feast_day = 17 October | venerated = | canonized_date = Pre-Congregation

Nothhelm (sometimes Nothelm; died 739) was a medieval Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury. A correspondent of both Bede and Boniface, it was Nothhelm who gathered materials from Canterbury for Bede's historical works. After his appointment to the archbishopric in 735, he attended to ecclesiastical matters, including holding church councils. Although later antiquaries felt that Nothhelm was the author of a number of works, later research has shown them to be authored by others. After his death he was considered a saint.

Early life

Nothhelm was a contemporary of Boniface and Bede, whom he supplied with correspondence from the papal library following a trip to Rome. He also researched the history of Kent and the surrounding area for Bede, supplying the information through the abbot of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. Before his appointment to the archbishopric, he was the archpriest of the Saxon-built St Paul's Cathedral, London.

Archbishop

Named to the see of Canterbury in 735, Nothhelm was consecrated the same year. Pope Gregory III sent him a pallium in 736. He held a synod in 736 or 737, which drew nine bishops;{{efn|The resolution of the dispute is given in a surviving charter, Sawyer 1429.

Nothhelm oversaw the reorganisation of the Mercian dioceses which took place in 737. The archbishop consecrated Witta as Bishop of Lichfield and Totta as Bishop of Leicester. although earlier attempts had been made to establish a bishopric there. In 738, Nothhelm was a witness on the charter of Eadberht I, the King of Kent.

Bede addressed his work In regum librum XXX quaestiones to Nothhelm, who had asked the thirty questions on the biblical book of Kings that Bede answered. Bede's work De VIII Quaestionibus may have been written for Nothhelm. Boniface also asked for information on when the Gregorian mission to England arrived in England. This text of the Libellus responsionum has been the subject of some controversy, with the historian Suso Brechter arguing that the text was a forgery created by Nothhelm and a Roman archdeacon. The historian Paul Meyvaert has refuted this view, and most historians incline towards the belief that the text is genuine, although it is not considered conclusively proven.

Death and legacy

Nothhelm died on 17 October 739 The antiquaries and writers John Leland, John Bale, and Thomas Tanner all felt that Nothhelm was the author of various works, but later research has shown them to be authored by other writers. A verse eulogy for Nothhelm, of uncertain date, survives in a 16th-century manuscript now at the Lambeth Palace library.

Notes

Citations

References

References

1. Farmer ''Oxford Dictionary of Saints'' pp. 391-392
2. Mayr-Harting ''Coming of Christianity'' p. 69
3. Hindley ''Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons'' p. 93
4. Keynes "Nothhelm" ''Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England''
5. Yorke ''Kings and Kingdoms'' p. 31
6. Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 214
7. He may have been appointed by [[Æthelbald of Mercia
8. A synopsis of the charter is available online [http://www.esawyer.org.uk/content/charter/1429.html here].}} A significant feature of this synod was that no king attended, but yet the synod still rendered judgement in the ownership even without secular oversight, which was more usual.Cubitt ''Anglo-Saxon Church Councils'' p. 56
9. Blair ''Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England'' p. 136
10. Hunt and Mayr-Harting "Nothhelm" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''
11. While he was archbishop, Boniface wrote to him, requesting a copy of the ''[[Libellus responsionum]]'' of Pope [[Pope Gregory I
12. and was buried in [[Canterbury Cathedral]]. He is considered a saint, and his [[feast day]] is 17 October.Walsh ''New Dictionary of Saints'' p. 453

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