Nothhelm

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; (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'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. 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.