Paulinus (died 644) played the principal role in the conversion of Northumberland, which by 625 had become the most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, stretching from the Humber to the Firth of Forth, and from the North Sea to the Pennines.
Unusually for someone of that period, we have an idea of Paulinus’s appearance. The Venerable Bede described him as “tall, with a slight stoop, black hair, a thin face, a slender aquiline nose, at once venerable and awe-inspiring in appearance”.
Probably he had once been a priest in Rome. Certainly he was a member of the second mission which Pope Gregory sent to Kent, in 601.
