Historical Context
In the seventh century the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria was frequently divided between two component realms: Deira in the south, centered on the former Roman city of York, and Bernicia in the north. After the death of King Oswald at the Battle of Maserfield, the kingdom split, with Oswine ruling Deira and Oswiu ruling Bernicia.
Oswine's reign coincided with the consolidation of Christianity in Northumbria under the mission from Iona led by Bishop Aidan of Lindisfarne. The rivalry between the Deiran and Bernician royal lines, complicated by ties of kinship, formed the political backdrop to Oswine's killing and to the penitential settlement that followed.
Death and the Founding of Gilling Abbey
When Oswiu moved against him after seven years of peace, Oswine declined to give battle against a far larger force and disbanded his army to spare his men. He withdrew to Gilling and sought shelter with Earl Humwald, whom he counted a friend; Humwald instead handed him over to Oswiu's men, and he was killed on 20 August 651.
Under the law of the time, his kinswoman Queen Eanflaed could have pursued vengeance or accepted weregild — compensation for the killing. The weregild was used to found a monastery at Gilling, the site of the death, staffed by relatives of both families and charged with offering prayers for the soul of Oswine and the salvation of Oswiu. Its early abbots included Trumhere (a kinsman of Oswine), Cynefrith, Trumbert, and Ceolfrith; the community was later depopulated by plague before 669.
Relics & Shrines
By tradition Oswine was the first king buried at Tynemouth, interred there in connection with the penance for his killing. The burial place was in time forgotten, but in 1065 a body believed to be his was exhumed at the ruined monastery and his relics honorably enshrined.
After the priory was refounded in 1083, a new church was built and dedicated to the Virgin Mary and Saint Oswine, and his shrine became a place of pilgrimage. On 20 August 1110 the shrine was ceremoniously transferred to the new church. By the fourteenth century the martyr's body rested in a silver shrine decorated with gold and jewels, until the shrine was destroyed in 1539 during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. The chronicler Alban Butler records that in 1103 Bishop Ranulf Flambard moved relics from a deteriorating chapel at Tynemouth to St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire.
Veneration
Oswine was venerated as a martyr soon after his death, his killing through betrayal understood as a passion borne without resistance. As a saint who lived before the Great Schism, he is honored among the pre-schism saints of the British Isles in the Orthodox Church, and is also venerated in the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Communion.
His feast is kept on 20 August. Churches bearing his dedication include one at Wylam in Northumberland and Our Lady and Saint Oswin's Church at Tynemouth.
