Saint Oswald of Northumbria

Saint Oswald was king of Northumbria, in the north of England, in the seventh century. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him as a king and martyr, famous for his skill in war but even more as a friend of peace, who zealously spread the Christian faith and was killed in battle against the pagans. His memorial falls on August 5. Most of what we know about him comes from Saint Bede the Venerable.

He was the son of King Æthelfrith, and through his mother Acha a nephew of King Edwin. During Edwin’s reign the sons of Æthelfrith lived in exile among the Scots and the Picts. There, Bede writes, they were instructed in the faith and received baptism; later tradition links Oswald’s stay with Saint Columba’s monastery on the island of Iona. The year of his birth is not certain.

After Edwin was killed in 633, Oswald’s elder brother took the throne of Bernicia, but he abandoned the faith and was soon killed by the British king Cadwallon. Then Oswald took up the fight. Before the battle, at a place later called Heavenfield, near the Roman Wall, he had a wooden cross set up and held it up himself with both hands. Then he called on his army to kneel and ask God for help in a just war, and at dawn he defeated Cadwallon.

Once he held power, he wanted his whole people to receive the faith. He asked the elders of the Scots, among whom he had been baptized, for a bishop, and they sent him Aidan, a monk of the monastery on the island of Iona. The king gave him a see on the island of Lindisfarne. Because Aidan knew little English, Oswald, who had learned the language of the Scots in exile, himself interpreted his sermons for his commanders and courtiers.

Bede stresses his humility and his generosity to the poor. He tells how, when the king sat down at table with Aidan one Easter and a servant reported that a crowd of needy people was waiting in the streets, Oswald ordered his food to be carried out to them and the silver dish to be cut into pieces and shared among them. Aidan then took hold of his right hand and said: “May this hand never perish.” Oswald was godfather to Cynegils, king of the West Saxons, and later married his daughter.

He reigned for nine years. He was killed on August 5, 642, in the thirty-eighth year of his life, in battle against Penda, the pagan king of Mercia, at a place called Maserfelth, which the Martyrology identifies with Oswestry in Shropshire. According to Bede, surrounded by enemies, he prayed for the souls of his soldiers, and the words “God have mercy on their souls” became a proverb. Penda had his head and hands cut off and set up on stakes. Oswald’s brother and successor, Oswiu, later buried the head at Lindisfarne and the hands in the royal stronghold of Bamburgh.

Bede describes healings at the place where Oswald fell and at his relics. In time his cult reached the Continent as well, especially the German-speaking lands of Central Europe. He has been venerated as a saint since the seventh century, long before canonization processes existed.