Pehthelm

Historical context The Kingdom of Northumbria was ascendant from the seventh through the ninth centuries, and it was the premier regional power in Great Britain between the Humber and the Firths of Clyde and Forth.

Wechthelm, Wettelm, or Wethelm had been offered as alternative possibilities by Thomas Arnold, the editor of an 1879 publication of the 1155 Chronicle of Henry of Huntingdon, which argued that occasionally medieval writers wrongly transcribed old Anglo-Saxon 'w' as 'p'.

Charles Plummer's 1896 edition of Bede's History made note of Arnold's observation, but then went on to translate Pehthelm as 'helm of the Picts', without any stated authority.

[5] Finally, in a passage describing the ecclesiastical state of Britain in 731, Bede says that there are four Northumbrian bishops, of which Pehthelm is the one in the place called the White House, and is the first prelate there.

Sometime between 730 and 735 Boniface (c. 672 – 754) writes to Bishop Pehthelm seeking his opinion on the ecclesiastical question of whether a man may marry a woman for whose son he is godfather.

Boniface addresses Pehthelm as coepiscopo ('fellow bishop'), and includes gifts of a corporal pallium adorned with white scrolls, and a towel to dry the feet of the servants of God.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 763 states that Pehthelm's successor, Frithwald, had died that year, and provides a rough dating for the start of his episcopacy at Whithorn.

In the Chronicon ex chronicis (1140), John of Worcester notes that Pehthelm of Candida Casa is one of the four bishops of Northumberland in 731,[11] and that he died in 735 and was succeeded by Frithowald.

Haddan and Stubbs merely note its implausibility,[17] while Skene (who quotes and translates Richard's passage) provides a credible reason as to where the confusion lay.