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First Steps of the English in Civilization
where Oswin had been murdered. He added to the
growth of the abbey of Streaneshalch, or Whitby, which
was later the scene of the Paschal controversy. Finan
crowded unceasing activity into the ten years of his episcopate.
From lona he brought the ecclesiastical lore and
discipline there taught and practised and set up centers
for their distribution over the region through which his
apostolate carried him. Finan was a man of lionhearted
devotion, which the blind ferocities of the paganism amid
which he moved could not shake. This element in his
character is signally illustrated by his successful mission-
ary work among the wild natives of middle England.
By his personality and preaching he won over many of
the Mercian tribes with their chiefs, and with Peada, the
son of the obdurate Penda, king of the Middle Angles,
whom he baptized in 653.* His chief associates in this
work were the priests Cedd, Adda, Betti, and Diuma.
Finan made Diuma, a cultivated Irish Scot, bishop of
the Middle Angles and Mercia. He likewise consecrated
Chad and appointed him bishop over the East Saxons,
whose king, Sigebert, Finan himself baptized. Finan's
influence is thus seen to have embraced almost the entire
western half of England and he was largely instrumental
in the reconquest of the East Saxons who had apostatized.
He held strongly to the Irish or Celtic side in the Paschal
controversy despite the friendly remonstrance of Ronan,
an Irishman who had lived in Gaul and Italy and had
learned to conform to the Roman custom.
Bede, relating how the province of the Midland Angles
became Christian, tells us that King Peada, son of Penda,
was baptized by Bishop Finan, with all his earls and
soldiers and their servants that came along with him
i Hist. Eccl. HI, XXI.
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