York and Bernicia
As the Roman invasion of Britain moved north, a garrison was established on York's site by the Romans and the fortress was called Eboracum. They evidently recognized that the site was strategically located to control the principal south-north route through the country: the Vale of York. A natural focus of ancient land-routes, which Roman-built roads subsequently augmented, but also well-placed to connect with the inland waterway system that later developed; the Ouse was part of this system, and had a reasonably convenient connection to the North Sea via the Humber. The fortress, situated in the northwestern section of the future medieval York, attracted a civilian population which settled on the opposite bank of the Ouse and York became one of the provincial capitals and, after the Christianization of the empire, the centre of a bishopric. It was to remain one of England's most important cities for the next 1,300 years, although this was a double-edged sword, for it meant that York would often be caught up in national conflicts.
Apart from these slight indications that the Germanic invasions may not at first have been inimical to York, nothing is known of the fate of the city in the 5th and 6th centuries. By the first decade of the 7th century, and perhaps earlier, it lay within but not at the heart of the English kingdom of Deira. The first recorded king of Deira has left little more than the name of Ælle (c. 585–8) but during the reign of Æthelfrith (c. 593– 616) there occurs an indirect testimony to the revival of the city. When in 601 Gregory the Great sent the pallium to Augustine he planned to divide Britain into two sees, one of which was to have its centre at York. When the time was ripe the Bishop of York, like Augustine in the southern province centred on London, was to ordain twelve bishops and enjoy the rank of metropolitan.
This apparently sudden reappearance of York in the role of an internationally recognized metropolis has doubtless some connexion with the facts of population and economics. The Roman roads alone would have sufficed by this date to focus Northumbrian communications and commerce in such a degree as to re-create at York the largest urban settlement in the north. But these can scarcely have been the only reasons for the choice of York. Gregory is unlikely to have been ignorant of the traditions of the city deriving from its status in Roman times and, in particular, he may have been reminded by his advisers that the city had been the centre of a bishopric in the 4th century. Though many years were to elapse before his plan took effect, we may regard the northern metropolitan see as the most permanent legacy of Eboracum and so, like the papacy itself, a 'ghost of empire'. Another imperial tradition seems to have descended upon the court of Northumbria. King Edwin (616–32) had standards carried before him not only in war-time but in peace-time. When he rode about his kingdom with his ministers it was customary for a standard-bearer to go before him; necnon et incidente illo ubilibet per plateas, illud genus vexilli, quod Romani Tufam, Angli vero appellant Tuuf, ante eum ferri solebat.
Here the influence of Paulinus, who, having come to England with the mission of 601, was consecrated bishop to accompany the Kentish Christian Princess Æthelberg when she went north to marry Edwin in 625. Despite the pressure of letters from Pope Boniface V, Edwin delayed acceptance of baptism until Easter 627. After those debates which have occasioned the noblest pages of Bede's History, Edwin was christened at York on Easter Sunday, 12 April, in the church of St. Peter the Apostle, which he had hastily constructed of wood while he was being catechized and taught with a view to baptism. After his baptism he built a greater and more majestic church of stone, enclosing in its midst his first wooden oratory.