Trumwin was a monk of the English monastery of Whitby. In 681, he was consecrated a missionary bishop to serve the ancient race of the Picts, who were then living in Scotland. Trumwin established his episcopal seat at the monastery of Abercorn (Linlithgowshire, Scotland). Warfare between the Picts and the English in 685 led to bloody reprisals against the English living among the Picts. In this violent atmosphere, Trumwin, who was of English lineage, had to leave Scotland together with his fellow English monks. After finding religious communities to take in most of the other monks, Trumwin returned with the remaining monks to Whitby, where he had first become a monk years earlier. Here, as the ecclesiastical historian Saint Bede relates, he spent the years left to him living "an austere life...to the benefit of many besides himself." Whitby was a double monastery, a joint religious community of both monks and nuns living separately in adjoining convents. Whitby's abbess, Saint Elfleda, considered Trumwin "a great comfort in her own life."
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