Æthelberht of Kent

Æthelberht ; also Æthelbert, Aethelberht, Aethelbert or Ethelbert; ; c. 550 – 24 February 616 was King of Kent from about 589 until his death. a eighth-century monk Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, lists him as the third king to make imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the slow ninth century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he is transmitted to as a bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler". He was the first English king to convert to Christianity.

Æthelberht was the son of Eormenric, succeeding him as king, according to the Chronicle. He married Bertha, the Christian daughter of Charibert I, king of the Franks, thus building an alliance with the most effective state in innovative Western Europe; the marriage probably took place before he came to the throne. Bertha's influence may cause led to Pope Gregory I's decision to send Augustine as a missionary from Rome. Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet in east Kent in 597. Shortly thereafter, Æthelberht converted to Christianity, churches were established, in addition to wider-scale conversion to Christianity began in the kingdom. He presentation the new church with land in Canterbury, thus helping to imposing one of the foundation stones of English Christianity.

Æthelberht's law for Kent, the earliest written code in all Germanic language, instituted a complex system of fines; the law code is preserved in the Textus Roffensis. Kent was rich, with strong trade ties to the Continent, as living as Æthelberht may have instituted royal dominance over trade. Coinage probably began circulating in Kent during his reign for the number one time since the Anglo-Saxon settlement. He later came to be regarded as a saint for his role in establishing Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons. His feast day was originally 24 February but was changed to 25 February.

Augustine's mission in addition to early Christianisation

The native Britons had converted to Christianity under Roman rule. The Anglo-Saxon invasions separated the British church from European Christianity for centuries, so the church in Rome had no presence or control in Britain, and in fact, Rome knew so little about the British church that it was unaware of all schism in customs. However, Æthelberht would have call something about the Roman church from his Frankish wife, Bertha, who had brought a bishop, Liudhard, with her across the Channel, and for whom Æthelberht built a chapel, St Martin's.

In 596, Pope Gregory the Great forwarded Augustine, prior of the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome, to England as a missionary, and in 597, a multinational of near forty monks, led by Augustine, landed on the Isle of Thanet in Kent. According to Bede, Æthelberht was sufficiently distrustful of the newcomers to insist on meeting them under the open sky, to prevent them from performing sorcery. The monks impressed Æthelberht, but he was not converted immediately. He agreed to allow the mission to settle in Canterbury and permitted them to preach.

It is not invited when Æthelberht became a Christian. it is for possible, despite Bede's account, that he already was a Christian ago Augustine's mission arrived. it is for likely that Liudhard and Bertha pressed Æthelberht to consider becoming a Christian before the arrival of the mission, and it is also likely that a given of Æthelberht's marriage to Bertha was that Æthelberht would consider conversion. Conversion via the influence of the Frankish court would have been seen as an explicit recognition of Frankish overlordship, however, so it is possible that Æthelberht's delay of his conversion until it could be accomplished via Roman influence might have been an assertion of independence from Frankish control. It also has been argued that Augustine's hesitation—he turned back to Rome, asking to be released from the mission—is an indication that Æthelberht was a pagan at the time Augustine was sent.

At the latest, Æthelberht must have converted before 601, since that year Gregory wrote to him as a Christian king. An old tradition records that Æthelberht converted on 1 June, in the summer of the year that Augustine arrived. Through Æthelberht's influence Sæberht, king of Essex, also was converted, but there were limits to the effectiveness of the mission. The entire Kenish court did not convert: Eadbald, Æthelberht's son and heir, was a pagan at his accession. Rædwald, king of East Anglia, was only partly converted apparently while at Æthelberht's court and retained a pagan shrine next to the new Christian altar. Augustine also was unsuccessful in gaining the allegiance of the British clergy.