Æthelberht

Æthelberht (; ; 550 – 24 February 616) was King of Kent from about 589 until his death. The eighth-century monk Bede, in his Ecclesiastical History of the English People, lists him as the third king to hold imperium over other Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. In the late-ninth-century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, he is referred to as a bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler". He was the first Anglo-Saxon 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 powerful state in contemporary Western Europe; the marriage probably took place before he came to the throne. Bertha's influence may have 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, and wider-scale conversion to Christianity began in the kingdom. He provided the new church with land in Canterbury, thus helping to establish one of the foundation stones of English Christianity.

Æthelberht's law for Kent, the earliest written code in any 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, and Æthelberht may have instituted royal control over trade. Coinage probably began circulating in Kent during his reign for the first time since the Anglo-Saxon settlement.

He is regarded as a saint for his leading role in establishing Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons. His feast day was originally 24 February but was changed to 25 February in some Churches. In the Catholic Church, his feast day is currently celebrated on 24 February.

Historical context

In the fifth century, raids on Britain by continental peoples had developed into full-scale migrations. The newcomers are known to have included Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Frisians, and there is evidence of other groups as well. These groups captured territory in the east and south of England, but at about the end of the fifth century, a British victory at the battle of Mount Badon (Mons Badonicus) halted the Anglo-Saxon advance for fifty years. From about 550, however, the British began to lose ground once more, and within twenty-five years it appears that control of almost all of southern England was in the hands of the invaders.

Anglo-Saxons probably conquered Kent before Mons Badonicus. There is both documentary and archaeological evidence that Kent was primarily colonised by Jutes, from the southern part of the Jutland peninsula. According to legend, the brothers Hengist and Horsa landed in 449 as mercenaries for a British king, Vortigern. After a rebellion over pay and Horsa's death in battle, Hengist established the Kingdom of Kent. Some historians now think the underlying story of a rebelling mercenary force may be accurate; most now date the founding of the kingdom of Kent to the middle of the fifth-century, which is consistent with the legend. This early date, only a few decades after the departure of the Romans, also suggests that more of Roman civilisation may have survived into Anglo-Saxon rule in Kent than in other areas. Once the new states began to form, conflicts among them began. Tribute from dependents could lead to wealth. A weaker state also might ask or pay for the protection of a stronger neighbour against a warlike third state.

Sources for this period in Kentish history include the Ecclesiastical History of the English People, written in 731 by Bede, a Northumbrian monk. Bede was interested primarily in England's Christianisation. Since Æthelberht was the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity, Bede provides more substantial information about him than about any earlier king. One of Bede's correspondents was Albinus, abbot of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul (subsequently renamed St. Augustine's) in Canterbury. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a collection of annals assembled 890 in the kingdom of Wessex, mentions several events in Kent during Æthelberht's reign. Further mention of events in Kent occurs in the late-sixth-century history of the Franks by Gregory of Tours. This is the earliest surviving source to mention any Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Some of Pope Gregory the Great's letters concern the mission of St. Augustine to Kent in 597; these letters also mention the state of Kent and its relationships with neighbours. Other sources include regnal lists of the kings of Kent and early charters (land grants by kings to their followers or to the church). Although no originals survive from Æthelberht's reign, later copies exist. A law code from Æthelberht's reign also survives. An alternative form of this genealogy, found in the Historia Brittonum among other places, reverses the position of Octa and Oisc in the lineage. One other member of Æthelberht's family is known: his sister, Ricole, who is recorded by both Bede and the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as the mother of Sæberht, king of the East Saxons (i.e., Essex).

The dates of Æthelberht's birth and accession to the throne of Kent are both matters of debate. Bede, the earliest source to give dates, is thought to have drawn his information from correspondence with Albinus. Bede states that when Æthelberht died in 616 he had reigned for fifty-six years, placing his accession in 560. Bede also says that Æthelberht died twenty-one years after his baptism. Augustine's mission from Rome is known to have arrived in 597, and according to Bede, it was this mission that converted Æthelberht. Hence Bede's dates are inconsistent. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, an important source for early dates, is inconsistent with Bede and also has inconsistencies among different manuscript versions. Putting together the different dates in the Chronicle for birth, death and length of reign, it appears that Æthelberht's reign was thought to have been either 560–616 or 565–618 but that the surviving sources have confused the two traditions.

It is possible that Æthelberht was converted to Christianity before Augustine's arrival. Æthelberht's wife was a Christian and brought a Frankish bishop with her, to attend her at court, so Æthelberht would have had knowledge of Christianity before the mission reached Kent. It also is possible that Bede had the date of Æthelberht's death wrong; if, in fact, Æthelberht died in 618, this would be consistent with his baptism in 597, which is in accord with the tradition that Augustine converted the king within a year of his arrival.

While all of the contradictions above cannot be reconciled, the most probable dates that may be drawn from available data place Æthelberht's birth at approximately 560 and, perhaps, his marriage to Bertha at 580. His reign is most likely to have begun in 589 or 590.

The division into two kingdoms is most likely to date back to the sixth century; east Kent may have conquered west Kent and preserved the institutions of kingship as a subkingdom. This was a common pattern in Anglo-Saxon England, as the more powerful kingdoms absorbed their weaker neighbours. An unusual feature of the Kentish system was that only sons of kings appeared to be legitimate claimants to the throne, although this did not eliminate all strife over the succession.

Relations with the Franks Sculpture of Æthelberht on Canterbury Cathedral in EnglandThere are many indications of close relations between Kent and the Franks. Æthelberht's marriage to Bertha certainly connected the two courts, although not as equals: the Franks would have thought of Æthelberht as an under-king. There is no record that Æthelberht ever accepted a continental king as his overlord and, as a result, historians are divided on the true nature of the relationship. Evidence for an explicit Frankish overlordship of Kent comes from a letter written by Pope Gregory the Great to Theuderic, king of Burgundy, and Theudebert, king of Austrasia. The letter concerned Augustine's mission to Kent in 597, and in it Gregory says that he believes "that you wish your subjects in every respect to be converted to that faith in which you, their kings and lords, stand". It may be that this is a papal compliment, rather than a description of the relationship between the kingdoms. It also has been suggested that Liudhard, Bertha's chaplain, was intended as a representative of the Frankish church in Kent, which also could be interpreted as evidence of overlordship.

A possible reason for the willingness of the Franks to connect themselves with the Kentish court is the fact that a Frankish king, Chilperic I, is recorded as having conquered a people known as the Euthiones during the mid-sixth century. If, as seems likely from the name, these people were the continental remnants of the Jutish invaders of Kent, then it may be that the marriage was intended as a unifying political move, reconnecting different branches of the same people. The anonymous annalist who composed one of the versions of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle repeated Bede's list of seven kings in a famous entry under the year 827, with one additional king, Egbert of Wessex. The Chronicle also records that these kings held the title bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler". The exact meaning of bretwalda has been the subject of much debate; it has been described as a term "of encomiastic poetry", but there also is evidence that it implied a definite role of military leadership.

The prior bretwalda, Ceawlin, is recorded by the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as having fought Æthelberht in 568 at a place called "Wibbandun" ("Wibba's Mount") whose location has not been identified. Comparison of the entries concerning the West Saxons in this section of the Chronicle with the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List shows that their dating is unreliable: Ceawlin's reign is more likely to have been approximately 581–588, rather than 560–592 as claimed in the Chronicle.

At some point Ceawlin lost his overlordship, perhaps after a battle at Fethan leag, thought to have been in Oxfordshire, which the Chronicle dates to 584, some eight years before he was deposed in 592 (again using the Chronicle's unreliable dating). If the battle of Wibbandun was fought c. 590, as has been suggested, then Æthelberht must have gained his position as overlord at some time in the 590s. This dating for Wibbandun is slightly inconsistent with the proposed dates of 581–588 for Ceawlin's reign, but those dates are not thought to be precise, merely the most plausible given the available data.

Bede describes Æthelberht's relationship with Rædwald, king of East Anglia, in a passage that is not completely clear in meaning. It seems to imply that Rædwald retained ducatus, or military command of his people, even while Æthelberht held imperium. An alternative interpretation, however, is that the passage in Bede should be translated as "Rædwald, king of the East Angles, who while Æthelberht lived, even conceded to him the military leadership of his people"; if this is Bede's intent, then East Anglia firmly was under Æthelberht's overlordship.

There is no evidence that Æthelberht's influence in other kingdoms was enough for him to convert any other kings to Christianity, although this is partly due to the lack of sources—nothing is known of Sussex's history, for example, for almost all of the seventh and eighth centuries. Æthelberht was able to arrange a meeting in 602 in the Severn valley, on the northwestern borders of Wessex, however, and this may be an indication of the extent of his influence in the west.

Augustine's mission and 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 authority in Britain, and in fact, Rome knew so little about the British church that it was unaware of any schism in customs. However, Æthelberht would have known 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 sent Augustine, prior of the monastery of St. Andrew in Rome, to England as a missionary, and in 597, a group of nearly forty monks, led by Augustine, landed on the Isle of Thanet in Kent. 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. Through Æthelberht's influence Sæberht, king of Essex, also was converted, These laws are by far the earliest-surviving code composed in any of the Germanic countries, The only surviving early manuscript, the Textus Roffensis, dates from the twelfth century, and it now resides in the Medway Studies Centre in Strood, Kent. Æthelberht's code makes reference to the church in the very first item, which enumerates the compensation required for the property of a bishop, a deacon, a priest, and so on; Æthelberht's laws are mentioned by Alfred the Great, who compiled his own laws, making use of the prior codes created by Æthelberht, as well as those of Offa of Mercia and Ine of Wessex.

One of Æthelberht's laws seems to preserve a trace of a very old custom: the third item in the code states that "If the king is drinking at a man's home, and anyone commits any evil deed there, he is to pay twofold compensation."

Items 77–81 in the code have been interpreted as a description of a woman's financial rights after a divorce or legal separation. These clauses define how much of the household goods a woman could keep in different circumstances, depending on whether she keeps custody of the children, for example. It has recently been suggested, however, that it would be more correct to interpret these clauses as referring to women who are widowed, rather than divorced.

Kentish manufacture before 600 included glass beakers and jewelry. Kentish jewellers were highly skilled, and before the end of the sixth century they gained access to gold. Goods from Kent are found in cemeteries across the channel and as far away as at the mouth of the Loire. It is not known what Kent traded for all of this wealth, although it seems likely that there was a flourishing slave trade. It may well be that this wealth was the foundation of Æthelberht's strength, although his overlordship and the associated right to demand tribute would have brought wealth in its turn. The coins are also known to numismatists as thrymsas.

Death and succession

Æthelberht died on 24 February 616 and was succeeded by his son, Eadbald, who was not a Christian—Bede says he had been converted but went back to his pagan faith, Eadbald outraged the church by marrying his stepmother, which was contrary to Church law, and by refusing to accept baptism.

In addition to Eadbald, it is possible that Æthelberht had another son, Æthelwald. The evidence for this is a papal letter to Justus, archbishop of Canterbury from 619 to 625, that refers to a king named Aduluald, who is apparently different from Audubald, which refers to Eadbald. There is no agreement among modern scholars on how to interpret this: "Aduluald" might be intended as a representation of "Æthelwald", and hence an indication of another king, perhaps a sub-king of west Kent; or it may be merely a scribal error which should be read as referring to Eadbald.

Liturgical celebration Æthelberht was later 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. In the 2004 edition of the Roman Martyrology, he is listed under his date of death, 24 February, with the citation: 'King of Kent, converted by St Augustine, bishop, the first leader of the English people to do so'. The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Southwark, which contains Kent, commemorates him on 25 February.

He is also venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as Saint Ethelbert, king of Kent, his day commemorated on 25 February.