Aethelberht of Kent
The king of Kent who received the Roman mission of 597, was baptised and gave the missionaries a seat at Canterbury. Bede calls him the first English king to become a Christian.
Bede describes Aethelberht as a powerful king whose authority reached to the Humber. He already knew of Christianity through his wife Bertha, a Frankish princess who had come to Kent with her own bishop. When Augustine of Canterbury landed he met the missionaries in the open air, told them that he could not at once abandon the beliefs of his people, and gave them food, a house in Canterbury and freedom to preach (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 1.25). He was later baptised, and Bede says that he forced no one to follow him, having learned that the service of Christ must be voluntary (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 1.26). Gregory I wrote to him comparing him to Constantine (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 1.32).
Bede records his death on 24 February 616, twenty-one years after he received the faith, and adds that he issued written laws in English, the first of which protected the property of the church (Bede, Ecclesiastical History 2.5).
In the timeline
- AD 590 to AD 604, firm dateGregory the Great and the Mission to the English
Gregory I, a monk made pope against his will, governs the Roman church from 590 to 604, writes the Pastoral Rule, refuses the title of universal bishop and sends the monk Augustine to convert the English of Kent.