Æthelberht of Kent
Æthelberht
King of Kent
Statue of Æthelberht. Interior of Rochester
Cathedral
Reign
c. 590 – 616
Died
616
Offspring
Eadbald
Father
Eormenric
Sainthood
Venerated in
Eastern Orthodox Church,
Roman Catholic Church,
Anglican Communion
Commemorated February 25th
Saints Portal
Æthelberht (also Æthelbert, Aethelberht,
Aethelbert, or Ethelbert) (c. 560 – 24
February 616) was King of Kent from about
580 or 590 until
his
death.
In his
Ecclesiastical History of the English People,
the monk Bede lists Aethelberht as the third
king to hold imperium over other Anglo-Sax-
on kingdoms. In the late 9th century Anglo-
Saxon Chronicle Æthelberht is referred to as
a bretwalda, or "Britain-ruler". He was the
first English king to convert to Christianity.
He was the son of Eormenric, whom he
succeeded as king, according to the Chron-
icle. He married Bertha,
daughter of
Charibert, king of the Franks, thus building
an alliance with the most powerful state in
Western Europe at that time; the marriage
probably took place before Æthelberht came
to the throne. The influence of Bertha 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, Æthel-
berht was converted to Christianity, churches
were established and wider-scale conversion
to Christianity began. Æthelberht provided
the new church with land in Canterbury, at
what came to be known as St Augustine’s Ab-
bey, thus establishing one of the foundation-
stones of what ultimately became the Anglic-
an church.
Æthelberht’s code of laws for Kent, the
earliest written code in any Germanic lan-
guage, instituted a complex system of fines.
Kent was rich, with strong trade ties to the
continent, and it may be that Æthelberht in-
stituted royal control of trade. Coinage began
circulating in Kent during his reign for the
first time since the Anglo-Saxon invasion.
Æthelberht was later canonised for his
role in establishing Christianity among the
Anglo-Saxons. His feast