Augustine of Canterbury was a Christian monk who became the first archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English”.
Æthelberht 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 English king to convert to Christianity.
Justus was the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury. Pope Gregory the Great sent Justus from Italy to England on a mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism, probably arriving with the second group of missionaries despatched in 601. Justus became the first Bishop of Rochester in 604 and attended a church council in Paris in 614.
Laurence was the second Archbishop of Canterbury, serving from about 604 to 619. He was a member of the Gregorian mission sent from Italy to England to Christianise the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, although the date of his arrival is disputed. He was consecrated archbishop by his predecessor, Augustine of Canterbury, during Augustine's lifetime, to ensure continuity in the office. While archbishop, he attempted unsuccessfully to resolve differences with the native British bishops by corresponding with them about points of dispute. Laurence faced a crisis following the death of King Æthelberht of Kent, when the king's successor abandoned Christianity; he eventually reconverted. Laurence was revered as a saint after his death in 619.
Mellitus was the first bishop of London in the Saxon period, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergy sent to augment the mission, and was consecrated as Bishop of London in 604. Mellitus was the recipient of a famous letter from Pope Gregory I known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, preserved in a later work by the medieval chronicler Bede, which suggested the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually, integrating pagan rituals and customs. In 610, Mellitus returned to Italy to attend a council of bishops, and returned to England bearing papal letters to some of the missionaries.
The Kingdom of the Kentish, today referred to as the Kingdom of Kent, was an early medieval kingdom in what is now South East England. It existed from either the fifth or the sixth century AD until it was fully absorbed into the Kingdom of Wessex in the late 9th century and later into the Kingdom of England in the early 10th century.
Eadbald was King of Kent from 616 until his death in 640. He was the son of King Æthelberht and his wife Bertha, a daughter of the Merovingian king Charibert. Æthelberht made Kent the dominant force in England during his reign and became the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity from Anglo-Saxon paganism. Eadbald's accession was a significant setback for the growth of the church, since he retained his people's paganism and did not convert to Christianity for at least a year, and perhaps for as many as eight years. He was ultimately converted by either Laurentius or Justus, and separated from his first wife, who had been his stepmother, at the insistence of the church. Eadbald's second wife was Emma, who may have been a Frankish princess. They had two sons, Eormenred and Eorcenberht, and a daughter, Eanswith.
Anglo-Saxon architecture was a period in the history of architecture in England from the mid-5th century until the Norman Conquest of 1066. Anglo-Saxon secular buildings in Britain were generally simple, constructed mainly using timber with thatch for roofing. No universally accepted example survives above ground. Generally preferring not to settle within the old Roman cities, the Anglo-Saxons built small towns near their centres of agriculture, at fords in rivers or sited to serve as ports. In each town, a main hall was in the centre, provided with a central hearth.
Nothhelm was a medieval Anglo-Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury. A correspondent of both Bede and Boniface, it was Nothhelm who gathered materials from Canterbury for Bede's historical works. After his appointment to the archbishopric in 735, he attended to ecclesiastical matters, including holding church councils. Although later antiquaries felt that Nothhelm was the author of a number of works, later research has shown them to be authored by others. After his death he was considered a saint.
Liudhard was a Frankish bishop.
In the seventh century the pagan Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity mainly by missionaries sent from Rome. Irish missionaries from Iona, who were proponents of Celtic Christianity, were influential in the conversion of Northumbria, but after the Synod of Whitby in 664, the Anglo-Saxon church gave its allegiance to the Pope.
Peter of Canterbury or Petrus was the first abbot of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul in Canterbury and a companion of Augustine in the Gregorian mission to Kent. Augustine sent Peter as an emissary to Rome around 600 to convey news of the mission to Pope Gregory I. Peter's death has traditionally been dated to around 607, but evidence suggests that he was present at a church council in Paris in 614, so he probably died after that date.
The Gregorian mission or Augustinian mission was a Christian mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 to convert Britain's Anglo-Saxons. The mission was headed by Augustine of Canterbury. By the time of the death of the last missionary in 653, the mission had established Christianity among the southern Anglo-Saxons. Along with the Irish and Frankish missions it converted Anglo-Saxons in other parts of Britain as well and influenced the Hiberno-Scottish missions to continental Europe.
Bertha or Aldeberge was a Frankish princess who became queen of Kent. She influenced the 597 Gregorian mission, led by Augustine, which resulted in the conversion to Christianity of Anglo-Saxon England.
Saint Eanswith, also spelled Eanswythe or Eanswide, was an Anglo-Saxon princess, who is said to have founded Folkestone Priory, one of the first Christian monastic communities for women in Britain. Her possible remains were the subject of research, published in 2020.
The Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England was the process starting in the late 6th century by which population of England formerly adhering to the Anglo-Saxon, and later Nordic, forms of Germanic paganism converted to Christianity and adopted Christian worldviews. The first major step in the process of Christianisation was the Gregorian mission that landed in the Kingdom of Kent in 597 and was followed by the Hiberno-Scottish mission around 634. Æthelberht became the first Anglo-Saxon king to be baptised around 600 and imposed Christianity on Saebert of Essex and Rædwald of East Anglia, however upon his death there was a heathen reaction that led to missionaries being driven out of southern England for a short time. Around 620 Eadwine of Deira was baptised and promoted the new religion in north of the Humber before his death in 633 at the hands of the heathen king Penda of Mercia. Penda expanded Mercia significantly during his reign but was killed in the Battle of the Winwaed in 655, leading to the adoption of Christianity in his kingdom. The last Anglo-Saxon king to adhere to the traditional religion was Arwald of Wihtwara, who in 686 was killed in battle by Cædwalla of Wessex. Around two centuries later, during the Viking Age, settlers from Scandinavia introduced closely related forms of paganism to eastern and northern England. Though evidence it limited, it seems that they broadly converted to Christianity within several generations, with the last potentially heathen king being Erik Bloodaxe, who ruled in York until 954, when he was driven out by King Eadred.
The Liudhard medalet is a gold Anglo-Saxon coin or small medal found sometime before 1844 near St Martin's Church in Canterbury, England. It was part of the Canterbury-St Martin's hoard of six items. The coin, along with other items found with it, now resides in the World Museum Liverpool. Although some scholarly debate exists on whether or not all the items in the hoard were from the same grave, most historians who have studied the object conclude that they were buried together as a necklace in a 6th-century woman's grave. The coin is set in a mount so that it could be worn as jewellery, and has an inscription on the obverse or front surrounding a robed figure. The inscription refers to Liudhard, a Frankish bishop who accompanied Bertha from Francia to England when she married Æthelberht the king of Kent. The reverse side of the coin has a double-barred cross, or patriarchal cross, with more lettering.
The Canterbury-St Martin's hoard is a coin-hoard dating from the 6th century, found in the 19th century at Canterbury, Kent. The group, in the World Museum, Liverpool, consists of eight items, including three gold coins mounted with suspension loops for use as pendants. One of these is the Liudhard medalet, the earliest surviving Anglo-Saxon coin. Another coin is in the Bibliotheque Nationale.
Emma was a Frankish woman, possibly a Merovingian, who married Eadbald of Kent.
St Augustine's Cross is a stone memorial in Kent, in a fenced enclosure on the south side of Cottington Road, west of Cliffs End, at Pegwell Bay, Thanet, about 2 miles (3.2 km) west of Ramsgate, 3 miles (4.8 km) north of Richborough Roman Fort, and 12 miles (19 km) east of Canterbury, in the parish of Minster. The cross was erected in 1884 to commemorate the arrival of St Augustine in England in AD 597. It is believed to mark the place where St. Augustine met King Ethelbert for the first time.
