ETHELBERT, KING OF KENT, ST.

Reigned 560 to Feb. 24, 616; b. c. 550. The first Christian Anglo-Saxon king and lawgiver of Kent, he was the son of Eormenric, king of Kent, a descendant of Hengest. The early years of his reign were marked by a struggle with Ceawlin of Wessex for royal supremacy (Bretwaldaship). In pursuit of this objective Ethelbert sought the assistance and prestige of a marriage alliance with the merovingian rulers of the Franks and obtained the hand of Bertha, daughter of Charibert, King of the Franks. Since Bertha was a Christian, the marriage arrangements provided for a Frankish bishop as her chaplain, and for the old Roman church of St. Martin in Canterbury as a place for her worship. This Continental connection brought in its wake the mission of augustine of canterbury, sent out by Pope gregory i for the conversion of the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes in England. In 597, Augustine was welcomed courteously by Ethelbert, and quarters were assigned him. Later that same year the king accepted Baptism from the hands of the Roman missionary. Ethelbert seems to have been then at the height of his power, having become the acknowledged Bretwalda at the death of Ceawlin.

The king showed himself a paternal benefactor of the Church. He founded churches at Canterbury and Rochester. It was his influence that altered Gregory's plan to make London the primatial see, and the primacy remained at canterbury. He arranged for a second bishopric at rochester, and endowed the first st. paul's cathedral at London. Through his influence the kings of Essex and East Anglia became Christians. In all of this he allowed no forced conversions, and it was probably this same sense of rectitude that lay behind his issuance in 604 of the Kentish laws that bear his name, and which were written in imitation of the old Roman codes. By Bertha he left at least three children, including his successor, the pagan King Eadbald. In religious art he is represented as holding a sword and a church.

Feast: Feb. 25.

Bibliography: bede, Ecclesiastical History, 2 v., tr. j. e. king based on the version of t. stapleton (Loeb Classical Library ; New York 1930) bks. 1–2. His dooms are given in f. liebermann, ed., Die Gestze der Angelsachsen, 3 v. (Halle 1898–1916; repr.1960) 1:3–8. f. m. stenton, Anglo-Saxon England (2d ed. Oxford 1947) 33–112. s. brechter, Die Quellen zur Angelsachsenmission Gregors des Grossen (Münster 1941).

[j. l. druse]