Kent Past
The History of Kent
Copyright Kent Past 2010
King Aethelberht
In the 5th Century, raids on Britain by continental peoples had developed into full-
Kent appears to have been conquered by the Anglo-
The Anglo-
Sources
for this period in Kentish history include The Ecclesiastical History of the English
People, written in 731AD by Bede, a Northumbrian monk. Bede was interested primarily
in the Christianisation of England, but since Aethelberht was the first Anglo-
According
to Bede, Aethelberht was descended directly from Hengist. Bede gives the line of
descent as follows: 'Ethelbert was son of Irminric, son of Octa, and after his grandfather
Oeric, surnamed Oisc, the kings of the Kentish folk are commonly known as Oiscings.
The father of Oeric was Hengist'. An alternative form of this genealogy, found in
the Historia Brittonum among other places, reverses the position of Octa and Oisc
in the lineage. The first of these names that can be placed historically with reasonable
confidence is Aethelberht's father, whose name now usually is spelled Eormenric.
The only direct written reference to Eormenric is in Kentish genealogies, but Gregory
of Tours does mention that Aethelberht�s father was the king of Kent, though Gregory
gives no date. Eormenric's name provides a hint of connections to the kingdom of
the Franks, across the English Channel; the element Eormen was rare in names of the
Anglo-
One other member
of Aethelberht's family is known: his sister, Ricole, who is recorded by both Bede
and the Anglo-
The dates of Aethelberht'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 Aethelberht died
in 616 he had reigned for fifty-
It is possible that Aethelberht was converted
to Christianity before Augustine's arrival. His wife was a Christian and brought
a Frankish bishop to attend her at court, so Aethelberht would have had knowledge
of Christianity before the mission reached Kent. It also is possible that Bede had
the date of his death wrong; if, in fact, the king 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.
Gregory of Tours, in his Historia Francorum,
writes that Bertha, daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks, married the son of
the king of Kent. Bede says that Aethelberht received Bertha 'from her parents'.
If Bede is interpreted literally, the marriage would have had to take place before
567, when Charibert died. The traditions for Aethelberht's reign, then, would imply
that he married Bertha before either 560 or 565.
The extreme length of Aethelberht's
reign also has been regarded with scepticism by historians; it has been suggested
that he died in the 56th year of his life, rather than the 56th year of his reign.
This would place the year of his birth approximately at 560AD, and he would not then
have been able to marry until the mid-
Gregory, however, also says that he thinks that Ingoberg was
seventy years old in 589; and this would make her about forty when she married Charibert.
This is possible, but seems unlikely, especially as Charibert seems to have had a
preference for younger women, again, according to Gregory's account. This would imply
an earlier birth date for Bertha. On the other hand, Gregory refers to Aethelberht
at the time of his marriage to Bertha, simply as 'a man of Kent', and in the 589
passage concerning Ingoberg's death, which was written in about 590 or 591, he refers
to Aethelberht as 'the son of the king of Kent'. If this does not simply reflect
Gregory's ignorance of Kentish affairs, which seems unlikely given the close ties
between Kent and the Franks, then some assert that Aethelberht's reign cannot have
begun before 589.
Not all of the above contradictions can be reconciled, but the most
probable dates that may be drawn from the data, place Aethelberht'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 later history of Kent shows clear evidence of a system of
joint kingship, with the kingdom being divided into east and west Kent, although
it appears that there generally was a dominant king. This evidence is less clear
for the earlier period, but there are early charters, known to be forged, which nevertheless
imply that Aethelberht ruled as joint king with his son, Eadbald. It may be that
Aethelberht was king of east Kent and Eadbald ruled the west; the east Kent king
seems generally to have been the dominant ruler later in Kentish history. Whether
or not Eadbald became a joint king with Aethelberht, there is no question that Aethelberht
had authority throughout the kingdom.
The division into two kingdoms is most likely
to date back to the 6th Century; east Kent may have conquered west Kent and preserved
the institutions of kingship as a subkingdom. This was a common pattern in Anglo-
The
main towns of the two kingdoms were Rochester, for west Kent, and Canterbury, for
the east. Bede does not state that Aethelberht had a palace in Canterbury, but he
does refer to Canterbury as his metropolis, and it is clear that it is Aethelberht's
seat.
There are many indications of close relations between Kent and the Franks. Aethelberht's
marriage to Bertha certainly connected the two courts, although not as equals: the
Franks would have thought of Aethelberht as an under-
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-
Regardless of the political relationship
between Aethelberht and the Franks, there is abundant evidence of strong connections
across the English Channel. There was a luxury trade between Kent and the Franks,
and burial artefacts found include clothing, drink, and weapons that reflect Frankish
cultural influence. The Kentish burials have a greater range of imported goods than
those of the neighbouring Anglo-
In his Ecclesiastical History, Bede includes
his list of seven kings who held 'imperium' over the other kingdoms south of the
Humber. The usual translation for 'imperium' is over lordship. Bede names Aethelberht
as the third on the list, after AElle of Sussex and Ceawlin of Wessex. The anonymous
annalist who composed one of the Anglo-
The prior bretwalda noted,
Ceawlin, is recorded by the Anglo-
At some point Ceawlin ceased to
hold the title of bretwalda, perhaps, after a battle at Stoke Lyne, in Oxfordshire,
which the Chronicle dates to 584, some eight years before he was deposed in 592 (again
using the Chronicle's unreliable dating). Aethelberht certainly was a dominant ruler
by 601, when Gregory the Great wrote to him: Gregory urges Aethelberht to spread
Christianity among those kings and peoples subject to him, implying some level of
over lordship. If the battle of Wibbandun was fought circa 590, as has been suggested,
then Aethelberht must have gained his position as overlord sometime in the 590s.
This dating for Wibbandun is slightly inconsistent with the proposed dates of 581-
In addition to the evidence of the Chronicle,
that Aethelberht was accorded the title of bretwalda, there is evidence of his domination
in several of the southern kingdoms. In Essex, he appears to have been in a position
to exercise authority shortly after 604, when his intervention helped in the conversion
of King Saebert of Essex, his nephew, to Christianity. It was Aethelberht, and not
Saeberht, who built and endowed St. Pauls in London, where St. Paul's Cathedral now
stands. Further evidence is provided by Bede, who explicitly describes Aethelberht
as Saeberht's overlord.
Bede describes Aethelberht's relationship with Raedwald,
king of East Anglia, in a passage that is ambiguous. It seems to imply that Radwald
retained ducatus, or military command of his people, even while Aethelberht held
imperium, the rule. This implies further, that being a bretwalda usually included
holding the military command of other kingdoms and also that it was more than that,
since Aethelberht is bretwalda despite Raedwald's control of his own troops. Radwald
was converted to Christianity while in Kent, but did not abandon his pagan beliefs;
this, and the fact that he retained military independence, together, implies that
Aethelberht�s over lordship of East Anglia was much weaker than his influence with
the East Saxons. An alternative interpretation, however, is that the passage in Bede
should be translated as 'Raedwald, king of the East Angles, who while Aethelberht
lived, even conceded to him the military leadership of his people'; if this is Bede's
intent, then East Anglia firmly was under Aethelberht's over lordship.
There is no
evidence that Aethelberht's influence in other kingdoms was enough for him to convert
any other kings to Christianity, although this interpretation partly is due to the
lack of sources -
The
native Britons had converted to Christianity under Roman rule. The Anglo-
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. According
to Bede, Aethelberht was sufficiently distrustful of the newcomers to insist on meeting
them under the open sky, to prevent them from performing sorcery. The monks impressed
him, but he was not converted immediately. He agreed to allow the mission to settle
in Canterbury and permitted them to preach.
It is not known when Aethelberht became
a Christian. It is possible, despite Bede's account, that he already was a Christian
before Augustine's mission arrived. It is likely that Liudhard and Bertha pressed
him to consider becoming a Christian before the arrival of the mission, and it also
is likely that a condition of his marriage to Bertha might have been that he would
consider conversion. Conversion via the influence of the Frankish court would have
been seen as an explicit recognition of Frankish over lordship, however, so it is
possible that Aethelberht's delay of his conversion until it could be accomplished
via Roman influence, might have been an assertion of independence from Frankish control.
It also has been argued that Augustine's hesitation -
At the latest, Aethelberht must have converted before
601, since that year Gregory wrote to him as a Christian king. It is recorded, that
he converted on 1 June, in the summer of the year that Augustine arrived. Through
Aethelberht's influence Saeberht, king of Essex, was also converted, but there were
limits to the effectiveness of the mission. The entire Kentish court did not convert:
Eadbald, Aethelberht's son and heir, was a pagan at his accession. Raedwald, king
of East Anglia, was only partly converted (apparently while at Aethelberht's court),
and retained a pagan shrine next to the new Christian altar. Augustine also was unsuccessful
in gaining the allegiance of the British clergy.
Some time after the arrival of Augustine's
mission, perhaps in 602 or 603, Aethelberht issued a set of laws, in ninety sections.
These laws are considered the earliest surviving code composed in any of the Germanic
countries, and almost certainly were one of the very first documents written down
in Anglo-
The laws are concerned with setting and enforcing the penalties for
transgressions at all levels of society; the severity of the fine depended on the
social rank of the victim, with crimes against the Church penalised the most, more
greatly even than those against the king. The king had a financial interest in enforcement,
for part of the fines would come to him in many cases, but the king also was responsible
for law and order, and avoiding blood feuds by enforcing the rules on compensation
for injury was part of the way the king maintained control. Aethelberht’s laws are
mentioned by Alfred the Great, who compiled his own laws, making use of the prior
codes created by the King of Kent, as well as those of Offa of Mercia and Ine of
Wessex.
One of Aethelberht's laws seems to preserve a trace of a very old custom:
the third item in the code states 'If the king is drinking at a man's home, and anyone
commits any evil deed there, he is to pay twofold compensation'. This probably refers
to the ancient custom of a king traveling the country, being hosted, and being provided
for by his subjects wherever he went. The king's servants retained these rights for
centuries after Aethelberht's time.
Items 77-
There
is little documentary evidence about the nature of trade in Aethelberht's Kent. It
is known that the kings of Kent had established royal control of trade in the late
7th Century, but it is not known how early this control began. There is archaeological
evidence that suggests the royal influence predates any of the written sources. It
has been suggested that one of Aethelberht's achievements was to take control of
trade away from the aristocracy and to make it a royal monopoly. The continental
trade provided Kent access to luxury goods which gave Kent an advantage in trading
with the other Anglo-
Kentish
manufacture before 600 included glass beakers and jewellery. Kentish jewellers were
highly skilled and before the end of the 6th 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 Aethelberht's strength, although his over
lordship and the associated right to demand tribute, would have brought wealth in
its turn.
It may have been during Aethelberht's reign that coins first began to be
minted in England: none bear his name, but it is thought likely that the first coins
predate the end of the 6th Century. These early coins were gold, and probably shillings
(scillingas in Old English) that are mentioned in Aethelberht's laws. The coins are
also known to numismatists as 'thrymsas'.
Aethelberht 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, although he ultimately did become a Christian
king. Eadbald outraged the church by marrying his stepmother, which was contrary
to Church law, and by refusing to accept baptism.
Saeberht of the East Saxons also
died at approximately this time and he was succeeded by his three sons, none of whom
were Christian. A subsequent revolt against Christianity and the expulsion of Mellitus,
their bishop, may have been a reaction to Kentish over lordship after Aethelberht's
death as much as a pagan opposition to Christianity.
In addition to Eadbald, it is
possible that Aethelberht had another son, Aethelwald. The evidence for this exists
in a papal letter to Justus, archbishop of Canterbury from 619 to 625, in which a
king named Aduluald is referred to, who apparently is 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 Aethelwald and hence, this
may be an indication of another king, perhaps a subking of west Kent; or it may be
merely a scribal error which should be read as referring to Eadbald.
Aethelberht later
was canonised for his role in establishing Christianity among the Anglo-
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