Kent Past
The History of Kent
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Saint Mellitius
The medieval chronicler Bede described St Mellitus as being of noble birth. In letters,
Pope Gregory I called him an abbot, but it is unclear whether Mellitus had previously
been abbot of a Roman monastery, or this was a rank bestowed on him to ease his journey
to England by making him the leader of the expedition. The papal register, a listing
of letters sent out by the popes, describes him as an 'abbot in Frankia' in its description
of the correspondence, but the letter itself only says 'abbot'. The first time Mellitus
is mentioned in history is in the letters of Gregory, and nothing else of his background
is known. It appears likely that he was a native of Italy, along with all the other
bishops consecrated by Augustine.
Pope Gregory sent St Mellitus to England in June
601, in response to an appeal from Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury.
Augustine needed more clergy to join the Gregorian mission that was converting the
kingdom of Kent, and then ruled by Aethelberht. The new missionaries brought with
them a gift of books and all things which were needed for worship and the ministry
of the Church. Thomas of Elmham, a 15th Century Canterbury chronicler, claimed that
in his day a number of the books brought to England by Mellitus still at Canterbury.
Examination of the remaining manuscripts has determined that one possible survivor
of Mellitus' books is the St. Augustine Gospels, now in Cambridge, Corpus Christi
College, MS 286. Along with the letter to Augustine, the missionaries brought a letter
for Aethelberht, urging the King to act like the Roman Emperor Constantine I and
force the conversion of his followers to Christianity. The King was also encouraged
to destroy all pagan shrines.
The historian Ian Wood has suggested that Mellitus'
journey through Gaul probably took in the bishoprics of Vienne, Arles, Lyons, Toulon,
Marseilles, Metz, Paris, and Rouen, as evidenced by the letters that Gregory addressed
to those bishops soliciting their support for Mellitus' party. Gregory also wrote
to the Frankish kings Chlothar II, Theuderic II, Theudebert II, along with Brunhilda
of Austrasia, who was Theudebert and Theuderic's grandmother and regent. Wood feels
that this wide appeal to the Frankish episcopate and royalty was an effort to secure
more support for the Gregorian mission. While on his journey to England, Mellitus
received a letter from Gregory allowing Augustine to convert pagan temples to Christian
churches, and to convert pagan animal sacrifices into Christian feasts, to ease the
transition to Christianity. Gregory's letter marked a sea change in the missionary
strategy, and was later included in Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum.
Usually known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, it conflicts with the letter sent to Aethelberht,
which the historian R. A. Markus sees as a turning point in missionary history, when
forcible conversion gave way to persuasion. This traditional view, that the Epistola
represents a contradiction of the letter to Aethelberht, has been challenged by the
historian and theologian George Demacopoulos, who argues that the letter to Aethelberht
was mainly meant to encourage the King in spiritual matters, while the Epistola was
sent to deal with purely practical matters, and thus the two do not contradict each
other.
Exactly when St Mellitus and his party arrived in England is unknown, but he
was certainly in the country by 604AD, when Augustine consecrated him as bishop in
the province of the East Saxons, making Mellitus the first Bishop of London (London
was the East Saxons' capital). The city was a logical choice for a new bishopric,
as it was a hub for the southern road network. It was also a former Roman town; many
of the Gregorian mission's efforts were centred in such locations. Before his consecration,
Mellitus baptised Saeberht, Aethelberht's nephew, who then allowed the bishopric
to be established. The Episcopal Church built in London was probably founded by Aethelberht,
rather than Saeberht. Although Bede records that Aethelberht gave lands to support
the new episcopate, a charter that claims to be a grant of lands from Aethelberht
to Mellitus is a later forgery.
Although Gregory had intended London to be the southern
archbishopric for the island, Augustine never moved his episcopal see to London,
and instead consecrated Mellitus as a plain bishop there. After Augustine's death
in 604, Canterbury continued to be the site of the southern archbishopric, and London
remained a bishopric. It may have been that the Kentish king did not wish greater
episcopal authority to be exercised outside his own kingdom.
Mellitus attended a council
of bishops held in Italy in February 610, convened by Pope Boniface IV. The historian
N. J. Higham speculates that one reason for his attendance may have been to assert
the English Church's independence from the Frankish Church. Boniface had Mellitus
take two papal letters back to England, one to Aethelbert and his people, and another
to Laurence, the Archbishop of Canterbury. He also brought back the synod's decrees
to England. No authentic letters or documents from this synod remain, although some
were forged in the 1060s and 1070s at Canterbury. During his time as a bishop, St
Mellitus joined with Justus, the Bishop of Rochester, in signing a letter that Laurence
wrote to the Celtic bishops urging the Celtic Church to adopt the Roman method of
calculating the date of Easter.
Both Aethelberht and Saeberht died around 616 or 618,
causing a crisis for the mission. Saberht's three sons had not converted to Christianity,
and drove Mellitus from London. Bede says that Mellitus was exiled because he refused
the brothers' request for a taste of the sacramental bread. Whether this occurred
immediately after Saeberht's death or later is impossible to determine from Bede's
chronology, which has both events in the same chapter but gives neither an exact
time frame nor the elapsed time between the two events. The historian N. J. Higham
connects the timing of this episode with a change in the 'over kingship' from the
Christian Kentish Aethelberht to the pagan East Anglian Raedwald, which Higham feels
happened after Aethelberht's death. In Higham's view, Saeberht's sons drove Mellitus
from London because they had passed from Kentish over lordship to East Anglian, and
thus no longer needed to keep Mellitus, who was connected with the Kentish kingdom,
in office.
Mellitus fled first to Canterbury, but Aethelberht's successor Eadbald
was also a pagan, so Mellitus, accompanied by Justus, took refuge in Gaul. Mellitus
was recalled to Britain by Laurence, the second Archbishop of Canterbury, after his
conversion of Eadbald. How long Mellitus' exile lasted is unclear. Bede claims it
was a year, but it may have been longer. However, Mellitus did not return to London,
because the East Saxons remained pagan. Although Mellitus fled, there does not seem
to have been any serious persecution of Christians in the East Saxon kingdom. The
East Saxon see was not occupied again until Cedd was consecrated as bishop in about
654.
Mellitus succeeded Laurence as the third Archbishop of Canterbury after the latter's
death in 619. During his tenure as archbishop, St Mellitus supposedly performed a
miracle in 623AD by diverting a fire that had started in Canterbury and threatened
the church. He was carried into the flames, upon which the wind changed direction,
thus saving the building. Bede praised Mellitus' sane mind, but other than the miracle,
little happened during his time as archbishop. Bede also mentioned that Mellitus
suffered from gout. Boniface wrote to Mellitus encouraging him in the mission, perhaps
prompted by the marriage of Aethelburg of Kent to King Edwin of Northumbria. Whether
Mellitus received a pallium, the symbol of an archbishop's authority, from the pope
is unknown.
Mellitus died on 24 April 624, and was buried at St Augustine's Abbey
in Canterbury that same day. He became revered as a saint after his death, and was
allotted the feast day of 24 April. He was still venerated at St Augustine's in 1120,
along with a number of other local saints. There was also a shrine to him at Old
St Paul's Cathedral in London. Shortly after the Norman conquest of England, Goscelin
wrote a life of Mellitus, the first of several to appear around that time, but none
contain any information not included in Bede's earlier works. They do, however, reveal
that in that period, persons suffering from gout were urged to pray at his tomb.
Goscelin records that Mellitus' shrine flanked that of Augustine, along with Laurence,
in the eastern central chapel of the presbytery.
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