Æthelberht was King of Kent from about 589 until his death in 616. He was the first English king to convert to Christianity. He married Bertha, the Christian daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks. Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet in east Kent in 597. Shortly thereafter churches were established, and wider-scale conversion to Christianity began in the kingdom.
About Æthelberht of Kent in brief
Æthelberht was King of Kent from about 589 until his death in 616. He was the first English king to convert to Christianity. He married Bertha, the Christian daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks. Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet in east Kent in 597. Shortly thereafter, churches were established, and wider-scale conversion to Christianity began in the kingdom. He provided the new church with land in Canterbury, thus establishing one of the foundation stones of what ultimately became the Anglican Communion. His law for Kent, the earliest written code in any Germanic language, instituted a complex system of fines. He later came to be regarded as a saint for his role in establishing Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons. His feast day was originally 24 February but was changed to 25 February. In the late ninth century Anglo- Saxon Chronicle, he is referred to as a bretwalda, or \”Britain-ruler\”. He is listed as the third king to hold imperium over other English kingdoms. The earliest mention of Kent in the sixth century by Bede is in the Albinus of the monastery of St. Peter and St. Paul in Canterbury. Further mention in Kent occurs in the late sixth century of the sixth Franks of the Tours of Gregory of Tours, a collection of annals assembled in c90 in the city of Wessex. He is also mentioned in the 890s in the annals of Albus Albus, the abbot of Canterbury, and in the 12th century in the Annals of St Paul of Canterbury.
He died on 24 February 616, and is buried in the St Paul’s Cathedral, Canterbury. His son Eormenric succeeded him as king, according to the Chronicle. He may also have been the father of the future King of Wales, William the Conqueror, who was born in the same year and died in the following year. He had a son, Eorman, who became king of Wales in the 10th century. He also had a daughter, Bertha, who later became queen of the kingdom of Normandy. The son and daughter-in-law were married and had two children, Eorman and Bertha. Kent was colonised by Jutes, from the southern part of the Jutland peninsula. According to legend, the brothers Hengist and Horsa landed in 449 as mercenaries for a British king, Vortigern, and established the Kingdom of Kent. Some historians now think the underlying story of a rebelling mercenary force may be accurate; most now date the founding of Kent to the middle of the fifth-century, which is consistent with the legend. This early date, only a few decades after the departure of the Romans, also suggests that more of Roman civilization may have survived in Kent than in other areas. The invasion may have involved military coordination of different groups within the invaders, with a leader who had authority over many different groups.
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