Justus
canonisation process | |
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Attributes | archbishop carrying a Primatial cross[2] |
Shrines | St Augustine's, Canterbury |
Justus[a] (died on 10 November between 627 and 631) 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.
Following the death of King Æthelberht of Kent in 616, Justus was forced to flee to Gaul but was reinstated in his diocese the following year. In 624, Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury, overseeing the despatch of missionaries to Northumbria. After his death, he was revered as a saint and had a shrine in St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury.
Arrival in Britain
Justus was a member of the
If Justus was a member of the second group of missionaries, then he arrived with a gift of books and "all things which were needed for worship and the ministry of the Church".
Bishop of Rochester
Augustine consecrated Justus as a bishop in 604 over a province including the Kentish town of Rochester.[14] The historian Nicholas Brooks argues that the choice of Rochester was probably not because it had been a Roman-era bishopric, but rather because of its importance in the politics of the time. Although the town was small, with just one street, it was at the junction of Watling Street and the estuary of the Medway and was thus a fortified town.[15] Because Justus was probably not a monk (Bede did not call him that),[16] his cathedral clergy was very likely non-monastic too.[17]
A charter purporting to be from King Æthelberht, dated 28 April 604, survives in the Textus Roffensis, as well as a copy based on the Textus in the 14th-century Liber Temporalium. Written mostly in Latin but using an Old English boundary clause, the charter records a land grant near Rochester to Justus' church.[18] Among the witnesses is Laurence, Augustine's future successor, but not Augustine himself. The text turns to two different addressees. First, Æthelberht is made to admonish his son Eadbald, who had been established as a sub-ruler in the region of Rochester. The grant itself is addressed directly to Saint Andrew, the patron saint of the church,[19] a usage parallelled by other charters in the same archive.[20]
Historian Wilhelm Levison, writing in 1946, was sceptical about the authenticity of this charter.[20] Levison felt the two separate addresses were incongruous. Levison suggested that the first address, occurring before the preamble, may have been inserted by someone familiar with Bede to echo Eadbald's future conversion (see below).[20] A more recent and more positive appraisal by John Morris argues that the charter and its witness list are authentic because they incorporate titles and phraseology that had fallen out of use by 800.[21]
Æthelberht built Justus, a cathedral church in Rochester; the foundations of a nave and chancel partly underneath the present-day Rochester Cathedral may date from that time.[7] What remains of the foundations of an early rectangular building near the southern part of the current cathedral might also be contemporary with Justus or may be part of a Roman building.[15]
Together with Mellitus, the Bishop of London, Justus signed a letter written by Archbishop Laurence of Canterbury to the Irish bishops urging the
In 614, Justus attended the
A pagan backlash against Christianity followed Æthelberht's death in 616, forcing Justus and Mellitus to flee to Gaul.[9] The pair probably took refuge with Chlothar, hoping that the Frankish king would intervene and restore them to their sees,[23] and by 617 Justus had been reinstalled in his bishopric by the new king.[4] Mellitus also returned to England, but the prevailing pagan mood did not allow him to return to London; after Laurence's death, Mellitus became Archbishop of Canterbury.[27] According to Bede, Justus received letters of encouragement from [Pope Boniface V (619–625), as did Mellitus, although Bede does not record the actual letters—the historian J. M. Wallace-Hadrill assumes both letters were general statements encouraging the missionaries.[28]
Archbishop
Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury in 624,
Justus consecrated
See also
Notes
Citations
- ^ Walsh New Dictionary p. 349
- ^ "St. Justus of Canterbury". Patron Saints Index. Archived from the original on 19 June 2009. Retrieved 3 November 2007.
- ^ Higham Convert Kings p. 94
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Hunt "Justus" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ Stenton Anglo-Saxon England p. 109
- ^ Hindley Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons p. 65
- ^ a b Blair World of Bede pp. 84–87
- ^ Wallace-Hadrill Bede's Ecclesiastical History p. 43
- ^ a b Brooks "Mellitus" Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
- ^ Bede History of the English Church and People p. 85–86
- ^ Mayr-Harting Coming of Christianity p. 62
- ^ Colgrave "Introduction" Earliest Life of Gregory the Great pp. 27–28
- ^ Lapidge Anglo-Saxon Library pp. 24–25
- ^ Brooks Early History of the Church of Canterbury p. 221
- ^ a b Brooks "From British to English Christianity" Conversion and Colonization pp. 24–27
- ^ Smith "Early Community of St. Andrew at Rochester" English Historical Review p. 291
- ^ Smith "Early Community of St. Andrew at Rochester" English Historical Review p. 292
- ^ Campbell Charters of Rochester p. c
- ^ Morris Arthurian Sources vol. ii p. 90
- ^ a b c Levison England and the Continent pp. 223–225
- ^ Morris Arthurian Sources vol. ii pp. 97–98
- ^ Stenton Anglo-Saxon England p. 112
- ^ a b Higham Convert Kings pp. 138–139
- ^ Wood "Mission of Augustine of Canterbury" Speculum p. 7
- ^ Campbell "First Century of Christianity" Essays in Anglo-Saxon History p. 56
- ^ Higham Convert Kings p. 116
- ^ Lapidge "Mellitus" Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England
- ^ Wallace-Hadrill Bede's Ecclesiastical History pp. 64–65
- ^ a b Fryde, et al. Handbook of British Chronology p. 213
- ^ Kirby Earliest English Kings pp. 31–32
- ^ Kirby Earliest English Kings p. 33
- ^ Mayr-Harting Coming of Christianity pp. 75–76
- ^ Yorke Kings and Kingdoms p. 32
- ^ Wallace-Hadrill Bede's Ecclesiastical History p. 82
- ^ Delaney Dictionary of Saints pp. 354–355
- ^ Farmer Oxford Dictionary of Saints p. 366
- ^ Hayward "Justus" Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England
References
- ISBN 0-14-044042-9.
- ISBN 0-521-39819-3.
- ISBN 0-7185-0041-5.
- ISBN 0-86698-363-5.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/18531. Retrieved 7 November 2007. (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- ISBN 0-19-725936-7.
- Campbell, James (1986). "The First Century of Christianity in England". Essays in Anglo-Saxon History. London: Hambledon Press. pp. 49–68. ISBN 0-907628-32-X.
- Colgrave, Bertram (2007) [1968]. "Introduction". The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great (Paperback reissue ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-31384-1.
- Delaney, John P. (1980). Dictionary of Saints (Second ed.). Garden City, NY: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-13594-7.
- Farmer, David Hugh (2004). Oxford Dictionary of Saints (Fifth ed.). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-860949-0.
- Fryde, E. B.; Greenway, D. E.; Porter, S.; Roy, I. (1996). Handbook of British Chronology (Third revised ed.). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-56350-X.
- Hayward, Paul Anthony (2001). "Justus". In ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1.
- ISBN 0-7190-4827-3.
- Hindley, Geoffrey (2006). A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons: The Beginnings of the English Nation. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7867-1738-5.
- doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/15176. Retrieved 7 November 2007. (subscription or UK public library membershiprequired)
- Kirby, D. P. (2000). The Earliest English Kings. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-24211-8.
- ISBN 0-19-926722-7.
- ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1.
- ISBN 0-19-821232-1.
- ISBN 0-271-00769-9.
- Morris, John (1995). Arthurian Sources, Vol. 2: Annals and Charters. Arthurian Period Sources. Chichester, UK: Phillimore. ISBN 0-85033-757-7.
- Smith, R. A. L. (September 1945). "The Early Community of St. Andrew at Rochester, 604-c. 1080". JSTOR 556594.
- ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5.
- ISBN 0-19-822269-6.
- Walsh, Michael J. (2007). A New Dictionary of Saints: East and West. London: Burns & Oats. ISBN 978-0-86012-438-2.
- S2CID 161652367.
- ISBN 0-415-16639-X.