Justus (died on 10 November between 627 and 631) was the fourth
Archbishop of Canterbury
The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. The current archbishop is Justi ...
. He was sent from Italy to England by Pope
Gregory the Great
Pope Gregory I ( la, Gregorius I; – 12 March 604), commonly known as Saint Gregory the Great, was the bishop of Rome from 3 September 590 to his death. He is known for instigating the first recorded large-scale mission from Rome, the Gregori ...
, on a mission to
Christianize
Christianization ( or Christianisation) is to make Christian; to imbue with Christian principles; to become Christian. It can apply to the conversion of an individual, a practice, a place or a whole society. It began in the Roman Empire, conti ...
the
Anglo-Saxons
The Anglo-Saxons were a Cultural identity, cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo- ...
from their native
paganism
Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christianity, early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions ot ...
, probably arriving with the second group of missionaries despatched in 601. Justus became the first
Bishop of Rochester
The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.
The town of Rochester has the bishop's seat, at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, which was foun ...
in 604, and attended a church council in Paris in 614.
Following the death of King
Æthelberht of Kent
Æthelberht (; also Æthelbert, Aethelberht, Aethelbert or Ethelbert; ang, Æðelberht ; 550 – 24 February 616) was King of Kent from about 589 until his death. The eighth-century monk Bede, in his ''Ecclesiastical History of the Engli ...
in 616, Justus was forced to flee to
Gaul
Gaul ( la, Gallia) was a region of Western Europe first described by the Romans. It was inhabited by Celtic and Aquitani tribes, encompassing present-day France, Belgium, Luxembourg, most of Switzerland, parts of Northern Italy (only during ...
, but was reinstated in his diocese the following year. In 624 Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury, overseeing the despatch of missionaries to
Northumbria
la, Regnum Northanhymbrorum
, conventional_long_name = Kingdom of Northumbria
, common_name = Northumbria
, status = State
, status_text = Unified Anglian kingdom (before 876)North: Anglian kingdom (af ...
. After his death he was revered as a saint, and had a shrine in
St Augustine's Abbey
St Augustine's Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Canterbury, Kent, England. The abbey was founded in 598 and functioned as a monastery until its dissolution in 1538 during the English Reformation. After the abbey's dissolution, it underwent ...
,
Canterbury
Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour.
...
.
Arrival in Britain
![AugsutineGospelsFolio129vStLuke](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/AugsutineGospelsFolio129vStLuke.jpg)
Justus was a member of the
Gregorian mission
The Gregorian missionJones "Gregorian Mission" ''Speculum'' p. 335 or Augustinian missionMcGowan "Introduction to the Corpus" ''Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature'' p. 17 was a Christian mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great in 596 to conver ...
sent to England by Pope Gregory I. Almost everything known about Justus and his career is derived from the early 8th-century ''
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The ''Ecclesiastical History of the English People'' ( la, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum), written by Bede in about AD 731, is a history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict be ...
'' of
Bede
Bede ( ; ang, Bǣda , ; 672/326 May 735), also known as Saint Bede, The Venerable Bede, and Bede the Venerable ( la, Beda Venerabilis), was an English monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom o ...
.
[Hunt "Justus" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography''] As Bede does not describe Justus' origins, nothing is known about him prior to his arrival in England. He probably arrived in England with the second group of missionaries, sent at the request of
Augustine of Canterbury
Augustine of Canterbury (early 6th century – probably 26 May 604) was a monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church.Delaney '' ...
in 601.
[Stenton ''Anglo-Saxon England'' p. 109] Some modern writers describe Justus as one of the original missionaries who arrived with Augustine in 597,[Hindley ''Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons'' p. 65] but Bede believed that Justus came in the second group.[Blair ''World of Bede'' pp. 84–87][Wallace-Hadrill ''Bede's Ecclesiastical History'' p. 43] The second group included Mellitus
Saint Mellitus (died 24 April 624) was the first bishop of London in the Saxon period, the third Archbishop of Canterbury, and a member of the Gregorian mission sent to England to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Chris ...
, who later became Bishop of London
A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution.
In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...
and Archbishop of Canterbury.[Brooks "Mellitus" ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'']
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".[Bede ''History of the English Church and People'' p. 85–86][Mayr-Harting ''Coming of Christianity'' p. 62] A 15th-century Canterbury chronicler, Thomas of Elmham
Thomas Elmham (1364in or after 1427) was an English chronicler.
Life
Thomas Elmham was probably born at North Elmham in Norfolk. He may have been the Thomas Elmham who was a scholar at King's Hall, Cambridge from 1389 to 1394. He became a Benedic ...
, claimed that there were a number of books brought to England by that second group still at Canterbury in his day, although he did not identify them. An investigation of extant Canterbury manuscripts shows that one possible survivor is the St. Augustine Gospels
The St Augustine Gospels (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Lib. MS. 286) is an illuminated Gospel Book which dates from the 6th century and is currently housed in the Parker Library in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. It was made in Italy a ...
, now in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, Manuscript (MS) 286.[
]
Bishop of Rochester
Augustine consecrated Justus as a bishop in 604, over a province including the Kentish town of Rochester
Rochester may refer to:
Places Australia
* Rochester, Victoria
Canada
* Rochester, Alberta
United Kingdom
*Rochester, Kent
** City of Rochester-upon-Medway (1982–1998), district council area
** History of Rochester, Kent
** HM Prison ...
.[Brooks ''Early History of the Church of Canterbury'' p. 221] 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
Watling Street is a historic route in England that crosses the River Thames at London and which was used in Classical Antiquity, Late Antiquity, and throughout the Middle Ages. It was used by the ancient Britons and paved as one of the main R ...
and the estuary of the Medway
Medway is a unitary authority district and conurbation in Kent, South East England. It had a population of 278,016 in 2019. The unitary authority was formed in 1998 when Rochester-upon-Medway amalgamated with the Borough of Gillingham to for ...
, and was thus a fortified town.[Brooks "From British to English Christianity" ''Conversion and Colonization'' pp. 24–27] Because Justus was probably not a monk (he was not called that by Bede),[Smith "Early Community of St. Andrew at Rochester" ''English Historical Review'' p. 291] his cathedral clergy was very likely non-monastic too.[Smith "Early Community of St. Andrew at Rochester" ''English Historical Review'' p. 292]
A charter purporting to be from King Æthelberht, dated 28 April 604, survives in the ''Textus Roffensis
__NOTOC__
The ''Textus Roffensis'' (Latin for "The Tome of Rochester"), fully titled the ''Textus de Ecclesia Roffensi per Ernulphum episcopum'' ("The Tome of the Church of Rochester up to Bishop Ernulf") and sometimes also known as the Annal ...
'', as well as a copy based on the Textus in the 14th-century ''Liber Temporalium''. Written mostly in Latin but using an Old English
Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...
boundary clause, the charter records a grant of land near the city of Rochester to Justus' church. Among the witnesses is Laurence
Laurence is an English and French given name (usually female in French and usually male in English). The English masculine name is a variant of Lawrence and it originates from a French form of the Latin ''Laurentius'', a name meaning "man from ...
, 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, a usage parallelled by other charters in the same archive.[Levison ''England and the Continent'' pp. 223–225]
Historian Wilhelm Levison, writing in 1946, was sceptical about the authenticity of this charter.[ In particular, he felt that the two separate addresses were incongruous and 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).][ A more recent and more positive appraisal by John Morris argues that the charter and its witness list are authentic because it incorporates titles and phraseology that had fallen out of use by 800.][Morris ''Arthurian Sources'' vol. ii pp. 97–98]
Æthelberht built Justus a cathedral church in Rochester; the foundations of a nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...
and chancel
In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse.
Ove ...
partly underneath the present-day Rochester Cathedral
Rochester Cathedral, formally the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary, is an English church of Norman architecture in Rochester, Kent.
The church is the cathedral of the Diocese of Rochester in the Church of England and the s ...
may date from that time.[ 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.][
Together with Mellitus, the Bishop of London, Justus signed a letter written by Archbishop Laurence of Canterbury to the Irish bishops urging the native church to adopt the Roman method of calculating the date of ]Easter
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...
. This letter also mentioned the fact that Irish missionaries, such as Dagan, had refused to share meals with the missionaries.[Stenton ''Anglo-Saxon England'' p. 112] Although the letter has not survived, Bede quoted from parts of it.[Higham ''Convert Kings'' pp. 138–139]
In 614, Justus attended the Council of Paris
The Council of Paris ( French: ''Conseil de Paris'') is the deliberative body responsible for governing Paris, the capital of France. It possesses both the powers of a municipal council (''conseil municipal'') and those of a departmental counc ...
, held by the Frankish
Frankish may refer to:
* Franks, a Germanic tribe and their culture
** Frankish language or its modern descendants, Franconian languages
* Francia, a post-Roman state in France and Germany
* East Francia, the successor state to Francia in Germany ...
king, Chlothar II
Chlothar II, sometime called "the Young" (French language, French: le Jeune), (May/June 584 – 18 October 629), was king of Neustria and king of the Franks, and the son of Chilperic I and his third wife, Fredegund. He started his reign as an in ...
.[Wood "Mission of Augustine of Canterbury" ''Speculum'' p. 7] It is unclear why Justus and Peter
Peter may refer to:
People
* List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name
* Peter (given name)
** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church
* Peter (surname), a sur ...
, the abbot of Sts Peter and Paul in Canterbury, were present. It may have been just chance, but historian James Campbell has suggested that Chlothar summoned clergy from Britain to attend in an attempt to assert overlordship over Kent.[Campbell "First Century of Christianity" ''Essays in Anglo-Saxon History'' p. 56] The historian N. J. Higham offers another explanation for their attendance, arguing that Æthelberht sent the pair to the council because of shifts in Frankish policy towards the Kentish kingdom, which threatened Kentish independence, and that the two clergymen were sent to negotiate a compromise with Chlothar.[Higham ''Convert Kings'' p. 116]
A pagan backlash against Christianity followed Æthelberht's death in 616, forcing Justus and Mellitus to flee to Gaul.[ The pair probably took refuge with Chlothar, hoping that the Frankish king would intervene and restore them to their sees,][ and by 617 Justus had been reinstalled in his bishopric by the new king.][ 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.][Lapidge "Mellitus" ''Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England''] According to Bede, Justus received letters of encouragement from Pope Boniface V
Pope Boniface V ( la, Bonifatius V; died 25 October 625) was the bishop of Rome from 23 December 619 to his death. He did much for the Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England, and enacted the decree by which churches became places of sanctuary.
...
(619–625), as did Mellitus, although Bede does not record the actual letters. The historian J. M. Wallace-Hadrill
John Michael Wallace-Hadrill, (29 September 1916 – 3 November 1985) was a senior academic and one of the foremost historians of the early Merovingian period.
Wallace-Hadrill was born on 29 September 1916 in Bromsgrove, where his father ...
assumes that both letters were general statements of encouragement to the missionaries.[Wallace-Hadrill ''Bede's Ecclesiastical History'' pp. 64–65]
Archbishop
Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury in 624,[ receiving his ]pallium
The pallium (derived from the Roman ''pallium'' or ''palla'', a woolen cloak; : ''pallia'') is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the pope, but for many centuries bestowed by the Holy See upon metropolit ...
—the symbol of the jurisdiction entrusted to archbishops—from Pope Boniface V, following which Justus consecrated Romanus
Romanus (Latin for "Roman"), hellenized as Romanos (Ῥωμανός) was a Roman cognomen and may refer to:
People
* Adrianus Romanus, Flemish mathematician (1561–1615)
*Aquila Romanus, Latin grammarian
*Giles of Rome, Aegidius Romanus, medieva ...
as his successor at Rochester.[ Boniface also gave Justus a letter congratulating him on the conversion of King "Aduluald" (probably King Eadbald of Kent), a letter which is included in Bede's ''Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum''.][Kirby ''Earliest English Kings'' pp. 31–32] Bede's account of Eadbald's conversion states that it was Laurence, Justus' predecessor at Canterbury, who converted the King to Christianity, but the historian D. P. Kirby argues that the letter's reference to Eadbald makes it likely that it was Justus.[Kirby ''Earliest English Kings'' p. 33] Other historians, including Barbara Yorke
Barbara Yorke FRHistS FSA (born 1951, Barbara Anne Elizabeth Troubridge) is a historian of Anglo-Saxon England, specialising in many subtopics, including 19th-century Anglo-Saxonism. She is currently emeritus professor of early Medieval histor ...
and Henry Mayr-Harting
Henry Maria Robert Egmont Mayr-Harting (born 6 April 1936) is a British medieval ecclesiastical historian. From 1997 to 2003, he was Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History at the University of Oxford and a lay canon of Christ Church, Oxford.
...
, conclude that Bede's account is correct, and that Eadbald was converted by Laurence.[Mayr-Harting ''Coming of Christianity'' pp. 75–76] Yorke argues that there were two kings of Kent during Eadbald's reign, Eadbald and Æthelwald, and that Æthelwald was the "Aduluald" referred to by Boniface. Yorke argues that Justus converted Æthelwald back to Christianity after Æthelberht's death.[Yorke ''Kings and Kingdoms'' p. 32]
Justus consecrated Paulinus as the first Bishop of York
The archbishop of York is a senior bishop in the Church of England, second only to the archbishop of Canterbury. The archbishop is the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of York and the metropolitan bishop of the province of York, which covers th ...
, before the latter accompanied Æthelburg of Kent to Northumbria for her marriage to King Edwin of Northumbria
Edwin ( ang, Ēadwine; c. 586 – 12 October 632/633), also known as Eadwine or Æduinus, was the List of monarchs of Northumbria, King of Deira and Bernicia – which later became known as Northumbria – from about 616 until hi ...
.[ Bede records Justus as having died on 10 November, but does not give a year, although it is likely to have between 627 and 631.][Fryde, et al. ''Handbook of British Chronology'' p. 213][Wallace-Hadrill ''Bede's Ecclesiastical History'' p. 82] After his death, Justus was regarded as a saint, and was given a feast day of 10 November.[Delaney ''Dictionary of Saints'' pp. 354–355] The ninth century Stowe Missal
The Stowe Missal (sometimes known as the Lorrha Missal), which is, strictly speaking, a sacramentary rather than a missal, is a small Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin with some Old Irish in the late eighth or early ninth cen ...
commemorates his feast day, along with Mellitus and Laurence.[Farmer ''Oxford Dictionary of Saints'' p. 366] In the 1090s, his remains were translated
Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transla ...
, or ritually moved, to a shrine beside the high altar of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury. At about the same time, a ''Life'' was written about him by Goscelin of Saint-Bertin, as well as a poem by Reginald of Canterbury
Reginald of Canterbury (died after 1109) was a medieval French writer and Benedictine monk who lived and wrote in England in the very early part of the 12th century. He was the author of a number of Latin poems, including an epic entitled ''Malchu ...
.[Hayward "Justus" ''Blackwell Encyclopedia of Anglo-Saxon England''] Other material from Thomas of Elmham, Gervase of Canterbury
Gervase of Canterbury (; Latin: Gervasus Cantuariensis or Gervasius Dorobornensis) (c. 1141 – c. 1210) was an English chronicler.
Life
If Gervase's brother Thomas, who like himself was a monk of Christ Church, Canterbury, was Thomas of Ma ...
, and William of Malmesbury
William of Malmesbury ( la, Willelmus Malmesbiriensis; ) was the foremost English historian of the 12th century. He has been ranked among the most talented English historians since Bede. Modern historian C. Warren Hollister described him as "a ...
, later medieval chroniclers, adds little to Bede's account of Justus' life.[
]
See also
* List of members of the Gregorian mission
The Gregorian mission was a group of Italian monks and priests sent by Pope Gregory the Great to Britain in the late 6th and early 7th centuries to convert and Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism.BrooksGregorian ...
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Justus
7th-century archbishops
7th-century Christian saints
7th-century deaths
Archbishops of Canterbury
Bishops of Rochester
Gregorian mission
Kentish saints
Clergy from Rome
Year of birth unknown
7th-century English clergy