Laurence of Canterbury
Encyclopedia
Laurence was the second Archbishop of Canterbury
from about 604 to 619. He was a member of the Gregorian mission
sent from Italy to England to Christianize
the Anglo-Saxons
from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, although the date of his arrival is disputed. He was consecrated
archbishop by his predecessor, Augustine of Canterbury
, during Augustine's lifetime, in order to ensure continuity in the office. While archbishop, he attempted unsuccessfully to resolve differences with the native British bishops by corresponding with them about points of dispute. Laurence faced a crisis following the death of King Æthelberht of Kent, when the king's successor abandoned Christianity; he eventually reconverted. Laurence was revered as a saint after his death in 619.
, Kent
, with Augustine in 597, or, as some sources state, first arrived in 601 and was not a part of the first group of missionaries. He had been a monk in Rome before his travels to England, but nothing else is known of his history or background. The medieval chronicler Bede
says that Augustine sent Laurence back to Pope Gregory I
to report on the success of converting King Æthelberht of Kent and to carry a letter with questions for the pope. Accompanied by Peter of Canterbury, another missionary, he set off some time after July 598, and had returned by June 601. He brought back with him Gregory's replies to Augustine's questions, a document commonly known as the Libellus responsionum
, that Bede incorporated in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
. Laurence is probably the Laurence referred to in the letter from Gregory to Bertha
, queen of Kent. In that letter, Gregory praises Bertha for her part in the conversion of her husband, details of which Gregory says he received from Laurence the priest. It is known that Laurence returned to England with Mellitus
and others of the second group of missionaries in the summer of 601, but there is no record of Peter being with them.
in about 604, and ruled until his death on 2 February 619. To secure the succession, Augustine had consecrated Laurence before he died, even though that was prohibited by canon law
. Augustine was afraid though that if someone did not step into the office immediately, it would damage the missionary efforts in Britain. However, Laurence never received a pallium
from Rome, so he may have been considered uncanonical by the papacy. Bede makes a point of comparing Augustine's action in consecrating Laurence to Saint Peter's action of consecrating Clement
as Bishop of Rome during Peter's lifetime, which the theologian J. Robert Wright
believes may be Bede's way of criticising the practices of the church in his day.
In 610 Laurence received letters from Pope Boniface IV
, addressed to him as archbishop and Augustine's successor. The correspondence was in response to Laurence having sent Mellitus to Rome earlier in 610, to solicit advice from the papacy on matters concerning the English Church. While in Rome Mellitus attended a synod
, and brought the synodical decrees back with him to Laurence.
In 613 Laurence consecrated the monastery church built by Augustine in Canterbury, and dedicated it to saints Peter
and Paul; it was later re-consecrated as St Augustine's Abbey
, Canterbury. Laurence also wrote to the bishops in the lands held by the Scots
and by the Britons
, urging them to hold Easter
on the day that the Roman church celebrated it, instead of their traditional date, part of the Easter controversy. The letter is also preserved in Bede's history. Laurence in 609 stated that Dagan
, a native
bishop, would not eat with Laurence or share a roof with the archbishop, due to the differences between the two Churches.
Æthelberht died in 616, during Laurence's tenure; his son Eadbald
abandoned Christianity in favour of Anglo-Saxon paganism, forcing many of the Gregorian missionaries to flee the pagan backlash that followed Æthelberht's death. Among them in Gaul
were Mellitus, who was Bishop of London
, and Justus
, who was Bishop of Rochester
. Remaining in Britain, Laurence succeeded in reconverting Eadbald to Christianity. Bede relates the story that Laurence had been prepared to give up when he was visited by St Peter in a dream or vision. St Peter chastised Laurence and whipped him, and the marks of the whipping remained after the vision or dream ended. Laurence then displayed them to Eadbald, and the king was converted on the spot. Bede, however, hints that it was the death of some of the leaders of the pagan party in battle that really persuaded Laurence to stay. According to Benedicta Ward, a historian of Christianity, Bede uses the story of the whipping as an example of how suffering was a reminder of Christ's suffering for humans, and how that example could lead to conversion. Wright argues that another point Bede is making is that it is because of the intercession of St Peter himself that the mission continued. David Farmer, in the Oxford Dictionary of Saints
, suggests that the whipping story may been a blending of the Quo Vadis
story with some information given by Jerome
in a letter.
Modern historians have seen political overtones in the pagan reaction. The historian D. P. Kirby sees Eadbald's actions as a repudiation of his father's pro-Frankish
policies. Alcuin
, a later medieval writer, wrote that Laurence was "censured by apostolic authority". This may have been a letter from Pope Adeodatus I
, commanding Laurence to stay in Kent. Kirby goes on to argue that it was Justus, not Laurence, who converted Eadbald, and this while Justus was archbishop, sometime around 624. Not all historians agree with this argument, however. Nicholas Brooks states that the king was converted during Laurence's archiepiscopate, within a year of him succeeding his father. The historian Barbara Yorke
argues that there were two co-rulers of Kent after Æthelberht's death, Eadbald and a Æthelwald, and that Eadbald was converted by Laurence while Æthelwald was converted by Justus after his return to Rochester. Another factor in the pagan reaction was Laurence's objection to Eadbald's marriage to his father's widow, something that Christians considered to be unlawful.
All efforts to extend the church beyond Kent encountered difficulties due to the attitude of King Rædwald of East Anglia, who had become the leading king in the south after Æthelberht's death. Rædwald was converted before the death of Æthelberht, perhaps at the urging of Æthelberht, but his kingdom was not, and Rædwald seems to have converted only to the extent of placing a Christian altar in his pagan temple. It proved impossible for Mellitus to return to London as bishop, although Justus did resume his duties at Rochester.
, to the new church of St Augustine's in 1091. His shrine
was in the axial chapel of the abbey church, flanking the shrine of Augustine, his predecessor. Laurence came to be regarded as a saint, and was given the feast day
of 3 February. The ninth century Stowe Missal
commemorates his feast day, along with Mellitus and Justus. A Vita (or Life) was written about the time of his translation, by Goscelin
, but it is mainly based on information in Bede. His tomb was opened in 1915. Besides his feast day, the date of his translation, 13 September, was also celebrated after his death. Laurence's tenure as archbishop is mainly remembered for his failure to secure a settlement with the Celtic church, and for his reconversion of Eadbald following Æthelbert's death. He was succeeded as archbishop by Mellitus, the Bishop of London.
Archbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
from about 604 to 619. He was a member of the Gregorian mission
Gregorian mission
The Gregorian mission, sometimes known as the Augustinian mission, was the missionary endeavour sent by Pope Gregory the Great to the Anglo-Saxons in 596 AD. Headed by Augustine of Canterbury, its goal was to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. By the death of the last missionary in 653, they...
sent from Italy to England to Christianize
Christianization
The historical phenomenon of Christianization is the conversion of individuals to Christianity or the conversion of entire peoples at once...
the Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, although the date of his arrival is disputed. He was consecrated
Consecration
Consecration is the solemn dedication to a special purpose or service, usually religious. The word "consecration" literally means "to associate with the sacred". Persons, places, or things can be consecrated, and the term is used in various ways by different groups...
archbishop by his predecessor, Augustine of Canterbury
Augustine of Canterbury
Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597...
, during Augustine's lifetime, in order to ensure continuity in the office. While archbishop, he attempted unsuccessfully to resolve differences with the native British bishops by corresponding with them about points of dispute. Laurence faced a crisis following the death of King Æthelberht of Kent, when the king's successor abandoned Christianity; he eventually reconverted. Laurence was revered as a saint after his death in 619.
Early life
Laurence was part of the Gregorian mission originally dispatched from Rome in 595 to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity; he landed at ThanetThanet
Thanet is a local government district of Kent, England which was formed under the Local Government Act 1972, and came into being on 1 April 1974...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, with Augustine in 597, or, as some sources state, first arrived in 601 and was not a part of the first group of missionaries. He had been a monk in Rome before his travels to England, but nothing else is known of his history or background. The medieval chronicler Bede
Bede
Bede , also referred to as Saint Bede or the Venerable Bede , was a monk at the Northumbrian monastery of Saint Peter at Monkwearmouth, today part of Sunderland, England, and of its companion monastery, Saint Paul's, in modern Jarrow , both in the Kingdom of Northumbria...
says that Augustine sent Laurence back to Pope Gregory I
Pope Gregory I
Pope Gregory I , better known in English as Gregory the Great, was pope from 3 September 590 until his death...
to report on the success of converting King Æthelberht of Kent and to carry a letter with questions for the pope. Accompanied by Peter of Canterbury, another missionary, he set off some time after July 598, and had returned by June 601. He brought back with him Gregory's replies to Augustine's questions, a document commonly known as the Libellus responsionum
Libellus responsionum
The Libellus responsionum or Responsiones is a section of Bede's Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum that is a reply by Pope Gregory I to questions posed by Augustine of Canterbury about specifics of the Gregorian mission.-Creation:...
, that Bede incorporated in his Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum
The Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum is a work in Latin by Bede on the history of the Christian Churches in England, and of England generally; its main focus is on the conflict between Roman and Celtic Christianity.It is considered to be one of the most important original references on...
. Laurence is probably the Laurence referred to in the letter from Gregory to Bertha
Bertha of Kent
Saint Bertha was the Queen of Kent whose influence led to the introduction of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. She was canonized as a saint for her role in its establishment during that period of English history.Bertha was the daughter of Charibert I, Merovingian King of Paris...
, queen of Kent. In that letter, Gregory praises Bertha for her part in the conversion of her husband, details of which Gregory says he received from Laurence the priest. It is known that Laurence returned to England with Mellitus
Mellitus
Mellitus 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 Christianity. He arrived in 601 AD with a group of clergymen sent to augment the mission,...
and others of the second group of missionaries in the summer of 601, but there is no record of Peter being with them.
Archbishop
Laurence succeeded Augustine to the see of CanterburyArchbishop of Canterbury
The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...
in about 604, and ruled until his death on 2 February 619. To secure the succession, Augustine had consecrated Laurence before he died, even though that was prohibited by canon law
Canon law
Canon law is the body of laws & regulations made or adopted by ecclesiastical authority, for the government of the Christian organization and its members. It is the internal ecclesiastical law governing the Catholic Church , the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches, and the Anglican Communion of...
. Augustine was afraid though that if someone did not step into the office immediately, it would damage the missionary efforts in Britain. However, Laurence never received a pallium
Pallium
The pallium is an ecclesiastical vestment in the Roman Catholic Church, originally peculiar to the Pope, but for many centuries bestowed by him on metropolitans and primates as a symbol of the jurisdiction delegated to them by the Holy See. In that context it has always remained unambiguously...
from Rome, so he may have been considered uncanonical by the papacy. Bede makes a point of comparing Augustine's action in consecrating Laurence to Saint Peter's action of consecrating Clement
Pope Clement I
Starting in the 3rd and 4th century, tradition has identified him as the Clement that Paul mentioned in Philippians as a fellow laborer in Christ.While in the mid-19th century it was customary to identify him as a freedman of Titus Flavius Clemens, who was consul with his cousin, the Emperor...
as Bishop of Rome during Peter's lifetime, which the theologian J. Robert Wright
J. Robert Wright
J. Robert Wright is the St. Mark's in the Bowery Professor of Ecclesiastical History at General Theological Seminary in New York City...
believes may be Bede's way of criticising the practices of the church in his day.
In 610 Laurence received letters from Pope Boniface IV
Pope Boniface IV
Pope Saint Boniface IV was pope from 608 to his death.Son of Johannes, a physician, a Marsian from the province and town of Valeria; he succeeded Boniface III after a vacancy of over nine months. He was consecrated on either 25 August or September 15 in 608...
, addressed to him as archbishop and Augustine's successor. The correspondence was in response to Laurence having sent Mellitus to Rome earlier in 610, to solicit advice from the papacy on matters concerning the English Church. While in Rome Mellitus attended a synod
Synod
A synod historically is a council of a church, usually convened to decide an issue of doctrine, administration or application. In modern usage, the word often refers to the governing body of a particular church, whether its members are meeting or not...
, and brought the synodical decrees back with him to Laurence.
In 613 Laurence consecrated the monastery church built by Augustine in Canterbury, and dedicated it to saints Peter
Saint Peter
Saint Peter or Simon Peter was an early Christian leader, who is featured prominently in the New Testament Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. The son of John or of Jonah and from the village of Bethsaida in the province of Galilee, his brother Andrew was also an apostle...
and Paul; it was later re-consecrated as St Augustine's Abbey
St Augustine's Abbey
St Augustine's Abbey was a Benedictine abbey in Canterbury, Kent, England.-Early history:In 597 Saint Augustine arrived in England, having been sent by Pope Gregory I, on what might nowadays be called a revival mission. The King of Kent at this time was Æthelberht, who happened to be married to a...
, Canterbury. Laurence also wrote to the bishops in the lands held by the Scots
Scoti
Scoti or Scotti was the generic name used by the Romans to describe those who sailed from Ireland to conduct raids on Roman Britain. It was thus synonymous with the modern term Gaels...
and by the Britons
Britons (historical)
The Britons were the Celtic people culturally dominating Great Britain from the Iron Age through the Early Middle Ages. They spoke the Insular Celtic language known as British or Brythonic...
, urging them to hold Easter
Easter
Easter is the central feast in the Christian liturgical year. According to the Canonical gospels, Jesus rose from the dead on the third day after his crucifixion. His resurrection is celebrated on Easter Day or Easter Sunday...
on the day that the Roman church celebrated it, instead of their traditional date, part of the Easter controversy. The letter is also preserved in Bede's history. Laurence in 609 stated that Dagan
Dagan (bishop)
Dagan was an Irish bishop in Britain during the early part of the 7th century.Dagan is known from a letter written by Archbishop Laurence of Canterbury to the Irish bishops and abbots, in which Laurence attempted to persuade the Irish clergy to accept the Roman method of calculating the date of...
, a native
Celtic Christianity
Celtic Christianity or Insular Christianity refers broadly to certain features of Christianity that were common, or held to be common, across the Celtic-speaking world during the Early Middle Ages...
bishop, would not eat with Laurence or share a roof with the archbishop, due to the differences between the two Churches.
Pagan reaction
Eadbald of Kent
Eadbald was King of Kent from 616 until his death in 640. He was the son of King Æthelberht and his wife Bertha, a daughter of the Merovingian king Charibert. Æthelberht made Kent the dominant force in England during his reign and became the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity from...
abandoned Christianity in favour of Anglo-Saxon paganism, forcing many of the Gregorian missionaries to flee the pagan backlash that followed Æthelberht's death. Among them in Gaul
Gaul
Gaul was a region of Western Europe during the Iron Age and Roman era, encompassing present day France, Luxembourg and Belgium, most of Switzerland, the western part of Northern Italy, as well as the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the left bank of the Rhine. The Gauls were the speakers of...
were Mellitus, who was Bishop of London
Bishop of London
The Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...
, and Justus
Justus
Justus was the fourth Archbishop of Canterbury. He was sent from Italy to England by Pope Gregory the Great, on a mission to Christianize the Anglo-Saxons from their native Anglo-Saxon paganism, probably arriving with the second group of missionaries despatched in 601...
, who was Bishop of Rochester
Bishop of Rochester
The Bishop of Rochester is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Rochester in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers the west of the county of Kent and is centred in the city of Rochester where the bishop's seat is located at the Cathedral Church of Christ and the Blessed Virgin...
. Remaining in Britain, Laurence succeeded in reconverting Eadbald to Christianity. Bede relates the story that Laurence had been prepared to give up when he was visited by St Peter in a dream or vision. St Peter chastised Laurence and whipped him, and the marks of the whipping remained after the vision or dream ended. Laurence then displayed them to Eadbald, and the king was converted on the spot. Bede, however, hints that it was the death of some of the leaders of the pagan party in battle that really persuaded Laurence to stay. According to Benedicta Ward, a historian of Christianity, Bede uses the story of the whipping as an example of how suffering was a reminder of Christ's suffering for humans, and how that example could lead to conversion. Wright argues that another point Bede is making is that it is because of the intercession of St Peter himself that the mission continued. David Farmer, in the Oxford Dictionary of Saints
Oxford Dictionary of Saints
The Oxford Dictionary of Saints by David Hugh Farmer is a concise reference compilation of information on more than 1300 saints. Published January 8, 1998 by Oxford University Press....
, suggests that the whipping story may been a blending of the Quo Vadis
Quo vadis
Quo vadis? is a Latin phrase meaning "Where are you going?" or "Whither goest thou?" The modern usage of the phrase refers to Christian tradition, related in the apocryphal Acts of Peter , in which Saint Peter meets Jesus as Peter is fleeing from likely crucifixion in Rome...
story with some information given by Jerome
Jerome
Saint Jerome was a Roman Christian priest, confessor, theologian and historian, and who became a Doctor of the Church. He was the son of Eusebius, of the city of Stridon, which was on the border of Dalmatia and Pannonia...
in a letter.
Modern historians have seen political overtones in the pagan reaction. The historian D. P. Kirby sees Eadbald's actions as a repudiation of his father's pro-Frankish
Franks
The Franks were a confederation of Germanic tribes first attested in the third century AD as living north and east of the Lower Rhine River. From the third to fifth centuries some Franks raided Roman territory while other Franks joined the Roman troops in Gaul. Only the Salian Franks formed a...
policies. Alcuin
Alcuin
Alcuin of York or Ealhwine, nicknamed Albinus or Flaccus was an English scholar, ecclesiastic, poet and teacher from York, Northumbria. He was born around 735 and became the student of Archbishop Ecgbert at York...
, a later medieval writer, wrote that Laurence was "censured by apostolic authority". This may have been a letter from Pope Adeodatus I
Pope Adeodatus I
Pope Saint Adeodatus I or Deodatus I was Pope from November 13, 615 to his death....
, commanding Laurence to stay in Kent. Kirby goes on to argue that it was Justus, not Laurence, who converted Eadbald, and this while Justus was archbishop, sometime around 624. Not all historians agree with this argument, however. Nicholas Brooks states that the king was converted during Laurence's archiepiscopate, within a year of him succeeding his father. The historian Barbara Yorke
Barbara Yorke
Barbara Yorke is a historian of Anglo-Saxon England.She studied history and archaeology at Exeter University, where she completed both her undergraduate degree and her Ph.D. She is currently Professor of Early Medieval History at the University of Winchester, and is a Fellow of the Royal...
argues that there were two co-rulers of Kent after Æthelberht's death, Eadbald and a Æthelwald, and that Eadbald was converted by Laurence while Æthelwald was converted by Justus after his return to Rochester. Another factor in the pagan reaction was Laurence's objection to Eadbald's marriage to his father's widow, something that Christians considered to be unlawful.
All efforts to extend the church beyond Kent encountered difficulties due to the attitude of King Rædwald of East Anglia, who had become the leading king in the south after Æthelberht's death. Rædwald was converted before the death of Æthelberht, perhaps at the urging of Æthelberht, but his kingdom was not, and Rædwald seems to have converted only to the extent of placing a Christian altar in his pagan temple. It proved impossible for Mellitus to return to London as bishop, although Justus did resume his duties at Rochester.
Death and legacy
Laurence died on 2 February 619, and was buried in the abbey of St Peter and Paul in Canterbury, later renamed St Augustine's; his relics, or remains, were moved, or translatedTranslation (relics)
In Christianity, the translation of relics is the removal of holy objects from one locality to another ; usually only the movement of the remains of the saint's body would be treated so formally, with secondary relics such as items of clothing treated with less ceremony...
, to the new church of St Augustine's in 1091. His shrine
Shrine
A shrine is a holy or sacred place, which is dedicated to a specific deity, ancestor, hero, martyr, saint, daemon or similar figure of awe and respect, at which they are venerated or worshipped. Shrines often contain idols, relics, or other such objects associated with the figure being venerated....
was in the axial chapel of the abbey church, flanking the shrine of Augustine, his predecessor. Laurence came to be regarded as a saint, and was given the feast day
Calendar of saints
The calendar of saints is a traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the feast day of said saint...
of 3 February. The ninth century Stowe Missal
Stowe Missal
The Stowe Missal, which is strictly speaking a sacramentary rather than a missal, is an Irish illuminated manuscript written mainly in Latin with some Gaelic in about 750. In the mid-11th century it was annotated and some pages rewritten at Lorrha Monastery in County Tipperary, Ireland...
commemorates his feast day, along with Mellitus and Justus. A Vita (or Life) was written about the time of his translation, by Goscelin
Goscelin
Goscelin of Saint-Bertin was a Benedictine hagiographical writer, born between 1020–1035 and who died shortly after 1107...
, but it is mainly based on information in Bede. His tomb was opened in 1915. Besides his feast day, the date of his translation, 13 September, was also celebrated after his death. Laurence's tenure as archbishop is mainly remembered for his failure to secure a settlement with the Celtic church, and for his reconversion of Eadbald following Æthelbert's death. He was succeeded as archbishop by Mellitus, the Bishop of London.
External links
- Laurence of Canterbury – listing of most contemporary and close to contemporary mentions of Laurence in the primary sourcePrimary sourcePrimary source is a term used in a number of disciplines to describe source material that is closest to the person, information, period, or idea being studied....
s. Includes some spurious charter listings. From the Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England project.