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= Justus =
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Introduction
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Justus (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 Christianise the Anglo-Saxons from
their native paganism; he probably arrived with the second group of
missionaries despatched in 601. Justus became the first bishop of
Rochester in 604 and signed a letter to the Irish bishops urging the
native Celtic church to adopt the Roman method of calculating the date
of Easter. He 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, he was elevated to 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, to which his remains were translated in the 1090s.
Arrival in Britain
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Justus was a member of the Gregorian mission 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' of Bede. As Bede does not describe Justus's origins, nothing
is known about him before he arrived in England. He probably arrived
in England with the second group of missionaries, sent at the request
of Augustine of Canterbury in 601. Some modern writers describe Justus
as one of the original missionaries who arrived with Augustine in 597,
but Bede believed that Justus came in the second group. The second
group included Mellitus, who later became Bishop of London and
Archbishop of Canterbury.
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". A 15th-century Canterbury
chronicler, Thomas of Elmham, claimed that there were some 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, now in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Manuscript
(MS) 286.
Bishop of Rochester
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Augustine consecrated Justus as a bishop in 604 over a province
including the Kentish town of Rochester. 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. Because Justus was probably
not a monk (Bede did not call him that), his cathedral clergy was very
likely non-monastic too.
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's church. 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, a usage parallelled by
other charters in the same archive.
Wilhelm Levison, writing in 1946, was sceptical about the authenticity
of this charter. He felt that the two separate addresses were
incongruous, suggesting 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 they incorporate titles and
phraseology that had fallen out of use by 800.
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. 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 Celtic church to adopt the Roman method of
calculating the date of Easter (the 'computus'). This letter also
mentioned the fact that Irish missionaries, such as Dagan, had refused
to share meals with the missionaries. Although the letter has not
survived, Bede quoted from parts of it.
In 614, Justus attended the Council of Paris, held by the Frankish
king, Chlothar II. It is unclear why Justus and Peter, the abbot of
Sts Peter and Paul in Canterbury, were present. It may have been just
chance, but the historian James Campbell has suggested that Chlothar
summoned clergy from Britain to attend in an attempt to assert
overlordship over Kent. 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.
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. According to Bede, Justus received letters of
encouragement from Pope Boniface V (r. 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.
Archbishop
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Justus became Archbishop of Canterbury in 624, receiving his
pallium—the symbol of the jurisdiction entrusted to archbishops—from
Pope Boniface V, following which Justus consecrated Romanus 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'. Bede's account of Eadbald's conversion
states that it was Laurence, Justus's predecessor at Canterbury, who
converted the king to Christianity, but D. P. Kirby argues that the
letter's reference to Eadbald makes it likely that it was Justus.
Other historians, including Barbara Yorke and Henry Mayr-Harting,
conclude that Bede's account is correct, and that Eadbald was
converted by Laurence. 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.
Justus consecrated Paulinus as the first bishop of York, before the
latter accompanied Æthelburg of Kent to Northumbria for her marriage
to King Edwin of Northumbria. 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. After his death, Justus was regarded as a saint,
and was given a feast day on 10 November. The 9th-century Stowe Missal
commemorates his feast day, along with Mellitus and Laurence. In the
1090s, his remains were translated, 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, as well as
a poem by Reginald of Canterbury. Other material from Thomas of
Elmham, Gervase of Canterbury, and William of Malmesbury, later
medieval chroniclers, adds little to Bede's account of Justus's life.
See also
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* List of members of the Gregorian mission
License
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