Æthelberht ( also Æthelbert, Aethelberht, Aethelbert, or Ethelbert ) ( c. 560 – 24 February 616 ) was King of Kent from about 580 or 590 until his death.

He succeeded his brother, Æthelberht ( Ethelbert ), as King of Wessex and Kent in 865.

Æthelberht, Aethelbert or Ethelbert, is an Anglo-Saxon male name, from the Old English eþel meaning " noble " and berht meaning " bright ".

Æthelbert ( or Æthelberht, Aethelberht, Adalberht, Ælberht, Aelberht, Aldbert or Ethelbert ; died 8 November 780 ) was an eighth century scholar, teacher, priest and Archbishop of York.

* Saint Ethelbert the King ( Æthelberht II of East Anglia ) ( 794 )

He married Bertha, the Christian daughter of Charibert, king of the Franks, thus building an alliance with the most powerful state in contemporary Western Europe ; the marriage probably took place before Æthelberht came to the throne.

It also is possible that Bede had the date of Æthelberht ’ s death wrong ; if, in fact, Æthelberht died in 618, this would be consistent with his baptism in 597, which is in accord with the tradition that Augustine converted the king within a year of his arrival.

The extreme length of Æthelberht ’ s reign also has been regarded with skepticism by historians ; it has been suggested that he died in the fifty-sixth year of his life, rather than the fifty-sixth year of his reign.

It may be that Æthelberht was king of east Kent and Eadbald became king of west Kent ; the east Kent king seems generally to have been the dominant ruler later in Kentish history.

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.

Laurence faced a crisis following the death of King Æthelberht of Kent, when the king's successor abandoned Christianity ; he eventually reconverted.

Prior to 762 Kent was ruled by Æthelberht II and Eadberht I ; Eadberht's son Eardwulf is also recorded as a king.

King Æthelberht of Kent was traditionally said to have moved his royal court there from Canterbury in about 597, for example by John Duncombe in 1784, and to have built a palace on the site of the Roman ruins ; but archaeological excavation has shown no evidence of this, and the story has been described as probably a " pious legend ".

It was not, as with the continental Germanic tribes, that Æthelberht had the law written down in Latin ; rather, without precedent, he used his own native language, Old English, to express the ' dooms ', or laws and judgements, which had force in his kingdom.

To the first division belong the laws of the Kentish kings, Æthelberht, Hlothhere and Eadric, Withraed ; those of Ine of Wessex, of Alfred the Great, Edward the Elder, Æthelstan ( The Judicia civitatis Lundoniae are a guild statute confirmed by King Æthelstan ), Edmund I, Edgar, Æthelred and Cnut ; the treaty between Alfred and Guthrum and the so-called treaty between Edward and Guthrum.

For example, there were four sets that originated in the seventh century ; the first three were issued by the Kings of Kent: Æthelberht I, Hlothhere, Eadric and Wihtred: the Law of Æthelberht, the Law of Hlothhere and Eadric and the Law of Wihtred.

On arrival in the south east of England in AD 597, Augustine was given land by King Æthelberht of Kent to build a church ; so in 597 Augustine built the church and founded the See at Canterbury.

Æthelric was a king of the Hwicce and son of Oshere ; it is possible that he reigned jointly with Æthelheard, Æthelweard, and Æthelberht.

Æthelberht ( King of Kent and overlord of southern England according to Bede ) was in a position to exercise some authority in Essex shortly after 604, when his intervention helped in the conversion of King Saebert of Essex ( son of Sledd ), his nephew, to Christianity.

It was Æthelberht, and not Sæberht, who built and endowed St. Pauls in London, where St. Paul ’ s Cathedral now stands.

Shortly thereafter, Æthelberht was converted to Christianity, churches were established, and wider-scale conversion to Christianity began in the kingdom.

Kent was rich, with strong trade ties to the continent and, it may be that Æthelberht instituted royal control of trade.

Æthelberht later was canonised for his role in establishing Christianity among the Anglo-Saxons, as were his wife and daughter.

Bede was interested primarily in the Christianization of England, but since Æthelberht was the first Anglo-Saxon king to convert to Christianity, Bede provides more substantial information about him than about any earlier king.

According to Bede, Æthelberht was descended directly from Hengist.

The only direct written reference to Eormenric is in Kentish genealogies, but Gregory of Tours does mention that Æthelberht ’ s father was the king of Kent, though Gregory gives no date.

Augustine ’ s mission from Rome is known to have arrived in 597, and according to Bede, it was this mission that converted Æthelberht.

Putting together the different dates in the Chronicle for birth, death, and length of reign, it appears that Æthelberht ’ s reign was thought to have been either 560 – 616, or 565 – 618, but that the surviving sources have confused the two traditions.

It is possible that Æthelberht was converted to Christianity before Augustine ’ s arrival.

Æthelberht ’ s wife was a Christian and brought a Frankish bishop with her, to attend her at court, so Æthelberht would have had knowledge of Christianity before the mission reached Kent.

On the other hand, Gregory refers to Æthelberht at the time of his marriage to Bertha, simply as " a man of Kent ", and in the 589 passage concerning Ingoberg ’ s death, which was written in about 590 or 591, he refers to Æthelberht as " the son of the king of Kent ".

Another perspective on the marriage may be gained by considering that it is likely that Æthelberht was not yet king at the time he and Bertha were wed: it may be that Frankish support for him, acquired via the marriage, was instrumental in gaining the throne for him.

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.

Augustine needed more clergy to join the Gregorian mission that was converting the kingdom of Kent, then ruled by Æthelberht, from paganism to Christianity.

This traditional view, that the Epistola represents a contradiction of the letter to Æthelberht, has been challenged by the historian and theologian George Demacopoulos, who argues that the letter to Æthelberht was mainly meant to encourage the King in spiritual matters, while the Epistola was sent to deal with purely practical matters, and thus the two do not contradict each other.

Sculpture of King Æthelberht of Kent, an Anglo-Saxon king and saint, on Canterbury Cathedral in England. There are many indications of close relations between Kent and the Franks.

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.

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.

King Æthelberht of Kent, Mellitus ' other patron, died at about the same time, forcing him to take refuge in Gaul.

Along with the letter to Augustine, the missionaries brought a letter for Æthelberht, urging the King to act like the Roman Emperor Constantine I and force the conversion of his followers to Christianity.

The first recorded act of a witenagemot was the law code issued by King Æthelberht of Kent ca.

He also became the overlord of East Anglia, and had King Æthelberht II of East Anglia beheaded in 794, perhaps for rebelling against him.

In 862 and 863 he issued charters as King of the West Saxons, which must have been as deputy or in the absence of his elder brother, King Æthelberht, as there is no record of conflict between them and he continued to witness his brother's charters as Ætheling.

In 597 AD, Pope Gregory the Great sent Augustine to convert King Æthelberht of Kent to Christianity.

She was the daughter of King Edwin of Northumbria and Æthelburg, who in turn was the daughter of King Æthelberht of Kent.

He was the son of King Æthelberht and his wife Bertha, a daughter of the Merovingian king Charibert.

* King Æthelberht of Hwicce ( late 7th century )

* King Alberht of East Anglia ( 8th century ), also Æthelberht I of East Anglia

* King Æthelberht II of East Anglia ( died 794 )