Justus

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.

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.

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.

[9] 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".

[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.

Written mostly in Latin but using an Old English boundary clause, the charter records a land grant near Rochester to Justus's church.

[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.

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.

[31] Other historians, including Barbara Yorke and Henry Mayr-Harting, conclude that Bede's account is correct, and that Eadbald was converted by Laurence.

[36] In the 1090s, his remains were translated, or ritually moved, to a shrine beside the high altar of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury.

[37][d] 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.