Mellitus

Mellitus (/məˈlaɪtəs/; 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 Christianity.

Mellitus was the recipient of a famous letter from Pope Gregory I known as the Epistola ad Mellitum, preserved in a later work by the medieval chronicler Bede, which suggested the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons be undertaken gradually, integrating pagan rituals and customs.

Mellitus was exiled from London by the pagan successors to his patron, King Sæberht of Essex, following the latter's death around 616.

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

Wood feels that this wide appeal to the Frankish episcopate and royalty was an effort to secure more support for the Gregorian mission.

[3] Gregory's letter marked a sea change in the missionary strategy,[15] and was later included in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People.

[16] Usually known as the Epistola ad Mellitum,[17] it conflicts with the letter sent to Æthelberht, which the historian R. A. Markus sees as a turning point in missionary history, when forcible conversion gave way to persuasion.

[13] 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.

[22] Boniface had Mellitus take two papal letters back to England, one to Æthelbert and his people, and another to Laurence, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

[33] During his tenure as archbishop, Mellitus supposedly performed a miracle in 623 by diverting a fire that had started in Canterbury and threatened the church.

[24] Boniface wrote to Mellitus encouraging him in the mission, perhaps prompted by the marriage of Æthelburh of Kent to King Edwin of Northumbria.

[38] Shortly after the Norman Conquest, Goscelin wrote a life of Mellitus, the first of several to appear around that time, but none contain any information not included in Bede's earlier works.

These later medieval lives do, however, reveal that during Goscelin's lifetime persons suffering from gout were urged to pray at Mellitus' tomb.

[3] Goscelin records that Mellitus' shrine flanked that of Augustine, along with Laurence, in the eastern central chapel of the presbytery.