Mellitus

Mellitus (died 24 April 624) was a monk of the Roman church who became the first bishop of London in the Anglo-Saxon period and later the third Archbishop of Canterbury. He belonged to the Gregorian mission sent by Pope Gregory the Great to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons of Britain. Almost nothing verifiable is known of his birth, family, or early years; he enters the historical record as a member of the monastic circle associated with Gregory and as leader of a second party of missionaries dispatched from Rome in 601 to reinforce Augustine of Canterbury. That group, which included Justus and Paulinus among others, brought liturgical vessels, relics, books, and letters from Gregory, including pastoral replies that shaped the young English church.

In 604 Augustine consecrated Mellitus bishop for the East Saxons, with his see in London. King Sæberht of Essex accepted baptism, and under royal protection Mellitus established a church dedicated to Saint Paul on the site later occupied by St Paul’s Cathedral. The conversion of Essex did not survive the king. After Sæberht’s death, usually placed around 616, his sons, who remained pagan, demanded the sacramental bread they had seen their father receive. Mellitus refused to give the Eucharist to the unbaptized and was driven from the kingdom. He withdrew to Kent and then, with Justus of Rochester, crossed to Gaul, before Laurence of Canterbury recalled him to Britain.

Mellitus succeeded Laurence as Archbishop of Canterbury in 619. Pope Boniface V sent him the pallium, confirming metropolitan authority, and also wrote to King Edwin of Northumbria and to Edwin’s Christian queen Æthelburh in support of the northern mission. Bede, the principal narrative source for Mellitus’s career, records that the archbishop suffered from gout and that he was credited with checking a fire that threatened Canterbury: carried to the scene, he is said to have turned the flames aside by prayer. He died on 24 April 624 and was buried in the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul at Canterbury, later known as St Augustine’s Abbey, near the tomb of Augustine.

He was venerated as a saint from an early date, with his feast kept on 24 April, the day of his death. Later medieval calendars and Canterbury commemorations preserved his cult. No contemporary evidence records a spouse or children; his documented life is that of a monk and bishop. Surviving knowledge of him depends overwhelmingly on Bede’s Ecclesiastical History, on papal letters transmitted in that work, and on later Canterbury tradition.