Æthelred and Æthelberht
princes of the Kingdom of Kent
Saints Æthelred and Æthelberht (also Ethelred, Ethelbert) according to the Kentish royal legend (attested in the 11th century) were princes of the Kingdom of Kent who were murdered in around AD 669, and later commemorated as saints and martyrs. Their story forms an important element in the legend of Saint Mildrith, because the monastery of Minster in Thanet is said to have been founded in atonement for the crime.
Historical context
King Eorcenberht of Kent seized the rule of Kent in 640 in precedence to his elder brother Eormenred. Both were sons of Eadbald of Kent (r. c. 616–640). The legend, contained in a Latin Passio, tells that Eormenred and his wife Oslafa had several children including the two sons Aethelred and Aethelberht, and a daughter Eormenbeorg, also known as Domne Eafe. Eafe married Merewalh, ruler of the Maegonsaetan, a people situated in the west Midlands in the Shropshire area. King Eorcenberht married Seaxburh, daughter of King Anna of East Anglia, and ruled as a Christian king: he was the first ruler to order the abandonment and destruction of idols throughout his kingdom, and to establish the forty days' fast of Lent to be observed by royal authority (Bede, Ecclesiastical History of the English People, iii,8). He had two sons, Ecgberht and Hlothhere, and two daughters, Eormenhild and Eorcongota.
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This entry incorporates text from “Æthelred and Æthelberht” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.