E06969
Documentary texts - Charter or diploma
Documentary texts - Letter
Privilege of Pope Agatho (JE not listed; JH ?3467) (excerpts)
Agatho episcopus, seruus seruorum Dei, Adriano religioso abbati monasterii sanctorum apostolorum Petri ac Pauli quod ab Athelberto primo Christiano rege Anglorum fundatam, iuxta Doroverniae metropolitanam civitatem est situm [...] postulatis a nobis quatenus uestrum monasterium supranominatum priuilegio apostolico decoretur, ut sub jurisdicione sanctae nostrae, cui, Deo auctore deseruimus, ecclesiae constitutum, nullius alterius ecclesiae dicioni in posterum submittatur [...]
'Agatho, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to Hadrian, religious abbot of the monastery of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, founded by Æthelbert, the first Christian king of the English, which is located next to the metropolitan city of Canterbury ... You have asked from us that your aforenamed monastery might be honoured by an apostolic privilege, so that it might be submitted under the jurisdiction of our holy church in which, by God's authority, we serve, and that of no other church henceforth ...'
Text: Birch 1885-93, no. 38.
Translation: B. Savill.
Monastery
Non Liturgical ActivityAwarding privileges to cult centres
Construction of cult buildings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - Popes
Ecclesiastics - abbots
Monarchs and their family
Source
This privilege survives in three copies of the 12th and 13th centuries; its extant dating clause is corrupt. While the core text of the document is not completely reliable in its current form, since the studies of Levison (1946) and Anton (1975) it has usually been treated as essentially authentic.Discussion
This monastery at Canterbury would later become known as St Augustine's, after its founder Augustine, first bishop of Canterbury (597-?609).Unlike the earliest charters for this monastery, which only record a dedication to Peter (E05863, E05865, E05866, E05867) this text appears to corroborate Bede (Ecclesiastical History 1.33) by mentioning a joint dedication to Paul. It is not clear, however, if this is an original feature of the text, or a later interpolation. The reference in the opening address to Æthelbert, 'the first Christian king of the English', is even more dubious, and probably a later insertion.
Bibliography
Edition:Cartularium Saxonicum: A Collection of Charters Relating to Anglo-Saxon History, ed. W. de Gray Birch, 3 vols. (London, 1885-93).
Further reading
Anton, H.H. Studien zu den Klosterprivilegien der Päpste im frühen Mittelalter unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Privilegierung von St. Maurice d'Agaune (Berlin and New York, 1975).
Kelly, S.E., "Some Forgeries in the Archive of St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury," in: H. Fuhrmann (ed.), Fälschungen im Mittelalter (Hannover, 1988), vol. 4, 36-62.
Levison, W., England and the Continent in the Eighth Century: The Ford Lectures Delievered in the University of Oxford in the Hilary Term, 1943 (Oxford, 1946).
Benjamin Savill
22/10/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00008 | Paul, the Apostle | Paulus | Certain | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain |
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