Online Encyclopedia
Make a correction
Your email address will not appear on the site. Note, comments may take some time to be approved.
Back to article:
EADBALD (d. 64o)
Your email:
Article name:
Article content:
EADBALD (d. 64o), king of Kent, succeeded to the throne on the death of his father AEthelberht in 616. He had not been influenced by the teaching of the Christian missionaries, and his first step on his accession was to marry his father's widow. After his subsequent conversion by Laurentius, archbishop of Canterbury, he recalled the bishops Mellitus and Justus, and built a church dedicated to the Virgin at Canterbury. He arranged a marriage between his sister fEthelberg and Edwin of Northumbria, on whose defeat and death in 633 he received his sister and Paulinus, and offered the latter the bishopric of Rochester. Eadbald married Emma, a Frankish princess, and died on the loth of January 64o. See Bede, Historia ecclesiastica (ed. C. Plummer, Oxford, 1896) ; Saxon Chronicle (ed. J. Earle and C. Plummer, Oxford, 1899).