Editing Æthelberht of Kent (section)

==Ancestry, accession and chronology==
According to Bede, Æthelberht was descended directly from Hengist. Bede gives the line of descent as follows: "Ethelbert was son of Irminric, son of Octa, and after his grandfather Oeric, surnamed Oisc, the kings of the Kentish folk are commonly known as Oiscings. The father of Oeric was Hengist."<ref name=Bede_112>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book II, Ch. 5, from Sherley-Price's translation, p. 112.</ref> An alternative form of this genealogy, found in the ''[[Historia Brittonum]]'' among other places, reverses the position of Octa and Oisc in the lineage.<ref name=Yorke_26 /> The first of these names that can be placed historically with reasonable confidence is Æthelberht's father, whose name now usually is spelled Eormenric. The only direct written reference to Eormenric is in Kentish genealogies, but Gregory of Tours does mention that Æthelberht's father was the king of Kent, though Gregory gives no date. Eormenric's name provides a hint of connections to the kingdom of the Franks, across the English channel; the element "[[Irmin (disambiguation)|Eormen]]" was rare in names of the Anglo-Saxon aristocracy, but much more common among Frankish nobles.<ref name=Yorke_28>Yorke, ''Kings and Kingdoms'', p. 28.</ref> One other member of Æthelberht's family is known: his sister, Ricole, who is recorded by both Bede and the ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' as the mother of [[Sæberht of Essex|Sæberht]], [[Kingdom of Essex|king of the East Saxons]] (i.e., Essex).<ref name="Swanton_12" /><ref name="Bede_108">Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book II, Ch. 3, from Sherley-Price's translation, p. 108.</ref>

The dates of Æthelberht's birth and accession to the throne of Kent are both matters of debate. Bede, the earliest source to give dates, is thought to have drawn his information from correspondence with Albinus. Bede states that when Æthelberht died in 616 he had reigned for fifty-six years, placing his accession in 560. Bede also says that Æthelberht died twenty-one years after his baptism. Augustine's mission from Rome is known to have arrived in 597, and according to Bede, it was this mission that converted Æthelberht.<ref name=Bede_74>Bede, ''Ecclesiastical History'', Book I, Ch. 25 & 26, from Sherley-Price's translation, pp. 74–77.</ref> Hence Bede's dates are inconsistent. The ''Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'', an important source for early dates, is inconsistent with Bede and also has inconsistencies among different manuscript versions. Putting together the different dates in the ''Chronicle'' for birth, death and length of reign, it appears that Æthelberht's reign was thought to have been either 560–616 or 565–618 but that the surviving sources have confused the two traditions.<ref name=Kirby_31>Kirby (''Earliest English Kings'', pp. 31–3) provides an extended discussion of the difficult chronology of Æthelberht's reign.</ref>

It is possible that Æthelberht was converted to Christianity before Augustine's arrival. Æthelberht's wife was a Christian and brought a Frankish [[Bishops in the Catholic Church|bishop]] with her, to attend her at court, so Æthelberht would have had knowledge of Christianity before the mission reached Kent. It also is possible that Bede had the date of Æthelberht's death wrong; if, in fact, Æthelberht died in 618, this would be consistent with his baptism in 597, which is in accord with the tradition that Augustine converted the king within a year of his arrival.<ref name=Kirby_31 />

Gregory of Tours, in his ''Historia Francorum'', writes that [[Bertha of Kent|Bertha]], daughter of Charibert I, king of the Franks, married the son of the king of Kent. Bede says that Æthelberht received Bertha "from her parents". If Bede is interpreted literally, the marriage would have had to take place before 567, when Charibert died. The traditions for Æthelberht's reign, then, would imply that Æthelberht married Bertha before either 560 or 565.<ref name=Bede_74/><ref name=Kirby_31 />

The extreme length of Æthelberht's reign also has been regarded with skepticism by historians; it has been suggested that he died in the fifty-sixth year of his life, rather than the fifty-sixth year of his reign. This would place the year of his birth approximately at 560, and he would not then have been able to marry until the mid 570s. According to Gregory of Tours, Charibert was king when he married Ingoberg, Bertha's mother, which places that marriage no earlier than 561. It therefore is unlikely that Bertha was married much before about 580. These later dates for Bertha and Æthelberht also solve another possible problem: Æthelberht's daughter, [[Æthelburh of Kent|Æthelburh]], seems likely to have been Bertha's child, but the earlier dates would have Bertha aged sixty or so at Æthelburh's likely birthdate using the early dates.<ref name=Kirby_31 />

Gregory, however, also says that he thinks that Ingoberg was seventy years old in 589; and this would make her about forty when she married Charibert. This is possible, but seems unlikely, especially as Charibert seems to have had a preference for younger women, again according to Gregory's account. This would imply an earlier birth date for Bertha. On the other hand, Gregory refers to Æthelberht at the time of his marriage to Bertha simply as "a man of Kent", and in the 589 passage concerning Ingoberg's death, which was written in about 590 or 591, he refers to Æthelberht as "the son of the king of Kent". If this does not simply reflect Gregory's ignorance of Kentish affairs, which seems unlikely given the close ties between Kent and the Franks, then some assert that Æthelberht's reign cannot have begun before 589.<ref name=Kirby_31 /><ref name=GTours>IV 25 and IX 25 in {{cite book |author= Gregory of Tours|title= The History of the Franks|pages=219, 513|year= 1974|publisher= Penguin|isbn=0-14-044295-2}}</ref>

While all of the contradictions above cannot be reconciled, the most probable dates that may be drawn from available data place Æthelberht's birth at approximately 560 and, perhaps, his marriage to Bertha at 580. His reign is most likely to have begun in 589 or 590.<ref name=Kirby_31 />