19), the reality of his imperium is well documented. By 601 when Pope Gregory wrote to him, Aethelberht’s authority evidently transcended the boundaries of his own kingdom. The pope urged him to extend the Christian faith not only among his own people but among the kings and peoples subject to him. That Aethelberht was an overlord is thereby established as the central known fact of Anglo-Saxon political life c. Moreover, Bede provides information which serves to delineate more precisely the areas 29 — The Earliest English Kings — which, in varying degrees, recognized Aethelberht’s supremacy. Telstra Prepaid Wireless Broadband Activation.

20 Because it was generally accepted by historians that Bertha’s husband was king of Kent across most of the second half of the sixth century, Gregory’s failure to mention Aethelberht specifically was ascribed to his ignorance of English affairs, but if Bede’s fifty-six years for Aethelberht does represent his age at death and not his regnal length, the date of his accession is unknown. Gregory’s second statement presumably reflects how Bertha was spoken of either when Gregory wrote or, perhaps more probably, how Ingoberg referred to her daughter when Gregory saw her in 589, and what it shows is not that Aethelberht was king of Kent at the time, but that his father was. Moreover, Gregory’s earlier description of Bertha as married to a man of Kent, without reference even to the fact that her husband was the son of a king, indicates that at the time this was written Eormenric himself was not yet king. Consequently, contrary to the Bedan image of Aethelberht as king from 560 to 616, the indications from Gregory are that Aethelberht’s father was not reigning at the time of the marriage c.