This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... prelates and others. It was on the road to Rutupias, the port of embarkation for Gaul, now Richborough, from Ethelbert's capital, and it has been suggested that it was intended to make an English Appian Way. In a very few years Ethelbert determined to establish in the same place a monastery under the ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1908 edition. Excerpt: ... prelates and others. It was on the road to Rutupias, the port of embarkation for Gaul, now Richborough, from Ethelbert's capital, and it has been suggested that it was intended to make an English Appian Way. In a very few years Ethelbert determined to establish in the same place a monastery under the patronage of SS. Peter and Paul. This was in 605, but in 613 the church was dedicated to St Laurence, and the body of St Augustine was transported hither and buried in the porch. From this time the renown of the place increased since it became known as the burial place of the illustrious dead; and almost from the first the monastery became known as St Augustine's Abbey. Its early greatness was undoubtedly due to the fame of those who were buried in the church, and until the death of Archbishop Cuthbert in 758, all the Archbishops of Canterbury had their last resting-places at St Augustine's, which was known as the Mater primaria, the "first mother" of all such English institutions. Indeed, long after it had ceased to hold its pre-eminence as a place of sepulture, popes speak of it as "the firstborn," the "first and chief mother of monasteries in England," and as "the Roman chapel in England," whilst the archbishops are warned if they visit it, not to do so as its prelate or with authority, but as the brother of the monks. Whilst the abbot of St Albans had the papal grant permitting him to sit first in all English meetings of the Benedictine Order, the abbot of St Augustine's was privileged by Pope Leo IX to sit among the Benedictine prelates in general councils next to the abbot of Monte Cassino. As I have said, it was undoubtedly the presence of the illustrious and sainted dead which gave such renown to the abbey, and in particular it...
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