(died ’14 july 664′)
(‘king of kent’ from 640 – 664)
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(“eorcenberht of kent” (also Ærconberht, Earconberht, or Earconbert) (died ’14 july 664′) was king of the anglo-saxon ‘kingdom of kent’ from 640 until his death, succeeding his father ‘eadbald’)
(the ‘kentish royal legend’ (also known as the ‘mildrith legend’) suggests that he was the younger son of ‘eadbald’ and ’emma of austrasia’, and that his older brother ‘eormenred’ was deliberately passed over, although another possibility is that they ruled jointly)
(according to ‘bede’ (HE III.8), ‘eorcenberht’ was the first king in ‘britain’ to command that pagan “idols” (aka ‘cult images’) be destroyed and that ‘lent’ be observed)
(it has been suggested that these orders may have been officially committed to writing, in the tradition of ‘kentish law-codes’ initiated by Æthelberht, but no such text survives)
(after the death of ‘honorius’ (‘archbishop of canterbury’), Eorcenberht appointed the first ‘saxon’ archbishop (‘deusdedit’) in ‘655’)
(‘eorcenberht’ married ‘seaxburh’ of ‘ely’, daughter of ‘king anna of ‘east anglia”)
(they had 2 sons (‘ecgberht’ + ‘hlothhere’) who each consecutively became ‘king of kent’, and 2 daughters who both were eventually canonized: ‘saint eorcengota’ became a nun at ‘faremoutiers abbey’ on the continent, and ‘saint ermenilda’ became abbess at ‘ely’)
(‘eorcenberht’ was probably buried alongside his parents in the ‘church of ‘saint mary”, which his father had built in the precincts of the monastery of ‘saint peter’ and ‘saint paul’ in ‘canterbury’, a church later incorporated within the ‘norman edifice’ of ‘saint augustine’)
(at that time, his ‘relics’ were translated for ‘reburial’ in the ‘south transept’ ca. ‘1087 AD’)
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