Biography
Peter of Canterbury
About Peter of Canterbury
Peter, also called Petrus, was a monk and priest associated with Augustine’s mission to England. He became the first abbot of the Canterbury monastery dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul, later known as St Augustine’s Abbey.
Bede records that Augustine sent the priest Laurence and the monk Peter to Rome to tell Pope Gregory that the English had received Christianity and Augustine had become their bishop. Peter’s service connected the mission in Kent with the church that had sent it.
On a later mission to Gaul, Peter drowned in the bay called Amfleat, near Boulogne. Bede tells how local people first buried the unidentified traveler humbly. According to his account, a light appeared above the grave at night, prompting inquiries and an honorable reburial in a church at Boulogne.
The precise chronology remains uncertain. William Hunt’s Dictionary of National Biography explains that the proposed death year depends on disputed dating of Augustine’s death. Hunt also rejects two charters naming Peter as spurious and cautions against relying on much later stories of his preaching and miracles.
Peter’s memory continued to matter at medieval Canterbury. Historian Paul Antony Hayward interprets Eadmer’s later Life of Peter in the context of rivalry between Christ Church Cathedral and St Augustine’s Abbey over jurisdiction. The work’s treatment of the founding abbot formed part of that struggle for authority.
The Catholic Church in Norway records recognition of Peter’s cult in 1915 and lists his commemoration on 1 June. Older English and Benedictine martyrological traditions cited by Hunt give 6 January and 30 December.
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