Privilegium Abbatiae Cantauriensis A Sancto Augustino Datum

Privilege of the Abbey of Canterbury Given by Saint Augustine — Augustine, Apostle of the English Augustine, bishop of the see of Dorobernia, servant, whom, with supernal clemency inspiring, the most blessed Pope Gregory sent as legate and minister for acquiring the English people for God; to all his successor bishops, and to all kings of England with their posterity, and to all the faithful of God, peace and salvation in faith and grace. It is evident to all that the king Athelbertus, beloved of God, first of the English kings consecrated to the kingdom of Christ, at our instigation and with his own lavish benevolence, among the other churches and episcopal sees which he founded, royally established a monastery outside his metropolis of Dorobernia, in honor of the chief apostles Peter and Paul, and enriched and magnified it with royal wealth and ample possessions, and fortified it with perpetual liberty and every royal right, with all things and judgments, within and without, pertaining to it, and confirmed it by his own royal privilege and the imprecation of divine judgment, and by the apostolic excommunicatory threat of the holy Pope Gregory, against every injury.

I also, as a helper and protector of that same liberty, implore all my successors the archbishops, and all ecclesiastical or secular powers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and the reverence of his apostles, and by the apostolic threat of our aforementioned Father, I forbid, lest anyone ever presume to usurp any power, or dominion, or authority over this lordly or apostolic monastery, or the lands, or the churches belonging to it, nor by any condition of subjugation or servitude or tribute, whether in great or in small matters, disturb or oppress the servants of God. Let him ordain an abbot elected by his brothers in that same monastery not for his own service, but for the Lord’s ministry, and let him persuade him to obey not himself but God; and let him consider him not as subject to himself, but as a brother, a companion, a colleague, and a fellow minister in the Lord’s work. Let him not there celebrate masses as if at an altar of his own jurisdiction, nor perform ordinations or blessings usurpatively without the petition of the abbot or the brothers; let him claim no customary right for himself, even in the most trivial matter, so that in the peace of concord they may be one in lordship on both sides, and lest anyone, which God forbid, fall into the judgment of the devil through the discord of domination, who fell from heaven by the tyranny of pride. “The kings of the nations,” says the Lord, “rule over them, but you not so.

And since tributes are received from outsiders, not from sons, the Lord himself concludes, therefore the sons are free. With what irreverence, then, do the fathers of churches claim dominion for themselves over the sons of the kingdom of God, and especially over this Church, the treasury of the saints, in whose maternal womb we hope the bodies of so many pontiffs of Dorobernia and of kings and princes are to be cherished and refreshed by the repose of burial, by apostolic authority, and from there to be raised to eternal glory. If anyone, not fearing to offend such friends of the supreme judge, should violate the statutes of this privilege, or, imitating a violator, should maintain his own force, let him know that he is to be punished by the apostolic sword of blessed Peter through his vicar Gregory, unless he makes amends.

Therefore, we decree that all these things, as they are written here, are to be preserved by the approval and authority of our apostolic founder Gregory himself, and we confirm them by his own mouth, in the presence of the glorious King Athelbert with his son Ethelbald, and with all the royal nobles applauding together with him, and with the most reverend brothers of ours, who were sent here with me or to me in the Gospel of the Lord from the holy Roman Church, willingly and of their own accord—namely, Laurence, whom, with God’s favor, we have appointed as our successor, and Mellitus, bishop of London, and Justus, bishop of Rochester, and Peter, the venerable first abbot of the same monastery of the chief apostles, together with my other helpers in the Lord earnestly requesting, and at the same time pronouncing a blessing upon those who faithfully preserve these things, or, upon the unrepentant transgressors—which we do not wish—a condemnation.