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Petrus, Abbat of Saint Augustine's Monastery

Wace's Dictionary of Early Christian Biography

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Petrus (72), first abbat of the monastery of SS. Peter and Paul, commonly called St. Augustine's, Canterbury. He was probably one of the monks who accompanied Augustine on his first journey, and therefore probably a monk of the monastery of St. Andrew at Rome. He is first mentioned by Bede ( H. E. i. 25) as joined with Laurentius in the mission which Augustine after his consecration sent to Rome to announce that the Gospel had been accepted by the English, and that he had been made bishop, and to put before the pope the questions which drew forth the famous "Responsiones Sancti Gregorii." He must have returned some time before the death of Augustine and been appointed or designated by him and Ethelbert as the future head of the monastery, which at his request Ethelbert was building outside the walls of Canterbury. The building was not finished when Augustine died, but Laurentius, his successor, consecrated the new church and Peter became the first abbat. If the Canterbury computation be accepted, and on such a point it may not be baseless, Peter must have perished in the winter of 606 or of 607 at the latest. There is a notice of him in Mabillon's Acta SS. O.S.B. saec. i. pt. i. p. 1; and the Bollandist Acts, Jan. t. i. pp. 335, 336.

See Gotselinus, de Translatione Sti. Augustini , ap. Mab. Acta SS. O.S.B. t. ix. p. 760; Elmham, ed. Hardwick, pp. 92–126; Thorn, cc. 1761, 1766; Hardy, Catalogue of Materials; etc. i. 206, 207; Monasticon Angl. i. 120.

[S.]