Chapter XXXIII

St. Austin repairs St. Saviour's Church, and builds the Monastery of St. Peter. Of the first Abbot of the name of Peter whom he appointed to govern the said Monastery.

After St. Austin had established his Episcopal See in the royal city of Canterbury, as we have before related, he, by the authority and assistance of the king, recovered a church which had been erected there by some of the ancient Romans, who were Christians, and dedicated it to the holy name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. He also appointed a residence for himself and all his successors in the same place: besides which, he built a monastery, not far from the city, on the east side of it. Adjoining to which, by his advice, king Ethelbert erected the church of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and endowed it with various gifts, designing it to be a place of interment for himself and St. Austin, as well as of all the archbishops of Canterbury and kings of Kent: which church, however, was not consecrated by St. Austin, but by his successor St. Laurence. The first abbot of this monastery was a priest by the name of Peter, who, going on a message to Gaul, was shipwrecked and drowned in the bay of Ampleat. His body being afterwards found, by the inhabitants of the town of the same name, on the sea coast, was at first buried in an obscure place: but Almighty God, to show how great was the merit of this his servant, caused a light to appear every night over his grave, till the neighbours, considering that this might have been sent as a demonstration of his sanctity, made diligent enquiry concerning the person who lay buried there, and of what country he had been, and then conveyed away his body, and interred it in a church at Boulogne, with all the honour due to so great a man.