Feastday : January 9
Died : January 9
Died : January 9
Born in Africa, Adrian became abbot of the monastery at Nerida, near Naples. He declined an appointment as archbishop of Canterbury, but accompanied St. Theodore to England when the latter was appointed Archbishop. Theodore appointed him Abbot
of SS. Peter and Paul Monastery (later changed to St. Augustine's) in
Canterbury, and during his thirty-nine years' abbacy, the monastery
became renowned as a center of learning. He died on January 9 in
Canterbury, and his tomb soon became famous for the miracles wrought there.
from Wikipedia
Saint Adrian (or Hadrian) of Canterbury (died 710) was a famous scholar and the Abbot of St Augustine's Abbey in Canterbury in the English county of Kent.
Life
According to Bede, he was a Berber native of North Africa, and abbot of a monastery near Naples, called Monasterium Niridanum (perhaps a mistake for Nisidanum, as being situated on the island of Nisida). He was offered the vacant archbishopric of Canterbury, by Pope Vitalian
(twice), but modestly declined the appointment. He first recommended
that it should be given to Andrew, a monk belonging to a neighbouring
nunnery (monachum quemdam de vicino virginum monasterio), who
also declined on the plea of advanced years. Then, when the offer was
again made to Adrian, he introduced to the pontiff his friend Theodore of Tarsus, who then chanced to be at Rome, and who consented to undertake the charge. Vitalian, however, stipulated that Adrian should accompany the new archbishop to Britain. He gave as his reasons that Adrian, having twice before made a journey into Gaul, knew the road and the mode of travelling.
The two set out from Rome on May 27, 668, and proceeding by sea to Marseille, crossed the country to Arles, where they remained with John, the archbishop, till they got passports from Ebroin, who ruled that part of Gaul as Mayor of the Palace, for the minor king Clotaire III.
Having then made their way together to the north of France, they parted
company, and went severally to reside for the winter, Theodore with Agelberctus, bishop of Paris, Adrian first with Emmon, bishop of Sens, and afterwards with Faro, bishop of Meaux. Theodore, being sent for in the following spring by King Ecgberht of Kent,
was allowed to take his departure, and he reached England in the end of
May, 669; but Adrian was detained by order of Ebroin, who is said to
have suspected him of being an emissary of the Greek emperor sent to
stir up troubles against the kingdom of the Franks. At length, however,
the tyrant became convinced that there was no ground for this notion,
and Adrian was permitted to proceed to England, where, immediately on
his arrival, he was made abbot of the monastery of St. Peter (afterwards called St. Augustine's Abbey)
at Canterbury, an appointment which was in conformity with instructions
given by the pope to Theodore. Such is the account given in the Ecclesiastical History (iv. 1.). Adrian was known to be a man learned in the Bible, as well as Greek and Latin, and an excellent administrator. Under his direction the abbey came to have substantial, far-reaching influence.
In another account, also attributed to Bede, in his Lives of the Abbots of Wearmouth, it is stated that Adrian was not made abbot till after the resignation of Benedict Biscop,
who is made to have accompanied Theodore all the way from Rome, and to
have been immediately on their arrival appointed to this place, which he
appears to have held for about two years. The facts in the two
relations are not perhaps absolutely irreconcilable; but they are
strangely dissimilar in manner, and in the circumstances which they
respectively notice, to have come from the same pen. Bede describes
Adrian (or Hadrian, as he calls him in the Ecclesiastical History),
as not only a distinguished theologian, but eminently accomplished in
secular learning; he and Theodore, we are told, traversing all parts of
the island, gathered multitudes of scholars around them wherever they
appeared, and employed themselves daily with equal diligence and success
in instructing those who flocked to them not only in the truths of
religion but in the several branches of science and literature then
cultivated. Bede particularly mentions the metrical art, astronomy, and
arithmetic (which may be considered as representing what we should now
call rhetoric and the belles lettres, physical science, and
mathematics); and he adds, that while he wrote (in the early part of the
eighth century), there still remained some of the pupils of Theodore
and Adrian, who spoke the Greek and Latin languages as readily as their
native tongue. A record of the teaching of Theodore and Adrian is
preserved in the Leiden Glossary.
To the flourishing state of learning thus introduced into England,
and for a short time maintained, King Alfred appears to allude in the
preface to his translation of Pope Gregory I's Liber Pastoralis Curae,
in the latter part of the ninth century, where he says that it often
came into his mind what wise men there were in the country, both laymen
and ecclesiastics, in a former age; how the clergy in those happy times
were diligent both to teach and to study, and how foreigners then came
hither to acquire learning and wisdom; whereas now, in his own day, if
any Englishman desired to make himself a scholar, he was obliged to go
abroad for instruction. Adrian, long surviving his friend the
archbishop, is said to have lived for thirty-nine years after he came to
England, continuing till his death to preside over the monastery at
Canterbury. (Bede, Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum iv. 1,
2.; and Vita Abbatum Wiramuth., in Smith's Beda, p. 293.; W. Malmes. De
Pontif. p. 340.) He died on January 9 which is now his feast day. He is buried in the church of the monastery.