St. Adrian of Canterbury

St. Adrian of Canterbury was born in North Africa, most likely in the early seventh century, and became a monk and abbot in southern Italy, renowned for his learning in the Scriptures, in Greek and Latin, and in the sciences of his day. When the pope wished to send him as Archbishop of Canterbury to the English, he humbly declined the honor, but proposed instead the Greek monk Theodore of Tarsus, and agreed to accompany him to England as his helper and counselor about the year 668.

Settling at Canterbury as abbot of the monastery of Sts. Peter and Paul, later called St. Augustine's, Adrian made it one of the foremost centers of learning in early medieval Europe. Under his teaching, students came to be so well grounded in Latin and Greek, in Scripture, in Roman law, in poetry, astronomy, and the computation of the calendar, that the Venerable Bede could praise the golden age of English scholarship that flowed from his school. He labored there for nearly forty years and died about 710. He is venerated as a saint, his memory kept on 9 January.