Liudhard

Liudhard or Letard was a French bishop – of where is unclear – and the chaplain of Queen Bertha of Kent, whom she brought with her from the continent upon her marriage to King Æthelberht of Kent. He helped found the first Christian Saxon church in England in Canterbury, which was originally dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours.

He is believed to have died in the late 590s, soon after the arrival of Saint Augustine, but Bede fails to mention him in any detail. He was originally buried in St Martin's Church, but Archbishop Laurence of Canterbury had his remains removed and buried in the Abbey Church of St Peter and St Paul in the early 7th century. He was regarded locally as a saint, and Goscelin recounts the story of a miracle he performed to help the eleventh-century artist and abbot Spearhafoc, who in thanks adorned his tomb, with "statues of enormous size and beauty" of the saint and Bertha.

Sources

• St. Martin Church in Canterbury
• Dodwell, C.R.; Anglo-Saxon Art, A New Perspective, 1982, Manchester UP, ISBN 071900926X. Miracle, p. 213
• ABC Dunbar. (1904). Dictionary of Saintly Women.