From  the  accounts  Bede  gives  of  the  conference
with  the  British  bishops  at  Aust,^  it  would  seem
that  the  meeting  was  held  in  a  district  under  the
supreme  control  of  iEthelberht,  which  would  carry
his  immediate  rule  as  far  west  as  Herefordshire  and
Worcestershire,  and  it  would  seem  that  he  was,  in
fact,  acknowledged  as  supreme  chief  in  all  eastern,
central,  and  southern  England,  and  as  far  north  as
the  H  umber.
His  principal  residence  and  palace  was  outside
the  walls  of  Durovernum  or  Canterbury  (the  Can-
twara-byrig  of  the  Anglo-Saxons),  which  Bede  calls
his  metropolis  {metropolis  sua).  It  still  remains
ecclesiastically  the  metropolis  of  Britain,  and  a  few
paragraphs  may  be  opportunely  devoted  to  it

Mr.  T.  G.  Godfrey  Faussett,  in  his  valuable
memoir  on  Canterbury  before  Domesday^  of  which
I  gladly  avail  myself,  points  out  how,  in  the
Itinerary  of  Antonine,  Durovernum  is  the  last  stage
on  the  great  Roman  road  leading  from  London  to
the  three  Kentish  harbour  fortresses.  At  Duro-
vernum that  road  divided  into  three :  one  gaining
the  harbour  of  Ritupis,  or  Richborough,  in  twelve
miles ;  another,  Dubrae,  i.e.  Dover,  in  fourteen  miles ;
and  the  third,  Lemanae,  or  Lympne,  in  sixteen
miles.  Of  these  three  ports  Richborough  is  by  far
the  most  important,  and  was  probably  the  first  to
be  constructed,  since  the  road  to  it  from  Canterbury

^  Vide  infra.
