For the sake of convenient reference, we now give a list of the bishops, in chronological order.
St. Justus, sent to reinforce the English mission in 601, became the first bishop in 604; fled to Gaul in 617, on the great relapse into idolatry after Ethelbert’s death; summoned back after a year by the new king Eadbald; succeeded Mellitus as Archbishop of Canterbury in 624; died in 627.
Romanus, consecrated in 624; drowned while on a mission to Rome (absorptus fluctibus Italici Maris) probably in 627, but certainly before November, 630.
St. Paulinus came over with Justus; ordained Bishop of York, in 625, to accompany Ethelburga, princess of Kent, when she went to marry Edwin of Northumbria; baptised Edwin himself in April, 627, and earned well his title of the Apostle of Northumbria; preached also, we are told, in Lancashire, in Cumbria, on the Trent, and at Lincoln; fled with the widowed queen on Edwin’s overthrow in 633, as he owed attendance to her; gladly received in Kent and persuaded to accept the see of Rochester, where, probably, he received the pallium sent him in 634; died in 644; buried in the secretarium of the church, whence his remains were afterwards transferred to the Norman cathedral.
St. Ythamar, the first bishop who was an Englishman by birth; died in 655; like Paulinus, buried in the church, and much revered, though the Normans seem to have been less eager to translate his remains.
Damian succeeded in 656, died in 664.
Putta succeeded five years later in 669; translated to Hereford in 676; died in 688.
Cuichelm resigned the see, through poverty, after only two years.
Gebmund, appointed in 678, died in 693.
Tobias, appointed in 693; famous for his great learning, which included a knowledge of both Greek and Latin; died in 726; buried in the Porticus of St. Paul, which he had himself built on to the cathedral.