600

Eadbald, King of Kent, founds a minster church for 22 monks in the ‘castrum’ of Dover – either the Roman fort in the town or the hillfort on the headland, A Mayan farming village, Joya de Cerén in El Salvador, is buried rapidly under ash from the eruption of Loma Caldera around this year

 

604

RULERS & ROYALTY: Pope Gregory I dies, and Pope Sabinian is installed as Bishop of Rome

 

607

The earliest Irish historian that has survived to us, Sinlán Moccu Min, dies this year; He was the abbot of the monastery at Bangor, which became one of the great Irish centers of learning, including some Anglo-Saxon princes and scions of wealthy families (The Druids, pg. 204)

 

610

Around this year, the prophet Mohammed claims to have received angelic revelations that Allah is the supreme god

 

614

Persians invade Palestine and destroy many churches, but they spare the Church of the Nativity because they see a mosaic depicting three wise men in Persian dress

 

616

In London, King Sabert of the East Saxons dies and his three sons fall back into paganism and drive out bishop Milletus who refused them communion unless they repented (recorded by the Venerable Bede, a monk at Jarrow, who is the author of Historica Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum [Ecclesiastical History of the English People] which was completed in 731)

 

619

RULERS & ROYALTY: Pope Adeodatus I dies and Pope Boniface V is installed as the Bishop of Rome

 

622

The Islamic prophet Mohammed is believed to have made a night journey to Jerusalem and ascended to the seventh heaven from the site of the holy rock on the Temple Mount

 

625   

RULERS & ROYALTY: Pope Boniface V dies and Pope Honorius I is installed as Bishop of Rome

Sutton Hoo (Suffolk, England) ship burial of an East Anglian King is buried; It's known for its “wealth of gold and garnet jewelry, its Byzantine silver and its weapons and armor." It is now held at the British Museum (Collections of the British Museum pg. 122); After the conversion of the English to Christianity the practice of burying personal possessions with the dead eventually ceased

During his reign, Pope Honorius I plates the altar and doors of Saint Peter's Basilica with silver and covers the roof with golden-bronze tiles from the Temple of Venus; In its atrium is the statue of Saint Peter that legend says has been cast from the bronze of the Capitoline Jove (Jupiter, god of the sky, thunder, and the Greek form of the god Zeus)

"when the Byzantine emperor forbade the use of images, and threatened to send troops to destroy it, its foot was already worn with the kisses of the faithful."

(The Secret Archives of the Vatican, pg. 77)

 

627   

First recorded church on the site of York Minster that was hurriedly built to baptize Edwin, King of Northumbria