<P> Oft Scyld Scéfing--sceaþena þréatum monegum maégþum--meodosetla oftéah egsode Eorle--syððan aérest wearð féasceaft funde--hé þæs frófre gebád wéox under wolcnum--weorðmyndum þáh oð þæt him aéghwylc--þára ymbsittendra ofer hronráde--hýran scolde, gomban gyldan--þæt wæs gód cyning . </P> <P> There was Shield Sheafson, scourge of many tribes, A wrecker of mead - benches, rampaging among foes . This terror of the hall - troops had come far . A foundling to start with, he would flourish later on As his powers waxed and his worth was proved . In the end each clan on the outlying coasts Beyond the whale - road had to yield to him And begin to pay tribute . That was one good king . </P> <P> In 565, Columba, a monk from Ireland who studied at the monastic school of Moville under St. Finnian, reached Iona as a self - imposed exile . The influence of the monastery of Iona would grow into what Peter Brown has described as an "unusually extensive spiritual empire," which "stretched from western Scotland deep to the southwest into the heart of Ireland and, to the southeast, it reached down throughout northern Britain, through the influence of its sister monastery Lindisfarne ." </P> <P> In June 597 Columba died . At this time, Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet and proceeded to King Æthelberht's main town of Canterbury . He had been the prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead the Gregorian mission to Britain to Christianise the Kingdom of Kent from their native Anglo - Saxon paganism . Kent was probably chosen because Æthelberht had married a Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of Charibert I the King of Paris, who was expected to exert some influence over her husband . Æthelberht was converted to Christianity, churches were established, and wider - scale conversion to Christianity began in the kingdom . Æthelberht's law for Kent, the earliest written code in any Germanic language, instituted a complex system of fines . Kent was rich, with strong trade ties to the continent, and Æthelberht may have instituted royal control over trade . For the first time following the Anglo - Saxon invasion, coins began circulating in Kent during his reign . </P>

Who ruled when the anglo saxons were alive