Lucius of Britain
Lucius of Britain is a legendary king thought to have introduced Christianity to the Britons in the 2nd century. He is known from later medieval and early modern writings, not from contemporary records.
The first surviving mention comes from a 6th-century source called the Liber Pontificalis, in a list called the Catalogus Felicianus. It says that Lucius, king of Britain, sent a letter to Pope Eleutherius asking to become a Christian. The story was popularized in the 8th century by the monk Bede, who added the detail that when Eleutherius granted the request, the Britons followed their king in conversion and kept the faith until the Diocletianic Persecution around 303.
Over time, writers added more details. Some claimed Lucius founded churches and led missionary work. He was also described as the last non-Roman king of the Britons. Because there are no independent pieces of evidence from the period (no coins, inscriptions, or contemporary histories), many scholars question whether he really existed.
By the 19th century, scholars doubted the traditions about Lucius. Arthur West Haddan and William Stubbs suggested the story might be pious fiction created to help mission work in Britain during Saint Patrick’s and Palladius’s time. In the 20th century, the German scholar Adolf von Harnack proposed that Lucius was a scribal mix-up: Lucius of Britain could have been Abgar VIII of Edessa, and a scribe confused “Britio” (a place in Edessa) with “Britannia.” British archaeologist David J. Knight later challenged this theory, arguing that Abgar was not called Lucius of Britio, and that the idea of a king ruling a citadel called Britio does not fit the sources. Knight therefore argued for accepting the traditional identification of Lucius as a British ruler, though most scholars remain cautious.
The Lucius story has played a big role in religious and national debates. In Britain, it was used in both Catholic and Protestant polemics during the Reformation. Bede’s version made the tale widely known in medieval England, and later writers such as Nennius, Geoffrey of Monmouth, William of Malmesbury, and the Book of Llandaff kept retelling or embellishing the tale. Geoffrey’s account became the most influential: Lucius, son of King Coilus, hears of Christian miracles and asks the pope for help. Eleutherius sends two missionaries, Fuganus and Duvianus, who baptize the king and establish churches and dioceses across Britain. Lucius then grants land and privileges to the church and dies without an heir in AD 156, a detail that some writers used to argue for a weakening of Roman influence in Britain.
London has its own long-standing tradition tied to Lucius. It was claimed that St Peter upon Cornhill church was founded by King Lucius and that it served as an archbishop’s see. Some early and later sources, including a tablet reported by John Weever in 1631, spoke of Lucius founding the church and making it metropolitan. After the Great Fire of London, a replacement brass plate was placed in the church vestry, preserving the claim for later generations. There is also a note that London sent a bishop to the Council of Arles in 314, which some see as supporting an early Christian presence in the city.
There is also a note that some scholars ever since have linked Lucius of Britain with Lucius of Chur in Switzerland. However, the connection is widely considered unlikely and the two figures are usually kept separate in modern scholarship.
In short, Lucius of Britain is a compelling and influential legend, but there is no solid contemporary evidence that a 2nd-century British king actually converted to Christianity. The tale survives mainly in later writings and local traditions, carrying different meanings for different readers through the centuries.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 08:15 (CET).