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Augustine was an Italian monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury. Nobody seems to know exactly when he was born, or when he became a monk, or when he became prior of the Monastery of St Andrew in Rome. But he was chosen by Pope Gregory the Great to head a mission of monks to reintroduce the Christian religion into England, a country that had lapsed into paganism following the end of Roman rule in AD409. Christianity had come to England during the Roman occupation, but the number of its followers remained small until the early part of the 4th century when the Emperor Constantine made it the official religion of his Empire. But within 100 years the invasion of pagan Saxons, Angles and Jutes from northern Europe led to the destruction of churches and to the retreat of Christians to Cornwall and Wales. Aware of this, Gregory - at that time Abbot of St Andrew's monastery in Rome - chanced to see a group of fair-haired boys for sale in the city's slave market and, so the famous story (given by the English historian Bede) goes, enquired who they were. On being told that they were pagan Angles he punned: "That is appropriate, for they have angelic faces, and it is right that they should become fellow-heirs with the angels in heaven". He thereupon planned to lead a mission to England. But the people of Rome wouldn't let him go and it wasn't until some 9 years later, after he had become Pope (in 590), that he entrusted the mission to Augustine, the Prior of his own monastery. Augustine set off from Rome in 596 leading a party of about 35, but while they were crossing France they got cold feet. They found out that, far from being angels, the Anglo-Saxons were, according to the Venerable Bede, 'barbarous and fierce and spoke another language'. Augustine et al returned to Rome, hoping that Pope Gregory would call off the mission. But Gregory would have none of this. "The greater the labour," he proclaimed "the greater will be the glory of our eternal reward". But then, he wasn't going. So Augustine and his entourage set off again and this time managed to reach England, landing at Ebbsfleet in East Kent in the spring of 597. Unfortunately, the King of Kent, Ethelbert, was a pagan, but his Queen, Bertha, a princess from Paris, was fortunately a Christian. At that time Kent was the most powerful kingdom in England, and Ethelbert's jurisdiction as overlord reached far to the north - as far as the Humber. And Gregory knew the importance of influencing the influencers. Augustine and his party, now including an interpreter recruited in France, were cautiously received by the king, who had left his capital, Canterbury, to meet them on the Isle of Thanet. The historic encounter took place in the open air, with the missionaries holding a silver cross as their standard, together with a painting of the crucified Christ. Ethelbert told them that while he himself could not abandon what he called "the age-old beliefs of the English nation" he would nevertheless supply them with provisions and leave them free to preach their faith in his country. The two parties then went in procession to Canterbury where the missionaries were given a house and two old churches, one of which later became Augustine's cathedral. This was a promising start, and Augustine made the most of it. Progress was swift. Missions were undertaken throughout the East, and the holiness of life displayed by the monks made a great impression on the locals. On Christmas Day, 597 some 10,000 people were baptised, following in the footsteps of Ethelbert who had been baptised a few months earlier. Augustine, meanwhile had gone to Arles in France to be consecrated 'Bishop of the English'. On his return he sent a progress report to Rome with a request for advice, mainly on two problems that were facing the young Kentish church, these problems being intra-family marriage and the punishment of those who rob churches. Augustine's policy seems to have been one of consolidation in a small area rather than one of dispersal of effort over a large one. He built the first cathedral at Canterbury, and had married clerks as well as priests on his staff. He also founded the monastery of SS Peter and Paul, which later became known as St Augustine's, just outside the city walls, and also set up the see of Rochester. Later he established a see at London, which at that time was a town of the East Saxons but which came under Ethelbert's jurisdiction. Before long Augustine asked for reinforcements from Rome, especially clergy, and among those who came to his aid two were to become Archbishops of Canterbury after Augustine and another was to become Archbishop of York. The Pope also sent Augustine a gift - a pallium (a cape made of lamb's wool) to denote that he had been given jurisdiction over the whole nation. He was also instructed by Pope Gregory to consecrate 12 bishops in different places in the south of England and a bishop for York who would in turn consecrate 12 bishops for the north. London was to have its own bishop though it would still be under the control of Augustine. Unfortunately this policy did not please all the bishops and abbots on the Western edges of the country who had been ministering to the people long before Augustine arrived on the scene. Amongst these was the Irish monk Columba, who had started missionary work in northern Britain from a base on the island of Iona, off the coast of Scotland. To them Augustine was an intruder. In an attempt to overcome this problem, Augustine arranged a meeting with these Western bishops at which he courteously invited them to accept Roman customs and to share in the mission to the heathen. They decided that they needed time to consider this, and requested another meeting. In the intervening period they asked a holy man how they could find out if Augustine was indeed a man of God. This holy man said that if the Archbishop stood up to greet them, it would be a sign of his humility and that he was a follower of Christ, but if he remained seated it was because he despised them. Unfortunately, when the meeting came about, Augustine stayed in his chair. The visitors therefore refused to accept his authority, and he responded by prophesying that they would die at the hands of the heathens. So that was that. From then on Augustine stayed in Kent, though he did consecrate bishops for West Kent and for the East Saxons. He made Laurentius, a fellow missionary from Rome, his successor, and died on May 26, now his feast day in England (if not in other parts of the world) in a year sometime between 604 and 609, nobody knows for sure which one. For over 50 years Canterbury was unable to exercise jurisdiction beyond its own borders. But in 664 the Roman influence won the day at the Synod of Whitby, when Roman customs relating to the date of Easter and the style of the tonsure (a cleric's symbolic haircut) were adopted by the Northumbrians. Soon there would be a united church subject to a single Catholic authority. But the conversion of the whole of England took a bit longer. Bill Hutchings |
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page last updated 25 OCTOBER 2001 |
