Augustine's Mission to Kent (597): Christianity Returns

Augustine’s mission to Kent in 597 marked the start of the organised conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. Sent by Pope Gregory the Great, the Roman monk Augustine and about forty companions landed in Kent, won over King Æthelberht and founded the see of Canterbury. Within a few years Canterbury had become the headquarters of a new English church tied closely to Rome, a position it has held in one form or another ever since.

Background: Britain after Rome

Christianity had reached Roman Britain by the 3rd century, and bishops from Britain attended church councils in the 4th century. After Roman rule ended in the early 5th century, Angles, Saxons and Jutes settled much of lowland Britain and established kingdoms whose people worshipped Germanic gods such as Woden and Thunor.

Christianity survived among the Britons of the west, in Wales and Cornwall, and flourished in Ireland. Irish monks were also active in northern Britain, where Columba had founded Iona in 563. However, the British church made little effort to convert the Anglo-Saxons, who had conquered its people.

Why Gregory chose Kent

Gregory’s motives

Pope Gregory the Great, elected in 590, had a strong interest in missions. Bede’s later account tells how Gregory, before becoming pope, saw fair-haired slave boys in Rome and on learning they were Angles said they were “not Angles but angels”. The story is probably legendary, but it reflects Gregory’s real concern for the English.

A letter of 595 shows Gregory asking his agent in Gaul to buy English boys aged about seventeen or eighteen to be educated in monasteries, possibly as future helpers. In 596 he chose Augustine, prior of his own monastery of Saint Andrew on the Caelian Hill in Rome, to lead a group of monks to Britain.

Kent and its king

The mission went to Kent, the south-eastern kingdom closest to the continent. Its king, Æthelberht, was one of the most powerful rulers in southern England, and Bede names him as holding a form of overlordship over the kingdoms south of the Humber.

Æthelberht was married to Bertha, a Christian princess, daughter of the Frankish king Charibert I of Paris. As a condition of the marriage she had brought her own chaplain, Bishop Liudhard, and worshipped at an old church east of Canterbury dedicated to Saint Martin. The presence of a Christian queen almost certainly made the king willing to listen.

What happened in 597

The journey and the landing

The missionaries set out in 596. While crossing Gaul they heard alarming reports about the fierce and pagan English and sent Augustine back to Rome to ask to be released. Gregory refused and sent them on with an encouraging letter dated July 596 and letters of introduction to Frankish bishops and rulers.

In 597 the group landed on the Isle of Thanet, then separated from the Kentish mainland by the Wantsum Channel. Bede says they numbered about forty and included Frankish interpreters. Tradition places the landing at Ebbsfleet, near Ramsgate.

The meeting with Æthelberht

According to Bede, Æthelberht came to Thanet and met the missionaries in the open air, fearing that indoors they might work magic on him. The monks approached carrying a silver cross and a painted image of Christ, singing litanies.

The king replied that their promises were new and uncertain and that he could not abandon his ancestral beliefs at once. He nonetheless allowed them to stay, gave them a dwelling in Canterbury and permitted them to preach. At first they worshipped with the queen at St Martin’s Church.

Conversion and the founding of Canterbury

Æthelberht was baptised soon afterwards. Bede does not give an exact date, and most historians place it in 597, although some argue for a few years later. Bede stresses that the king did not force anyone to convert but favoured those who did.

Later in 597 Augustine travelled to Gaul and was consecrated bishop, probably at Arles. In a letter of 598 to the patriarch of Alexandria, Gregory reported that more than 10,000 English people had been baptised at Christmas 597, a figure that cannot be checked but shows rapid early success.

Augustine established his cathedral within the old Roman walls of Canterbury, on the site of today’s Canterbury Cathedral, and founded a monastery outside the walls dedicated to Saints Peter and Paul. It later became known as St Augustine’s Abbey and served as the burial place of the early archbishops and the kings of Kent.

Building the English church

Reinforcements and Gregory’s plan

In 601 Gregory sent a second group of missionaries, including Mellitus, Justus and Paulinus, with books, relics and church furnishings. He also sent Augustine the pallium, the vestment marking an archbishop.

Gregory’s plan was for two archbishops, at London and York, each with twelve bishops. In practice Canterbury, the royal centre of Kent, kept the primacy. Gregory also advised, in a letter to Mellitus, that pagan temples should not be destroyed but cleansed and converted into churches, and that pagan festivals should be replaced with Christian feasts.

Augustine also sent Gregory a series of practical questions about church practice, marriage and worship. The answers, known as the Libellus responsionum, are preserved by Bede, although their authenticity has been debated.

Meeting the British bishops

Around 602–603 Augustine met bishops of the British church at a place Bede calls Augustine’s Oak, probably near the border of the Hwicce in the west. He asked them to adopt Roman practices, including the Roman date of Easter, and to join in preaching to the English.

The talks failed. Bede reports that the British bishops took offence when Augustine did not rise to greet them. The divide between Roman and British or Irish customs lasted for decades and was only settled for Northumbria at the Synod of Whitby in 664.

Augustine’s death and the setback of 616

In 604 Augustine consecrated Mellitus as bishop of London, among the East Saxons, and Justus as bishop of Rochester. He also named Laurence as his successor. Augustine died on 26 May, most probably in 604, and was buried at his monastery.

When Æthelberht died in 616, his son Eadbald at first rejected Christianity, and in Essex the sons of the late king Sæberht expelled Mellitus. Mellitus and Justus fled to Gaul. Laurence stayed and, according to Bede, persuaded Eadbald to convert, after which the Kentish church recovered.

Key people

• Augustine (died c. 604): prior of Saint Andrew’s in Rome and first archbishop of Canterbury.
• Pope Gregory I (pope 590–604): planner and patron of the mission.
• Æthelberht (died 616): king of Kent and the first Anglo-Saxon king to accept Christianity.
• Bertha: Frankish Christian queen of Kent.
• Mellitus, Justus, Laurence and Paulinus: missionaries who later led the sees of London, Rochester, Canterbury and York.

Consequences

The mission created a lasting Roman-led church structure in England. Æthelberht’s influence helped spread Christianity to Essex, and Paulinus later took it to Northumbria. Æthelberht also issued the first written English laws, the law code of Æthelberht, whose opening clauses protect the property of the church.

Conversion was uneven. Several kingdoms relapsed into paganism, and in East Anglia King Rædwald, who was baptised in Kent, kept altars to both Christ and the old gods, according to Bede. The rich pagan-style ship burial at Sutton Hoo dates from this transitional period.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Augustine brought Christianity to Britain for the first time. Fact: Christianity existed in Roman Britain and survived among the Britons and Irish; his mission targeted the Anglo-Saxons.
• Myth: Augustine of Canterbury is the famous author of the Confessions. Fact: That was Augustine of Hippo, a North African bishop who died in 430.
• Myth: The English converted all at once. Fact: Full conversion of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms took most of the 7th century.

Legacy

Canterbury remains the seat of the senior archbishop of the Church of England and the symbolic centre of the worldwide Anglican Communion. Canterbury Cathedral, the ruins of St Augustine’s Abbey and St Martin’s Church were inscribed together as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1988.

The St Augustine Gospels, a 6th-century Italian manuscript at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, is traditionally linked to the mission and is still used when new archbishops of Canterbury are enthroned. Augustine is venerated as a saint, with his feast on 26 May (27 May in the Roman calendar).

Timeline

• 596: Pope Gregory sends Augustine and his monks from Rome.
• 596, July: Gregory writes urging the hesitating missionaries to continue.
• 597: The mission lands on the Isle of Thanet and is received by Æthelberht.
• 597: Probable baptism of Æthelberht; Augustine is consecrated bishop in Gaul.
• 597, Christmas: More than 10,000 baptisms reported by Gregory.
• 601: Second group of missionaries arrives; Augustine receives the pallium.
• c. 602–603: Meeting with British bishops at Augustine’s Oak.
• 604: Mellitus and Justus become bishops of London and Rochester; Augustine dies on 26 May, most probably this year.
• 616: Death of Æthelberht and a temporary pagan reaction in Kent and Essex.

Why it matters

Augustine’s mission connected the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms to Rome and the wider Latin church. It brought writing, Roman law-making traditions and new forms of organisation to England, and it founded the see of Canterbury, which has remained central to English religious life for more than 1,400 years.