Everything about Augustine Of Canterbury totally explained
Augustine of Canterbury (died
May 26,
604) was a
Benedictine monk who became the first
Archbishop of Canterbury in 598. He is considered the "Apostle to the English",, a founder of the English Church, and a patron of England.
Augustine was the
prior of a monastery in Rome when
Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead a mission to Britain to convert the
pagan King
Æthelberht of
Kent to
Christianity. Kent was probably chosen because it was near the Christian kingdoms in
Gaul, and because Æthelberht had married a Christian princess,
Bertha, daughter of
Charibert, the
King of Paris, who was expected to exert some influence over her husband. Although the missionaries considered turning back before they reached Kent, Gregory urged them on, and in 597 Augustine landed on the
Isle of Thanet and proceeded to Æthelberht's main town of Canterbury.
Æthelberht allowed the missionaries to preach freely and converted to Christianity, giving the missionaries land to found a monastery outside the city walls. Augustine was consecrated bishop of the English, and converted many of the king's subjects, including thousands during a mass baptism on
Christmas Day in 597. Pope Gregory sent more missionaries in 601, along with encouraging letters and gifts for the churches, although attempts to persuade the native
Celtic bishops to submit to Augustine's authority failed.
Roman Catholic bishops were established at London and Rochester in 604, and a school was founded to train
Anglo-Saxon priests and missionaries. Augustine also arranged the consecration of his successor,
Laurence of Canterbury.
Augustine died in 604 and was soon revered as a
saint. The
Church of England remained in communion with the
Holy See until it declared its independence in the sixteenth century.
Background to the mission
After the withdrawal of the
Roman legions from the province of Britannia in 410, the natives of the island of
Great Britain were left to defend themselves against the attacks of the Saxons. Before the withdrawal Britannia had been converted to Christianity and had even produced its own heretic in
Pelagius. After the legions left, pagan tribes settled the southern parts of the island, but Western Britain, beyond the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, remained Christian. This native
British Church developed in isolation from Rome under the influence of missionaries from Ireland. Evidence for the survival of Christianity in the eastern part of Britain during this time includes the survival of the cult of
St Alban and the occurrence of
eccles, derived from the Latin for church, in place names. There is no evidence that these native Christians tried to convert the Anglo-Saxons. The
Kingdom of Kent was ruled by Æthelberht, who had married a Christian princess named
Bertha before 588. Bertha was the daughter of
Charibert I, one of the
Merovingian kings of the
Franks. As one of the conditions of her marriage she'd brought a bishop named Liudhard with her to Kent. Together in Canterbury, they restored a church that dated to Roman times—possibly the current
St Martin's Church, Canterbury. Æthelberht was a
pagan at this point but allowed his wife freedom of worship. One biographer of Bertha states that under his wife's influence, Æthelberht asked Pope Gregory to send missionaries. Other historians, however, feel that Gregory initiated the mission, although the exact reasons remain unclear. A famous story recorded by Bede relates that Gregory saw fair-haired Saxon slaves from Britain in the Roman slave market and was inspired to try to convert their people. More practical matters, such as the acquisition of new provinces acknowledging the primacy of the papacy, and a desire to influence the emerging power of the Kentish kingdom under Æthelberht, were probably involved.
The choice of Kent and Æthelberht was probably dictated by a number of factors, including the fact that Æthelberht had allowed his wife to worship freely. Trade between the Franks and Æthelberht's kingdom was well established, and the language barrier between the two regions was apparently only a minor obstacle, as the interpreters for the mission came from the Franks. Another reason for the mission was the growing power of the Kentish kingdom. Since the eclipse of King
Ceawlin of Wessex in 592, Æthelberht was the leading Anglo-Saxon ruler;
Bede, an eighth-century monk who wrote a history of the English church, refers to Æthelberht as having
imperium (overlordship) south of the
River Humber. Lastly, the location of Kent near the Franks allowed support from a Christian area.
In 595, Gregory chose Augustine, who was the prior of the abbey of St Anthony in Rome, to head the mission to Kent. By soliciting help from the Frankish kings and bishops, Gregory helped to assure a friendly reception for Augustine in Kent, as Æthelbert was unlikely to mistreat a mission who visibly had the support of his wife's relatives and people. The Franks at this time were attempting to extend their influence in Kent, and helping Augustine's mission would further that goal. Chlothar, in particular, needed a friendly realm across the Channel to help guard his kingdom's flanks against his fellow Frankish kings.
Sources make no mention of why Pope Gregory chose a monk to head the mission. Pope Gregory once wrote to Æthelberht complimenting Augustine's knowledge of the
Bible, so Augustine was evidently well-educated. Other qualifications included administrative ability, for Gregory was the abbot of St Anthony as well as being pope, which left the day-to-day running of the abbey to Augustine, the prior. In 597, Augustine and his companions landed in Kent. Æthelberht permitted the missionaries to settle and preach in his capital of
Canterbury where they used the church of St Martin's for services. but it probably took place in 597. In the early medieval period, large scale conversions required the ruler's conversion first, and Augustine is recorded as making large numbers of converts within a year of his arrival in Kent. A late medieval tradition, recorded by the 15th-century chronicler
Thomas Elmham, gives the date of the king's conversion as
Whit Sunday, or
June 2 597; there's no reason to doubt this date, although there's no other evidence for it.
Augustine established his
episcopal see at Canterbury.
Soon after his arrival, Augustine founded the
monastery of Saints
Peter and
Paul, which later became
St Augustine's Abbey, In a letter Gregory wrote to the
patriarch of Alexandria in 598, he claimed that more than 10,000 Christians had been baptised; the number may be exaggerated but there's no reason to doubt that a mass conversion took place.
After these conversions, Augustine sent Laurence back to Rome with a report of his success along with questions about the mission. Bede records the letter and Gregory's replies in chapter 27 of his
Ecclesiastical History: Augustine asked for Gregory's advice on a number of issues, including how to organise the church, the punishment for church robbers, guidance on who was allowed to marry whom, and the consecration of bishops. Other topics were relations between the churches of Britain and Gaul, childbirth and baptism, and when it was lawful for people to receive communion and for a priest to celebrate mass.
Further missionaries were sent from Rome in 601. They brought a
pallium for Augustine and a present of sacred vessels,
vestments,
relics, and books. The pallium was the symbol of
metropolitan status, and signified that Augustine was now an archbishop. Along with the pallium, a letter from Gregory directed the new archbishop to ordain 12
suffragan bishops as soon as possible and to send a bishop to
York. Gregory's plan was that there would be two metropolitans, one at York and one at London, with 12 suffragan bishops under each archbishop. As part of this plan, Augustine was expected to transfer his archiepiscopal see to
London from Canterbury. The move from Canterbury to London never happened; no contemporary sources give the reason, but it was probably because London wasn't part of Æthelberht's domains. Instead, London was part of the
kingdom of Essex, ruled by Æthelberht's nephew
Saebert of Essex, who converted to Christianity in 604. The historian S. Brechter has suggested that the metropolitan see was indeed moved to London, and that it was only with the abandonment of London as a see after the death of Æthelberht that Canterbury became the archiepiscopal see. This theory contradicts Bede's version of events, however.
Additional work
In 604, Augustine founded two more bishoprics in Britain. Two men who had come to Britain with him in 601 were consecrated,
Mellitus as
Bishop of London and
Justus as
Bishop of Rochester. Bede relates that Augustine, with the help of the king, "recovered" a church which had been built by Roman Christians in Canterbury. It isn't clear if Bede meant that Augustine rebuilt the church or that Augustine merely reconsecrated a building that had been used for pagan worship. Archaeological evidence seems to support the latter interpretation; in 1973 the remains of an aisled building dating from the Romano-British period were uncovered just south of the present
Canterbury Cathedral.
Augustine failed to extend his authority to the Christians in
Wales and
Dumnonia to the west. Gregory had decreed that these Christians should submit to Augustine and that their bishops should obey him. According to the narrative of Bede, the Britons in these regions viewed Augustine with uncertainty, and their suspicion was compounded by a diplomatic misjudgement on Augustine's part. In 603, Augustine and Æthelberht summoned the British bishops to a meeting. These guests retired early to confer with their people, they refused to recognise him as archbishop.
Further success
Easier to implement were Rome's mandates concerning pagan temples and celebrations. Temples were to be consecrated for Christian use, and celebrations, if possible, transformed into feasts celebrating Christian martyrs. One religious site was revealed to be a shrine of a local St Sixtus, whose worshippers were unaware of details of the martyr's life or death. They may have been native Christians, but Augustine didn't treat them as such. When Gregory was informed, he told Augustine to stop the cult and use the shrine for the Roman
St Sixtus.
Gregory legislated on the behaviour of the laity and the clergy. He placed the new mission directly under papal authority and made it clear that English bishops would have no authority over Frankish counterparts nor vice versa. Other directives dealt with the training of native clergy and the missionaries' conduct.
The
King's School, Canterbury claims Augustine as its founder, which would make it the world's oldest existing school, but the first documentary records of the school date from the 16th century. Augustine did establish a school, and soon after his death Canterbury was able to send teachers out to support the East Anglian mission. Augustine received
liturgical books from the pope, but their exact contents are unknown. They may have been some of the new mass books that were being written at this time. The exact liturgy that Augustine introduced to England remains unknown, but it would have been a form of the
Latin language liturgy which was in use at Rome.
Death and legacy
Before his death, Augustine consecrated
Laurence of Canterbury as his successor to the archbishopric, probably to ensure an orderly transfer of office. Although at the time of Augustine's death,
May 26 604, Augustine's example also influenced the great missionary efforts of the Anglo-Saxon Church.
Augustine's body was originally buried in the portico of what is now St Augustine's, Canterbury,
Today, a Celtic cross marks the spot in
Ebbsfleet, Thanet,
East Kent, where Augustine is said to have landed, although historian Alan Kay told the BBC in 2005 that Augustine actually landed somewhere between Stonar and
Sandwich. According to Kay, Ebbsfleet wasn't on the coast in the 6th century. The story that Augustine landed there was started in 1884, he said, by a Victorian aristocrat who needed a publicity stunt to draw people to his newly opened tea rooms.
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