Augustine of Canterbury

This article is about St Augustine of Canterbury. For other saints with the same name, see St. Augustine.

Augustine of Canterbury
Augustine in Petits Bollandistes: Vies des Saints, by Msgr. Paul Guérin in 1882.
Installed	597
Term ended	26 May, 604
Predecessor	None
Successor	Laurence of Canterbury
Personal details
Born	Augustine unknown
Died	(604-05-26)26 May 604

Augustine of Canterbury
Sainthood
Feast day	26 May (Anglican) 27 May Roman Catholic 28 May (Roman Catholic in the past)

Augustine of Canterbury (died May 26, 604) was a Benedictine monk and the first Archbishop of Canterbury. He is considered the "Apostle to the English" and a founder of the English Church. Augustine was the prior of a monastery in Rome when Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead a mission to Britain, with the aim of converting King Æthelberht of Kent. Gregory chose Kent as the mission's starting point probably because Æthelberht was married to a Christian princess and Kent was close to the Christian kingdoms in Gaul. 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 went to Æthelberht's main town of Canterbury.

Æthelberht allowed the missionaries to preach freely, and later converted to Christianity. He gave land to the missionaries to found a monastery outside the walls of Canterbury. Augustine was consecrated as a bishop, and converted many of the king's followers. Gregory sent more missionaries in 601, along with encouraging letters and gifts for the churches. At Gregory's request, Augustine consecrated additional bishops. Attempts to work with the native bishops and persuade them to submit to Augustine's authority did not work, despite two meetings. Before his death, bishops were established at London and Rochester, and a school was founded to supply Anglo-Saxon priests and missionaries. Augustine died in 604, having arranged the consecration of his successor Laurence. Augustine was revered as a saint after his death, and his cult was actively promoted until the English Reformation.

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, the southern parts of the island were settled by pagan tribes, but Western Britain, beyond the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, remained Christian. The British church developed in isolation from Rome, and under the influence of missionaries from Ireland; this native form of the church is known as the British church. This British church was centred around monasteries instead of bishoprics. Other distinguishing characteristics were how it calculated of the date of Easter and the style of the tonsure, the haircut that clerics wore. Evidence for the survival of Christianity in the eastern part of Britain during this time includes the survival of the cult of Saint Alban and the occurance 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.

It was against this background that Pope Gregory I decided to send a mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity in 595. The Kingdom of Kent was ruled by Æthelberht, who, before 588, had married a Christian princess named Bertha. Bertha was the daughter of Charibert I, one of the Merovingian kings of the Franks. As one of the conditions of her marriage she had brought a bishop named Liudhard with her to Kent. Together, in Canterbury, they restored a church that dated from 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. The historian Ian Wood feels that the initiative came from the Kentish court as well as the queen. Other historians, however, feel that Gregory initiated the mission, although the exact reasons remain unclear. There is a famous story of Gregory having seen fair-haired Saxon slaves from Britain in the Roman slave market, inspiring him to wish 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 mission may also have been an outgrowth of the missionary efforts against the Lombards.

The choice of Kent and Æthelberht was probably dictated by a number of factors, including the fact that Æthelberht had allowed his Christian 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. Besides selecting other monks to accompany Augustine, Gregory sought support from the Frankish kingdom. Gregory wrote to a number of Frankish bishops on Augustine's behalf, introducing the mission and asking that Augustine and his companions be made welcome. Copies of letters to some of these bishops survive in Rome. The pope wrote to King Theuderic II of Burgundy and to King Theudebert II of Austrasia, as well as their grandmother Brunhild, seeking aid for the mission. Gregory also thanked King Chlothar II of Neustria for aiding Augustine. Besides hospitality, the Frankish bishops and kings provided interpreters, and were asked to allow some Frankish priests to accompany the mission. 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.

Nothing is mentioned in the sources as to 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.

Arrival and first efforts

Augustine was accompanied by Laurence of Canterbury, later the second archbishop, and a group of about forty companions, some of whom were monks. Soon after leaving Rome, the missionaries halted, daunted by nature of the task before them. They sent Augustine back to Rome to request papal permission to return. Gregory refused his permission, and sent Augustine back with letters encouraging the missionaries to persevere. Eventually, in 597, Augustine and his companions landed in Kent. They achieved some initial success soon after their arrival: Æthelberht permitted the missionaries to settle and preach in his capital of Canterbury where they used the church of St. Martin's for services. Neither Bede nor Gregory mentions the date of Æthelberht's conversion, 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. Also, by 601, Gregory was writing to both Æthelberht and Bertha, calling the king his son and referring to his baptism. 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 is no reason to doubt this date, although there is no other evidence for it.

Augustine established his episcopal see at Canterbury. It is not clear when and where Augustine was consecrated as a bishop. Bede, writing about a century later, states that Augustine was consecrated by the Frankish Archbishop Ætherius of Arles after the conversion of Æthelberht. Contemporary letters from Pope Gregory, however, refer to Augustine as a bishop before he arrived in England. A letter of Gregory's from September 597 calls Augustine a bishop, and one ten months later says that Augustine had been consecrated on Gregory's command by bishops of the Germanies.

Map of the general outlines of the British kingdoms about 600

Soon after his arrival, Augustine founded the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul, which later became St Augustine's Abbey, on land donated by the king. 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 is no reason to doubt that a mass conversion took place. However, there were probably some Christians already in Kent before Augustine arrived, remnants of the Christians who lived in Britain in the later Roman Empire.

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. The letter from 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 covered 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 was not 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

Saint Æthelberht of Kent pictured in a statue from Rochester Cathedral.

In 604, Augustine founded two more bishoprics in Britain, consecrating Mellitus as Bishop of London and Justus as Bishop of Rochester. Both Justus and Mellitus had come to Britain with the 601 mission. Bede relates that Augustine, with the help of the king, "recovered" a church which had been built by Roman Christians in Canterbury. It is not clear if what Bede meant by "recovered" is 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, for in 1973 the remains of an aisled building dating from the Romano-British period were uncovered just south of the present Canterbury Cathedral.

Augustine was unsuccessful in extending his authority to the Christians in the west, in Wales and Dumnonia. 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. Augustine met with them twice. At the first meeting, the British bishops retired early in order to confer with their people. According to Bede, the Britons advised their bishops to judge Augustine upon the respect he displayed at the forthcoming second meeting, so when he failed to rise from his seat on the entrance of the British bishops to the second meeting they refused to recognise him as archbishop. There were, however, deep differences between Augustine and the British church that perhaps played a more significant role in preventing an agreement being reached. Besides the issues of the tonsure and the observance of Easter, there were practical and deep-rooted differences in approach to asceticism, missionary endeavours, and how the church itself was organised. Some historians believe that Augustine had no real understanding of the history and traditions of the British church, damaging his relations with British bishops.

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 Saint Sixtus, whose worshippers were unaware of details of the martyr's life or death. The worshippers may have been native Christians, but Augustine did not act as if they were Christian. When Gregory was informed, he told Augustine to stop the cult and use the shrine for the Roman Saint Sixtus.

Other instructions from Gregory legislated on the behaviour of the laity and the clergy. Gregory also placed the new mission directly under papal authority, and made it clear that English bishops would have no authority over Frankish bishops, nor would Frankish bishops have authority over the English. Other directives dealt with the training of native clergy and the missionaries' conduct.

Augustine is claimed as the founder of The King's School, Canterbury, 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 the exact contents of the books are unknown. They may have been some of the new mass-books that were starting to be 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 as archbishop, probably to ensure an orderly succession. Although at the time of Augustine's death, on May 26 604, the mission barely extended beyond Kent, his mission introduced a more active missionary style into the British Isles. While there had been Christians in Ireland and Wales earlier, no efforts had been made to try to convert the Saxon invaders. Augustine's mission was sent to convert the descendants of those invaders, and eventually became the decisive influence in Christianity in the British Isles. Much of Augustine's success came about because of Augustine's close relationship with Æthelberht, which gave the archbishop time to establish his mission. The example of Augustine's mission 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, but was later exhumed and placed in a tomb within the abbey church where it became a place of pilgrimage and veneration. After the Norman Conquest the cult of St Augustine was actively promoted. During the English Reformation, the shrine was destroyed and the relics were lost. Today a Celtic cross marks the area where Augustine first landed. It is situated near Pegwell village on the Isle of Thanet in East Kent.

References

• Bede Venerablis (1988). A History of the English Church and People. Penguin Classics. ISBN 0-14-044042-9. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Blair, John P. (2005). The Church in Anglo-Saxon Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-921117-5.
• Blair, Peter Hunter (2003). An Introduction to Anglo-Saxon England (Third Edition ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-53777-0. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Brooks, Nicholas (1984). The Early History of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to 1066. London: Leicester University Press. ISBN 0-7185-0041-5.
• Collins, Roger (1999). Early Medieval Europe: 300–1000 (Second Edition ed.). New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-21886-9. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Delaney, John P. (1980). Dictionary of Saints (Second Edition ed.). Garden City, N.Y: Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-13594-7. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Fletcher, R. A. (1998). The Barbarian Conversion: From Paganism to Christianity. New York: H. Holt and Co. ISBN 0-8050-2763-7.
• Hayward, Paul Anthony (2001). "St Justus". In Lapidge, Michael; et al. (eds.). Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 267–268. ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |editor= (help)
• Hindley, Geoffrey (2006). A Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons: The Beginnings of the English Nation. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers. ISBN 978-0-78671-738-5.
• Lapidge, Michael (2001). "St Mellitus". In Lapidge, Michael; et al. (eds.). Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Anglo-Saxon England. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. pp. 305–306. ISBN 978-0-631-22492-1. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |editor= (help)
• Mayr-Harting, Henry (1991). The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press. ISBN 0-271-00769-9.
• Mayr-Harting, Henry (2004). "Augustine (St Augustine) (d. 604)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-03-30.
• Nelson, Janet L. (2006). "Bertha (b. c.565, d. in or after 601)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 2008-03-30.
• Smith, Adam (1978). "St Augustine of Canterbury in History and Tradition". Folklore. 89 (1): 23–28.
• Stenton, F. M. (1971). Anglo-Saxon England (Third Edition ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-280139-5. {{cite book}}: |edition= has extra text (help)
• Thomson, John A. F. (1998). The Western Church in the Middle Ages. London: Arnold. ISBN 0-340-60118-3.
• Wood, Ian. "The Mission of Augustine of Canterbury to the English". Speculum. 69 (1): 1–17.
• Yorke, Barbara (2006). The Conversion of Britain: Religion, Politics and Society in Britain c. 600-800. London: Pearson/Longman. ISBN 0-582-77292-3.

External links

• Prosopography of Anglo Saxon England Entry for St Augustine of Canterbury