Augustine's Mission to Kent

In 597, a party of missionaries sent by Pope Gregory the Great landed in the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent and began the conversion of the English to Christianity. Led by Augustine, a monk from Rome, the mission established a Roman Christian presence in southern England that would grow into the Church of Canterbury. It also tied England more closely to the church and culture of continental Europe.

Roman rule in Britain had ended in the early fifth century, and Christianity, which had existed among the Romano-British, was pushed back as Anglo-Saxon settlers established their own kingdoms with their own pagan religion. British Christians survived in the west, but there is little evidence that they made serious efforts to convert the newcomers. Kent was well placed for renewed contact with the Christian world. Its king, Æthelberht, had married Bertha, a Frankish princess who was already Christian and who brought a bishop, Liudhard, with her. Kent had trade and diplomatic links across the Channel.

Gregory, who became pope in 590, is said by later tradition to have been moved to act after seeing English slaves in Rome, though that story comes from sources written well after the event. Whatever his motives, he chose Augustine, prior of a Roman monastery, to lead a group of around forty men. According to Bede, writing over a century later and our main source, the party grew fearful during the journey and Augustine returned to Rome to ask to turn back, but Gregory insisted they continue. They landed on the Isle of Thanet, and Æthelberht received them in the open air, reportedly out of caution about magic. He allowed them to preach and gave them a home in Canterbury.

Æthelberht himself accepted baptism, probably within a few years, though the exact date is uncertain. Augustine was consecrated a bishop in Gaul, and Canterbury became his seat, with a church that would later become the cathedral. Gregory sent reinforcements and advice, including a counsel, preserved by Bede, to adapt rather than destroy pagan sites where possible. Augustine's efforts to bring the existing British bishops under his authority failed, reflecting differences in custom and mutual distrust.

Conversion was neither quick nor smooth. After Æthelberht's death in the early seventh century, pagan reaction occurred in parts of the south and east, and Christianity advanced unevenly, with Irish missionaries later playing a major role in the north. Still, Augustine's mission gave England an enduring ecclesiastical structure, and the Archbishop of Canterbury remains the senior figure in the Church of England today. Augustine died around 604 or 605 and is remembered as the "Apostle of the English."