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[Fwd: ST AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY]

From Audrey Whitefield <a.whitefield@quest.org.uk>
Date 27 Feb 1997 02:56:57
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Title:ST AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY
Feb. 24, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, England

FEATURES SERVICE

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[97.2.3.6]

ST AUGUSTINE OF CANTERBURY AND THE ENGLISH MISSION

Augustine was an Italian monk, who probably died in 604 He was prior of
St.
Andrew's monastery in Rome and was chosen by Pope Gregory the Great to
lead
a mission to the southern English. The work of the mission is known from
the register books of Pope Gregory1s letters, and from the account
written
by the Northumbrian scholar Bede completed in 731 and based on Kentish
sources. These texts have been extensively examined in the last 60
years,
so that many statements are now controversial.

Augustine and a party of 40 monks set out from Rome in 596. Letters sent
by
Gregory in July that year reveal that they had reached the island
monastery
of Lerins near Cannes, and gone on to Aix and Aries in Provence. Being
discouraged, they had sent Augustine back to Rome to ask Gregory to
release
them from their obligation. This Gregory refused to do. He sent
Augustine
out again in July 596, armed with letters asking help for the party from
kings and bishops along their route. Augustine was made abbot, so that
he
might better command the monks' obedience. They went up the Rhone valley
to
Vienne, Lyons and Autun. After this the route is uncertain - they may
have
gone to Tours, but they probably sailed to England from near Etaples,
from
a port called Quentavic. At some time between July 596 and September
597,
Augustine was consecrated as bishop, somewhere in France. Bede says he
returned to France for this purpose; modern scholars suppose he was
consecrated on his way to England.

The exact date of arrival is not known, though the spring 597 seems most
likely. Bede describes the party's arrival, and their meeting with King
Ethelbert of Kent near Ebbsfleet. Ethelbert was a powerful king who
exercised overlordship over the other English kings from his base at
Canterbury, a former Roman city. He was married to Bertha, a Frankish
princess whose father was Charibert, king of Paris. She was Christian,
with
her own chaplain, Bishop Luidard. They used the small church of St.
Martin
outside the city of Canterbury, where part of the walling within the
present church remains from the 590s or earlier.

Ethelbert allowed Augustine and his monks to lodge in Canterbury and
preach. They too used the church at St. Martin's. They made converts,
including Ethelbert, who was said to have been baptised at Whitsun
(June)
597. The king's conversion enabled the missioners to preach over a wider
area, and to build and restore churches. Ethelbert gave Augustine a
church
for restoration said to date back to the Roman city of Canterbury. The
Cathedral was founded there, with lodging beside it for Augustine and
his
entourage. No sign of a church on a Roman alignment was seen in the
excavations of 1993, though the earliest church discovered on the
Cathedral
site may date to the early 7th century. Ethelbert also founded in 598 a
monastery for the monk-missioners, dedicated to St. Peter and St. Paul,
which was also to provide a burial place for the archbishops and the
kings
of Kent, outside the city as Roman custom required. Foundations of the
church of 598, later dedicated to St. Augustine, have been excavated on
this site.

By July 598 Pope Gregory had received news of the success of the
mission.
Further missioners were sent out in July 601, of whom the leaders were
Mellitus, Justus, Paulinus and Rufinianus. They brought with them plate
and
vestments for church use, relics and books, one of which may be the 6th
century Italian gospel book now of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, on
which each archbishop of Canterbury takes his oath at his enthronement.
In
604 two bishoprics were founded, Rochester, where Justus became bishop,
and
London, the seat of Mellitus. There had been bishops in London under the
Roman Empire, but the barbarian invaders broke the succession. Laurence,
one of the original missioners, was consecrated by Augustine as his
successor, perhaps in 604. Augustine died on 26th May, but there seems
no
record now of which year he died, probably 604 or 605.

Though the mission was successful in Kent for some years, there was a
reaction after Ethelbert's death in 616. Similarly the Christians in
London
suffered persecution and failure. Mellitus and Justus returned to France
for a time, until pagan opposition was weakened, Possibly as a result of
this setback, London never became the headquarters of the southern
archbishopric as Gregory had intended, comparable to York in the North.
The
archbishopric remained at Canterbury. Bede related how Augustine tried
to
enlist the help of Welsh Christians for mission among the Anglo-Saxons,
He
met them on the English side of the Welsh border county. After a long
dispute about differing Christian customs, they were impressed by
Augustine's healing of a blind man, but at a second meeting they thought
him proud and refused to co-operate. For a variety of reasons, the
teaching
of St Augustine's mission did not spread far in the early 7th century,
but
it provided a firm base for later missionary activities for the
conversion
of the Anglo-Saxons.

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