Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He converted many of the king’s subjects, including thousands during a mass baptism on Christmas Day in 5 97. Augustine also arranged the consecration of his successor, Laurence of Canterbury. The archbishop probably died in 604 and was soon revered as a saint.
About Augustine of Canterbury in brief
Augustine of Canterbury was a Benedictine monk who became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in the year 597. He is considered the “Apostle to the English” and a founder of the English Church. Pope Gregory the Great chose him in 595 to lead a mission, usually known as the Gregorian mission, to Britain to Christianize King Æthelberht and his Kingdom of Kent from paganism. Augustine was consecrated as a bishop and converted many of the king’s subjects, including thousands during a mass baptism on Christmas Day in 5 97. Augustine also arranged the consecration of his successor, Laurence of Canterbury. The archbishop probably died in 604 and was soon revered as a saint. After the withdrawal of the Roman legions from their province of Britannia in 410, the inhabitants were left to defend themselves against the attacks of the Saxons. The native British Church developed in isolation from Rome under the influence of missionaries from Ireland and was centred on monasteries instead of bishoprics. 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 Anglo- Saxons to Christianity in 594. The mission may have been outgrowth of the missionary efforts against the Lombards, pagans and Arian Christians, who were not on good relations with the Catholic church in Rome. The choice of Kent was probably dictated by a number of factors, including the dominant power of the Kentish kingdom under the king, and the growing influence of Bertha, the daughter of Charibert I, one of the Merovingian kings of the Franks.
Bede, an 8th-century monk, recorded a story in which a famous Roman slave saw fair-haired Saxon slaves from Britain in the slave market and was inspired to try to convert their people to the new primacy of the papacy of their new provinces. In 597, Augustine landed on the Isle of Thanet and proceeded to Kent’s main town of Canterbury, giving them land to found a monastery outside the city walls. In 604, Roman bishops were established at London, and Rochester in 602, and a school was founded to train Anglo-sacred priests and missionaries. The king of Kent allowed the missionaries to preach freely, giving the missionaries land to find a monastery in Canterbury. In the year 605, Augustine died and was buried in Canterbury, along with his successor Laurence, who was also buried in the same place as his predecessor, the archbishop. He was succeeded by his son-in-law, William of Kent, who went on to become the first archbishop of Canterbury and the first bishop of Canterbury to be canonised in 612. The Roman legions had withdrawn from Britannia around 410, but pagan tribes settled the southern parts of the island while western Britain, beyond the Saxon kingdoms, remained Christian. The invasions destroyed most remnants of Roman civilisation in the areas held by theSaxons and related tribes, including economic and religious structures.
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This page is based on the article Augustine of Canterbury published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 04, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
