Gregorian mission to the Anglo-Saxons
Monks sent by Pope Gregory the Great under Augustine landed in Kent, converted King Æthelberht and founded the see of Canterbury, beginning the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons.
- Date
- 597year known
- Place
- Canterburytoday: Canterbury, Kent, United Kingdom · Western and Central Europe
- Participants
- Pope Gregory I (the Great), Augustine of Canterbury, Æthelberht of Kent
- Threads
- Early medieval Europe (500–1000)
- Also known as
- Augustinian mission; Миссия Августина; Christianisation of Anglo-Saxon England
Gregory sent Augustine, prior of his own monastery in Rome, with about forty companions in 596; they travelled through Gaul with the help of the Frankish kings and landed in Kent in 597. Æthelberht, whose Frankish wife Bertha was already a Christian, allowed them to preach in his capital, Canterbury, and was himself baptized soon afterwards (certainly before 601). In 601 Gregory sent further missionaries with books and the pallium, making Augustine archbishop.
Gregory’s plan for two archbishoprics, in London and York, took decades to realize, and the mission suffered pagan reactions after Æthelberht’s death in 616. Together with the Irish missions in the north, it nevertheless made the English Christian within a century and tied their church to Rome, as the Synod of Whitby confirmed in 664.
Connections
Related events
- End of Roman rule in Britain383–410 · Western and Central EuropeRoman Christianity returned to the former province, now ruled by pagan Anglo-Saxons
Same place
- Roman conquest of Britain43 – between 83 and 84 · Western and Central Europe
Adjacent events in the thread
- Lombard invasion of Italy2 April 568 – 572 · Western and Central Europe
- Avar–Persian siege of Constantinople29 June – 7 August 626 · Balkans and Anatolia
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within 25 years of this event
Eastern Europe
- Kyi, Shchek and Khoryv: the legendary founding of Kyivbetween 500 and 700
- Avar campaign against the Antes602
- Early Slavic cultures: Prague-Korchak, Penkovka and Kolochinc. 450 – c. 700
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Gregorian mission
- Wikipedia (English): Augustine of Canterbury
- Wikipedia (Russian): Григорианская миссия
- Wikipedia (Russian): Августин Кентерберийский
- Mayr-Harting H. The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England. — 3rd ed. — London: Batsford, 1991.
- Wikidata: Q3044905