Augustine of Canterbury

Life events

1. Other — 595

   Pope Gregory I selected Augustine, then serving as prior of the Abbey of St Andrew in Rome, to lead the Gregorian mission to Britain and convert the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent.

2. Pilgrimage — 596

   Augustine and roughly 40 companions departed Rome for Britain; daunted by the task, they halted in Gaul and sent Augustine back to Rome to seek permission to turn back, but Gregory refused and urged them to continue. Frankish bishops and kings supplied interpreters and priests for the journey.

3. Other — 597

   Augustine and his companions landed on the Isle of Thanet and proceeded to Canterbury, where King Æthelberht permitted them to settle and preach, using the church of St Martin's for services. Æthelberht's conversion probably took place in 597, with a late tradition giving the date as 2 June.

4. Consecrated — 597

   Augustine was consecrated as bishop; Bede attributes the act to Frankish Archbishop Ætherius of Arles, but contemporary letters of Gregory refer to Augustine as bishop before he reached England, leaving the exact time and place of consecration unresolved.

5. Other — 597

   Augustine founded the monastery of Saints Peter and Paul outside Canterbury's walls on land donated by Æthelberht; Pope Gregory reported to the Patriarch of Alexandria in 598 that more than 10,000 people had been baptised, including a mass baptism on Christmas Day 597.

6. Council — 603

   Augustine and King Æthelberht convened a meeting with British bishops south of the River Severn to assert Augustine's authority over the native British church. The bishops declined to recognise his primacy, partly because Augustine did not rise from his seat to greet them on entry, and partly due to deep differences over Easter dating, tonsure, and church organisation.

7. Other — 604

   Augustine oversaw the consecration of Mellitus as Bishop of London and Justus as Bishop of Rochester, extending the Roman mission's episcopal structure beyond Kent.

8. Died — 604

   Augustine died on 26 May 604 (some sources give 605); before his death he had consecrated Laurence of Canterbury as his successor to ensure an orderly transfer of office. His body was originally buried in the portico of what is now St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury, and later translated to a tomb within the abbey church.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Augustine became the first Archbishop of Canterbury in 597, establishing his see there rather than at London as Gregory had originally planned, because London lay outside Æthelberht's kingdom. (likely)
• Augustine's written questions to Gregory, carried to Rome by Laurence of Canterbury, elicited the Libellus responsionum — Gregory's replies preserved by Bede in Historia ecclesiastica Book I chapter 27 — covering church organisation, marriage law, and differing Christian practices. (likely)
• In 601 Pope Gregory sent Augustine a pallium — the symbol of metropolitan status — confirming him unambiguously as archbishop linked to the Holy See, along with sacred vessels, vestments, relics, and books. (likely)
• Augustine's shrine at St Augustine's Abbey, Canterbury was destroyed during the English Reformation and his relics were lost; a replacement shrine was re-established in March 2012 at the church of St Augustine in Ramsgate, near the mission's original landing site on the Isle of Thanet. (likely)
• The King's School, Canterbury claims Augustine as its founder and describes itself as the world's oldest existing school, though the earliest documentary records supporting this claim date only to the 16th century. (plausible)