When was augustine of canterbury born

Pope Gregory and St. Augustine both died in , after working tirelessly to evangelize England. Canterbury continued on as the ranking see of English Catholicism until its fall into schism in the 16th century.

Allen, Jr. Search for:. Saint of the Day. After being consecrated a bishop in France, Augustine returned to Canterbury, where he founded his see. He constructed a church and monastery near where the present cathedral, begun in , now stands. As the faith spread, additional sees were established at London and Rochester. Work was sometimes slow and Augustine did not always meet with success. Attempts to reconcile the Anglo-Saxon Christians with the original Briton Christians—who had been driven into western England by Anglo-Saxon invaders—ended in dismal failure.

Augustine died sometime between and Also a full-length study is Sir Henry H. Howorth, Saint Augustine of Canterbury All rights reserved.

Home Biography St. Augustine of Canterbury St. Augustine of Canterbury. Besides hospitality, the Frankish bishops and kings provided interpreters, and were asked to allow some Frankish priests to accompany the mission. Brooks "Early History of the Church of Canterbury" p. Chlothar, in particular, needed a friendly realm across the Channel to help guard his kingdom's flanks against his fellow Frankish kings.

Wood "Mission of Augustine of Canterbury" " Speculum " p. Other qualifications included administrative ability, for Gregory was the abbot of St Anthony as well as being pope, which left the day-to-day running of the abbey to Augustine, the prior. Arrival and first efforts Augustine was accompanied by Laurence of Canterbury , his eventual successor to the archbishop ric, and a group of about 40 companions, some of whom were monks. Soon after leaving Rome, the missionaries halted, daunted by the nature of the task before them.

They sent Augustine back to Rome to request papal permission to return. Gregory refused and sent Augustine back with letters encouraging the missionaries to persevere.

They achieved some initial success soon after their arrival: Fletcher "The Barbarian Conversion" pp. In the early medieval period, large scale conversions required the ruler's conversion first, and Augustine is recorded as making large numbers of converts within a year of his arrival in Kent. It is not clear when and where Augustine was consecrated as a bishop. Contemporary letters from Pope Gregory, however, refer to Augustine as a bishop before he arrived in England.

A letter of Gregory's from September calls Augustine a bishop, and one ten months later says that Augustine had been consecrated on Gregory's command by bishops of the Germanies. Blair "Church in Anglo-Saxon Society" pp. However, there were probably some Christians already in Kent before Augustine arrived, remnants of the Christians who lived in Britain in the later Roman Empire.

Other topics were relations between the churches of Britain and Gaul, childbirth and baptism, and when it was lawful for people to receive communion and for a priest to celebrate mass. Bede "A History of the English Church" pp. They brought a pallium for Augustine and a present of sacred vessels, vestment s, relic s, and books. The pallium was the symbol of metropolitan status, and signified that Augustine was now an archbishop.

Along with the pallium, a letter from Gregory directed the new archbishop to ordain 12 suffragan bishop s as soon as possible and to send a bishop to York.

Gregory's plan was that there would be two metropolitans, one at York and one at London, with 12 suffragan bishops under each archbishop. As part of this plan, Augustine was expected to transfer his archiepiscopal see to London from Canterbury.

The move from Canterbury to London never happened; no contemporary sources give the reason, Brooks "Early History of the Church of Canterbury" pp.