32 FOUKTH PERIOD. A.D. 590 TO 1049.
kings and several bishops of Gaul, and a few books, to England.1 The missionaries, accompanied by some interpreters from France, landed on the isle of Thanet in Kent, near the mouth of the Thames.2 King Ethelbert, by his marriage to Bertha, a Christian princess from Paris, who had brought a bishop with her, was already prepared for a change of religion. He went to meet the strangers and received them in the open air; being afraid of some magic if he were to see them under roof. They bore a silver cross for their banner, and the image of Christ painted on a board; and after singing the litany and offering prayers for themselves and the people whom they had come to convert, they preached the gospel through their Frank interpreters. The king was pleased with the ritualistic and oratorical display of the new religion from distant, mighty Rome, and said : " Your words and promises are very fair; but as they are new to us and of uncertain import, I cannot forsake the religion I have so long followed with the whole English nation. Yet as you are come from far, and are desirous to benefit us, I will supply you with the necessary sustenance, and not forbid you to preach and to convert as many as you can to your religion."3 Accordingly, he allowed them to reside in the City of Canterbury (Dorovern, Durovernum), which was the metropolis of his kingdom, and was soon to become the metropolis of the Church of England. They preached and led a severe monastic life. Several believed and were baptized, "admiring/' as Bede says, "the simplicity of their innocent life, and the sweetness of their heavenly doctrine." He also mentions miracles. Gregory warned Augustin not to be puffed up by miracles, but to rejoice with fear, and to tremble
1 Among these books were a Bible in 2 vols., a Psalter, a book of the Gospels, a Martyrology, Apocryphal Lives of the Apostles, and some Commentaries. " These are the foundation or beginning of the library of the whole English church."
2 The first journey of Augustin, in 595, was a failure. He started finally for England July 23d, 596, wintered in Gaul, and landed in England the following year with about forty persons, including Gallic priests and interpreters. Haddan and Stubbs, III. 4.
8 Bede I. 25.
§ 10. THE MISSION OF GREGORY AND AUGUSTIN. 33
in rejoicing, remembering what the Lord said to his disciples when they boasted that even the devils were subject to them. For not all the elect work miracles, and yet the names of all are written in heaven.1
King Ethelbert was converted and baptized (probably June 2, 597), and drew gradually his whole nation after him, though he was taught by the missionaries not to use compulsion, since the service of Christ ought to be voluntary.
Augustin, by order of pope Gregory, was ordained archbishop of the English nation by Vergil ins/ archbishop of Aries, Nov. 16, 597, and became the first primate of England, with a long line of successors even to this day. On his return, at Christmas, he baptized nvore than ten thousand English. His talents and character did not rise above mediocrity, and he bears no compa rison whatever with his great namesake, the theologian and bishop of Hippo; but he was, upon the 'whole, well fitted for his missionary work, and his permanent success lends to his name the halo of a borrowed greatness. He built a church and monastery at Canterbury, the mother-church of Anglo-Saxon Christendom. Pie sent the priest Laurentius to Rome to inform the pope of his progress and to ask an answer to a number of questions concern ing the conduct of bishops towards their clergy, the ritualistic differences between the Roman and the Gallican churches, the marriage of two brothers to two sisters, the marriage of relations, whether a bishop may be ordained without other bishops being present, whether a woman with child ought to be baptized, how long after the birth of an infant carnal intercourse of married people should be delayed, etc. Gregory answered these ques tions very fully in the legalistic and ascetic spirit of the
1 " Non enim omnes clccti miracula faciunt, sed tamen eorum omnium nomina in ccelo sunt ascripta." Greg., Ad Augiistinum Anglorum Episcopum, Epp. Lib. XI. 28, and Bede I. 31.
7 Not JStherius, as Bede has it, I. 27, and in other places. ^Etherius was the contemporary archbishop of Lyons.