The Anglo-Saxons also brought to Britain their heathen
faith. Christianity did not come to them until the close the sixth century. At
this time more or less intercourse had sprung up between the people of Kent,
lying nearest to the Continent, and the Franks in Gaul. Ethelbert, the king of
Kent, had even married the Frankish princess, Bertha. He allowed his Christian
wife to bring a bishop to her new home and gave her the deserted church of St.
Martin at Canterbury as a place of worship. Queen Bertha's fervent desire for
the conversion of her husband and his people prepared the way for an event of
first importance in English history—the mission of Augustine.
MISSION OF AUGUSTINE, 597 A.D.
The pope at this time was Gregory I, better known, from
his services to the Roman Church, as Gregory the Great. The kingdom of
Kent, with its Christian queen, must have seemed to him a promising field for
missionary enterprise. Gregory, accordingly, sent out the monk Augustine with
forty companions to carry the Gospel to the heathen English. The king of Kent,
already well disposed toward the Christian faith, greeted the missionaries
kindly and told them that they were free to convert whom they would. Before
long he and his court embraced Christianity, and the people of Kent soon
followed the royal example. The monks were assigned a residence in Canterbury,
a city which has ever since remained the religious capital of England. From
Kent Christianity in its Roman form gradually spread into the other Anglo-Saxon
kingdoms.
