[no-context]Saint Augustine of Canterbury ⓘ[/no-context] was a Benedictine monk and missionary, best known as the leader of the Gregorian mission sent from Rome to evangelise the Anglo-Saxons of England. As the first Archbishop of Canterbury, he laid the institutional foundations of the English Church and established a lasting link between the papacy and the kingdoms of early medieval England.

Early Life and Monastic Background

Little is known of Augustine’s early life. He was a monk of the monastery of St Andrew ⓘ in Rome, where he served as prior under Pope Gregory I ⓘ before Gregory’s election to the papacy. Augustine’s formation was monastic rather than scholarly or political, shaped by obedience, communal life, and pastoral discipline.

Mission to England (597)

In 597, Gregory commissioned Augustine to lead a mission of some forty monks to the kingdom of Kent, then ruled by Æthelberht of Kent. Æthelberht’s Frankish wife, Bertha of Kent, was already a Christian, and her presence eased the mission’s reception.

Augustine and his companions were granted permission to settle in Canterbury, where they began preaching to the local population. Æthelberht was baptised soon after, a conversion that proved decisive for the spread of Christianity in southern England.

Archbishop of Canterbury

Augustine was consecrated bishop—probably in Gaul—and established his see at Canterbury, which Gregory designated as the metropolitan centre of the English Church. He founded monasteries at Canterbury and near Rochester, and began organising diocesan structures that would endure long after his death.

Efforts to bring the native British clergy into alignment with Roman practice met with limited success, revealing early tensions between different Christian traditions in Britain. Nevertheless, Augustine’s authority as papal envoy gave the Roman mission lasting institutional weight.

Death and Veneration

Augustine died in 604, only a few years after the arrival of the mission, but his achievements ensured his enduring reputation as the Apostle of the English. He was buried at Canterbury, and was venerated as a saint shortly thereafter.

His work marked the beginning of a sustained Christian presence among the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms and established Canterbury as the spiritual centre of the English Church.