THE P RTAL
January 2014
Page 7
The Gregorian Mission
Harry Schnitker
T
here can
be little doubt that the first real highlight of what was to become the close relationship
between the Church in England and the Popes came during the Pontificate of Pope St Gregory the Great
(540-604). His Pontificate began in 590, some 180 years after the Roman legions had left Britain. There, much
had changed during this period: almost all of what is now England, and a swathe of south-eastern Scotland,
had come to be dominated by the Anglo-Saxons.
shrouded in
uncertainty
How this came about is
shrouded in uncertainty.
We now know that numbers
were small, and that outright
conquest was the exception
rather than the rule. Yet
somehow these Continental
invaders managed to oust a
culture that had dominated
England
for
centuries.
Christianity, which may not
have been that widespread
outside urban areas anyhow,
retreated to the west and was
replaced by paganism.
Frankish conversion
this initiative by his Frankish
wife, Bertha (539-612), the
daughter of the Merovingian
King, Charibert I. She was
later canonised.
mission to England
Significantly,
the
man
sent by the Pope to lead the
first mission to England, St
Augustine, settled at a church
which St Bertha had erected
in Canterbury, and which she
had dedicated to St Martin of
Tours. From being the private
sacred space of the Queen,
the church became the centre
of the Roman mission to
England.
In this Anglo-Saxon world,
military supremacy
local kings and kinships came
to dominate the socio-political
The relationship between
scene. Some of the kings
Bertha, Æthelberht and St
married into the Frankish nobility of the Continent, Gregory the Great was pivotal for the Christianisation
which had converted to Christianity around 496.
of England. Æthelberht was not only the King of Kent,
he was also the Bretwalda.
It is worthwhile just to consider this. The Frankish
conversion occurred within half a century of the
This title implied he held a military and honorary
collapse of Rome. Now that is still quite a considerable supremacy amongst the Anglo-Saxon kings. This
time. However, if counting back 50 years gets us to the fact was quickly understood by the Pope, who wrote
1960s, counting back 180 years gets us to 1833, four to the King of Kent to urge him not only to accept
years before the reign of Queen Victoria.
Christianity, but also to propagate it amongst his
fellow Anglo-Saxon rulers.
monumental tasks
Such perspective helps us in understanding the
profound and sweeping changes that had impacted
on England, and the monumental nature of the tasks
awaiting any missionary. Nevertheless, assistance from
the Christian wives of some of the kings was certainly
hugely beneficial.
daughter of Rome
The rest of the story is well-known, and a conversion
of England’s rulers was relatively easily achieved.
England had become the special daughter of Rome,
the first Christian territory that had been lost to the
pagans after the collapse of Rome and recovered since.
The first breakthrough for the missions came when
There is a subtle irony in this: it was an alliance
the King of Kent, Æthelberht (c.560-616), asked Pope between Papacy and monarchy that turned the face
Gregory the Great for Christian missionaries towards of England Rome-wards – it was a breakdown of that
the end of the century. He had been persuaded to take alliance that ended England’s links with Rome.