Augustine of Canterbury

Hugh Magennis (Queen's University Belfast)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.01: English Writing and Culture: Old English, 500-1066.
Vol. editors: Richard William Dance (University of Cambridge), Hugh Magennis (Queen's University Belfast)

Dates

Born c. 550
Died c. 604
Activity 580-c. 604

Places

Born in Italy
Active in England; Italy

Activities

Primary

Archbishop
Monk

Resources

Augustine was the first archbishop of Canterbury, having been sent to Anglo-Saxon England as the leader of a group of missionaries by Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great). His life and career while in England are known in considerable detail from Bede's account in his Ecclesiastical History, but we have only the sketchiest of information about his earlier life.

Augustine, presumably an Italian, is known to have studied under Felix, bishop of Messana, and to have been a monk at the monastery of St Andrew on the Caelian Hill at Rome, where he became prior. In 596 he was selected by Gregory to lead a mission to convert the English. Bede relates the famous story, “handed down by tradition”, as he puts it non-commitally, that …

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

475 words

Citation: Magennis, Hugh. "Augustine of Canterbury". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 20 September 2002 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5189, accessed 25 November 2024.]

Save this article

If you need to create a new bookshelf to save this article in, please make sure that you are logged in, then go to your 'Account' here