not merely a change of religion, it
was a revolution from a life of barbarism to a life of incipient
culture, and slow but progressive civilisation.

So inevitable was the Christianisation of England, that even while the
flood of paganism was pouring westward, the east was beginning to
receive the faith of Rome from the Frankish kingdom and from Italy. It
has been necessary, indeed, to anticipate a little, in order to show the
story of the conquest in its true light. Ten years before the heathen
AEthelfrith of Northumbria massacred the Welsh monks at Chester,
Augustine had brought Christianity to the people of Kent.

In 596, Gregory the Great determined to send a mission to England. Even
before that time, Kent had been in closer union with the Continent than
any other part of the country. Trade went on with the kindred Saxon
coast of the Frankish kingdom, and AEthelberht, the ambitious Kentish
king, and over-lord of all England south of the Humber, had even married
Bercta, a daughter of the Frankish king of Paris. Bercta was of course a
Christian, and she brought her own Frankish chaplain, who officiated in
the old Roman church of St. Martin, at Canterbury. But Gregory's mission
was on a far larger scale. Augustine, prior of the monastery on the
Coelian Hill, was sent with forty monks to convert the heathen
English. They landed in Thanet, in 597, with all the pomp of Roman
civilisation and ecclesiastical symbolism. Gregory had rightly
determined to try by ritual and show to impress the barbarian mind.
AEthelberht, already predisposed to accept the Continental culture, and
to assimilate his rude kingdom to the Roman model, met them in the open
air at a solemn meeting; for he feared, says Baeda, to meet them within
four walls, lest they should practice incantations upon him. The foreign
monks advanced in procession to the king's presence, chanting their
litanies, and displaying a silver cross. AEthelberht yielded almost at
once. He and all his court became Christians; and the people, as is
usual amongst barbarous tribes, quickly conformed to the faith of their
rulers. AEthelberht gave the missionaries leave to build new churches, or
to repair the old ones erected by the Welsh Christians. Augustine
returned to Gaul, where he was consecrated as Archbishop of the English
nation, at Arles. Kent became thenceforth a part of the great
Continental system. Canterbury has ever since remained the metropolis of
the English Church;