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The Gregorian mission〔Jones "Gregorian Mission" ''Speculum'' p. 335〕 or Augustinian mission〔McGowan "Introduction to the Corpus" ''Companion to Anglo-Saxon Literature'' p. 17〕 was sent by Pope Gregory the Great in AD 596 to convert Britain's Anglo-Saxons.〔Mayr-Harting ''Coming of Christianity'' p. 50〕 Headed by Augustine of Canterbury, by the death of the last missionary in 635 the mission had established Christianity in southern Britain. Along with the Irish and Frankish missions it converted other parts of Britain as well and influenced the Hiberno-Scottish missions to Continental Europe. By the time the Roman Empire recalled its legions from the province of Britannia in 410, parts of the island had already been settled by pagan Germanic tribes who, later in the century, appear to have taken control of Kent and other coastal regions. In the late 6th century Pope Gregory sent a group of missionaries to Kent to convert Æthelberht, King of Kent, whose wife, Bertha of Kent, was a Frankish princess and practising Christian. Augustine was the prior of Gregory's own monastery in Rome and Gregory prepared the way for the mission by soliciting aid from the Frankish rulers along Augustine's route. In 597 the forty missionaries arrived in Kent and were permitted by Æthelberht to preach freely in his capital of Canterbury. Soon the missionaries wrote to Gregory telling him of their success and that conversions were taking place. The exact date of Æthelberht's conversion is unknown but it occurred before 601. A second group of monks and clergy was dispatched in 601 bearing books and other items for the new foundation. Gregory intended Augustine to be the metropolitan archbishop of the southern part of the British Isles, and gave him power over the clergy of the native Britons, but in a series of meetings with Augustine the long-established Celtic bishops refused to acknowledge his authority. Before Æthelberht's death in 616 a number of other bishoprics had been established but after that date, a pagan backlash set in and the see, or bishopric, of London was abandoned. Æthelberht's daughter, Æthelburg, married Edwin, the king of the Northumbrians, and by 627 Paulinus, the bishop who accompanied her north, had converted Edwin and a number of other Northumbrians. When Edwin died, in about 633, his widow and Paulinus were forced to flee to Kent. Although the missionaries could not remain in all of the places they had evangelised, by the time the last of them died in 653, they had established Christianity in Kent and the surrounding countryside and contributed a Roman tradition to the practice of Christianity in Britain. ==Background== By the 4th century the Roman province of Britannia was converted to Christianity and had even produced its own heretic in Pelagius.〔〔 Britain sent three bishops to the Synod of Arles in 314, and a Gaulish bishop went to the island in 396 to help settle disciplinary matters.〔Frend "Roman Britain" ''Cross Goes North'' pp. 80–81〕 Lead baptismal basins and other artefacts bearing Christian symbols testify to a growing Christian presence at least until about 360.〔Frend "Roman Britain" ''Cross Goes North'' pp. 82–86〕 After the Roman legions withdrew from Britannia in 410 the natives of Great Britain were left to defend themselves, and non-Christian Angles, Saxons, and Jutes—generally referred to collectively as Anglo-Saxons—settled the southern parts of the island. Though most of Britain remained Christian, isolation from Rome bred a number of distinct practices—Celtic Christianity〔Hindley ''Brief History of the Anglo-Saxons'' pp. 3–9〕〔—including emphasis on monasteries instead of bishoprics, differences in calculation of the date of Easter, and a modified clerical tonsure.〔Mayr-Harting ''Coming of Christianity'' pp. 78–93〕〔Yorke ''Conversion of Britain'' pp. 115–118 discusses the issue of the "Celtic Church" and what exactly it was.〕 Evidence for the continued existence of Christianity in eastern Britain at this time includes the survival of the cult of Saint Alban and the occurrence of ''eccles''—from the Latin for ''church''—in place names.〔Yorke ''Conversion of Britain'' p. 121〕 There is no evidence that these native Christians tried to convert the Anglo-Saxon newcomers.〔Stenton ''Anglo-Saxon England'' p. 102〕〔Mayr-Harting ''Coming of Christianity'' p. 32〕 The Anglo-Saxon invasions coincided with the disappearance of most remnants of Roman civilisation in the areas held by the Anglo-Saxons, including the economic and religious structures.〔Kirby ''Earliest English Kings'' p. 23〕 Whether this was a result of the Angles themselves, as the early medieval writer Gildas argued,〔Yorke ''Kings and Kingdoms'' pp. 1–2〕 or mere coincidence is unclear. The archaeological evidence suggests much variation in the way that the tribes established themselves in Britain concurrently with the decline of urban Roman culture in Britain.〔Yorke ''Kings and Kingdoms'' pp. 5–7〕 The net effect was that when Augustine arrived in 597 the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms had little continuity with the preceding Roman civilisation. In the words of the historian John Blair, "Augustine of Canterbury began his mission with an almost clean slate."〔Blair ''Church in Anglo-Saxon Society'' pp. 24–25〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gregorian mission」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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