§ 10. The Mission of Gregory and Augustin. Conversion of Kent, a.d. 595–604.
With the conquest of the Anglo-Saxons, who were heathen barbarians, Christianity was nearly
extirpated in Britain. Priests were cruelly massacred, churches and monasteries were destroyed,
together with the vestiges of a weak Roman civilization. The hatred and weakness of the Britons
prevented them from offering the gospel to the conquerors, who in turn would have rejected it from
contempt of the conquered.^22
But fortunately Christianity was re-introduced from a remote country, and by persons who
had nothing to do with the quarrels of the two races. To Rome, aided by the influence of France,
belongs the credit of reclaiming England to Christianity and civilization. In England the first, and,
we may say, the only purely national church in the West was founded, but in close union with the
papacy. "The English church," says Freeman, "reverencing Rome, but not slavishly bowing down
to her, grew up with a distinctly national character, and gradually infused its influence into all the
feelings and habits of the English people. By the end of the seventh century, the independent,
insular, Teutonic church had become one of the brightest lights of the Christian firmament. In short,
the introduction of Christianity completely changed the position of the English nation, both within
its own island and towards the rest of the world."^23
The origin of the Anglo-Saxon mission reads like a beautiful romance. Pope Gregory I.,
when abbot of a Benedictine convent, saw in the slave-market of Rome three Anglo-Saxon boys
offered for sale. He was impressed with their fine appearance, fair complexion, sweet faces and
light flaxen hair; and learning, to his grief, that they were idolaters, he asked the name of their
nation, their country, and their king. When he heard that they were Angles, he said: "Right, for they
have angelic faces, and are worthy to be fellow-heirs with angels in heaven." They were from the
province Deira. "Truly," he replied, "are they De-ira-ns, that is, plucked from the ire of God, and
called to the mercy of Christ." He asked the name of their king, which was AElla or Ella (who
reigned from 559 to 588). "Hallelujah," he exclaimed, "the praise of God the Creator must be sung
in those parts." He proceeded at once from the slave market to the pope, and entreated him to send
missionaries to England, offering himself for this noble work. He actually started for the spiritual
conquest of the distant island. But the Romans would not part with him, called him back, and shortly
afterwards elected him pope (590). What he could not do in person, he carried out through others.^24
to another view, for the cup of blessing), in which Joseph of Arimathaea caught the blood of the Saviour at the cross, and which
appears in the Arthurian romances as the token of the visible presence of Christ, or the symbolic embodiment of the doctrine
of transubstantiation. Hence the derivation of Grail from sanguis realis, real blood, or sangroyal, the Lord’s blood. Others
derive it from the Romanic greal, cup or dish; still others from the Latin graduale. SeeGeoffrey of Monmouth, Chronicon sive
Historia Britonum (1130 and 1147, translated into English by Aaron Thomson, London, 1718); Sir T.Malory, History of Prince
Arthur (1480-1485, new ed. by, Southey, 1817);Wolfram von EschenbachParcival and Titurel (about 1205, transl. by K.
Simrock, Stuttg., 1842);Lachmann, Wolfram von Eschenbach (Berlin, 1833, 2nd ed, 1854);Göschel Die Sage von Parcival
und vom Gral nach Wolfram von Eschenbach(Berlin, 1858);PaulinParis,Les Romans de la Table Ronde(Paris, 1860);Tennyson,
The Idylls, of the King (1859), and The Holy Grail (1869);Skene, Four Ancient Books of Wales (1868);Stuart-Glennie, Arthurian
Localities (1869);Birch-Herschfeld,Die Sage vom Gral, (Leipz., 1877); and an article ofGöschel, Gral in the first ed. of
Herzog’s Encykl. V. 312 (omitted in the second ed.).(^22) Bede (I. 22) counts it among the most wicked acts or neglects rather, of the Britons mentioned even by their own
historian Gildas, that they, never preached the faith to the Saxons who dwelt among them.
(^23) History of the Norman conquest of England, Vol. I., p. 22 (Oxford ed. of 1873).
(^24) Beda (B. II., ch.1 at the close) received this account "from the ancients" (ab antiquis, or traditione majorum), but
gives it as an episode, not as a part of the English mission (which is related I. 53). The elaborate play on words excites critical