76 Augustine of Canterbury, Saint
Attila, who met him on the banks of the Mincio River in
northern Italy, near Piacenza. After detailed negotiations,
Attila agreed to withdraw and led his forces out of Italy
into PANNONIA.
In 453 an aging Attila married. The wedding
involved a huge feast and heavy drinking. According to
some accounts, Attila later collapsed on his bed, lying on
his back. He suffered a hemorrhage or a nosebleed, as
often happened to him after heavy drinking, and literally
drowned in his own blood with his new bride present but
uncomprehending. He was buried secretly, and the grave
has never been found.
Further reading:Jordanes, The Gothic History of Jor-
danes,trans. C. C. Mierow (1915; reprint, Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1966); Walter A. Goffart, Bar-
barians and Romans, A.D. 418–584: The Politics of Accom-
modation (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,
1980); C. D. Gordon, The Age of Attila: Fifth-Century
Byzantium and the Barbarians(Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 1966); Otto J. Maenchen-Helfen, The
World of the Huns: Studies in Their History and Culture,ed.
Max Knight (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1973); E. A. Thompson, The Huns, rev. ed. (Oxford:
Blackwell, 1999).
Augustine of Canterbury, Saint (Augustine of Kent)
(d. 604/609)first archbishop of Canterbury
Augustine started out as a monk and prior of the
monastery of Saint Andrew in the city of Rome. From
there he was chosen by Pope GREGORYthe Great to lead a
mission to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons to Christian-
ity. BEDEwrote that Augustine and 40 Roman monks left
Rome in 595 or 596 and arrived in England in spring of
- They were well received by King Æthelberht (d.
- of Kent (whose wife was already a Christian) at a
meeting on the Isle of Thanet. The king and his retainers
let them stay in CANTERBURYand gave them freedom to
preach in the kingdom. King Æthelberht himself was
soon converted. By the end of 597 Pope Gregory wrote
that Augustine had brought more than 10,000 converts to
the faith.
Gregory had intended to divide the newly Christian
country into two ecclesiastical provinces, with episcopal
seats at YORKand LONDON. Augustine and his archiepis-
copal see remained entrenched at Canterbury. By 604
Augustine consecrated two more Roman missionaries to
English sees: Saint Justus (d. 627) to the bishopric of
Rochester and Mellitus (d. 624) to London. By the time
of his death on May 26, between 604 and 609, a promis-
ing ecclesiastical organization was established. The
founding of early schools for the training of a native
clergy probably was part of this effort.
Further reading:Nicholas Brooks, The Early History
of the Church of Canterbury: Christ Church from 597 to
1066 (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1984);
Richard Gameson, ed., St. Augustine and the Conversion of
England (Stroud: Sutton, 1999); Henry Mayr-Hartung,
The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England,3d ed.
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1991).Augustine of Hippo, Saint (Aurelius Augustinus)Church of the Holy Sepulcher
Although his life and activity belong to an earlier age,
Augustine’s teaching and thought were of paramount
importance throughout the Middle Ages. Born in Tagaste
or Munidia on November 13, 354, to Monica, a devoted
Christian, Augustine studied there and in Carthage and,
in 373, began teaching RHETORIC. Upon reading the
Hortensius of Cicero in 373, he began the study of
philosophy. For nine years, he claimed to have followed
the doctrines of the Manichaeans. Moving to MILANin
384, Augustine was much influenced in his change of
lifestyle by Bishop AMBROSE. He converted to Catholi-
cism and was baptized in 387. Returning to Africa the
following year, he was made bishop of Hippo, or modern
Bone, in Algeria in 395.IDEAS AND WORKS
His adoption of and reliance on Platonic philosophy as
a basis for his personal religious and political thought
laid the foundation of its becoming a prominent
philosophical system in Western Europe. He viewed
the Christian faith and religion as an organic system.
The church was to create the conditions for gaining
salvation through a knowledge of God and guiding
the behavior of the faithful within a system of thought
and institutions he represented as one with the body
of Christ. This view had an enormous influence on
ecclesiastical organization in the Middle Ages, and rela-
tions between church and secular society. His political
ideas, as expressed in The City of God,elaborated the
idea of a Christian state. It was a theocratic regime led
by the church for the salvation of humankind. The
underlying concept was that the present was a phase
on the way to the kingdom of God sometime in
the future. This “Political Augustianism” fostered the
church’s acceptance of the less than ideal social systems
of medieval states, with all their injustices, such as
slavery, or barbaric or pagan customs, such as trial by
ordeal. These could be accepted on the condition that
any secular ruler must accept the spiritual leadership
and advice of the church.CHRISTIAN SOCIETY
The identification of the state with the body of
Christ or Christian society, however, could imply the
exclusion of non-Christians from the political body. As
one example, his harsh exclusionism was applied with
severity to pagans, who might be given a choice between