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St. Augustine and the Conversion of England. Edited by Richard Gameson. Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 1999. xii+ 436 pp. $45.00 cloth.
This volume contains essays first given at a 1997 convocation held at the University of Kent, Canterbury to commemorate the 1400th anniversary of the mission of Augustine of Canterbury to convert the pagan Anglo-Saxons.
The essays range widely, but a central theme unites them: the achievement of Augustine. This alone makes the volume welcome. As many contributors point out, the main source for the mission is the Venerable Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, and Bede makes Gregory the Great, who sent the mission, more important than Augustine, who actually did the converting. Getting there "firstest with the mostest" often wins, and generations of scholars have followed Bede's lead. Since he is the primary source, in both senses of the word, Bede will remain a major influence, but after this volume Augustine will not be in the background again. Finally, too, scholars have begun to look for the biases in Bede's almost legendary prowess. Bede was a monk, and even as pope, Gregory considered himself a monk, while Augustine (be himself also a monk) established a strong episcopal organization in Kent. Furthermore, Bede was the leading light of a Northumbrian learned tradition and may not have wished to focus too much on Canterbury, the only potential rival to Northumbria.
Richard Gameson starts the volume with "Augustine of Canterbury: Context and Achievement" and sets the tone for the volume, reviewing Bede's evidence...