St. Augustine was born in Rome (we don't know the exact date). He died on the 26th May 605.

He was a Roman, the prior of Saint Andrew's monastery on the Coelian Hill in Rome - which was originally set up by Pope Gregory. It was a Benedictine monastery.  In 596, six years after he had become pope,  Gregory sent Augustine with 40 monks to convert the English. By the time they had reached southern France, they were worried about stories they had heard of the cruelty of the Anglo-Saxons. The monks wanted to return to Rome.

Augustine went back to Rome to get support from the pope. Gregory sent Augustine back determined to go across the channel. The pope said to him, "It is better never to undertake any high enterprise than to abandon it once it has started." He added, "The greater the labour, the greater will be the glory of your eternal reward."

The pope also persuaded some French priests to aid the mission and the group landed at Stonar near Ramsgate on the isle of Thanet in 597. They were welcomed by King Ethelbert of Kent. He did not dismiss Augustine out of hand and the Chronicle the Venerable Bede says he said the following - click here!

Ethelbert's wife Bertha was the daughter of Charibert the king of Paris and already a Christian (Ethelbert had been permitted to marry her as long as she could stay true to her religion). This made it much easier for the missionaries to establish themselves under the protection of the King in Canterbury. The king himself was baptised within a year of their arrival.   

Augustine then went back to France to be consecrated bishop of the English by Virgilius, the Metropolitan of Arles. On his return to England on Christmas day 597 he baptised 10,000 people who had converted to Christianity! So started the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons to Christianity. 

On land given to Augustine by the king, he built a Benedictine monastery at Canterbury which he named after Saint Peter & Saint Paul (it was later called Saint Augustine's).

He did not push conversion on to the Anglo-Saxons but slowly started to win them over. Pope Gregory had told him not to destroy pagan temples and to allow pagan rites which he could incorporated into Christian feasts. It was a softly softly approach to converting the Nation, as Gregory said "He who would climb to a lofty height must go by steps, not leaps."