Introduction of Christianity by Roman Missionaries in Kent

All these people were pagans, adhering to the worship of Woden, Thor, and Tin, gods of the woods and the sky and the powers of nature, a fact that had come to the notice of the great missionary pope, Gregory, when he was a deacon in Rome. He sent Augustine,' the prior of his own monastery, to preach the word of God to the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and in 597 the latter, with nearly forty other monks, landed on the island of Thanet in Kent. Augustine had chosen Kent, partly because it was the best known and most powerful of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, and partly because its king had married a Frankish princess, Bertha, who was an orthodox Christian. Immediately on landing, Augustine sent a message to the king, telling him of the object of his coming; "I'd a few days later thelbirht, who had refused to allow the monks to come into the town, went to the place where they were, and sitting in the open air for fear of magic, listened to the preaching of Augustine. At its close he gave the monks full permission to reside in the chief town of the Kentishmen, Canterbury (burg of the Cantwara), and to win as many as they could to Christ. From that day Christianity took root in England, and soon thelbirht himself, his gesithas, and his People accepted the faith and were baptized. Augustine was made "archbishop of the English nation," and new workers were sent out. But outside of Kent progress was slow. Though the dependent East Saxons and East Anglians outwardly accepted the faith, they did not long retain it, but went back to paganism after the death of thelbirht in 616.

In Northumbria and Wessex

In the year 625 an effort was made to carry Christianity into Northumbria, whose king Eadwine had married Ethelberga, a daughter of thelbirht. Ethelberga had taken with her as her preacher Paullinus, a monk lately sent from Rome. Through the combined efforts of the queen and Paullinus, who was soon made bishop of the new region, Eadwine accepted the faith, with the consent of his wise-men, and was baptized with many of his subjects. The old pagan priest Coifu was the first to lead the attack on the heathen idols.

For a few years the worldly affairs of the, Northumbrian king prospered. Eadwine extended the power of Northumbria, and, as Baeda says, "reduced under his dominion all the borders of Britain, a thing that no British king had done before." Through his influence the East Anglians were persuaded "to abandon their idolatrous superstitions," and Paullinus preached the faith through Northumbria and Lindsey. "There was," says Baeda, such perfect peace in Britain that wheresoever the kingdom of Eadwine extended, a woman with her new-born babe might walls throughout the island from sea to sea without receiving any harm." But in 632, having roused against him Penda, king of Mercia and champion of the old pagan faith, Eadwine was killed in the battle of Heathfield in Yorkshire. Paullinus and Ethelberga returned to Kent.

This loss to Christianity in the north was balanced by gains in the south. Three years afterward the pope sent Birinus to Wessex to work among the Gewissi, or West Saxons. As a result the king of the West Saxons was baptized together with his people, and the city of Dorchester was given to Birinus as a see.