medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
Augustine (d. 604) was a monk at Rome whom pope St. Gregory the Great chose in 596 to lead the first official mission to the Anglo-Saxons. After a slow progress through Gaul the missonaries arrived in 597 in Kent, where king Æthelberht (whose wife was a Christian from Francia) settled them at Canterbury. Either en route or on a quick subsequent trip to the Continent, Augustine was consecrated bishop; previously he had been styled abbot. There were already Christian churches in Kent and within a few years the mission had prospered to the degree that Augustine as archbishop was able to appoint bishops of Rochester and of London (Sts. Justus and Mellitus, respectively).
Augustine had a reputation for thaumaturgy. This doubtless helped him in his work, though Gregory the Great felt he had to remind him not to glory in his miracles. Yesterday was Augustine's _dies natalis_ and his feast day in the Church of England. Today is his day of commemoration in the Roman Martyrology.
Some period-pertinent images of (or probably of or, in the initial instance, allegedly of) St. Augustine of Canterbury:
a) as said to depicted (second from left, holding a book in his outstretched hands; at right, an enthroned St. Gregory the Great, extending his right hand toward the book) in the earlier or mid-eleventh-century Augsburg Sacramentary (London, British Library, MS Harley 2908, fol. 8r):
http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=27190
NB: The BL's own description of this illumination plausibly identifies its subject as the presentation of the sacramentary to St. Ulrich in his capacity as the patron saint of Augsburg's cathedral. The _Canterbury World Heritage Site Management Plan, April 2002_ <https://www.canterbury.gov.uk/media/946354/canterburywhsmanagementplan-1.pdf> reproduces (p. 11) the same illumination, said to be in the BL's "MS Marley [_sic_] 2908", with the following caption: "Pope Gregory sending St Augustine to England to convert the people to Christianity. From a mid-eleventh-century German missal." In their Acknowledgements (p. 3) the authors of this document call attention to this illumination -- though not to their disagreement with the BL over its interpretation -- when they say, "We are particularly grateful to the British Library for permission to reproduce the illustration on page 11." Still, they do not indicate a source for their very different take on its subject matter (nor do they say in what way this sacramentary can properly be called a missal). Can anyone on the list say where this interpretation has been argued? Christine Sciacca ignores it (see her _Building the Medieval World_ [Getty Publications, 2010], p. 25).
b) as probably depicted (left-hand column, third from the top) in an early fifteenth-century physician's almanac of English origin (ca. 1412; London, British Library, MS Harley 2332, fol. 20v):
http://britishlibrary.typepad.co.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2011/12/help-us-date-and-localise-this-manuscript.html
c) as depicted (at left; at right, pope St. Gregory the Great with a great panoply of cardinals and bishops) in a mid-fifteenth-century copy of Giovanni Colonna's _Mare historiarum_ (betw. 1447 and 1455; Paris, BnF, ms. Latin 4915, fol. 299v):
http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b6000905v/f668.item.zoom
Best,
John Dillon
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