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The Catholic Historical Review 86.3 (2000) 489-490



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Book Review

L'Église et la Mission au VIe Siècle.
La Mission d'Augustin de Cantorbéry et les Églises de Gaule sous l'impulsion de Grégoire le Grand

Ancient and Medieval

L'Église et la Mission au VIe Siècle. La Mission d'Augustin de Cantorbéry et les Églises de Gaule sous l'impulsion de Grégoire le Grand. Actes du Colloque d'Arles de 1998. Présenté par Christophe de Dreuille. (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf. 2000. Pp. xii, 424. 183F.)

The Churches of Gaul and England have been very closely linked from the beginning. When Gregory the Great sent Augustine, the monk of his Roman community, in 596 to convert the heathen English to Christianity, he looked to Gallic bishops, kings, and clergy to help them in their arduous task. He intended this co-operation to endure long after the conversion of the English, and he [End Page 489] wanted the relationship of assistance to be a two-way business. The English mission took shape in his mind in the context of a broad vision in which the English and the Frankish churches were to be in a mutual partnership of Christian renewal. On the Gallic side, Arles was to be at the center of this relationship with Canterbury, Augustine's see, naturally, on the English side. The bishop of Arles was papal vicar in Gaul, the fulcrum of Gregory's intentions for the reform of the Gallic Church, and--even though it is not very likely that he was the bishop who consecrated Augustine--Arles and Canterbury were the foci of the intended reciprocal link between the two churches.

The present volume presents the proceedings of a conference held to celebrate the 1400th anniversary of this relationship. It gives the text of a short address by the present archbishop of Arles, a 'presentation' of the celebration by Mgr Christophe de Dreuille, its organizer, a short homily by the late Cardinal Hume, and a letter from Pope John Paul II. It also contains papers of a more than common degree of variety. Most of them (here by-passed) seem to have nothing but edification as their aim, and contribute nothing to the well-known facts of the history. There is also a group of excellent, scholarly surveys of the sixth- and seventh-century Christianity in Arles, including one on the Christian antiquities of Arles itself, by their distinguished former curator, M. Jean-Maurice Rouquette; and of its region, Provence and the Languedoc. Two papers are of local interest: one on the relics of the pallium of Caesarius, bishop of Arles (502-542), and an intriguing account of the celebrations of the thirteenth centenary of the consecration of Augustine (still the unquestioned belief in Arles) at Arles in 1897. A short summary of the state of studies of the "old Roman chant" does not touch on the myth which has attached Gregory the Great's name to it. These apart, four contributions stand out.

Bruno Judic studies, with some adroit historical detective work, the impact of Gregory's initiatives and of his writings and the traditions inaugurated by them in early medieval Gaul. Richard Gameson contributes an excellent survey of the implications of the coming of Christianity to Anglo-Saxon England: its effects on kings and kingship, architecture, language, and books. He concludes that the new contact with the European continent fostered the emergence of a Christian culture among the English which produced some considerable achievements, though in "isolated high points." Ian Wood subjects the frequently invoked contrast between "bureaucrat" and "charismatic" as applied to the native British and the new Roman-English brands of Christianity to devastating critique. These papers will be of wider interest in a somewhat amorphous volume whose shape and contents seem to reflect those of a local celebration rather than that...

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