their own souls than those of others--as were undoubtedly the Irish monks who settled in the otherwise uninhabited Iceland! But inevitably these monasteries became means by which Christianity could be introduced to those in the vicinity. The conversion of the Picts which Columba began was certainly achieved within a century of Columba's death, but thanks to men such as DonnĂ¡n of Eigg or Maelrubai of Applecross.

The involvement of Iona was more direct in the history of English Christianity. The first two Christian Anglo-Saxons we know of were monks at Iona during Columba's lifetime. The Anglian Oswald stayed at Iona during his exile, and when he became king of Northumbria in 635 he asked Iona to send him clerics to help him convert his kingdom. Aidan was chosen, and he founded the island monastery of Lindisfarne as the centre for his bishopric of Northumbria. For Bede, writing his history of the English Church less than a century later, and only a few kilometres from Lindisfarne, Aidan was the ideal bishop, pious, humble, forever travelling the diocese and preaching to his flock, and impressing his saintly example upon the kings he had to deal with. Lindisfarne became a training centre for missionaries, and in the mid-seventh century, when Northumbria was the most powerful kingdom in England, these men spread the word to those kingdoms under North- umbrian domination. Even Wilfrid of York, the great champion of Roman rather than Irish customs, began his monastic career at Lindisfarne and shared in its missionary tradition, bringing Christianity to Sussex and starting the mission to the Frisians in the Low Countries.

The conversion of the Anglo-Saxons began in the south of England, not the north. Pope Gregory the Great sent the monk Augustine to Britain to re-establish the Church, clearly thinking that the Roman province of Britain had survived in some recognizable form. Augustine was charged to set up metropolitan sees at London and York, with the intention that there should be twenty-four other bishops established in appropriate towns. When Augustine arrived in Kent in 597, with his Frankish interpreters, he found the situation very different from what Gregory had expected. But he carried out his task as best he

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