Then [there] is on the eastward of
Kent a great island [Thanet by name], which is six hundred hides large,
after the English nation's reckoning. The isle is shed away from the
continuous land by the stream Wantsum, which is three furlongs broad,
and in two places is fordable, and either end lies in the sea. On this
isle came up Christ's servant Augustine and his fellows--he was one of
forty. They likewise took with them interpreters from Frankland
[France], as St. Gregory bade them; and he sent messengers to Ethelbert,
and let him know that he came from Rome, and brought the best errand,
and whosoever would be obedient to him, he promised him everlasting
gladness in heaven, and a kingdom hereafter without end, with the true
and living God.
When [he then] the King heard these words, then ordered he them to abide
in the isle on which they had come up; and their necessaries to be there
given them until he should see what he would do to them. Likewise before
that a report of the Christian religion had come to him, for he had a
Christian wife, who was given to him from the royal kin of the
Franks--Bertha was her name; which woman he received from her parents on
condition that she should have his leave that she might hold the manner
of the Christian belief, and of her religion, unspotted, with the bishop
whom they gave her for the help of that faith; whose name was Luidhard.
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