Early life....

Laurence landed at Thanet, Kent, with Augustine in 597, as part of the Gregorian mission to convert the Anglo-Saxons from their native paganism to Christianity which was dispatched from Rome in 595,[1][2] although some sources state that he first arrived in 601, and was not a part of the first group of missionaries.[3][4] He had been a monk in Rome before his travels to England,[1] but nothing else is known of his history or background.[5] The medieval chronicler Bede says that Augustine sent Laurence back to Pope Gregory I to report on the success of converting King Æthelberht of Kent and to carry a letter with questions for the pope. Accompanied by Peter of Canterbury, another missionary, he set off some time after July 598, and had returned by June 601.[6] He brought back with him Gregory's replies to Augustine's questions, a document that Bede reprinted, commonly known as the Libellus responsionum.[7] Laurence is probably the Laurence referred to in the letter from Gregory to Bertha, queen of Kent. In that letter, Gregory praises Bertha for her part in the conversion of her husband, details of which Gregory says he received from Laurence the priest.[8] It is known that Laurence returned to England with Mellitus and others of the second group of missionaries in the summer of 601, but there is no record of Peter being with them.



joanna sheen
Lindos apartments