From the Roman mission of St. Augustine (St. Austin), the outpost of Irish monasticism in northern Britian and Iona, did not prevent the Christianization of the English people. The coming of Augustine with forty Benedictine monks to Thanet and Canterbury in 597 marked the first important Christian approach to the pagan English but not the absoloute beginning of the conversion.It was about two centuries after Ninian's mission and in the yeare of Columba's date in 597 that Augustine, the monk of marseilles had become prior of the Benedictine monastery of St. Andrews in Rome, sailed into the Thames estuary with forty monks and landed on the isle of Thanet under appointment of Pope Gregory the Great. Apparently Kentigern was induced by the local king, clergy, and an Irish bishop was brought in to consecrate him according to the custom of the Britons and Scots. Columba's family included a Saxon named Generus who was a baker to the monastery and another Saxon brother named Pilu. It was important for Augustine that Ethelbert, king of Kent obtain knowledge from his Christian wife Bertha, daughter of the Frankish King Charibert II. As administrator of Aquitaine, Charibert played a secondary role to his brother Dagobert I. A situation parallel to that in Kent came about from in 625 when Paulinus, formerl one of Augustine's aides who now was made bishop, escorted Ethelberga, daughter of the deceased Ethelbert to Northumbria to be the bride of King Edwin. Paulinus at the direction of Pope Boniface V preached to the pagans at the court and won Edwin himself who was baptized at York. The strong tradition holds that the baptizer and converter of Edwin was the Briton Rhun, son of Urien, a warrior who had become a priest. Paulinus was a missionary bishop for eight years in Northumbria. Soon after the battle of Heathfield and the death of Edwin in 632, he accompanied the widowed queen and her children back to Kent. One of his clerics was left at York; James the Deacon who instructed his converts in Gregorian plainsong. Otherwise the Roman mission in Northumbria began after the late Christian king. The kingdom was now divided between two relatives of Edwin; Bernicia at the northern section extending from the Tyne to the Fourth, ruled by Eanfrid... and Deira which reached from the Tyne southward to the Humber under Osric. Both were slain by the warrior Cadwallon, himself slain by the contender Oswald at the Battle of Heavensfield (St. Oswalds) near Hexham in Bernicia.

The rapid series of changes brought Iona's opportunity for an effective mission to Northumbria. Oswald was one of the most devout Christian kings of history and was the son of Ethelfrith who had united two Northumbrian provinces. Instead of reviving the Roman mission after Heavensfield, he appealed to the elders of the Scots at Iona and the Irish came to Northumbria. The Iona mission to Northumbria was not the earliest Irish attempt to bring Christianity to the English, moreover, to bring the new faith from Canterbury to the East Angles under King Redwald had been followed under King Sigebert while in exile in Gaul and came into the sphere of St. Columba. Felix, a Frankish disciple of Columba already a bishop had followed Sigebert back to East Anglia under Archbishop Honorius of Canterbury. Oswald's successor Edwin made refugees of Ethelfrith's family and unlike his father, Oswald was a Christian. His wandering had led him to Iona when it was ruled by Seghene in the seventh century who imbibed the teaching of the heirs of Columba.

During this time St. Fursa from Ireland came to East Anglia, founded a monastery, fled to a lonely island to undo the throngs of apocalytpic preaching. With his two brothers and a band of companions, soon established a monastery at Burgh Castle near Yarmouth. For his famous visions, he described in sermons that generations later the memory of them was reported to Bede who had heard Fursa preach. Unlike Dante, Fursa had no departed human to guide him. After ten years in East Anglia, fear of military invasion from the Mercians which monk Sigebert began a new pilgrimage and Fursa's deparature to Gaul. Soon St. Aidan came from Iona to Northumbria in response to Oseald. He was consecrated as bishop and despatched to Oswald's court. There he chose Lindisfarne at low tide near Oswald's capital at Bamburgh as the headquarters of his mission. He was joined by many of the Scots who preached the Word throughout Oswald's domain. Bede lived within the area of Aidan's labors and deplored the saint's Celtic erros on Easter and the tonsure and realized the conversion of Northumbria with the adoption of a new culture. Having added Deira to Oswy's realm of Northumbria within one month, Oswald's cousin Oswin and Aidan died. Oswy's dauther Elfled was dedicated by hum and her life service was as abbess of Whitby. When Oswy won a decisive battle against Penda the Merican, he won over Sigebert the Little of the East Saxons and sent him to Cedd the Northumbrian who was trained under Aidan, to later found the monastery of Lastingham. After Aidan, the bishop Finan of Lindisfarne consecreated bishop Cedd for the East Saxons. Cedd founded numerous churches and monasteries in Essex where the works of Mellitus, Roman bishop of Londond had long been crushed. It was Finan who performed baptisms of Merican including Penda's brother Peada.

Diuma became the first bishop in Merica having been consecrated by Finan. Diuma was folled by the Scot, Ceollach, whose successor, Turmere was an Englishman ordained by the Scots. It came about that the revised date of the Synod of Whitby (north England), a stretch of territory becoming Christian under the influence of the Celtic mission. From the coast of bernicia on the Firth of Forth to the shores of Essex on the Thames, there existed a fraternity of churches and monasteries looking toward Lindisfarne and the Celtic religious world beyond. With the flight of Mellitus from Essex, and later to the Continent after 616, the Roman mission begun by Augustine had shrunk back to Kent. Birinus, another Roman-based missionary bishop came to Wessex (the West Country) in about 633. Birinus, whose origin is unknown was commissioned by Pope Honorius I for outlying parts of the English domain and was successful in the conversion of King Cynegils whose baptism, Oswald of Northumbria was present. Birinus founded the see of Dorchester, near Bosham at which Dicul had planted a monastery on the shore near Chichester. When Cynegils died in 543, his successor Cenwalh remaining a pagan, driven into exile in East Anglia, returned to institute a Christian regime in Wessex. The Frankish bishop Agilbert who had studied Irish monasteries led briefly in the Wessex mission returned to Gaul and was later in Northumbria. Between the Romans and the Celts, arguments were about the date of Easter and the issue between exchange went far deeper. The Romand and Gallic churches observed the first Sunday after the first full moon following the vernal equinox beging March 21 and the Celtic feast fell on the Sunday occuring after the first full moon after the vernal equinox.

The ultimate issue was that of Celtic ecclesiastical autonomy as against integration within the Roman ecclesiastical system- on particulars, the Celts were overmatched on a stage that was set for the failure at the Synod of Whitby in 663. On the Easter question more than half of the Irish churches had already yielded to the Roman arguments. Augustine's futile attempt to reduce the British clergy to obedience, his sucessor Laurentius of Canterbury addressed to the Irish bishops and abbots in 605 with a circular letter, refused as much by and Dagan, an Irish bishop so as to eat with the Roman clergy at Canterbury. The eroision of Celtic solidarity came in southern Ireland in the 620s and 630s with a movement led by the abbot laiserian of Leighlin and Cummian, abbot of Durrow. The chain letter sent to Seghene, abbot of Iona, had the echoes of the recent letter of Pope Honorius. Continental journeys were always more frequent from southern ireland tan from the north and mentioned the apostole of Romanization with insularity to which the northern Scots it said, adhered. Ronan and Finian of Lindisfarne argued over Palm Sunday but Finian was succeeded by Colman (uncle of Columba) in 661 who was supported by the venerable Bishop Cedd who acted as interpreter to the conversant with an early bishop of Wessex and Paris. At Whitby, the Roman side embraced Northumbria as it broke away from Celtic usage.

Cuthbert, a monk of Melrose, a small branch of the Iona community was made bishop of Lindisfarne when Osway made all haste to conform to Rome. Colman's function at Lindisfrane was ended when he led the defeated company to Iona and to Ireland's farther shore. Taking with him, his Irish monks and thrity Englishmen of the brethren, and carrying away some of St. Aidan's relics. Colman found a spot for the English to have a monastery of their own at Mayo which in Bede's time was flourishing institution recruited from England. On the island of Innisbofin he established a new monastery. Bede mentions no small disupute about the tonsure of Whitby, nor other instances where the reform of the Easter calculation was adopted, the Roman tonsure following. At Lindisfrane, Colman was soon followed by Tuda from the south of Ireland who had learned Roman usages in Ireland when there was no return to Celtic ways, unless Northumbria. Numerous English missionaries to continental German tribes got their missionary purpose from a sojourn in Ireland and often to Frisia during Pepin's nomination. The flourishing monastery of Echternach in Luxemburg was founded in a Celtic continuum of Gospels by missionaries to Ireland bringing about the adoption of Roman Easter.

The movement to adopt the Roman Easter was making its appearnace in the Cornish Peninsula and West Wales. In 705, Aldhelm of Malmesbury became bishop of Sherborne, a see formed by King Ine of the West Saxons with Berhtwald, archbishop of Canterbury. In the eighth century, aldfrith was sole king of Northumbria and promoted the Romanizaing changes begun at Whitby. The Sherborne diocese extended into Devon where Celtic usages prevailed. On becoming bishop, he addressed the Devon prince Gerontius a letter sanctioning in his domain numerous derivations from the evangelical [Roman] tradition. In it the Britons are liked to Nestorians and Pharisees. The Saxon pressure on Devon and West Wales was increased under King Egbert until 835 without annexing it to Wessex. Before Egbert's stay at Iona, the abbot Adomnan, through King Aldfrith and contacts with the Northumbrian church became a convert to the Roman dating of Easter as did Ceolfrid, abbot of Jarrow and Wearmouth and then the adoption of the Roman usages by the Synod of Birr in 696. Through the Roman reforms, Egbert led Iona to yield from the pressure exterted by the Pictish king, Nechtan IV who saught improved relations with Northumbria by bringing the new Easter tables to his priests. Nechtan decreed the explusion from his realm of all non-conformists who found no harborage with neighboring Strathclyde Britons since 688. They would have betaken themselves to Wales where the Celtic Easter was still retained.

The Augustinian order (also known as Austin Canons, or Black Canons) came to England and established themselves at St. Botolph's Priory at Colchester, c. 1106. They spread rapidly, reaching Scotland by 1120. At their height, the Augustinians had over 200 houses in England and Wales. Each of the houses was governed by a prelate, usually a prior, but sometimes, an abbot. The monastic "rule" followed by the Augustinians was that of St. Augustine of Hippo and was not particularly austere. Each of the Austin Canons was a priest and as such was not bound to his house, but was free to have outside responsibilities, such as to a parish.

The Black Canons also ran schools, hospitals and almshouses. Some well known Augustinian houses are Holyrood, St. Andrews, Jedburgh, Lacock, St. Botolph's, Leeds (Kent), Llanthony, Walsingham and Barnwell. Their habit consisted of a hooded black cloak over top of a black cassock. The Augustinian Friars are another, separate order.

The Austin or Black Canons, an order of conventual clergy following the rule of St. Augustine of Hippo, were next in numbers in this country to the Benedictines and the medieval highlands, Fearn, St.Germans. On the Northamptonshire side of Stamford, Lincoln from the southwest, four counties meet, and far across Melrose, north from Kilkhampton (Stratton), there was a twelfth-century house of St. Sepulchre by Middlesex. The original Saxon church on the site was dedicated to St Edmund the King and Martyr. The earliest known references to Stratton are found in King Alfred’s Will of 880, the Domesday survey of 1086, and the Stratton Hundred.

The Premonstratensian, or White Canons, a reformed order of canons regular, founded their first English house in 1140 at Newhouse, Lincolnshire; thence a colony established themselves at Sulby in 1155. The Norbertines, also known as the Premonstratensians and in England, as the White Canons (from the color of their habit), are a Christian religious order of Augustinian canons founded at Prémontré near Laon in 1120 by Saint Norbert, afterwards archbishop of Magdeburg. In the 1220s, Culdee descendant Ferchar mac in tSagairt of Ross and Applecross, granted the Premonstratensian Order (perhaps the most modern one about) of Whithorn in Galloway a new monastery at Mid Fearn in Ross, moving it a decade later to New Fearn.