It was to the tongue and the thought not of Gregory only but of the men whom his Jutish fathers had slaughtered or driven out that AEthelberht listened in the preaching of Augustine.

Canterbury, the earliest royal city of German England, became a centre of Latin influence.

The Roman tongue became again one of the tongues of Britain, the language of its worship, its correspondence, its literature.

But more than the tongue of Rome returned with Augustine.

Practically his landing renewed that union with the Western world which the landing of Hengest had destroyed.