The Gregorian Mission to England
Laurence was a monk at Rome before travelling to England as part of the mission sent by Pope Gregory I. He landed at Thanet in Kent with Augustine in 597, though some sources place his arrival in 601, suggesting he was not among the first group of missionaries.
After the conversion of King Æthelberht, Augustine sent Laurence back to Rome to report to Pope Gregory. Accompanied by Peter of Canterbury, he departed sometime after July 598 and returned by June 601, bringing back Gregory's answers to a set of questions on the ordering of the new Church, known as the Libellus responsionum.
Archbishop of Canterbury
Around 604 Laurence succeeded Augustine as Archbishop of Canterbury. To ensure continuity, Augustine had consecrated him before his death, even though such a consecration was prohibited by canon law. Laurence never received a pallium from Rome, which potentially left his standing questionable in Roman eyes; he received papal recognition as archbishop from Pope Boniface IV in 610. In 613 he consecrated the monastery church that Augustine had built in Canterbury.
His archiepiscopate is mainly remembered for two matters: his unsuccessful effort to secure a settlement with the Celtic church, and his reconversion of King Eadbald. Laurence wrote to the Celtic bishops urging them to celebrate Easter on the Roman date. In 609 the bishop Dagan refused to eat with Laurence or even share a roof with the archbishop, owing to the differences between the two churches.
The Reconversion of King Eadbald
When King Æthelberht died in 616, his son Eadbald abandoned Christianity in favour of Anglo-Saxon paganism, and the pagan reaction forced many missionaries, including Mellitus and Justus, to flee to Gaul.
According to Bede, Laurence had been prepared to give up when he was visited by Saint Peter in a dream or vision. Saint Peter chastised and whipped him, leaving marks on his body that remained visible. Laurence showed these marks to Eadbald, who was converted on the spot. The historian Nicholas Brooks holds that the king was converted during Laurence's archiepiscopate, within a year of his succeeding his father.
Relics & Shrines
Laurence reposed on 2 February 619 (his death is traditionally dated to February 3) and was buried in the abbey of Saints Peter and Paul in Canterbury, alongside Augustine; the abbey was later renamed St Augustine's. His relics were translated to the new abbey church in 1091, and his shrine stood in the axial chapel of the church, flanking that of Augustine.
A Vita was written about the time of his translation by Goscelin, though it is based mainly on the account in Bede.
