To Augustine, Bishop of the Angles, on the Pallium and the Sees of London and York

Gregory to Augustine, and so on.

It is certain that rewards beyond words in an eternal kingdom are kept for those who labor for Almighty God. Yet we must bestow honors on them, so that, rewarded in this way, they may give themselves all the more fully to devotion in spiritual work. And since the new church of the Angles has been brought to the grace of Almighty God through the generosity of the same Lord and through your labors, we grant you the use of the pallium in it, for the celebration of mass only. This is so that you may ordain bishops in twelve separate places, to be subject to your jurisdiction, with the intention that the bishop of the city of London should always in future be consecrated by his own synod, and receive the honor of the pallium from this holy and Apostolic See, which by the grace of God I serve. Further, we wish you to send to the city of York a bishop whom you judge fit to be ordained, so that, if this same city with the places around it should receive the word of God, he too may ordain twelve bishops and hold the rank of a metropolitan. For to him also, if our life continues, we intend, with God’s favor, to send a pallium; but we wish him to be subject to the authority of your fraternity. But after your death let him be over the bishops he has ordained, so as to be in no way subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop of London. Further, between the bishops of London and York in future let there be this distinction of rank: that the one who was ordained first is to be counted first. But let them arrange by common counsel and with united action whatever has to be done in zeal for Christ. Let them be of one mind in what is right, and carry out what they intend without disagreeing with each other. [b]

But let your fraternity have subject to you, under our God, not only the bishops you ordain and those whom the bishop of York may ordain, but also all the priests of Britain, so that they may learn the pattern of right belief and good living from the words and the life of your holiness, and, carrying out their office well in faith and conduct, may reach the heavenly kingdoms when it pleases the Lord. God keep you safe, most reverend brother. Given on the tenth day before the Kalends of July, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our lord Maurice Tiberius, the eighteenth year after the consulship of the same lord, in the fourth indiction. [c]