Queen Berhta welcomed Augustine to Kent in 597, offering him the only Christian church in the kingdom and the quiet strength of her own faith. It was her influence - especially her work among the women of Kent - that softened the ground for his mission.
Yet history has sainted Augustine of Canterbury and left Berhta in the shadows, remembered only faintly outside Canterbury itself.
This book brings Berhta's story into the light through a vivid creative reimagining. A teenage princess of the Frankish Empire, she crosses the sea to marry a pagan king and must navigate miscarriages, betrayal, and the loneliness of being the sole Christian in a foreign land. As she learns from the women around her, Berhta shapes a gentle, contemplative, ecological form of Christianity. But the missionaries she welcomes soon trample her quiet faith with their rigid hierarchies, driving the sacred feminine underground.
This narrative uncovers the stories of the women who shaped early English Christianity. Gilbert brings to light not only their courage and resilience, but also the depth of a faith made stronger by centuries of silence.