There is a tale told about Pope Gregory I (540–604) concerning the Anglii. Gregory is also known as Gregory the Great among tghe most important of all popes. He rignedt the juncture between the fall of Tome nd the rise of medieval Europe. The Church was gradually reducing the slave trade alsp promoted by the developing feudal system, but it still existed in the former Roman Empire. Gregory apparently saw a group of Anglii children from Deira. Deira was an Anglo-Saxon kingdom in northern England (6th century AD). The Germanic tribes had overun the Roman Empire, but that apparently did nit mean that Germanic children could not be sold as slaves. Deira's territory extended from the Humber to the Tees Rivers and from the sea to the western edge of the Vale of York. The boy were being sold as slaves in a Roman market. Gregory was reportedly struck by their fair complexions and piercing blue eyes and asked about them. When he learned that they wer Anglii he punned “Non Angli, sed angeli” , meaning "Not Angles, but angels"). Impressed by their beauty he is said to have resolved to convert their people to Christianity.
Bede the Venerable. Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum. (The Ecclesiastical History of the English People)
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