<p>Bede’s <i>Historia ecclesiastica</i> tells the story of the conversion of the early English to Christianity under the guidance of various missionaries. As Bede describes it, the process was by no means a smooth one, instead punctuated by fits and starts, and the occasional backsliding into pagan practices. Among the more noteworthy accounts of the conversion, Bede records a letter Gregory the Great sent to Abbot Mellitus (<i>Epistola ad Mellitum</i>) in which Gregory describes a method for converting the pagan English which departs from practices Gregory recommended for use closer to Rome. As I argue, Gregory’s methodology is drawn from rhetorical <i>memoria</i>. As part of their training, rhetors learned mnemonic devices which taught them to organize and recall large amounts of information, with the goal of allowing the trained rhetor to speak extemporaneously on many topics. In recommending what I argue is an inversion of this mnemonic training in <i>Epistola ad Mellitum</i>, Gregory intended to confuse the pagan English by introducing a form of mental <i>curiositas</i> onto which missionaries could then impose a new belief system: worship of the Christian God.</p>