Gregory I, Pope, called the Great, Saint

GREGORY I, Pope, called the Great. - Born in Rome around 540, he ascended to the pontificate on 3 September 590, died on 12 March 604.

1. BEFORE THE PONTIFICATE

1. The family

There is no doubt that G. belonged to a patrician family, which has been sought to be identified with the Anicii, but in one of his letters G. speaks of the hospice of the Anicii without saying anything on the matter (Reg., IX, 8). If G. was an Anicius, he was so through the Petronii, to whom his ancestors belonged, since in the 6th century there were numerous ties of kinship between the two families (cf. G. B. De Rossi, Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae septimo saeculo antiquiores, I, Rome 1867, p. 371 ff.). Felix III, pope from 483 to 492, was his great-great-grandfather. Two sisters of his father Gordian, Tarsilla and Emiliana, consecrated themselves to God on the same day (Homil. in Evang., XXXVIII, 15) and were honored as saints, no less than G.'s mother, Silvia. The images of Gordian, of Silvia and of G. as they appeared in the painted decoration of the monastery "ad Clivum Scauri" were minutely described by John the Deacon (9th century), in S. Gregorii Magni vita (IV, 83-84), so as to allow one to imagine an approximate portrait of the Pontiff and of his parents (cf. H. Leclercq, s. v. in DACL, VI, coll. 1764-68). G.'s family owned on the Caelian a great palace, where today the church of St. Gregory stands.

2. Intellectual formation

The contemporary St. Gregory of Tours (Hist. Francorum, X, 1) assures us that G., at the moment of the papal election, was "so well instructed in letters, in grammar, in dialectic and in rhetoric that in the eternal city he was second to no one." To a writer like Gregory of Tours, who found difficulty even in the simplest rules of Latin grammar and who confessed to being ignorant of the cases of nouns and the tenses of verbs, the literary culture of his namesake must certainly have seemed marvelous; yet that culture, without doubt, had no competitors in the matter but was of an excellence altogether relative. It will suffice to recall that G. himself, even if with hyperbole, declares that he does not know Greek and in Latin confesses himself incapable of avoiding barbarisms or of always giving to nouns the case required by each preposition. His Latin was that of the good Roman society of the time, that of conversation, but not a literary Latin.

His biblical culture and his knowledge of the Fathers, very vast and truly profound, go back to the time of G.'s monastic life, whereas previously he had had to learn jurisprudence and the laws that regulated the administration of Rome, absolutely necessary for the career of a high official, toward which he had been directed.

3. Prefect of Rome

G. recalls in a letter (Reg., IV, 2) the time when he signed, in the capacity of prefect (perhaps of praetor) of Rome, a solemn act, that is, the declaration of the bishop of Milan, Lawrence, by which he accepted, before witnesses, the condemnation of the Three Chapters. Such an office procured no small amount of quarrels, and at the end of the term the holder had to go to render account at Ravenna. G. himself recalls that very few of his successors got through it without harm. Consequently, only out of duty did he hold the said irksome magistracy, all the more so since he felt himself strongly drawn to the monastic life. He declared indeed to Leander of Seville (Reg., V, 53 a) that he had been held back for some time from following this vocation not only because of the difficulty he experienced in changing habits, but also because it seemed to him that he still had to render "service" in the world, despite his repugnance.

From his years of administration, however, he retained a lively sense of discipline and of the necessity of order, and, as pope, he will gladly remind magistrates and ecclesiastical dignitaries of respect for the rule of their profession and of the regularity in the dispatch of business, traditional among high Roman officials, which remains for all the best guarantee of law and of the public good.

4. Monastic profession

At a certain moment the vocation to the religious state prevailed. He renounced honors, settled his accounts, changed dress and habit. Whereas before, says Gregory of Tours (Hist. Franc., X, 1), he was seen through the streets of Rome dressed in a purple toga, adorned with gems, now he was seen covered in the humble monastic habit.

His monastery was the paternal house on the "Clivus Scauri," which he dedicated to the apostle Andrew. He later founded six others on his estates in Sicily. G. did not wish to be abbot of the monastery he had founded; he preferred to practice obedience under the guidance of the abbot Valentio (Dialog., IV, 21). The Rule adopted was that of St. Benedict, to whom G. devoted the second book of his Dialogues.

The difficulty he encountered in practicing fasting was ruinous for his health, which suffered from it throughout his life (Reg., V, 53a; Hom. in Evang., II, 22).

5. Apocrisiarius at Constantinople

G. could not long enjoy the peace of the monastic life. The post of a regional deacon was vacant, and the Pontiff chose G., whose merit and aptitude in business were known. It is not certain whether G.'s ordination took place under Benedict I (574-78) or at the beginning of the pontificate of Pelagius II (579-90). There is no doubt, however, that Pelagius II sent him as apocrisiarius, as one would say today nuncio, to Constantinople, to the emperor Tiberius II in 579.

In the Byzantine capital, G. remained until 585, continuing, as far as was possible for him, the common life with certain monks who had followed him from Rome. Although he did not speak Greek fluently, he was in contact with eminent personages of Constantinople, and, once elected pope, he preserved these friendships. Moreover, his acquaintance with the emperor Maurice, who succeeded Tiberius in 582, whom G. judged enigmatic, and the experiences he had of the Byzantine environment were most useful to him for the government of the Church. His diplomatic activity at Constantinople did not prevent him from beginning the celebrated exposition of the Book of Job, known by the name of Moralia, for which he had been asked by his friend St. Leander of Seville.

Having returned to Rome in 585, he resumed the monastic life at the "Clivus Scauri," meditating on and commenting on the Holy Scriptures. But Pelagius II, who knew the man's worth, did not fail to make use of him in the difficulties of manifold affairs, and not a few of the Pontiff's letters, reports Paul the Deacon (Hist. Langobardorum, III, 30), are the work of G., who served him as secretary.

II. PONTIFF

1. Election

In Oct. 580 not a few disasters fell upon Rome which, as a culmination, brought, in Jan. 590, the terrible inguinal plague (Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc., X, 1; G., Dial., III, 19; Paul the Deacon, Hist. Lang., III, 23; id., Vita Greg., 10; John the Deacon, Vita Greg., I, 34-35). Among the first victims was Pope Pelagius II, who died around 15 Jan., but after that the dead were no longer counted. Paul the Deacon (Vita Greg., 10) states that entire districts of the city remained depopulated.

In this state of despondency and anguish, with the grave dangers pressing on, the need was seen to provide at once for the election of the new pontiff. G. was acclaimed by all the people, and he sought to avoid it. Even the attempt to beg the Emperor not to confirm the election came to nothing, since the prefect held back G.'s letter and sent the petition of the Roman people so that Maurice would hasten to confirm the appointment of his friend. After a vain attempt to flee, G. was forced to let himself be led to St. Peter's to be consecrated pope there. The ceremony was performed on 3 Oct. 590 (Lib. Pont., I, p. 312).

2. Pastoral action: a) in Rome and in Italy

While the imperial confirmation was still awaited, G. left the monastery and at once set to work to organize relief; he gave the people a discourse that was at once a cry of anguish and an invitation to hope (John the Deacon, Vita Greg., I, 41), and thus designated for the following day a penitential procession that was to move from the various churches of Rome toward the Basilica Liberiana: the so-called litania septiformis, which was repeated three days in succession.

When the plague ceased, Rome became subject to other calamities: famine, which G. sought to relieve by urging Justin, praetor of Sicily, to send shipments of grain larger than usual (Reg., I, 2); the danger of Lombard occupation, which remained ever threatening; the garrison, which was in turmoil because it was not being paid (Reg., I, 3); added to these were storms that uprooted trees and brought down houses and churches (Homil. in Evang., I, 1, 5). G., with his letters and his homilies, encouraged everyone and exhorted the officials to the exact fulfillment of their duties.

As head of the universal Church and patriarch of the West, he exercised a particular authority, namely that of metropolitan, over the Churches of Italy that constituted his "suburbicarian" jurisdiction, with Tuscany to the north and Sicily to the south. G. exercised constant control both over episcopal elections and over the fulfillment of the bishops' duties: the rectors who, in every province where the Holy See had property, were charged with its administration, served him as official intermediaries to carry out inquiries and make known his decisions. Their appointment was notified to the bishops, who in turn had to regard them as representatives of the Pope. When a particular case then required it, the Pope designated a visitor who would carry out an inquiry on the spot itself, make his report and promulgate, if need be, the decisions taken.

The history of the Church of Naples under G. has provided a significant example of such interventions (cf. Reg., III, 15, 58, 60; X, 19; XI, 12, 53; XII, 29). No less resolute were G.'s interventions with the bishops of Amalfi and of Taranto. But just as G. was resolute in exacting from the bishops their duties, he was equally so in defending their rights: as soon as a "defensor," charged with the patrimony of Sicily, usurps the rights of the bishop, to whom alone it belongs to guide his own clergy (Reg., XI, 24), or advantage is taken of the vacancy of the see to compromise the rights of the successor over a monastery of the diocese (Reg., XI, 54), the Pope intervenes to prevent the abuses that endanger the authority of the episcopate.

Outside the metropolis of Rome and its territory, Italy was divided into three metropolises: Milan, Aquileia and Ravenna. Most of the time G., respectful as he was of the rights of others, did not correspond directly with the bishops of those circumscriptions, but only with the metropolitans, who were responsible for their suffragans, as he was for his own. But when the case required action with individual bishops, for the common good of the Church, he did not fail to take it. Thus indeed the schism of Aquileia was brought to an end, when the metropolitan Severus refused to submit to the Pope's just admonition (cf. Reg., XII, 13; XIII, 36).

In the province of Milan G.'s prudence succeeded in overcoming the last resistances to the condemnation of the Three Chapters, due above all to the pressure of Theodelinda, queen of the Lombards, who, although Catholic, was attached to them at the inspiration of her director of conscience, the monk Secundus (cf. Reg., XIV, 12).

The metropolitans of Ravenna, given the particular situation of the city, seat of the Byzantine exarch, sometimes seemed truly to lose control; consequently the Pope's relations with them required special attention, which G. did not fail to give. Constrained by his office to make his severity felt, he let the tenderness of his heart be glimpsed, always maintaining high the prestige of the See of Rome (cf. Reg., V, 11, 15; XI, 21; XIII, 30).

b) In Spain. - Among the provinces dependent on the patriarchate of the West, one of the most tranquil during G.'s pontificate was Spain. In 587 the conversion of the Visigothic king Reccared had taken place, and in 589 the Third Council of Toledo received the official news of the conversion of all the Visigoths. Leander of Seville, who had labored so much for this conversion, informed the new Pope, who was also his friend. G. demonstrated his joy in a letter of Apr. 591 (Reg., I, 41). Reccared himself then sent to G. three abbots who were to present his homage and his gifts, but the sea was so bad that it did not allow them to go beyond Marseilles. For his part G. had sent to Malaga the priest Probinus, and the King invited him to court, though he could not go there for reasons of health. There was, however, an exchange of gifts between Reccared and G. The latter, with his good offices and with the discretion required, helped the King so that the Byzantines would remain on the south-east coast, along the littoral. In this territory too G. exercised his office of supreme judge in ecclesiastical questions: he intervened with regard to the governor Comitiolus, who had arbitrarily had two bishops deposed, sending the "defensor" John to restore matters.

c) In Africa. - After Belisarius' victory over the Vandals, North Africa had passed to the Byzantines and, consequently, the Church had gradually regained its vigor. A sudden reflowering of Donatism engaged G.'s pastoral action, and he opposed with all his strength the scandals that arose from it, to make them disappear. After having made a useless appeal to the civil authority, he turned to the sole forces of the episcopate and, flanked by such valid co-workers, obtained what he desired. After 596 no letter of G. is found that speaks of the Donatists.

d) In France. - Gaul had recently been unified under the Catholic Kingdom of the Franks, but the civil wars that agitated and convulsed the Merovingian Kingdom, and the unheard-of cruelties of the sovereigns and princes, had a painful reflection also on the moral and disciplinary conditions of the Church. The conditions of the Frankish Church, when G. was elected pope, were truly disastrous (cf. Gregory of Tours, Hist. Franc., IV, 12, 43; VII, 20; VIII, 29, 29). Asked by Childebert, king of Austrasia, G. sent the pallium to Virgilius of Arles and appointed him pontifical vicar of the provinces of Austrasia, Burgundy and Aquitaine, with the power to settle questions of lesser importance, using his own authority, and the more serious ones with the help of twelve bishops. Only in extreme cases was he to have recourse to Rome. G. intervened repeatedly and successfully with Queen Brunhilda to put an end to the scandal of simony, of the consecration of laymen to the episcopate and of the paganizing practices still in use, especially in the countryside.

e) In England. - When in 590 G. ascended the pontifical throne, nothing gave any hint that England was on the eve of becoming a Christian nation. The invading Angles and Saxons had re-established paganism there. The need for the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons arose in G.'s mind as soon as the political conditions of the Frankish Kingdom gave him a guarantee of passage for the missionaries he would send. In 595 G. ordered the priest Candidus to purchase young Anglo-Saxon slaves, so that they might be educated in one of the monasteries of Rome, and in 596 he attempted the enterprise by sending a group of missionary monks from his monastery "ad Clivum Scauri". In 597 the conversion of King Ethelbert and of ten thousand

Anglo-Saxons showed that G.'s design had fully succeeded (v. AGOSTINO, vescovo di CANTERBURY, santo). G. also traced the general lines of the Catholic hierarchy in England (Reg., XI, 39), based on the Roman division of the Empire, which, however, St. Augustine of Canterbury, taking into account the current political situation, thought it well to modify. In G.'s epitaph mention is made of the conversion of England through his work (cf. the text in A. Silvagni, Inscriptiones christianae urbis Romae saeculo septimo antiquiores, II, Rome 1935, n. 4156).

f) In the East. — The relations between the Church of Rome and those of the East, in the time of G., come down for the most part to the vicissitudes of the dispute with the Church of Constantinople, which the Pope's prudence and constancy were unable to resolve. At the Council of Constantinople of 587, the patriarch John the Faster, who presided over it, when signing the acts subscribed himself with the title of "ecumenical patriarch". Pelagius II refused to recognize as legal that Council, gathered without his authorization, and protested against the title of "ecumenical patriarch" assumed by the Faster (cf. Reg., V, 44), in which he rightly saw the very authority of the papacy in the East compromised.

G. waited five years after his election to ask John to renounce the title that did not belong to him. The occasion was offered him by the appeal that two priests of Asia Minor had made to the Holy See (Reg., V, 45). With the letters to the Emperor, to the Empress and to the Patriarch (Reg., V, 37, 39, 44) in June 595, he insisted especially on the proud character of the aforesaid title, "stigmatizing the pride of the Faster with very clear terms (Reg., V, 37). In the letters sent to the patriarchs of Alexandria and of Antioch, which are from the same time, G. retraced the history of the conflict beginning with Pelagius II: he recalled that the Council of Chalcedon had not given such a title to the Roman pontiffs and exhorted the patriarchs not to wish to assume it nor to give it to him in their letters (Reg., V, 41). The emperor Maurice did nothing to make the patriarch John renounce the aforesaid title; indeed in 597 he made a serious attempt to overcome G.'s intransigence toward the patriarch Cyriacus, who had succeeded John in Sept. 595 (Reg., VII, 30). Cyriacus, formerly a friend of G., retained the abhorred title. G.'s efforts to resolve the question failed, but the danger that he feared ended up being averted through the special meaning that the term "ecumenical" took on, having become a synonym of autocephalous.

3. Political action: a) with the Lombards

On 5 Sept. 590 Autari died, the first of the Lombard kings, whom the dukes had elected to provide against the danger of their anarchic situation (Paul the Deacon, Hist. Lang., III, 35). Autari had forbidden the baptism of the Lombards according to the Catholic rite. He was succeeded by Agilulf, duke of Turin, who by marrying the widow, let great hopes be conceived, since Theodelinda, coming from Bavaria, professed not Arianism but Catholicism, and was greatly loved by her people. The present reality, however, offered nothing reassuring, and G. recognized in it the signs foretelling the end of the world. In vain he sought to draw the attention of the exarch Romanus and of the Emperor himself to the grave danger. The only action attempted by the exarch was an inopportune maneuver, which induced Agilulf to march on Rome.

Because of the Exarch's indolence, G. took it upon himself to treat with the Lombard King, and, by means of a tribute of 500 pounds of gold, induced Agilulf to withdraw. Paul the Deacon embellished the dramatic account of G.'s meeting with Agilulf, so as to make it resemble that of Leo the Great with Attila (Vita Greg., 26); likewise the anonymous continuator of the Chronicle of Prosper, around 640, had come to assert that G. would not have left Rome to supplicate Agilulf, but would have met him on the steps of

GREGORIO I. PAPA, santo — Burial of St. G. and legendary uprising against the memory of St. G. that occurred after the Pontiff's death; the deacon Peter from the ambo bears witness to St. G. while the common people throw the Pontiff's books onto the pyre. Interesting is the facade of the old St. Peter's. Drawing from the Vita s. Gregorii, contained in an 11th-century codex from Farfa — Windsor, Eton College, ms. 124.

St. Peter (Prosperi auctarii Avicensis novissima, 17). All this, however, serves to reaffirm the Gregorian concept of the protection of Rome by means of the Prince of the Apostles, who acted in the person of his successor (cf. O. Bertolini [v. bibl.], p. 283).

The good relations between the Pope and Queen Theodelinda were frustrated in their effects of peace by the obstinacy of the Byzantines, who viewed the Lombard problem with a different eye. In 595 Agilulf was disposed to a general truce with the Exarch and, failing that, to another with the Pontiff, but on far less advantageous conditions. G. informed the imperial representative of Ravenna of this (Reg., V, 34) but without result; indeed the Exarch took from it a reason to accuse the Pope at Constantinople of treating separately with the Lombard King. The Emperor had the impudence to rebuke G. with the ingenuousness of a fool, but the Pontiff did not lose his calm; he replied as a man painfully wounded, but in no way intimidated and firm in his patriotism, sure of his good conscience (Reg., V, 36). The Exarch further had an anonymous libel posted in Ravenna in which G.'s work for peace was stigmatized as a crime. The Pope responded with excommunication should the slanderer fail to prove his accusations, a hypothesis impossible to verify, so certain was G. of his own case (Reg., VII, 42).

The death of the exarch Romanus, which occurred when the Pope had greater reason to complain of the ferocity of the Lombards, brought a change of things. His successor Callinicus proved more reasonable, and through the mediation of G., in Oct. 598 the truce was signed which the Pope intended should benefit both peoples, that is, the Lombards and the Romans, and should constitute the foundation of the "Christian republic."

It is in this sense that the Pope's congratulations and thanks to Agilulf and Queen Theodelinda must be understood (Reg., IX, 66-67). G.'s policy had skillfully preferred negotiations to the intransigence of Emperor Maurice, at once safeguarding the interests of Italy and those of the Church, and drawing the Lombards, still Arians, closer to Catholicism.

The truce of 598 was broken through the imprudence of Callinicus, who took prisoner at Parma the daughter and son-in-law of the Lombard King, but the new Eastern emperor, Phocas, understood that G.'s policy was the only one to be followed in Italy; he therefore sent the old exarch Smaragdus, a friend of the Pope, to restore the situation. G. became guarantor of the thirty-day truce, signed in June 603 (Reg., XIII, 36), which could be renewed and which, according to the new agreement, was to last until Apr. 605. A letter written by the Pope in Dec. 603 to Queen Theodelinda (Reg., XIV, 12) asks her to thank the King for the truce granted and expresses G.'s joy at the birth of Prince Adaloald, who received Baptism and in June 604 was proclaimed king (Paul the Deacon, Hist. Lang., IV, 25, 27, 30): he was to be the first Catholic king of the Lombards, but G. was no longer among the living.

b) With the Byzantines. — In his relations with Byzantium G. always considered himself a subject of the Emperor, and in his epistolary relations he does not change in the least the protocol formulary of his predecessors. But, conscious of his responsibility, he has no fear of opposing the Emperor, even energetically, when the latter came to encroach upon the authority of the Church and of the Holy See.

He affirms the principle of independence in the face of civil power and resolutely claims the rights of St. Peter, which he several times declares to have their foundation in the Holy Gospel (Reg., V, 37; cf. P. Batiffol, St Grégoire le Grand, 3rd ed. Paris 1928, p. 207, note 1). He energetically opposes everything that might diminish the authority of the Roman primacy, as of the ecumenical primacy; he maintains and extends the right of appeal to the Holy See over all diocesan tendencies, as well as that of intervening in the disciplinary questions of all dioceses.

He further holds that the Emperor has the duty to defend Rome and Italy against the Lombards, but if necessity demands it or imperial aid does not come, nothing forbids him from assuming the defense himself.

Thus G. did not hesitate to make his remonstrances to Emperor Maurice when he judged that civil legislation was in conflict with ecclesiastical legislation (cf. Reg., III, 61, 64). He strongly censures the patriarch of Alexandria Eulogius for not having approved the four General Councils and the Tomus ad Flavianum of Leo the Great, for not having condemned with sufficient clarity Eutyches, Dioscorus and Severus, and for not having defined with theological precision the two natures in Christ (cf. O. Bardenhewer, Ungedruckte Exerpte einer Schrift des Patriarchen Eulogius von Alexandrien (580-607) über Trinität und Incarnation, in Theologische Quartalschrift, 78 [1896], pp. 353-401). G. himself, in a letter to the bishop of Syracuse, clearly affirmed that "the Church of Constantinople is subject to the Apostolic See, which the most pious Emperor and our brother, the bishop of that city, do not cease to acknowledge" (Reg., IX, 26).

4. Administrative action

Imperial legislation and the particular conditions determined by the Lombard occupation, by the bad government of the Byzantines and by calamities had, little by little, imposed upon the bishops of Rome tasks that exceeded the simple religious sphere and entered not only, as has been seen, into the political field but also into the administrative and economic one. Even in this field G., despite his profession of total detachment from the things of the earth, demonstrated that the personal experience of his youth and maturity had been truly fruitful.

The most conspicuous part of the administrative and economic activity of the Church of Rome came from the very extensive landed properties that made it be considered the greatest landowner in Byzantine Italy. The whole of these properties was designated by the name "patrimonium s. Petri," inasmuch as it affirmed that the owner was the Prince of the Apostles himself.

In the time of G., the patrimonial groups of the Church of Rome were: the "patrimonium Alpium Cottianum," between the Maritime and Cottian Alps, the Po, the Tuscan-Emilian Apennines and the sea (John the Deacon, Vita Greg., II, 53); the "patrimonium Ravennate et Histriae" (Reg., XI, 8); the "patrimonium Piceni," between the Adriatic and the Umbrian-Marchigian Apennines (John the Deacon, loc. cit.); the "patrimonium Tusciae," between the Arno, the Tiber and the Tyrrhenian Sea (Reg., IX, 96); the "patrimonium Sabinum et Carseolanum" (Reg., XIII, 38; III, 21); the "patrimonium Appiae," along the Appian and Ostiensis Ways (Reg., XIV, 14); the "patrimonium Urbanum," the real estate within Rome (John the Deacon, loc. cit.); the "patrimonium Sanniticum" (id., ibid.), almost completely lost with the Lombard occupation; the "patrimonium Apulum," much damaged (id., ibid.); the "patrimonium Calabrianum" (Reg., IX, 205-206); the "patrimonium Campaniae," which included properties also in the islands opposite (Reg., XIII, 29); the "patrimonium Lucaniae et Brutiorum" (Reg., IX, 124-27); with the Lombard occupation one could practically speak only of the "patrimonium Brutiorum," the Lucanian one having disappeared. The "patrimonium Siciliae," on the other hand, had remained intact, distributed throughout all parts of the island (Reg., IX, 29), which induced G. to make its administration easier by dividing it into two districts: the "patrimonium Panormitanum" in western Sicily, and the "patrimonium Siracusanum" in eastern Sicily (Reg., IX, 38).

There were further the "patrimonium Sardiniae" and the "patrimonium Corsicanum," in their respective islands (John the Deacon, loc. cit.); the "patrimonium Germanicianum," from the city of Germanicia in Numidia (id., ibid.); the "patrimonium Dalmatianum" and the "patrimonium Illyricum," both greatly reduced by the incursions of the Avars and Slavs (Reg., II, 23); the "patrimonium Galliarum," not very extensive (Reg., VI, 6).

Each patrimony constituted a separate administration, managed by a rector, appointed by the Pope, usually chosen from among the deacons or subdeacons for the more important patrimonies, and from among the notaries of the Apostolic See and the defenders of the Roman Church for the others. G., as has been seen, conferred upon the rectors powers so ample, even in the spiritual field, as to make them true papal legates.

The rector was assisted by administrative officials, called notarii, chartularii, defensores, and by other minor employees, called actionarii.

A connecting body between the rector and the officials of his office on the one hand and the mass of rural workers on the other was a category of tenants called conductores; stewards, bailiffs, who managed the agricultural units (condunnae, massae), on which depended the elementary units (fundi), with their respective minor tenants and the laborers of the land in general (coloni, rustici Ecclesiae).

All the various local administrations of the patrimonies were answerable to Rome, to the central administration of the Church in the Lateran Palace. In G.'s time the treasury of the central administration was managed by a deacon, with the title of "dispensator Ecclesiae Romanae." All income and expenditure, the pensiones in silver and in gold paid by the tenants and the coloni, were listed in a large register, established by Pope Gelasius I and therefore called the Gelosianum polyptychum (Reg., II, 38; IX, 199; John the Deacon, Vita Greg., II, 24). This whole admirable organization functioned regularly under G.'s control, and the letters with which he issued his directives to the conductores are true models of enlightened administrative wisdom (cf. Reg., I, 39 a, 42; II, 38).

Huge sums of money and enormous quantities of produce flowed into Rome, so that the Holy See could provide not only for the expenses of the Church and of the staff of the central and provincial offices, but also for the needs of the city. Rightly does John the Deacon (Vita Greg., II, 26), after describing the copious general distributions and the offerings that G. had carried out on the first day of every month, call the Church "nihil aliud quam communia quaedam horrea" and the one who "discretissime" presided over these distributions, "paterfamilias Domini."

III. WRITER

Gregory is the first great writer of the Middle Ages and the most prolific among the popes. His literary activity extends from the years of the nunciature at Constantinople until his death. His works all reflect the eminently practical character of the social, disciplinary and moral work that he carried out.

The Epistolae are the richest and most precious source of information on everything relating to his manifold activity as Pope. 854 of them have come down to us, collected and arranged chronologically according to the years of his pontificate in 14 books or "registers," addressed to emperors, kings, patriarchs, bishops, monks, and laymen of every rank and condition, for whom he carried out an apostolate of zeal, full of prudence, wisdom and goodness. The style, simple but dignified, intuitive and effective, even if not polished in form, contributed not a little to the formation of ecclesiastical Latin, particularly of the curial and juridical protocol.

The Expositio in beatum Iob libri XXXV, better known by the name Moralia, was begun at Constantinople, during the time of the nunciature, but was finished at Rome around 595. Gregory's exegesis holds firmly to the threefold sense of Sacred Scripture, but makes moral consideration prevail over historical interpretation. This is the reason why in the Middle Ages this work was adopted as a manual of morals applied to all conditions of life, particularly the priestly one (cf. F. Lieblang, Grundfragen der mystischen Theologie nach Gregors des Grossen « Moralia » und Ezechielhomilien, Freiburg im Br. 1934).

The Regula pastoralis falls under this last point of view. In 4 books it sets out Gregory's program at the moment of assuming the pontificate, and is a kind of examination of conscience: in it is projected the ideal figure of a good pastor. The extraordinary success of this little work is well known; while its author was still alive it was made to be translated by emperors and kings into their own language, and by councils it was imposed on priests as a code of life (cf. S. C. Hedley, Lex levitarum, Paris 1922).

The 40 Homiliae in Evangelia that we possess in the collection published by Gregory in 593 were probably delivered by the Pope during the liturgical year 590-91. The first 20 were dictated during his illness and read in his stead to the people, who loved to listen to him (cf. Reg., IV, 17 a). The 22 Homiliae in Ezechielem were delivered by the Pontiff during the siege of the Lombards, taken down by stenographers and later revised, some years afterward, by him (cf. Reg., XII, 16 a).

The Libri IV Dialogorum de vita et miraculis patrum Italicorum et de aeternitate animarum were composed during the same years as the Homiliae in Ezechielem, 593-94, almost as a relief from the heavy cares of office. In the form of a dialogue with the deacon Peter, in books I and III he narrates the miraculous deeds of Italian saints, while he devoted book II entirely to the life of St. Benedict and book IV to the account of apparitions of the dead, in order to prove the immortality of the soul; in IV, 55 is found the foundation of the devotion recognized by the Church, known as that of the "Gregorian Masses."

The Dialogues, which Gregory offered to Queen Theodelinda (Paul the Deacon, Hist. Lang., IV, 5), immediately enjoyed a success beyond words. In the 8th century, Pope Zachary, a Greek by birth, translated them into his native language; then there followed a series of translations into Arabic (8th century), into Saxon (9th century), into French (13th century), into Italian (14th century). The Greeks and the Slavs, to distinguish Gregory from those who bore the same name, called him "The Dialogue, ὁ Σαυλόνος."

Among the works that bore the name of Gregory, one must remember the Sacramentarium and the Antiphonarium. The ancient tradition going back to John the Deacon (Vita Greg., II, 6-10, 17) and to the Venerable Bede (Hist. eccl. gentis Anglorum, I, 25; II, 20; IV, 2, 12, 18; V, 20) attributes to Gregory a liturgical activity that centers on both the aforementioned works.

The so-called Gregorian Sacramentary contains the prayers of the Mass; in the copies known today it has undergone retouchings, additions and transformations that have nonetheless left on it the imprint of the Pope as organizer.

C. Mohlberg has clarified the development of the Gregorian Sacramentary by classifying the surviving manuscripts into two groups: in the first group appear the Padua codex D. 47 of the 9th century (C. Mohlberg-A. Baumstark, Die älteste erreichbare Gestalt der « Liber Sacramentorum anni circuli » der römischen Kirche [cod. Pad. D. 47], in Liturgische Quellen, 11-12, Münster in V. 1927]), and the Glagolitic codex of Kiev, likewise of the 9th century (C. Mohlberg, Il Messale glagolitico di Kiew [sec. IX] e il suo prototipo romano del sec. VI-VII, in Memorie della Pont. Accad. romana di archeologia, 2 [1928], pp. 207-20); in the second group are to be placed, but in two classes, the manuscripts published by H. Lietzmann (Das « Sacramentarium Gregorianum » nach dem Aachener Urexemplar, Münster in V. 1921) and H. A. Wilson (The Gregorian Sacramentary, London 1915).

The compilation of the Antiphonarium, which contains the chants to be performed during the Mass, followed, approximately, the same development. Gregory knew the chants used before him in the Roman Church, arranged them according to the liturgical cycle, moderating the exuberance of the neumes and adding missing parts. It is not certain that he was the founder of the Schola cantorum; he did, however, give it a constitution, which rightly led to the chant of the Roman Church soon being given the name "Gregorian."

IV. CONCLUSION

Gregory lived and worked in a period of profound political and religious transformation of society. It can be said that he was the last of the Romans and the first of the Middle Ages, just as he was the last of the classical masters of the Church and the first of the scholastics.

He had a clear intelligence, a vast and profound mind, a pure conscience, thus combining the
qualities of the true Roman. His pontificate was a true
providence for the Church and for Italy. Christianity
in the West was barely emerging from the chaos of barbarian disorganization: Gaul, then unified
in the faith of the Catholic Franks, was struggling amid
difficulties of every kind; Spain saw the conversion of the Visigoths only in the early years of Gregory's pontificate; England was still immersed
in the darkness of
superstition and error. Italy, moreover, invaded by the Arian Lombards, poorly protected
by the Catholic Byzantines, was in a veritable political-religious disorder. The only
force capable of
acting among tendencies so various and disparate, armed one
against the other with the aim of destroying
each other, was
the Church, an element
of center and moral moderation. Gregory
inaugurates the medieval work of this
force of civil and religious production
and regeneration.

With his eminently practical spirit, he immediately
had a clear vision of the duties and rights of the
papacy. He was not a theologian, nor a philosopher, nor
a man of letters in the true sense of the word. He was
a master of discipline, a monk, an apostle, a profound connoisseur of Roman law, endowed with
uncommon organizational abilities.

A master of discipline for the people, the clergy, the bishops, he dictated the laws and fixed the bases of preaching,
which he considered the first duty of the episcopate. A
monk of rigid and austere customs, he was a vigilant guardian
of the moral life of the clergy, whose abuses he corrected,
and he led it back to a more exact observance of the precepts and evangelical counsels. An apostle, he drew to
the light of the Gospel the provinces that were on the borders
of the ancient Empire, fought the remnants of paganism
and of heresies. An organizer, he saved Rome from
famine, improvised himself as army commander, negotiated
truces. An administrator, he reorganized the complex management of the "patrimonium S. Petri," determining
the administrative hierarchy, eliminating abuses,
reestablishing justice.

The position of preeminence that he acquired for the
papacy in the world and the reorganization of the immense
patrimony of the Church, united with the spirit of initiative
in the face of circumstances, created the proximate preparation
for the constitution of the temporal dominion of the popes.

As a writer, Gregory stands out for the practical tendency
that had efficacy not only in the equally practical direction of scholasticism, but on the whole life and
progress of the Church during the Middle Ages. His dogmatic
importance is rather pedagogical, that is, for having adapted to the average intelligence of his time
and of the peoples the traditional doctrine, particularly
that of St. Augustine.

In liturgical activity he presents himself as a reorganizer of the patrimony of the past, to which he
impresses the stamp of his character.

Gregory is one of the four Doctors of the Western
Church. His feast falls on March 12.

PL 77-79. For the Dialogues v. the ed. by U. Moricca in the collection Fonti per la Storia
d'Italia, Scrittori del
sec. VI, Rome 1924. The
oldest Life of Gregory is
that of the Liber Pontificalis,
ed. Duchesne, I,
p. 312; ed. Mommsen,
pp. 161-62. The Vita
Gregorii I, written by the
monk of Whitby, already pointed out by P. Ewald
(Die älteste Biographie
Gregori I., in Historische
Aufsätze dem Andeschen an G. Waitz gewidmet, Hannover 1886,
pp. 17-54), and published
by A. Gasquet, A life
of pope Gregory the
Great, Westminster
1904, dates back to the first
decade of the 8th century.
Around 787 Paul the Deacon wrote the
Vita s. Gregorii Magni, edited by
H. Grisar, in Zeitschrift
für Kathol. Theologie,
11 (1887), pp. 102-72.

John the Deacon finally writes the S. Gregorii Magni vita (PL 75, 59-242) at Rome between 872 and 873. In all these lives there are few elements that do not come from the works of G.

Information on G. is also found in the Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours, completed in 591; in De viris illustribus by Isidore of Seville (d. 636); in De virorum illustrium scriptis by Ildefonsus of Toledo (d. 667); in the Historia gentis Anglorum by Bede (d. 735).

Literature: on G. there exist not a few monographs, but up to that of Ed. Clauser, St Grégoire le Grand, pope et Docteur d'Église, Paris 1886-91, they are all of scant critical value. Noteworthy are those of C. Wolfsgruber, Gregor der Grosse, Ravensburg 1897; H. Dudden, Gregory the Great, his place in history and in thought, London 1905; H. Grisar, S. G. Magno, Italian trans. by A. De Santi, Rome 1928 (reprint); P. Batiffol, St Grégoire le Grand, Paris 1928.

It is not rare that in the great histories of the Church there are chapters on G. of notable importance, as in J. P. Kirsch, Kirchengeschichte, I, Freiburg im Br. 1930; E. Caspar, Geschichte des Papattums von den Anfängen bis zur Höhe der Weltherrschaft, II, Tübingen 1933 (by the same author see also the study: Gregor der Grosse, in Meister der Politik, 3 [1923], p. 327 ff.); Fr. X. Seppelt, Das Papattum im Frühmittelalter, Leipzig 1934; Fliche-Martin-Fruta, V, pp. 19-83. Likewise the general histories: The Cambridge Medieval history, II, Cambridge 1913; A. Fliche, La chrétienté médiévale, Paris 1929; L. Halphen-Ph. Sagnac, Peuples et civilisations, V, 2nd ed., ibid. 1930.

The same may be said of the histories of literature such as those of O. Bardenhewer, U. Moricca and M. Manitius. On the pastoral activity of G., particularly in Italy, v. L. Duchesne, Les précédents d'Italie et l'invasion lombarde, in Mélanges d'archéologie et d'histoire, 23 (1903), pp. 83-116 and 25 (1905), pp. 365-99; C. Giuriani, L'italianità nell'opera di G. Magno, Cemo 1934. On the political activity with the Lombards and with the Byzantines v. O. Bertolini, Roma di fronte a Bisanzio e ai Longobardi, Bologna 1941, pp. 241-59. On the administrative activity v. P. Fabre, De patrimonium Romanum Ecclesiae usque ad aetatem Carolinorum, Lille 1892; R. Aigrain, Le patrimoine de l'Église romaine, in Fliche-Martin-Fruta, V, pp. 365-75.

On the literary activity of G. v. the relevant bibl. in Moricca, III, II, Turin 1934, pp. 1363-67; on the liturgical activity v. the relevant bibl. in B. Altaner, Patrologia, Italian trans. of the 3rd ed. revised by A. Ferrua, Turin 1944, pp. 329-40, note 3.

Benedetto Pesci

V. ST. GREGORY IN ART

From the earliest times (fresco in S. Maria Antiqua in Rome, 8th century) he is represented in pontifical vestments, and from the 12th century (fresco of Nonnberg) also with the tiara; St. Gregory furthermore carries the pastoral staff with a single and a double cross and, as a Doctor of the Church, a book.

Since German miniatures of the late 10th century, as well as the Sacramentaries of Ivrea, depict him with the dove of the Holy Spirit dictating his writings to him, this dove later became his individual attribute. Among the isolated representations of the Saint, a painting by Antonello da Messina (ibid., Museo Civico), a relief by Luca della Robbia (Florence, Cathedral), the statue by Cordier (1602, S. Gregorio al Celio in Rome) stand out, and, in German art, the painting by M. Pacher from the altar of the Four Doctors in Munich, where, beside St. Gregory, appears the figure of the emperor Trajan, saved by him from hell; among the other stories of the legend, figurative art preferred the liberation of the monk Justus from purgatory (relief by G. Capponi, Rome, S. Gregorio al Celio), the supper of the poor (paintings by P. Veronese in Vicenza and by Vasari in Bologna) as well as the bleeding brandium (painting by A. Sacchi in the Vatican Pinacoteca, copy in mosaic in St. Peter's in Rome). A self-contained image was constituted by the so-called Mass of St. Gregory with the apparition of the wounded Christ on the altar, represented predominantly by northern artists of the 15th century.

Kurt Rathe

VI. ST. GREGORY I IN FOLKLORE

Popular imagination, ever since the Middle Ages, has attributed to the figure of the great Pope the legendary motif of the unwitting perpetrator of incest, already reflected in the myth of Oedipus. This adaptation, in a hagiographic key, of a theme proper to ancient mythology and popular fairy tales was informed by the Christian idea "that there is no sin so great that it cannot be washed away before God by rigorous and sincere penance" (D'Ancona); and it chose St. Gregory as the representative figure par excellence. In

France (where it perhaps originated as a literary work), in Germany, in England and also in Italy, the legend inspired numerous narratives in verse and in prose, from the Vie du pape Grégoire le Grand (early 12th century) to the poem Gregorius of dem Stein by Hartmann von Aue (1150-1220) and the old English romance Sir Degore (13th century). It also enjoyed extraordinary diffusion in Eastern Europe, and passed down into the oral tradition of the common people, among whom it is still preserved. In Italy it is found both in the form of a fairy tale and as a narrative song in epic hendecasyllables: the latter derived from an ancient short poem, of which an Abruzzese version was published by G. Ciccone (v. bibl.). The same mythic-fairy-tale motif also gave rise to the "legend of Vergogna." - See plate LXXXI.

Paolo Toschi