No More Learning

He lived ascetically, as he had
lived in his own monastery, and while nuncio at Constantinople: he
surrounded himself with grave and reverend men, dismissing the curled
and exquisite fops who had thronged the courts of earlier popes, a gang
of self-indulgent scholars and servants obnoxious to the stern man who
had not so learned Christ. Of himself the words of his early biographer
Paul the Deacon present a vivid picture: "He was never at rest.
Always was he busy in taking care for the interests of his people, or in
writing some treatise worthy of the Church, or in searching out the
hidden things of heaven by the grace of contemplation. '" His daily
audiences, his constant sermons, filled up the burden of his continual
correspondence. And all through the fourteen years of his pontificate
he struggled against the illnesses which had perhaps their beginning in
his ascetic rigours. If his letters breathe a spirit of sternness and make
high demands upon men of commonplace intellect and low ideals, there
was no one with whom he was more stern, no one before whom he set
higher ideals, than himself.
Gregory's policy towards the whole Christian world radiated from
the centre. There, at Rome, men could see his life of strict rule: they
could see him reconsecrating Arian churches to Catholic use, could hear
him preaching, could watch his elaborate measures for the relief of the
poor. "Other pontiffs," says his biographer, "gave themselves to
building churches and adorning them with gold and silver; but
Gregory, while he did not altogether neglect this duty, was entirely
C. JIED. B. VOL. II. CH. VIII. (b)
16

rV


## p. 242 (#274) ############################################



242
Gregory s Administration
[590-603
taken up with gaining souls, and all the money he could obtain he was
anxious to give away and bestow upon the poor. '" Me was a practical
ruler first of all and that as a Christian bishop: afterwards he was a
theologian and a statesman. This accounts for the fact that he views
all political questions sub specie aeternitatis and shews no interest in any
work of pure learning or scholarship even in Rome itself.
And indeed the practical needs of the time were enough to absorb
the whole thoughts of any man who was set to~rule. If in the East the
emperors were fully occupied with wars against Persians and Avars, and
were able to give little heed and no help to the stress of the city from
which their sovereignty took its name, the Papacy, already partly the
representative and partly the rival of the imperial power, was beset on
every side by the barbarian invasion and settlement. Rome itself had
become, for all practical purposes, an isolated and distant part of the
Roman Empire. Imperial power in Italy had dwindled till it was only
a name. But at the ancient centre of the ancient Empire sat, in the
fourteen years from 590, a man of commanding genius, of ceaseless
vigilance and of incessant activity, whose letters covered almost every
political, religious and social interest of his time. His influence as a
great spiritual teacher and a great ruler of men radiated over the whole
Christian world.
The internal cares belonging to the "patrimony of St Peter" were
not light. The estates from which the income was derived were
scattered all over Italy, most largely in Sicily and round Rome, but
also in east and south, beyond the peninsula in Illyricum and Gaul,
in Africa, and in the isles of Corsica and Sardinia. They were ad-
ministered by a multitude of officials, often with the help of the
imperial administrators. Gregory liked to choose his agents from
among the clergy, and employed priests and even bishops in this secular
service.
All were directly under the orders of the bishop of Rome himself,
and Gregory's letters of appointment contain special provision for the
care of the poor, for the keeping of strict accounts to be sent to Rome,
for the maintenance generally of ecclesiastical interests. Thus the
rectores and defensores were often charged with a sort of supervision
which, while it at several points encroached upon the proper province of
the bishop, served to keep the distant and scattered estates in close touch
with the central authority of the Roman see. Thus what was at first
a mere matter of the ownership of property, through its duties and
responsibilities being enjoyed by the greatest bishop of the Church,
tended to become a lordship no less spiritual than material. Even
bishops themselves were under the eye of the Pope's representative, and
that naturally came to mean that sooner or later they would fall under
the jurisdiction of the Pope. For this Gregory's indefatigable care was
largely responsible. We find him within the first eighteen months of



## p. 243 (#275) ############################################

590-603]
Gregorys Administration
243
his pontificate writing almost once a month to the Rector Siciliae, the
subdeacon whom he long employed in positions of trust in different parts
of Italy. The letters shew minute care for justice, for the suppression
of unjust exactions, for the redress of grievances, as well as for the
maintenance of proprietary rights: besides the great landlord, there
speaks the great bishop and shepherd of the souls of men. No matter
was too small for the Pope's attention, whether it was a safeguard for
the interests of a convert from Judaism, a direction as to the disposal
of cows and calves, of houses and granaries, or a criticism of the
provision for personal needs. "You have sent us," he once wrote, "a
miserable horse and five good donkeys. The horse I cannot ride
because it is miserable, nor the donkeys, good though they be, because
they are donkeys. '" Different views have been taken of this interesting
correspondence between Gregory and his factor, but at least it reveals
the very close attention which the Pope paid to detail in the oversight
of the vast possessions of his see. "As we ought not to allow property
belonging to the Church to be lost, so we deem it a breach of law to try
to take what belongs to others,'" are words which might serve as a
motto for his relation towards temporal things. With minute care he
stopped the abuses which had stained the administration under his
predecessors. But above all the Pope endeavoured to shew in practical
alms-giving the fervent charity of his heart. John the Deacon tells
that there was still preserved, nearly three hundred years later, among
the muniments of the Lateran, a large book in which the names of the
recipients of his benefactions, in Rome or the suburbs, in the Campagna
and on the coast, were set down. In nothing was he more insistent
than in the duty of ransoming captives, those taken in the wars and
sold as slaves in markets even so far away as Libya. Many letters deal
with the subject, convey his exhortations to bishops to join in the work
and return thanks for the gifts he had received to help it. Thus did
the largest landowner in Italy endeavour to discharge the duties of his
trust.
From his administration of the papal patrimony we pass naturally to
his policy as a ruler, his dealings with the affairs of the world, as a
statesman and as a pope.
As a statesman his first and closest concern was with the Lombards.
Already he had been concerned in endeavouring to protect Rome and
the parts of Italy still unconquered: that had been the special object
of his long embassy at Constantinople. The emperors had given no aid,
but the Franks had caused a diversion by thrice attacking the Lombards
in flank. But the snake was not killed, hardly scotched; and before
Gregory had been long on the throne peace between Franks and
Lombards had been made by the new king Agilulf, who had married
Theodelinda, the late king's widow, and he turned the thoughts of the
Lombards towards the extension of their conquests from imperial Rome.
! ■*

ch. viii. (b) 16—2
"


## p. 244 (#276) ############################################

244 Military Measures [591-592
Still the ancient Empire, dimmed in its glory and with ill-welded
traditions from Christian and pagan past, held out in the great cities of
Genoa and Naples, of Ravenna and Rome, the two lost the centres of
government under exarch and pope. At first the danger seemed to
come not from the king but from one of the dukes. At Spoleto on the
Flaminian Way was settled a Lombard colony of invaders under Ariulf,
the outposts of whose territory were almost within sight of Rome; and
Gregory when he wrote to his friends at Constantinople declared that he
found himself "bishop not of the Romans but of the Lombards, men
whose promises are swords and whose grace a pain. 11
Against "the unspeakable Ariulf1' he was ever on the watch. In
591 and 592 he was taking constant precaution, telling the Magister
militivm at Perugia to fall, if need be, on his rear, and bidding the
clergy and people of the lesser cities in the neighbourhood to be on their
guard and to obey the Pope's representative in all things. Step by step
the Lombard duke approached, as yet without active hostility. In July
592 at length he spoke of Ariulf as being close to the city, "slaying
and mutilating "; and Arichis, the Lombard duke of Benevento, was at
the same time threatening Naples. The Pope himself sent a military
commander to the southern city. He bitterly resented the weakness
of Romanus the exarch, which prevented him from dealing in martial
fashion with the duke of Spoleto. Left helpless, he prepared to make
a peace with Ariulf, and in July 592 it seems that a separate agreement
was concluded which saved Rome from sack. Paul the Deacon tells that
an interview between the Lombard duke and the Roman bishop made
the " tyrant" ever after a devoted servant of the Roman Church. "His
heart was touched by divine grace, and he perceived that there was so
much power in the Pope's words that with humblest courtesy he made
satisfaction to the most religious Apostolic bishop. " Gregory's states-
manship and charm won a diplomatic victory which preserved Rome
from the Lombards.
But indirectly it would seem as if this success laid the city open to
another attack. Romanus the exarch was encouraged by it to secure
the communications between Ravenna and Rome by a campaign which
recovered many cities, including Perugia, from the Lombards. This
new activity on the part of the Empire which he may well have deemed
moribund aroused Agilulf, the Lombard king, to action. He marched
southwards, recaptured Perugia, and put to death Maurisio, a duke
of the Lombards, who had surrendered the city to the exarch and now
held it for the Empire. Thence he marched to Rome.
Gregory was illustrating Ezekiel, in sombre homily, by the tragic
events of his day, the decay of ancient institutions, the devastation of
country, the destruction of cities. Daily came news which deepened the
gloom of his picture, till at length he closed the book and set himself
to defend the city. The defence as before was that of spiritual not


## p. 245 (#277) ############################################

593-595] Disputes with the Emperor 245
material arms. Agilulf met Gregory on the steps of St Peter's, and the
weighty wisdom of the prelate gave power to his prayers for the city:
they prevailed, the siege was abandoned, and Agilulf went back to
Milan, where the letters of Gregory were as familiar to the clergy and
as powerful as was his rule in Rome.
Thither came epistles to Theodelinda, the Arian Agilulf s Catholic
wife, instructing her in the right belief as to the still unfinished strife
about the Three Chapters, and to Constantius the bishop, begging him
to negotiate a peace between the Lombards and the Empire.
Peace was impossible so long as the Caesar at Constantinople claimed
the lordship of all Italy, and the Lombard barbarian asserted all real
power over the peninsula. Nor was Gregory at the time the person to
bring the foes together, for in August 593 he had written to the
Emperor Maurice in terms of criticism strangely bold and direct. When
Maurice was "not yet lord of all" he had been Gregory's own lord, and
still the Pope would call himself the unworthy servant of the pious
Emperor. But a new edict which forbade a civil servant of the Empire,
or a soldier, to become priest or monk, seemed to him a monstrous
infringement of individual and religious liberty. By it, he said, the way
to heaven would be closed to many, for while there were those who could
lead a religious life in a secular dress, yet more there were who unless
they forsook all things could in no way attain salvation. What
answer would he, who from notary had been made by God first captain,
then Caesar, then Emperor, then father of Emperor yet to be, and to
whose care the priests of God had been entrusted, make to the divine
inquest of the Last Day if not one single soldier was allowed to be
converted to the Lord? And Gregory drew a lurid picture of the "end
of the ages" which seemed to be at hand, the heavens and the earth
aflame and the elements melting with fervent heat, and the Divine Judge
ready to appear with the six orders of angels in His train. Yet it is an
illustration of the fidelity with which Gregory performed all his secular
obligations that he had caused the law against which he so vehemently
protested to be published in the usual way.
This was not the only divergence in opinion between the Pope and
the imperial Court. Gregory, with all his respect for authority, was at
least able to hold his own, and there was for a while at least no breach
in the friendly relations with Constantinople. Maurice sent relief to the
sufferers from the Lombard invasion, and Gregory lost no opportunity
of advising that the separate peace which he had made with Agilulf
should be enlarged at least into a general truce. Gregory, inter gladios
Langobardorum, could appreciate the needs of Italy in a way that was
impossible for the distant Augustus. In 595 however the divergence
came to a head. The Emperor reviewed the Pope's peace policy in terms
of contemptuous condemnation and Gregory answered in one of the most
vigorous of all his letters, dated June 595. He resented the imputation
VIII. (b)


## p. 246 (#278) ############################################


246
Pope and Patriarch
\
^
that because he thought that a firm peace could be made, as indeed it
had been made, with Ariulf of Spoleto, he was a fool. Fool indeed was
he to suffer what he suffered in Rome among the swords of the
Lombards; but still he was a servant of the truth, and grave injustice
was it to the priesthood that he should be deemed a liar. On behalf
of all priests he made dignified protest, recalling the action and
words of the great Constantine as a rebuke to his successor in the
Empire. "Where all is uncertain I betake myself to tears and prayers
that Almighty God will rule with His own hand our most pious lord,
and in the terrible judgment will find him free from all offences, and so
cause me to please men that I may not offend against His grace. "
How the Emperor received this letter we do not know; but already
there were other causes of dispute between Rome and Constantinople.
His experience had not made the Pope very cordial towards Church
or State in the New Rome. Useful at Constantinople Gregory must
undoubtedly have been, but the fact that he never learned Greek shews
at least that there were limits to his usefulness. The information he
received would often be inadequate, the means of communication with
the people among whom he dwelt incomplete. Official interpreters do
not always represent meanings faithfully. Gregory had to deal most
with the imperial Court, where his ignorance of Greek may not have been
so great a barrier; but, in his relations with the Patriarch, it would
at least serve to prevent any strengthening of the friendship between
Churches which were already beginning to drift apart.
That the Church was under the rule of five patriarchs was a
familiar view, and at least from the time of Vigilius (537-555) it
had been accepted in official language at Rome. Thus Gregory had
announced his own election to the patriarchs of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Jerusalem and Antioch. His letters shew traces of another
theory, that of the three patriarchates, Rome, Antioch and Alexandria,
sharing, as it were, the throne of St Peter. But Constantinople had
long asserted a pre-eminence. Justinian had recognised its precedence
as second of the great sees, superior to all others save Rome, and had
declared the Church of Constantinople to be "the head of all the
churches. '" In doing this no doubt the Empire had claimed no supreme
or exclusive dignity for the New Rome, nor asserted any indivisible
or unalterable jurisdiction. But what the law recognised had en-
couraged further expansion of claim. At first the relation between
Constantinople and the elder see was regarded as parallel to that
between the two capitals: they represented not diversity but unity:
as there was one Empire, so there was one Church. When John
the Patriarch accepted the formula of faith drawn up by Pope
Hormisdas he prefixed to it an assertion of the mutual relation: "I
hold the most holy Churches of the old and the new Rome to be one.
I define the see of the Apostle Peter and this of the imperial city to be


## p. 247 (#279) ############################################

688-595] Controversy with John the Faster 247
one see. " From this it was an inevitable step to use titles which Rome
used. The pontiff of Constantinople claimed to be oecumenical (oIkov-
fAeviKos or universalis) patriarch.
In 588 Pelagius declared the acts of a synod at Constantinople to be
invalid because the patriarch had used the phrase. Very likely Gregory
himself had been the adviser of this course. Now in 595 he pursued the
protest. John the Faster had written to him and had employed the
offensive title " in almost every line. " Gregory wrote, as he describes it,
"sweetly and humbly admonishing him to amend this appetite for vain
glory. 11 He forbade his envoy to communicate with the patriarch till he
had abandoned the title. At the same time he repudiated any wish to
assume it for himself. "The Council of Chalcedon,11 he said, "offered
the title of universalis to the Roman pontiff but he refused to accept it,
lest he should seem thereby to derogate from the honour of his brother
bishops. " He saw indeed that political interests were complicating the
ecclesiastical claim. His envoy had been commanded by the Emperor
to adjure him to live in peace with the patriarch, who seemed to him to
be as hypocritical as he was proud. Then either he must obey the
Emperor and encourage the proud man in his vanity, or he must
alienate the Emperor, his lord and the natural defender of Rome. He
did not hesitate. He wrote to the Emperor, tracing the misfortunes of
the Empire to the pride of the clergy. When Europe was given over to
the barbarians, with cities ruined, villages thrown down and provinces
without inhabitants; when the husbandman no longer tilled the soil,
and the worshippers of idols daily murdered the faithful, the priests
who should have abased themselves in sackcloth and ashes sought for
themselves empty names and titles novel and profane. Peter was never
called Universal Apostle, yet John strove to be Universal Bishop.
"I confidently affirm that whosoever calls himself sacerdos universalis,
or desires to be so called by others, is in his pride a forerunner of
Antichrist. 11 What he said to the Emperor he reinforced to the
Empress. There should be no peace with the patriarch so long as he
claimed this outrageous designation. On the other side the argument
became no attitude of aggression, hardly a claim for equality. The
patriarchs did not assert that they were above the popes, and they
constantly declared that they had no wish to lessen the authority of the
other patriarchs. But whatever the Greeks might say, the Latins saw
that words represented ideas; and universality could not be predicated
of Constantinople in any sense which was not offensive to the venerable
see and city of Rome. The bitterness of the strife abated when John
the Faster died on 2 September 595, it may be before Gregory's severe
judgment had reached him. Cyriacus, his successor, was a personal
friend of the Pope, and a man of no personal pride. Gregory welcomed
his accession and thanked the Emperor for his choice. But in spite of
friendly letters the claim was not abandoned. The patriarchs continued
CH. VIII. (b)


## p. 248 (#280) ############################################

248 Church and State
to use the title of oecumenical bishop, and before a century had passed
the popes followed their example.
Gregory saw that the patriarchs of Constantinople were in danger of
sinking into mere officials of the State, for with all their lofty position
they were in the power of the imperial Court. But the tone in which he
addressed them was always distinct from that which he employed
towards the lay officials of the Empire. From the beginning of his
pontificate he had carefully cultivated relations with the exarchs of
Ravenna and of Africa, the praetor of Sicily, the dukes of Naples and
Sardinia, the praefect of Illyria, the proconsul of Dalmatia, and with
lesser officials rural and urban. His constant letters shew how closely
he mingled in their concerns, watched their conduct, approved their
industry, advised on their political action, intervened on their behalf or
against them at Constantinople. Many of the officials were his close
friends; and the Emperor, in spite of the divergence between them, did
not cease to give heed to the counsels of one whom he knew to be a wise
and honest man.
The maintenance of the imperial power in Italy indeed depended not
a little on the great Pope, who yet by his incessant and widespread
activity was preparing the way of the ecclesiastical power which should
succeed it in the rule of the peninsula. The subdeacon who was his
agent at Ravenna, and those who administered the property of the
Church in the Campagna or in Sicily, the bishops themselves all over the
Empire, reported to Rome and their words were not without effect, and
in all the advice which issued from this information Gregory pressed
without faltering the authority of the Church: the pope was above the
exarch, the Church above the State: if the civil law was invoked to
protect the weak, to guide the rulers, to secure the rights of all Christian
men, there was behind it the supreme sanction of the law of the Church.
It was natural indeed that they should not be distinguished: a wrong
against man was a wrong against God. It did not matter whether it
was the oppression of a peasant or the pillage of a monastery: iniquitv.
it was the perpetual cry of the great pontiff, should not go unpunished.
And, in a corresponding view to his attitude towards civil justice,
Gregory insisted on the privileges of clergy in the law courts; and in
the civil courts he is found placing representatives of his own beside tbt
lay judges. Outside the law there was still a wide sphere in which tht
aid of the State was demanded on behalf of the Church. Governor
would bring back schismatics, were congratulated on their victories over
heathen, were urged to act against heretics, and to protect and support
those who had returned to the faith.
On the other hand he no doubt set plain limits, in his owu-dnind, to
his sphere of action and that of the bishops. He constantly tolhl th<
Italian bishops to observe the rights of the lay courts, not to interfer1
in the things of the world save when the interests of the poor demanded
i
i


## p. 249 (#281) ############################################

596-599] Dealings with the Lombards 249
help. But his own keen sense of justice, his political training, his
knowledge of affairs, forbade him to hold his tongue. The Empire, like
the Church, was to him a splendid power of holy and heroic tradition:
there was ever, he said to an imperial official, this difference between the
Roman emperors and the barbarian kings that while the latter governed
slaves the former were rulers of free men. To keep this always in the mind
of the governing class must have been his aim, and his consolation, when,
as he said, the cares of the world pressed so heavily upon him that he
was often doubtful whether he was discharging the duties of an earthly
official or those of a shepherd of men's souls.
In both capacities his work was continuous and engrossing. Invasion,
rapine, insecurity of life and property, made clerk as well as lay lax
livers, negligent stewards, cruel and faithless, luxurious and slothful.
Against all such Gregory was the perpetual witness.
When Romanus the exarch died, probably in 596, his successor at
Ravenna, Callinicus, received a warm welcome from the Pope. For a
time there was a lull in the tempest, but still Gregory preached
vigilance, to bishop and governor alike, for Italy had not shaken off the
terror even if Rome was for the moment outside the area of the storm.
Writing in 598 to a lady in Constantinople the Pope was able to assure
her that so great was the protection given by St Peter to the city that,
without the aid of soldiers, he had " by God's help been preserved for
these many years among the swords of the enemy. " A truce was made
with Agilulf, it seems, in 598: in 599 this became a general peace in
which the Empire through the exarch, and with the active support,
though not the signature, of the Pope, came to agreement with Agilulf
the Lombard king and with the dukes of Spoleto and Benevento. His
letters shew how much this was due to the tact, the wisdom, the
patient persistence of Gregory; and it is certain also that Theodelinda,
the Catholic wife of Agilulf, had played no unimportant part in the
work of pacification. At Monza remain the relics of this wise queen;
fitly beside the iron crown of the Lombards is the image of the protection
that was given by the peace of Church and State, a hen that gathers her
chickens under her wings.
The year 599 which dates this peace between the "Christian
Republic " and the Lombards marks a definite epoch in the history of
Italy. Paul the Deacon in his History of the Lombards shews that it
was a time of crisis, conquest, and resettlement for Agilulf the king.
The letters of Gregory shew that it was for him a period of incessant
activity and reassertion of papal authority, while at Rome the city
was " so reduced by the languor of various diseases that there are scarce
left men enough to guard the walls " and the Pope himself was in the
clutch of increasing sickness, often unable to leave his bed for days
together. Italy was still swept by pestilence; and exhaustion as well as
political peace gave quiet for some two years.
CH. VIII. (b)


## p. 250 (#282) ############################################

250 Gregory and Phocas [601-603
In 601 the flames of war were rekindled by a rash move on the part
of the exarch Callinicus. Agilulf again took up arms, seized Pavia and
levelled it to the ground—a fate which the medieval chroniclers century
by century record to have befallen the unhappy city. He made alliance
with the heathen Avars, and with them ravaged Istria. He passed over
northern Italy in a career of conquest: he carried the Lombard frontier
forwards to include the valley of the Po. At Ravenna the imperial
authority lingered on, and the exarch Callinicus was succeeded by
Smaragdus, holding office for a second time. But the reality of power
was passing, if it had not already passed, under the incessant energy of
Gregory, into the hands of the Pope, who had become the practical
ruler of central Italy. It was in the year 603, when the Empire and
the Lombards were at war, that Gregory shewed his aloofness from a
strife which seems to have left the power of the Church undisturbed, by
his rejoicing at the Catholic baptism of Adaloald, the firstborn son of
Agilulf the Arian and Theodelinda the Catholic queen. Paul the
Deacon indeed says, though he is unsupported by other witness, that
Agilulf the father had already accepted the Catholic faith. As his
sickness grew the great Pope saw the future less dark than it had been
during his life of anxiety. Rome, if impoverished and enfeebled, was
securely in the possession of its bishop; and the conflicts which raged
over northern and central Italy could hardly end, now that Catholicism
was conquering the Lombards, otherwise than in favour of the papal power.
It may well be that this feeling coloured his attitude when news
came to him of the revolution at Constantinople in 602. Maurice had
long seemed to Gregory, as indeed he had seemed to his people, to be
unworthy of the imperial throne. He was timid when he should have
been bold, rash when prudence was essential to the safety of the State.
His health had broken down, and fits of cowardice alternated with out-
bursts of frenzied rage. All the tales of him that reached Rome would
increase Gregory's dislike and distrust. Already he had rebuked the
Caesar to his face, and well he may have thought, when he heard of his
deposition and murder by the centurion Phocas, that the warning he
had given had been disregarded, and the judgment he had prophesied
had come.
With Maurice perished his whole family, with whom
Gregory had been on terms of affectionate regard. Maurice had been
an unwise, perhaps a tyrannical ruler, and certainly he had seemed to
the Pope an oppressor of the poor. And he had supported the patriarch
in his overweening pretension to be "universal bishop. " When Phocas
therefore announced his accession, silent no doubt as to the butcheries
which accompanied it, and dwelling rather on his orthodoxy and attach-
ment to the Apostolic See, Gregory replied in language of surprising
cordiality. The revolution was to him something that came from "the
incomprehensible providence of God"; and he trusted that soon he
should be comforted by the abundance of rejoicing that the sufferings



## p. 251 (#283) ############################################

602] Gregorys Historical Position 251
of the poor had been redressed—" We will rejoice that your benignity
and piety are come to the imperial throne. 11 Later letters to Phocas and
his wife Leontia breathe the same spirit: of congratulations on the
political change: of hope that it will mean relief and liberty for the
Empire: of solicitude that the aid which Maurice had long denied
might now be given to Italy, trodden down by the barbarian and
the heretic. We are shocked as we read Gregory's cordial letters to
the brutal murderer of Maurice; but we must remember that the
Pope had no representative at Constantinople to tell him what had
really happened: all that he may have known was that popular in-
dignation had swept a tyrant from the throne and avenged its injuries
on him and his innocent family, and that a soldier had been set up,
with all due forms of law, as ruler in his stead. From a bed of suffering
he indited these letters to those from whom he might have new hopes of
the salvation of Italy. But he wrote as an official of the Church to an
official of the State, and he mingled with his formal words of congratula-
tion and the Church's Gloria in excelsis no words of personal adulation.
Whatever may be the true judgment on Gregory's attitude at this
moment, it is obvious that in the change of dynasty he hoped for a better
prospect for Italy and knew that more power would come to Rome itself
and the Roman bishop.
It is as a Roman and a Roman bishop that Gregory fills the great
place he holds in the history of the Middle Age. He was a Roman
of the Romans, nurtured on traditions of Rome's imperial greatness,
cherishing the memories of pacification and justice, of control and
protection. And these, which belonged to " the Republic," he was eager
to transfer to the Church. Vague were the claims which the Roman
bishops had already put forth in regard to the universal Church. But
what all bishops held as inherent in their office, the right of giving
advice and administration, was held by the Roman pontiffs to belong
especially to the see which was founded in the imperial city. There was a
prerogative of the Roman bishop as of the Roman Emperor, and already
the one was believed to run parallel to the other. The Pope directly
superintended a large part of the Christian world: everywhere he could
reprove and exhort with authority, though the authority was often
contested. And Gregory's exercise of this power was one of the great
moments in the world's history. To the practical assertions of his pre-
decessors he gave a new moral weight, and it was that which carried
the claims to victory. Well has it been said by Dean Church that "he
so administered the vast undefined powers supposed to be inherent in
his see, that they appeared to be indispensable to the order, the good
government and the hopes, not of the Church only, but of society. "
And this success was due not so much to the extent of her claims or the
weakness of his competitors, but to the moral force which flowed from
his life of intellectual, moral and spiritual power.
CH. VIII. (b)


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252 The Church in Africa [591-596
We can trace, in different but conspicuous ways, the effect of this
force in Africa, in Britain, in Spain and in Gaul, in Istria and Dalmatia,
as well as nearer home. In Africa there was a period of revival since
the imperial reconquest from the Vandals. For more than half a
century the Church, diminished in power no doubt and weakened in its
organisation, had been re-established, and Arianism had been successfully
extirpated, if we may judge from the silence of the Pope's letters. The
imperial officials were ready to accept his advice, or even authority.
Side by side with the bishops of Numidia and Carthage, we find
Gennadius the exarch extending the influence of the papal see; and
appeals to Rome seem to have been recognised and encouraged. On the
other hand Gregory was careful to make no practical encroachment on
the power of the bishops and even to encourage their independence,
while he asserted the supremacy of Rome in uncompromising terms:
"I know of no bishop who is not subject to the Apostolic See, when
a fault has been committed. " His intervention was chiefly invoked
in regard to the still surviving Donatism of Numidia. Against the
Donatists he endeavoured to encourage the action of both the secular
and the ecclesiastical power. "God,11 he said to the praetorian praefect
Pantaleo, "will require at your hand the souls that are lost. 11 In one
city even the bishop had allowed a Donatist rival to establish himself;
and Church and State alike were willing to let the heretics live un-
disturbed on the payment of a ransom-rent. To Gregory it seemed that
the organisation of the Church was defective and her ministers were
slothful.
The primacy in northern Africa, except the proconsular province,
where the bishop of Carthage was primate, belonged to the senior bishop,
apart from the dignity of his see or the merits of his personal life; and
it was claimed that the rule went back to the time of St Peter the
Apostle and had been continued ever since. Gregory accepted the
historic account of the origin of the African episcopate, as is shewn by
a letter to Dominicus, bishop of Carthage. On it he based an impres-
sive demand for stedfast obedience, and he appointed a bishop named
Columbus to act as his representative, though he was not formally entitled
Vicar Apostolic. A council in 593 received his instructions; but they
do not seem to have been carried out. A long correspondence shews the
urgency of the need for action against the Donatists, and the difficulty
of getting anything done. By the toleration of the imperial government
they had been enabled to keep their churches and bishops; they
conducted an active propaganda, they secured the rebaptism of many
converts. For six years, from 591 to 596, Gregory^ letters shew the
vehemence of the contest in which he was engaged. In 594 a council
at Carthage received an imperial decree stirring Church and State to
action; but the State did not abandon its tolerant attitude: still there
was great slackness, and Gregory wrote urgently to the Emperor on the


## p. 253 (#285) ############################################

591-596] The Church in Africa 253
subject. It would seem that some measures were taken, and that the
law was in some districts enforced; but Donatism if it died down did
not become extinct. It was largely through his constant interventions
in the matter of heresy that Gregory was able to establish on so firm a
basis the papal authority in the exarchate of Africa. He concerned
himself no less with the surviving pagans, urging Gennadius to wage
war against them " not for the pleasure of shedding blood but with the
aim of extending the limits of Christendom, that by the preaching of the
faith, the Name of Christ should be honoured among the subject tribes. '1
Constant in urging the secular officials to action, Gregory was still more
urgent with the bishops. A continual correspondence was maintained
with the African episcopate: everyone who had a grievance applied to
him: no important decision was arrived at without his consent. He
claimed to defend with unchanged determination "the rights and
privileges of Saint Peter. " Paul of Numidia applied to him for justice
against the Donatists, and the patrician Gennadius, who persecuted him,
bishop though he was. With stedfast persistence the Pope insisted on
securing the trial of the case himself, and sent the bishop back to Africa
assured of the imperial protection. Almost insensibly his persistence
and the moral grandeur of his character told on the independence of the
imperial officials. They began to listen to his advice, and then to admit
his authority; and it was soon hard to distinguish their respect for the
man from their obedience to the See. And at the same time, amid the
chaos of administrative disorder, the people put their trust in the Church:
they took the bishops for their defenders, and most of all the Bishop of
Rome. Gregory exercised the authority then bestowed upon him partly
through Hilarus, whom he sent to be overseer of the patrimony of the
Church, and partly through the Numidian bishop Columbus, if protest
was made—as it seems to have been made by a Numidian primate
Adeodatus and by Dominicus of Carthage—it was overruled: Rome, said
Gregory, was the mother church of Africa, and her authority must be
respected. Such a pope was one to make it respected, whether he
advised and exhorted in regard to the decay of spiritual life in monas-
teries, or reproved administrators and judges for unjust exaction of
tribute. No better illustration of the way in which the papal claims
attained acceptance could be found than is afforded by the history of
Africa in the time of Gregory the Great.
While Donatism died hard in Africa, nearer home the controversy of
the Three Chapters was not yet concluded. In Istria the Church was in
schism, for it had not submitted to the decision of East and West.
Gregory invoked (with but small success) the secular arm against Severus,
patriarch of Aquileia, and summoned him to Rome. The bishops of the
province protested and adjured the Emperor to protect them, professing
no obedience to Rome and threatening to acknowledge the ecclesiastical
authority of Gaul. Maurice commanded Gregory to stay his hand, which
CH. VIII. (b)



## p. 254 (#286) ############################################

254 Istria: Gaul [595-696
he did very reluctantly. He had long before intervened in the matter
as the secretary of Pelagius II: he distrusted the Istrian bishops as
schismatics and as assertors of independence, and when he became pope
had again addressed them in lucid theological arguments. He received
individual submissions, and he used every kind of pressure to heal the
schism; but when he died his efforts had not been entirely successful.
With Milan too he had similar difficulties. Defective theology was
combined with provincial independence in resistance to papal power.
In Dalmatia and Illyria other difficulties needed other treatment.
An archbishop whose manner of life did not befit his office was rebuked,
ironically exhorted, pardoned: when he died a strong attempt was made
to fill his place by a man of austere life whom the Pope had long
honoured. The attempt was a failure, and a very long and bitter
struggle ensued in which Maximus, the imperial candidate, was refused
recognition, summoned to trial at Rome and only at last admitted to
his see as lawful prelate when he had lain prone in penance at Ravenna,
crying "I have sinned against God and the most blessed Pope Gregory. '''
Over Illyria generally, in spite of the creation of Justiniana Prima as a
patriarchate by the Emperor who had given it his name, he exercised
the power of a patriarch. He forbade the bishops to attend a synod at
Constantinople without his leave. He made it plain that Illyria belonged
to the West and not to the East.
And in the West he was ever eager to enlarge the boundaries of the
Church. Already as a young man he had set his heart on the conversion
of the English. As pope he had the means to undertake it. It may
be that he planned it, as Bede says, as soon as he came to discharge
the office of pontiff, and also, as one of his letters suggests, that he
prepared for it by ordering the purchase of English slave boys to be
trained in Gaulish monasteries. It was probably in 595 that he first
sent forth the monk Augustine and his companions to journey through
Gaul to Britain for the conversion of the English. When, daunted by
anticipated dangers, the monks sent Augustine back, Gregory ordered him
to return as their abbot, and furnished him with letters to the bishops
of Gaul, and notably to Vergilius of Aries, the bishop of Aix and the
abbot of Lerins, as well as to Theodebert of Austrasia and Theodoric of
Burgundy, children of nine and ten, under the guardianship of Brunhild
their grandmother. To Brunhild herself, "queen of the Franks," who
went with him, he was sure, "in heart and soul," the Pope said that the
English nation, by the favour of God, wished to become Christian, and
he was sending Augustine and other monks to take thought—in which
he bade her help—for their conversion. He considered that the bishops
of Gaul had been remiss, in doing nothing for the conversion of those
English tribes whom he regarded as their neighbours: but when in 596
he set the new mission in motion, he was able, as his letters shew, to
rely upon personal kindness from the queen towards the missionaries



## p. 255 (#287) ############################################

596-601] Mission to the English 255
and upon the aid of Gaulish priests as interpreters of the barbarous
English tongue. The mission was, vaguely, to "the nation of the
English," for Gregory knew no difference between the men of Deira
and the men of Kent; and Augustine would learn at Paris, if not
before, that the wife of Aethelberht of Kent was daughter of a Frankish
king.
The tale of the landing, the preaching, and the success will be told
elsewhere. Here it belongs only to note that Gregory continued to
take the keenest interest in the venture he had planned. He instructed
Vergilius of Aries to consecrate Augustine as bishop, and spread over
Christendom the news of the great work that was accomplished. To
Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, he told of the conversion, due, as he
said, to their prayers, and he warmly thanked Syagrius, bishop of Autun,
and Brunhild for their aid. To Augustine in 601 he sent the pallium,
a mark of favour conferred by pope or emperor, not, it would seem, as
conferring metropolitan authority, which Augustine had already exercised,
but as recognising his position as a special representative of the Roman
see. To the queen Berhta, whose somewhat tardy support of the
Christian faith in her husband's land he was able now to eulogise and to
report even to the Emperor at Constantinople, he wrote words of exhorta-
tion to support Augustine, and to Aethelberht her husband admonition
and praise with his favourite eschatological reference. To the end
Gregory remained the trusted adviser of the Apostle of the English.
He sent special reinforcements, with all manner of things, says Bede,
needed for public worship and the service of the Church, commending
the new missionaries again to the Gaulish bishops and instructing them
especially as to the conversion of heathen temples into Christian churches.
And he gave a very careful reply, written with characteristic breadth
and tact, to the questions which Augustine addressed to him when the
difficulties of his work had begun to be felt. The authenticity of these
answers, it is true, has been doubted, but the evidence, external as well
as internal, appears to be sufficient1. The questions related to the
support of the mission clergy, the liturgical use of the national Church
now formed in England, the co-operation necessary in the consecration of
bishops, and to matters touching the moral law about which among a
recently heathen nation a special sensitiveness was desirable. Gregory's
answers were those of a monk, even of a precisian, but they were also
eminently those of a man of affairs and a statesman. "Things," he said,
"are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of
good things," and the claim of Rome herself depended on such an
assertion. As a monk he dealt firmly with morals: as a statesman he
sketched out the future organisation of the English Church. London
1 See Mason, Mission of St Augustine, pp viii, ix. Ewald does not decide against
them.
ch. vni. (b)


## p. 256 (#288) ############################################

256 Gregory and Gaul
was to be one metropolitan see, York the other, each with the pallium
and with twelve suffragan sees. Neither bishop was to be primate of all
England by right, but the senior in consecration was to be the superior,
according, it seems, to the custom of the Church in Africa of which he had
experience, but restricted as his wisdom shewed to be desirable. It may
be that Gregory had already heard of the position of the British Church:
if so, he provided for its subjection to a metropolitan. Certainly he
judged acutely according to the knowledge he possessed.
The beginnings of the English mission had brought the Pope into
closer observation than before with the kings and bishops of peoples but
recently converted to the faith. In Austrasia, Neustria and Burgundy
reigned a race of kings whose wickedness was but slightly tempered by
the Christianity they had accepted. In Spain there was more wisdom
and more reality of faith.
From Britain we pass naturally to the country through which
Gregory's envoys passed on their way to new spiritual conversion: from
Gaul we may pass to Spain. So far did Gregory's interests extend: of
his power it may not be possible to speak with so much certainty. In
truth the Church in Europe was not yet a centralised body, and local
independence was especially prominent among the Franks. Even in
doctrine there are traces of divergence, though these were kept in check
by a number of local councils which discussed and accepted the theological
decisions which came to them from East and West. But the real power
resided in the bishops, as administrators, rulers, shepherds of men's
souls. Christianity at this period, and notably Frankish Christianity,
has been described as a federation of city churches of which each one
was a little monarchy in itself. If no one doubted the papal primacy, it
was much further away than the arbitrary authority of the kings, and in
nothing were the Merovingians more determined than in their control of
the Church in their dominions. If in the south the bishop of Aries, as
vicar of the Gauls, maintained close relations with the Roman see, the
episcopate as a whole/held aloof, respectful certainly but not obedient.
The Church in Gaul nad been engulfed in a barbarian conquest, cut off
from Italy, severed from its ancient spiritual ties. The conversion of
Clovis gave a new aspect to this separation. The kings assumed a
powerful influence over the bishops, and asserted their supremacy in
ecclesiastical matters. Whatever may have been the theory, in practice
the interference of Rome in Gaul had become difficult, and was
consequently infrequent: it had come to be considered unnecessary:
the Church of the Franks had outgrown its leading-strings. But in
practice? The special privileges of the see of Aries are evidence of a
certain submission to the Papacy on the part of the Merovingian kings,
though the monarchs were autocrats in matters of religion as well as in
affairs of state, and did not encourage resort to the Holy See. It fell to
Gregory, here as elsewhere, to inaugurate an era of defined authority.


## p. 257 (#289) ############################################

595] Gregory and Gaul 267
When he became pope the royal power of the Merovingians was at
its height: in a few years it would totter to its fall, but now the clergy
were submissive and the bishops for the most part the creatures of the
court. When he died the claims of Rome to supremacy were established,
even if they were not fully admitted. With Gaul throughout his ponti-
ficate he maintained close relations. Gregory of Tours tells with what
joy his namesake's election was received by the Franks, and from the first
sets himself to tell his doings and sayings with an unusual minuteness.
Within a year of his accession the new Pope was called upon to judge
the bishops of Aries and Marseilles, whom Jewish merchants accused to
him of endeavouring forcibly to convert them: Gregory reproved and
urged the bishops rather to preach and persuade than to coerce. Again,
he reproved Vergilius of Aries and the bishop of Autun for allowing the
marriage of a nun, commanding them to bring the woman to penitence,
and exhorting them with all authority. He intervened in the affairs of
monasteries, granting privileges and exemptions in a manner which
shews the nature of the authority he claimed. By his advice the
difficult questions raised by the insanity of a bishop in the province of
Lyons were settled. He claimed to judge a Frankish bishop and restore
him to his see, though here he felt it necessary to explain and justify
his conduct to the masterful Brunhild. He is found reproving the icono-
clastic tendencies of Serenus of Marseilles, and ordering him to replace
the images which he has thrown down. He gave directions as to the
holding of church councils, he advised bishops as to the administration of
their dioceses and the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. His corre-
spondence with bishops and monks was constant, the requests to him to
intervene in the affairs of the Gallican Church were frequent. Thus
he prepared himself to inaugurate in Gaul a decisive and necessary
reform.
Here he came into direct relations with the kings. In 595
Childebert of Austrasia applied to him for a recognition of the powers,
as papal representative, of the bishop of Aries—evidence of the survival
of the traditional idea of dependence on the Roman Church. In granting
the request Gregory took occasion to develop his scheme of ecclesiastical
discipline. Simony, interference with the election of bishops, the nomina-
tion of laymen to the episcopate, were crying evils: and the kings were
responsible for them. He believed that the Frankish monarchy, the
purity of whose faith shone by comparison with the dark treachery of
other peoples, would rejoice to carry out his wishes; and in the notorious
Brunhild he strangely found a deep religious sense and good dispositions
which should bear fruit in the salvation of men: to her he repeated the
desires which he had expressed to Childebert and urged her to see that
they were carried out. He applied to her to put down crime, idolatry,
paganism, to prevent the possession by Jews of Christian slaves—with
what success we do not know. Unsuccessful certainly he was when he
C. SIM). H. VOL. II. CH. VIII. (b) 17



## p. 258 (#290) ############################################

258 Gregory and the Franks [595-599
urged Theodoric and Theodobert to restore to the bishop of Turin
the parishes which he had lost during the barbarian invasion and which
the Frankish kings were by no means willing should be under the control
of a foreign bishop. But with Brunhild he seems always to have held
the most cordial relations: she asked his advice and assistance in
matters of religion and politics, in regard to a question of marriage law
and to the relation of the Franks with the Empire in the East. And
throughout his pontificate the attitude of the kings was one of deep
respect, that of the Pope that of father by counsel which easily wore
the cloak of authority.
It was thus that early in his pontificate Gregory warned Childebert
and Brunhild, as he warned Vergilius and the bishops of Childebert's
realm, of the need of instant action against the gross simony which was
eating away the spiritual life of the Church. Young men, evil livers,
laymen snatched from the business or pleasures of the world, were
hurriedly ordained or hurriedly promoted and thrust into the high
places of the Church. In 599 he addressed the bishops of Aries, Autun,
Lyons and Vienne in vigorous protest, laying to their charge at least
the acquiescence which made gross abuses possible. Ready though
he was to submit to lawful exercise of the royal power in nomination,
he utterly forbade the ordination of laymen in high office, as inexcusable
and indefensible. The Church was to be strengthened against the world
by total prohibition of marriage to the clergy and by the summoning of
yearly councils for the confirmation of faith and morals. In the councils
everything was to be condemned which was contrary to the canons; and
two prelates should represent him and inform him of what was done.
The abbot Cyriacus was sent on a special mission, with letters to bishops,
to kings, and to the queen Brunhild, to bring discipline to the Gallican
Church. But the murderous uncertainty of dynastic intrigues set every
obstacle in the way of a reform which might make the bishops less the
creatures of the kings. To Theodoric at one moment thanks were given
for his submission to papal commands, and he was directed to summon
a council. At another a special envoy was sent to indicate and insist
on reform. At another letter after letter in vehement exhortation was
addressed to Brunhild, apparently the real ruler of the distracted realm.
Bishops were again and again reproved, exhorted, reproached. But it is
difficult, perhaps through the scanty nature of the historical materials of
the period, to discover cases of definite submission to the papal authority.
It was asserted with all the moral fervour and all the sagacious prudence
which belonged to the great man who sat in the papal chair. It was not
repudiated by Frankish kings and bishops: rather the assertion was
received with judicious politeness and respect.
But beyond this the evidence does not carry us. That the policy of
the Frankish State was affected, or that the character of the kings, the
ministers of the Crown, or even the bishops, was moulded by the influence


## p. 259 (#291) ############################################

585-586] Gregory and the Visigoths 259
of the Papacy it would be impossible to say. Tyrannous and fratricidal,
the Merovingian kings lived their evil lives unchecked by more than
a nominal regard for the teaching of Christian moralists. But Gregory's
continual interest in the Frankish Church was not in vain. He had
established a personal relation with the barbarous kings: he had created
a papal vicar in the kingdom of the South: in granting the pallium to
the bishop of Autun he had at least suggested a very special authority
over the lands of the Gauls: he had claimed that the Roman Church was
their mother to whom they applied in time of need. If the practical
result was small; if the Frankish Church maintained a real independence
of Rome, and Aries never became a papal vicariate; yet Frankish monks,
priests, poets, as well as bishops and kings, began to look to Rome as
patron and guide. Venantius Fortunatus, Columbanus, Gregory of Tours,
in their different ways, shew how close was the relation of Gregory the
Great to the religion of the Franks.
Brighter was the prospect when Gregory turned from the moral
chaos of Gaul to the growing unity of Spain. The Visigothic race had
produced a great warrior in Leovigild, whose power, as king of all the
Goths, extended from Seville to Nimes. He obtained for his son
Hermenegild, Ingundis the daughter of Brunhild (herself the child of
Athanagild, Leovigild's predecessor as Visigothic king) and the Frankish
king Sigebert. From Gregory's letters we learn a story of martyrdom
as to which there is no reason to believe that he was deceived. Ingundis,
beset by Arian teachers who had obtained influence over Leovigildf not
naturally a persecutor, a tyrant or a fanatic, remained firm in her faith,
and when her husband was given rule at Seville she succeeded with the
aid of his kinsman Leunder, bishop of Seville and friend of Gregory, in
converting him to the Catholic belief. * War was the result. Leovigild
attacked his son, says John of Biclar, for rebellion and tyranny.
Hermenegild sought the aid of the Catholic Sueves and "the Greeks "—
the imperial garrisons which had remained since the partial reconquest
of Spain by Justinian. But Leovigild proved the victor: the Suevic
kingdom was extinguished, and Hermenegild was thrown into prison.
Ingundis escaped with the Greeks and died at Carthage on her way to
Constantinople. "Hermenegild was killed at Tarragona by Sigisbert"
is the simple statement of John of Biclar, Catholic bishop of Gerona.
Gregory in his Dialogues tells the tale more fully. On Easter Eve 585
he was offered communion by an Arian bishop, and when he refused to
receive it at his hands he was murdered by the order of his father. He
was regarded as a martyr and 18 April was observed throughout all
Spain- His blood proved the seed of the faith.
A year later his brother Recared became king and accepted Catholicism.
*<~So wonder," says Gregory, "that he became a preacher of the true faith,
for his brother was a martyr, by whose merits he is aided in bringing back
many souls to the bosom of God. " Nor could this have happened had
CE, VIII. (b) 17—2


## p. 260 (#292) ############################################

260 Conversion of the Visigoths [589-603
not Hermenegild the king laid down his life for the truth.