ITALY AND HER INVADERS.
BOOK VI
.
CHAPTER VIII.
GREGORY AND THE LOMBARDS, 590-595.
From the deeds of the great founder of the mediaeval Papacy we must turn
to follow for a little while the far humbler fortunes of the Lombard king.
Immediately on his elevation to the throne, Agilulf turned his attention
to that which was the most pressing necessity of the Lombard state, the
conclusion of peace with the Franks. Two missions were dispatched with this
object to the Austrasian court, both going from the Duchy of Trent, and both
doubtless proceeding by the pass of the Brenner, through what had once been the
Roman provinces of Rhaetia and Vindelicia. Agnellus, bishop of Trent, went to negotiate for the return
of the prisoners whom the Franks had carried off from his diocese in the cruel
raid of the previous year. It seems doubtful whether complete success crowned
his efforts, but he had at least the joy of bringing back to their homes many
captives whom the Austrasian queen-mother had herself redeemed from bondage. In
the difficult task of assaying the strangely compounded character of
Brunichildis, let at least this good deed be remembered to her credit.
The other, a more directly political mission, was entrusted to Euin,
duke of Trent, and brother-in-law of Queen Theudelinda. We have no details as
to his journey; we are only told that ‘he went to Gaul to obtain peace, and
having obtained it, returned home'. The Austrasian king had perhaps perceived
by this time that he could not conquer, could only ravage, Italy, and that, in
unduly weakening the Lombards, he was but playing the game of the Emperor. The
hostility of Neustria was becoming more dangerous, as the son of Fredegundis
was growing out of infancy into boyhood. The old actors, too, were soon to pass
away from the scene. The easy-tempered Guntram of Burgundy died early in 593.
Childebert, who of united that kingdom to his paternal inheritance of
Austrasia, enjoyed his wide-reaching sway but three years, and died in 596,
having only attained his twenty-sixth year. His sons, children of nine and ten
years old, succeeded him, Theodoric in Burgundy, and Theudebert in Austrasia.
There were thus, now, minors on all the three Frankish thrones. Brunichildis
hoped to govern two kingdoms as regent in her grandsons' names, but her hope
was disappointed. Expelled from Austrasia, she took refuge in Burgundy, and
sought to avenge herself by Burgundian arms on the Austrasian rebels. Civil war
and domestic confusion became the normal condition of Gaul, and for the
twenty-five years during which Agilulf was consolidating the Lombard throne,
the Frankish monarchy was in a state of partial eclipse. These were, perhaps,
some of the causes of the change which now came over the relations of the two
peoples. The change itself is undoubted; with the accession of Agilulf the
hostilities between Frank and Lombard—so irritating to the student by their
want of plan, and so lamentable for the sufferers by their purposeless
barbarity—cease, and for many generations Italy is left to work out her own
destinies, undisturbed by any interference on the side of Gaul.
The next duty of Agilulf was to assert his royal authority against the
subject dukes, who could look back to a still recent time when they had no king
over them, and some of whom had seen with anger the elevation of a Thuringian
stranger over their heads by a woman’s favour.
One of these was Mimulf, who in the recent
campaign had traitorously surrendered himself to the Frankish dukes. His
stronghold was the island of St. Julian in the Lake of Orta. Notwithstanding
his watery defence he was captured and slain. Ulfari,
duke of Treviso, who had also rebelled (perhaps had gone over to his Imperial
neighbours), was besieged and taken prisoner.
The most powerful and the most obstinate of all the rebel nobles was
Gaidulf1, duke of Bergamo. By right of his important duchy, possibly also by
right of some relationship with Authari of Bergamo, Gaidulf had probably himself aspired to the kingdom. Agilulf, however, marched against
him, received his submission, and forced him to give hostages for his future
fidelity. How long he remained loyal we know not; but next time that he broke
out into rebellion we find him not behind the walls of Bergamo, but in that
cave of Adullam, the island in the Lake of Como. This island, after the defeat
of the Byzantine general Francio, had apparently been
annexed to the territory of Bergamo, and the rich treasure found there had been
entrusted to Gaidulf’s keeping. The island was now
successfully attacked, Gaidulf’s soldiers expelled,
and the treasure carried off to safer keeping at Pavia. Gaidulf fled to Bergamo, was there taken prisoner by Agilulf, a second time pardoned
and a second time listened to when he repeated his promises of loyalty. We
shall see at a future time how these promises were kept.
These domestic disturbances being quelled, Agilulf, doubtless at the
earliest moment of leisure, turned his thoughts towards the long struggle with
the Empire; a struggle which was now passing into a chronic stage and involving
a second generation of combatants. Rome, Ravenna, Naples, Genoa; these four
cities were Empire's grasp, and so long as these cities and the territories
round them were in hostile hands, could any king of the Lombards feel that his
possession of the remaining three-fourths of Italy was secure? Rome and Ravenna
especially, the old and the new capitals of Emperors, were always alluring and
always defying the Lombard attack. The Pope at Rome, the Exarch at Ravenna,
held perilous communication with one another by the long nerve-filament of the
Flaminian Way. Might it not be possible for the Lombard marauders to destroy
that communication, to isolate the two capitals from one another and then to
conquer them in detail? It seemed doubtless feasible enough to a Lombard duke;
but it was never wholly done, and even its partial accomplishment was only
attained towards the very end of the Lombard domination. Instead of the Lombard
king being able to separate Rome from Ravenna, the Via Flaminia practically
separated him from his fellow countrymen in the South. The duchies of Spoleto
and Benevento (whose histories will be hereafter described more in detail)
became more and more detached from the great body of the monarchy, whose heart
was in Pavia; and the Empire, though powerless to expel the Lombards from
Italy, was powerful to divide and to scatter them.
The impression made by the events which we are now considering, on the
political condition of Italy was deep and long-enduring. In our own day a new
generation is arising which is accustomed to the appearance of United Italy on
the map: but all men of middle age remember how the maps of their boyhood
showed a great irregularly-shaped region called ‘The States of the Church',
reaching across the waist of Italy, from the north-east to the south-west:
almost within sight of Venice, where it touched the Adriatic, almost within
sight of Naples, where it touched the open Mediterranean. That strange
rhomboidal figure, which once seemed to present so hopeless a barrier to the
unity of Italy, was a direct survival from the age when Rome and Ravenna were
the two great strongholds of the Empire in the Italian peninsula, and when the
Flaminian Way was the all-important line of communication between the city of
the Pope and the city of the Exarch.
There was, however, one station on the Flaminian Way which had been
occupied by the invaders, and by the which a Lombard duke had made the seat of
power. This was Spoletium, now Spoleto, almost
exactly half-way between the Tyrrhene Sea and the
Adriatic. Here Farwald had reigned, and here in 591
Ariulf was reigning, drawing ever nearer and nearer to Rome, so that it seemed,
in those early days of Gregory's pontificate, as if the great prize of the
World-City's capture might after all fall into the hands, not even of a king,
but of a mere duke of the Lombards. To Gregory himself, and all true Roman
hearts within the City, the outlook must have seemed indeed a dreary one. As
far as they were concerned, Roman territory, once
deemed world-wide had shrunk into limits little wider than those of the
early days of the Republic. Latium with a comer of Etruria and a few square
miles of Sabine territory—this was the Ducatus Romae: this was all the territory in which the citizens
could move about, and even then only with a precarious and menaced freedom. As
they looked forth from the walls of their City, they knew that the Ducatus Romae was almost bounded
by the visible horizon. Northwestward the Cassian
Road led up to the dark brow of the Ciminian Mount.
Just over the shoulder of that forest-crowned hill was Viterbium,
and in Viterbium reigned a Lombard duke. On the
northern horizon were the Sabine hills, at whose foot lay Interamna with its waterfalls, and Interamna was an outpost of
Lombard Spoletium. Far nearer and even within sight
of Rome were the towers of Tibur and Praenestes, high
up on their hills against the sunrise; and though these towns were still Roman,
they were now frontier towns, looking forth on Lombard territory. It was only
towards the south-east, where stretched the old Volscian land, and towards the
west, where rolled the friendly sea, that the Roman could gaze without feeling
that he was gazing towards the near dominions of a foe.
The letters of Gregory, in the early years of his pontificate, give us a
vivid picture of his anxieties and distresses, hemmed in as he was within such
narrow bounds, daily hearing of, and all but seeing, the desolation wrought by
the invaders. Writing to one of his old friends at Constantinople, the
Patrician and Quaestor John, in the beginning of 591, he says, “You have
intended to do me a kindness [in assisting my elevation to the papacy], and may
God repay you for your good mind towards me, but you have brought me, the lover
of quietness, into a state of continual disquiet. For my sins I find myself
bishop, not of the Romans but of the Lombards; men whose promises stab like
swords, and whose kindness is bitter punishment. Hither has your patronage led
me. But do you, who still have the power, fly from the business of this world,
because, as far as I see, the more progress a man makes in this, the more he
falls off from the love of God. Moreover, I send you a most sacred key, from
the body of the blessed Apostle Peter, Prince of the Apostles, made illustrious
by the many miracles performed by its means on the bodies of many sick persons,
and enclosing some filings from his chains. Let those chains therefore, which
once clasped that holy neck, now be hung round your neck and sanctify it.”
In another letter to the Judicial Assessor Paulus, Gregory begs his
correspondent to come and assist in the extreme need of the Roman City, “because
outside the walls we are incessantly molested by the swords of the enemy, and
within we are threatened by the yet graver peril of a mutiny of the soldiers.”
The effect of all the ravages, not only of the Lombards during the
recent years, but of their predecessors during the two previous centuries, was
already seen in reducing the fertile regions of the Campagna to a desert. The
two towns of Mintumae and Formiae (both in our own day represented only by ruins) were to be joined under one
bishop (the bishop of Formiae), ‘because we have
learned' says the Pope, “that the Church of Mintumae is, owing to the desolate condition of the country, utterly stripped both of
clergy and of people.”
The ecclesiastical administrator of Campania (Anthemius the subdeacon)
was enjoined to prevent the dwellers on the Papal patrimonies, who with their
wives were fleeing from barbarian savagery, from taking refuge on the Insula Eumorphiana, on which was erected an oratory to St. Peter. “There
are other places of refuge in the neighbourhood, and I think it highly
inopportune that women should be dwelling on the same island with monks.”
So far, however, up to the end of the first year of Gregory's papacy,
the tide of battle had not rolled close up to the walls of Rome. But with
September, 591, when his second year of office began, hostilities became more
active. The terrible pestilence, from which Pope Pelagius had died, was still
raging in Italy, and Gregory, writing to the bishop of Narni,
exhorts him to turn the panic caused by its ravages in that city to good
account spiritually, by labouring among the Lombards as well as Romans within
its walls, and persuading the heathens and the heretics to turn to the true
Catholic faith. Narni was emphatically a frontier
city, but there is perhaps room for a doubt whether the Lombards here referred
to were conquerors who had carried the city by a surprise, or the remnant of
some of the Lombard armies, who, under various generals, had deserted to the
Empire in recent years.
The next letter, however (written on the twenty-seventh of September,
591), gives no uncertain sound of war. It is addressed to Velox, Master of the
Soldiery, stationed probably at Perugia, certainly somewhere on the road
between Ravenna and Rome.
“I told your Glory some time ago that I had soldiers ready to come to
you at your present quarters : but as your letter informed me that the enemy
were assembled and were making inroads in this direction, I decided to keep
them back. Now, however, it seems expedient to send some of them to you,
praying your Glory to give them suitable exhortations, that they may be ready
to undertake the labour which falls upon them.... And do you, finding a
convenient opportunity, have a conference with our glorious sons, Maurice and
Vitalian: and whatever, by God's help, you shall jointly decide on for the
benefit of the Republic, that do.... And if you shall discover that the
unutterable Ariulf is breaking forth either towards Ravenna or in our
direction, do you fall upon his rear and exert yourselves as becomes brave men,
that so, by God's help, the high opinion which the Republic already holds of
you may be raised yet higher by your glorious labours.”
The autumn and the winter of 591 passed away, apparently, without
bringing the dreaded invasion. But the Pontiff was looking anxiously towards
his northern frontier, desiring to strengthen himself against attack from the
side of Tuscany. Here, about thirty miles from Rome, south of the Ciminian mountain, stood the two little towns of Sutrium and Nepe. These towns,
which, in the infancy of the Republic, had been won for her by the valour of
Camillus, were now part of her northern barrier against invasion. Sutrium and Nepe under Maurice
were thus what the Firths of Forth and Clyde had been under Antoninus. The
Pope, who as one grasping the helm of the State at a moment of extreme peril
spoke with all the authority of a king, addressed a short letter “to the
clergy, council, and commonalty dwelling at Nepe.”
“To the clarissimus Leontius, bearer of these
presents, we have entrusted the care and responsibility for your city, that by
his vigilance in all things he may make such arrangements as shall be for your
advantage and that of the Republic. We therefore admonish you by these presents
to render to him in all things due obedience, that none may dare to despise
him, when he is toiling for your benefit. Whosoever shall resist his lawful
commands will be deemed to rebel against us; and whosoever listens to him listens
to us. If any should venture—which we do not expect—after this admonition to
think that he may treat Leontius with contempt, let him clearly understand that
he does so at his peril.”
It is easy to see from one short letter like this how the distance from
the seat of Empire, the interruption of communication with Ravenna, the
lordship of the vast Patrimony of St. Peter, were all tending to turn the Pope,
with his will or against his will, into a temporal sovereign. Not only would
Pope Symmachus not have so written under the strong rule of Theodoric, but
under the weakest of the phantom emperors who flitted across the stage in the
middle of the fifth century, it is inconceivable that such a letter could have
been addressed even by the mighty Pope Leo to the inhabitants of the most
insignificant village in the Campagna.
As the spring drew on, Ariulf again showed unwelcome signs of life. In
April, Gregory, writing to the bishop of Ravenna, asked him to examine into the
case of certain bishops in the obedience of the Roman see, “who cannot come
hither by reason of the interposition of the enemy.” Then, in June, we find
Gregory writing as follows to the Masters of the Soldiery, Maurice and
Vitalian, who, notwithstanding their high official titles, seem to have been
really his generals, responsible to him and not to the Exarch.
“The magnificent Aldio, after the arrival of
your messengers, wrote to us that Ariulf was now very near, and we feared lest
the soldiers who are being dispatched by you should fall into his hands. But,
by God’s help, our son, the glorious Master of the Soldiery, has made his
preparations to meet him. And let your Glories also, if the enemy should march
hither, fall upon his rear and, with God's help, do what you can according to
your wonted valour. For we trust in the power of Almighty God and of the
blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, on whose natal day they hope to shed our
blood, that they will find him too strong for them, and that immediately.”
Soon after the dispatch of this letter Vitalian came to Rome, had a
personal interview with the Pope, and carried back his commands, both oral and
written, to his comrades. Then another person appeared upon the scene—a
messenger from the Lombard host, bearing a letter written by Ariulf himself,
and dated the 11th of June. In this letter he mentioned, probably by way of
boast, and in order to show how closely he was drawing his net round the City
of Rome, that the inhabitants of Suana had promised
to surrender to him. Suana, now the miserable little
village of Sovana in the Etruscan Maremma, was a
strongly fortified town as late as the thirteenth century, though its chief
celebrity was derived from the fact that there was born the only other Pope who
could for a moment contest with the first of the name the title of Gregory the
Great. In the year 592 it can only have been an outlying fortress of the
Empire, being fully forty miles beyond the frontier of the Ducatus Romae, and the marvel is that it should have resisted
the Lombard attack so long.
With the despatch which the Pope now sent to the two generals, Maurice
and Vitalian, he enclosed the letter of Ariulf, and continued, “Do you
therefore carefully read this letter, and see if the citizens of Suana have persevered in the faith which they promised to
the Republic. Take from them important hostages, the possession of whom may
give you confidence in the fulfilment of their promises; and bind them moreover
with fresh oaths, returning to them that which you have already taken by way of
pledge, and healing their spirits by your speeches.”
So far had spoken the monarch and the statesman, but then came in the
churchman's fear of doing anything that might put the souls of his flock in
jeopardy. If the Suanese had sworn, even to the hurt
of the State, they must not be encouraged to break their oaths. “But if you
shall clearly ascertain that they have treated with Ariulf for their city, or
even have given him hostages with that intent— a point as to which his enclosed
letter leaves us in doubt—then give the whole matter your most careful
consideration, that neither your souls nor ours may come under any burden by
reason of [violated] oaths. Accomplish then whatsoever you may deem
advantageous to the Republic. Let your Glories so act that on the one hand we
give no occasion for blame to our adversaries [at the Imperial Court], nor on
the other hand neglect God while looking to the welfare of the State. Be
careful, my glorious sons, because, as far as I can ascertain, Ariulf has
collected his hostile forces, and he is said to be now quartered at Nardiae, and if, through God's anger against him, he should
choose to direct his course hither, do you, by the Lord's help, lay waste his
own territory1, or at least let those whom you send carefully post their
sentinels lest some serious mishap should befall you.”
How the affair of Suana ended we are not
informed, but the most probable conjecture is that Ariulf's was no vain boast,
and that the Etrurian outpost did at this time fall
into the hands of the Lombards.
All round the horizon the sky seemed darkening. Arichis,
duke of Beneventum, was cooperating with his countryman Ariulf and pressing
hard on Naples. As the Pope could not stir up the Exarch to provide for the
defence of that important city by sending an Imperial duke with sufficient
reinforcements, he took upon himself to send the ‘magnificent' tribune,
Constantius, to bear military rule in the city, and wrote a letter ordering all
the soldiers quartered there to render him due obedience. What troubled him most
was the apparent indifference of the Exarch, Romanus, who seemed heedless to
all the misery which the fury of Ariulf and his Lombards was bringing on the
peasants of Campania. On behalf of Romanus it may be urged that the one
all-important matter was to keep the communications open between Rome and
Ravenna, and that every soldier who could be spared was needed for the defence
of Perugia, which had become the vital point in these communications. But,
whether justly or unjustly, Gregory was now thoroughly out of temper with Romanus,
and the project, the momentous project, of forming a separate peace with Ariulf
and cultivating the friendship of Spoleto, since Ravenna was so callous and
unjust, was already taking shape in the Pope’s mind. It was with such thoughts
stirring in his soul that he wrote to John, bishop of Ravenna, probably in the
month of July, 592.
“Set it not down to indolence but to ill-health that I have made such
scant reply to the numerous letters of your Blessedness. For my sins, when
Ariulf came [close up] to the City of Rome, slaying some of our people and
mutilating others, I was smitten with such sadness that I suffered from an
attack of colic. Much did I marvel what could be the reason why the well- known
solicitude of your Holiness on our behalf did not profit this City nor relieve
my necessities. But when I got your letters which went astray, I recognized
that you do indeed act zealously for me, but that you have to deal with a man
with whom such zeal is of no avail. It must be, therefore, to punish me for my
sins that he who is now concerned only pretends to fight against our enemies,
and at the same time forbids us to make peace, although now we should be quite
unable to do so even if we wished it, because Ariulf, having with him the army
of Auctarit and Nordulf,
claims that gratuities for them shall be handed over to him before he will condescend
to say anything about peace.”
Gregory then goes on to speak about the schismatical bishops of Istria and the Three Chapters Controversy, and continues, “Be
assured that I shall not cease to write to our most serene lords [the Emperor
and his son] on that matter with perfect freedom and earnestness. But you need
not be distressed by the animosity of the aforesaid most excellent Patrician
Romanus [against me], because as far as I am superior to him in place and
dignity, with so much the more patience and gravity I ought to bear his
impertinence.
“If, however, there is any chance of getting a hearing, let your
Brotherhood deal with him, so that we may make peace with Ariulf, should there
be any hope, however faint, of accomplishing that result. The regular soldiery,
as he himself knows, have been removed from Rome. Only the Theodosians remain, and as they have not received their donative, they will scarce consent
to do sentry duty on the walls. Since the City is thus bereft of all its
defenders, if it have not peace, how shall it continue to exist?
“As to the city of Naples, you must press the most excellent Exarch
hard. For Arichis, as we have heard, has joined
himself to Ariulf, and in violation of his promise has gone against the
Republic. He is plotting deeply against that city, and if a duke be not
speedily sent to its relief, it may be absolutely given up for lost.
“As for your suggestion about sending alms to the burnt city of Severus
the schismatic, your Brotherhood would not have made it if you had known what
bribes he has been sending to the palace to inflame persons against us. And
even had he not been thus active, we must remember that our pity is primarily
due to the faithful, and only in the second place to the enemies of the Church.
All the more so, as hard by is the city of Fanum, many of whose inhabitants
have been carried captive, and to which in the past year I wished to send
remittances, but could not on account of the interposition of the enemy. It
seems to me, therefore, that you ought to send the abbot Claudius thither with
a pretty large sum of money, to redeem all such free persons as he may find to
be there held in bondage for their ransoms, or to be still in captivity. Make
your mind easy about the sum of money to be transmitted to you [for this
purpose], because whatever you decide upon I shall be glad to pay. But if you
can convince the most excellent Patrician Romanus that we ought to make peace
with Ariulf, I am ready to send you another person with whom these matters of
ransom can be better arranged.”
After this letter, the name of Ariulf fades for a time out of Gregory's
correspondence. Evidently the stress of war and the fear of the capture of the
City were soon lightened, and we may assert with little fear of contradiction
that the cause of this change was a separate peace concluded between Rome and
Spoleto about the end of July 592. In negotiating this peace, the Papal coffers
were probably put under contribution, in order to satisfy the demands of
Ariulf, since Gregory himself, in alluding to the transaction three years
later, says that the peace was made “without any cost to the Republic.”
Having thus carefully traced the course of events as revealed to us by
the Papal letters we may now listen to a story told by Paulus Diaconus in his life of Gregory in which, though Ariulf's
name is not mentioned, the similarity of events is so great that we can hardly
doubt that Ariulf is the person alluded to.
“There was a certain tyrant who greatly oppressed the Roman Church,
troubling its repose by his unbearable importunity, laying waste its
possessions, and treating the serfs belonging thereto with the utmost cruelty.
For which wrongs the blessed Pope admonished him by means of messengers, but he
was made all the more furious by this reproof, and came, mad with rage, to
depopulate the City itself. But on his arrival, he was met in conference by the
blessed Gregory. His heart was touched by Divine grace, and he perceived that
there was so much force in the Pontiff's words that with most humble courtesy
he made satisfaction to the pious successor of the Apostles, and promised that
he would ever after be the subject and devoted servant of the Roman Church.
Finally, he being afterwards sick [apparently] unto death, besought the prayers
of the venerable Pope, and received for answer that God would grant unto him
further space for repentance.”
It seems clear that, as here described, the raging enemy of the Church
was converted by this interview, if not into a subject ally, at least into a
respectful and courteous antagonist. The moral miracle of Leo I’s subjugation
of Attila was thus repeated after the. lapse of a century and a half, by the
greatest of his successors. That Ariulf, rough warrior as he might be, was not
insensible to influences which may be called religious or superstitious
according to the narrator’s point of view, is shown by a story told of him by
Paulus in the Lombard history. When warring against the Romans at Camerinum (possibly in that very expedition which caused
the captivity of the citizens of Fanum), he enquired of his men, after they had
gotten the victory, who was that warrior whom he had seen fighting so
valiantly. “There was no braver warrior than yourself,” said his soldiers. “No,
assuredly, there was one better than I, who, whenever one of the opposite party
wished to strike me, guarded me with his shield.” Soon after they came near to
the basilica in which rests the venerable body of the blessed martyr St.
Sabinus; and Ariulf asked, “Whose is that ample house?.” Some Catholics in his
suite answered, “There rests the martyr Sabinus, whose help Christians are wont
to invoke when they go forth to war.” Ariulf, who was still a heathen,
reasoned, “How can a dead man give help to the living?.” Having so said, he
leaped from his horse and went in to view the basilica; and while the others
were praying, he strolled round the church admiring the pictures on the walls.
As soon as he saw the blessed martyr’s portrait, he exclaimed, with an oath, “That
is the face and that is the figure of the man who guarded me in the fight.”
Then all understood that Sabinus himself had been Ariulf’s defender.
So runs the story in the pages of Ariulf s countryman Paulus. What the
Emperor or the Exarch said of such a miraculous interference on behalf of an
enemy of the Roman Republic no Byzantine chronicler informs us.
The separate peace thus concluded by Gregory with Ariulf aroused great
indignation, when the tidings of it reached Ravenna and Constantinople. Though
probably a wise and statesmanlike measure, there can be no doubt that—to use a
legal phrase—it was quite ultra vires, being entirely beyond any legal
competency yet possessed by the bishop of Rome in “the Roman Republic.” An
archbishop of Canterbury negotiating for himself a separate peace with Napoleon
I, at the time of his meditated Boulogne invasion, or, to take a less
improbable contingency—a bishop of Durham making private terms for himself and
the territories of St. Cuthbert with the king of Scots, on the eve of the
battle of Flodden; these hypothetical cases offer fair analogies to the conduct
of Gregory on this occasion, on which he did indeed make a memorable stride
towards complete independence. It appears to have been at this time, and was
possibly in order to undo Gregory's work, that Romanus at last marched with an
army from Ravenna to Rome. It would seem as if the independent action of the
Pope accomplished that which his piteous entreaties had failed to effect, in
stirring up the Exarch to action. His campaign was evidently a victorious one.
The towns of Sutrium, Polimartium,
Horta, Tuder, Ameria, Luceoli, and Perugia1, were all
recovered from the Lombards, and the Exarch returned in triumph to Ravenna.
This expedition of Romanus is usually represented as a mere outbreak of
temper on his part, a petulant explosion of wrath on the part of a man “who
could make neither war nor peace”, and who, by this ill-timed display of
energy, sacrificed all the fruits of Gregory's diplomacy. It is not clear,
however, that we are right in so regarding it. If we look at the map, we shall
see that the loss of these places (which had probably all fallen during Ariulf’s
campaign of 592) fatally jeopardized the line of communication between Rome and
Ravenna. Luceoli, Tuder, Ameria, were all important
stages on the Via Flaminia, while Sutrium, Polimartium and Horta were towns within the border of the Ducatus Romae, as it remained for
the next century. Gregory's desire for peace, and his pity for the sufferings
of the war-worried coloni, were praiseworthy and
Christian, but Romanus was justified in thinking that a peace concluded on the
basis of the status quo in July 592, would leave the Imperial possessions in
Italy at the mercy of the barbarians.
The case of Perugia was peculiar. That old Etruscan city, on her high
Umbrian hill, held, probably, the true key of the position; but we are,
unfortunately, not able fully to follow her varying fortunes. It is now pretty
generally agreed that up to the year 592 the city had remained in the
uninterrupted possession of the Empire. In that year it was taken, perhaps by
Ariulf, perhaps by a Lombard duke named Maurisio, who was entrusted with the
government of the city. This man, however, surrendered his post to Romanus,
deserted his countrymen, entered the service of the Empire, and, in that
capacity, held Perugia for the Exarch in 593. As we shall see, it was almost
immediately won back by the Lombards, but it was probably restored to the
Empire at the general peace in 599, for it was certainly Imperial in 735, and
probably during the whole course of the preceding century.
This successful campaign of Romanus brought king Agilulf into the field.
The rebellion of the dukes had probably kept him fully employed in 592, while
Ariulf and Arichis were carrying on the war in the
centre and south of Italy, but now, apparently in the spring of 593, he took
the field, crossed the river Po, and marched with a powerful army to Perugia.
After a siege of some days, the city surrendered, and Duke Maurisio, for his
treason to the cause of the Lombards, was at once put to death.
Agilulf then marched on Rome, where Gregory was at that time engaged in
giving daily homilies on woe, which exactly harmonized with the mood of mind of
the melancholy Pope, who sincerely believed—and it is the key to much of his
conduct—that the end of the world was visibly approaching. He had already, in
his sixth homily, bewailed the overthrown cities, the desolated country, the
departed glory of the senate and people, the stately buildings of Rome herself
daily toppling in decay. “After the men have failed, even the walls fall. Where
are they who aforetime rejoiced in her magnificence?
Where is all their pomp, their pride, their frequent disordered revelry? Lo,
she sitteth desolate, she is trodden down, she is
filled with groaning. Now, no one hastens to her that he may get forward in the
world: not one of her mighty and violent men remaineth to oppress the poor and to divide the spoil.”
So was Gregory daily haranguing from the pulpit when the news came that
Agilulf had crossed the Po. Then, after a few days, came the manifest and
miserable signs of war. Some citizens crept back to Rome, their hands having
been chopped off by the savage foe; others were reported to be taken prisoners;
others slain. Gregory himself, from the battlements of the threatened City, saw
the captive Romans driven over the Campagna, with halters round their necks,
roped together like dogs, on their way to slavery in the land of the Franks. He
closed the great uncial manuscript of Ezekiel with a sigh, descended from the
pulpit, and preached no more homilies on the prophet. Perhaps he called to mind
that even so had St. Jerome been labouring to expound the mysteries of Ezekiel
when he received the news of the capture of the City by Alaric; an event, the
horrors of which, after nearly two centuries, seemed likely to be repeated by
the more barbarous Agilulf. However this may be, the Pope turned from his
spiritual labours as expositor of the Bible, and, aided by his namesake
Gregory, the Prefect of the City, and by Castus, the Master of the Soldiery,
set himself vigorously to work to provide for the defence of Rome.
After all, the City was not stormed, was perhaps not even subjected to a
long blockade, though there are indications of something like a famine having
prevailed within its walls. How was it that Agilulf did not write his name in
the list of Rome-capturers, where Alaric, Gaiseric and Totila had written
theirs? It is a curious illustration of the sparsely-scattered lights by which
the history of this period has to be written, that the answer to this important
question comes to us from far Copenhagen. In the continuation of Prosper’s
Chronicle, which has been frequently referred to in these pages, and which is
known as Codex Havniensis, we find it recorded that
‘Agilulf at last, with the whole force of his army, set forth for the siege of
the City of Rome; but on his arrival he found the Blessed Gregory, who was then
gloriously ruling the Church, ready to meet him at the steps of the basilica of
St. Peter, Prince of the Apostles. Being melted by Gregory’s prayers, and
greatly moved by the wisdom and the religious gravity of so great a man, he
relinquished the siege of the City. He kept, however, the spoil which he had
already taken, and, returning, betook himself to Milan.
Other causes may have concurred to produce this result; the fear of
fever, the remembrance of the long and disastrous Gothic siege, disaffection,
or even rebellion, on the part of some of the Lombard dukes. But, as in the
case of Attila, so here the venerable personality of the recognized head of
Christendom seems to have been the main instrument in procuring peace.
But the reconciliation between Pope and King, if it was to lead to a
durable peace for Italy, must necessarily be followed by a reconciliation
between King and Emperor. For this the Pope seems at once to have begun
working, since we find him, in a letter written in September, 593, urging the
bishop of Milan to use his good offices to reconcile Agilulf and Romanus, and
even empowering him to offer something like a Papal guarantee for the Lombard's
good behaviour. Moreover, it was just about this time (October, 593) that
Gregory gave orders for a diligent search to be made for the vessels of Church
plate, that had been carried into Sicily by bishops fleeing from their sees in
Italy, which were menaced by the Lombard ravagers.
These vessels were to be all collected into one place and carefully labelled,
in order that when peace was reestablished—a contingency which the Pope then
regarded as probable— they might be restored to the Churches which were their
rightful owners.
But peace between two such essentially antagonistic powers as the
Lombard and the Greek was not easily to be obtained, nor was the Pope in these
years in such favour at Constantinople as to be an acceptable mediator. The
Emperor had issued an edict, which seemed to be rendered necessary by the
increasing tendency of the servants of the State to evade their patriotic
obligations by hiding themselves in a monastery, or assuming the office of the
priesthood. The terms of this now lost edict appear to have been, “That no one
who is engaged in the administration of public business shall undertake
ecclesiastical duty: nor shall it be lawful for him to change his condition and
enter a monastery. The same prohibition applies to all officers and to every
private soldier who has once been marked on the hand as belonging to the army,
until his term of service is expired.”
Against this edict Gregory remonstrated in a which is perhaps the most
famous of all his Epistles, full as it is of holy indignation and couched in
terms of bold rebuke, such as the Emperors never heard from the pliant
Patriarchs of Constantinople. To the first part of the law, forbidding civil
servants to accept office in the Church, the Pope made no objection. The result
of his own sorrowful observation was that ‘Whosoever shall doff the secular
habit from a desire to scramble into ecclesiastical office, wants to change his
world, not to leave it.' But the prohibition to enter a monastery was a widely
different matter. It could not be justified by any supposed loss to the State,
for any claims which it might have on the estate of a civil servant would be
defrayed out of the property of the monastery. And as for the soldiers, why was
the way of salvation to be closed up to them by Imperial decree? There were
many who could not possibly lead a religious life, while still clothed with the
secular habit. Was the Emperor's soldier to be forbidden to become a soldier of
Christ?
Then, like another Bossuet or Bourdaloue,
confronting Louis XIV in the plenitude of his power, Gregory turns and
addresses these daring words to “the Master of all things”:—
“Lo! thus to thee, through me the lowest of his and thy servants, Christ
makes answer, saying, “From a notary I made thee Captain of the Guard, from
Captain of the Guard Caesar, from Caesar Emperor, and not only that, but father
of Emperors yet to be. I have committed My priests to thy keeping, and wouldest thou withdraw thy soldiers from My service?”. Most
pious lord! I pray thee answer thy servant what reply wilt thou make to thy
Lord, when He comes and says these things to thee at the Judgment?
“But perhaps you think that there is no such thing as the honest
conversion of a soldier to the monastic life. I, your unworthy servant, know
how many converted soldiers in my days have wrought miracles in the monasteries
which they have entered. But by this law, not even one such soldier is to be allowed
the privilege of conversion.
“I beg my lord to enquire, what previous Emperor gave forth such a law,
and then let him carefully consider if that Emperor [Julian] set an example
which he ought to follow. Let him consider this also, that he is hereby
forbidding men to renounce the world at the very time when the world's own end
is drawing near. For lo! there will be no delay: the time is at hand when,
while the sky is burning, burning too the earth and the elements flashing fire,
with angels and archangels, with thrones and dominations, with principalities
and powers, the terrible Judge shall come. If He shall have forgiven all thy
other sins, and shall allege against thee but this one law which thou hast
promulgated, what, I pray, will be thy excuse? Wherefore, by the same terrible
Judge I adjure thee, not to allow all thy tears, thy prayers, thy fastings, and thine alms, for the sake of some supposed
advantage, to be clouded over before the eyes of Almighty God: but either by
some fresh interpretation or by some open change to turn aside the rigour of
that law. For then does my lord's army prevail most against his enemies when
God's army grows strongest in prayer.
“I verily, as becomes one subject to your orders, have caused that law
to be transmitted to various parts of your dominions : but I hereby announce to
my Most Serene Lords by the pages of this memorandum that the law itself is
utterly repugnant to Almighty God. Thus have I paid the debt which I owe to
each, to the Emperor obedience, to God the assertion of His rights.”
What was the result of these energetic remonstrances by the Pope we are
not distinctly informed, but it is probable that the obnoxious edict, if not
formally rescinded, was allowed to slumber unenforced in the Statute-book, and
silently passed into oblivion.
If some soreness was left in the Emperor’s mind by Gregory’s vigorous
protest, this was not likely to be allayed by his chief ecclesiastical adviser.
John the Faster, Patriarch of Constantinople, was one the few eminent
ecclesiastics who might conceivably claim to rival Gregory in the severity of
his asceticism; and it is evident that the relations were never cordial between
these two holy men, both so celebrated for the rigorous treatment of their
bodies, and both really contending for the first place in the Christian
hierarchy. It seems probable, though the fact is not expressly stated, that a
certain letter addressed by the Empress Constantina to the Pope in the spring
of 594, was secretly prompted by John of Constantinople. This letter contained
the really astounding request that the head of St. Paul might be severed from
his body, which was believed to repose in his stately basilica by the Ostian road, and might be sent to Constantinople to enrich
a chapel which Constantina was building in the Imperial palace in honour of the
Apostle. If John the Faster was consulted about this letter, he must have known
that it was quite impossible that the Empress's petition should be granted, and
he may have calculated that the inevitable refusal would place his rival at
some disadvantage in the competition for Imperial favour. Gregory replied to
the Empress that her request was one which he could not and dared not comply
with. “For the bodies of the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, reposing in their
churches, gleam with such miracles and such terrors that we cannot approach
them, even for prayer, without great fear. When my predecessor [Pelagius II],
of blessed memory, wished to change the silver [canopy] which was over the most
holy body of St. Peter, though it was at a distance of fifteen feet from the
corpse, a sign of no small terror appeared unto him. I, too, wished to make a
similar improvement in connection with the most holy body of St. Paul, and
found it necessary to dig somewhat deeply near the sepulchre. But the
superintendent of the place having found certain bones not in immediate contact
with the tomb, and having dared to lift them and remove them to another place,
beheld certain sad signs and died by a sudden death.” The Pope then proceeds to
relate a number of similar occurrences which showed the anger of the saints
against those who ventured to disturb their bones. Some of his stories admit of
an obvious physical explanation, but not all. The whole letter is an extraordinary
one, proceeding as it does from the pen of one who had been a great Roman
magistrate, accustomed to the careful weighing of evidence : and we rise from
its perusal as from our study of the same author's life of St. Benedict, with
the painful question in our minds, “Is it possible that this man of clear and
shrewd intellect really believed all that he has here recorded?”
Another root of bitterness between the Pope and the Emperor was the
election of a certain Maximus as bishop of Salona, that Dalmatian city which a
century and a half before this time saw a fallen Emperor officiating in its
cathedral. Honoratus the archdeacon was the candidate for this see favoured by
Gregory, who disliked the character of Maximus, and suspected him of winning
the votes of his most influential supporters by simony. The contest was a long
one (593-599), and ended after six years in something that resembled a Papal
surrender; and meanwhile Maximus, secure in the favour of the Imperial court,
ventured on acts of the most outrageous defiance to the see of Rome, and even
dared to accuse the saintly Gregory of murder, because a Dalmatian bishop named
Malchus, who had been summoned to Italy to account for his maladministration of
the Papal Patrimony, had died suddenly in exile.
“It has come to my ears”, said the Pope, “that Maximus has sent a
certain cleric [to the Emperor] to tell him that the bishop Malchus was killed
while in custody on a charge of embezzlement. On this matter I have only one
brief suggestion to make to my Most Serene Lords, that if I, their humble servant,
had chosen to mix myself up with the murder even of a Lombard, at this day the
Lombard nation would have neither king, duke, nor count, but would be all split
up in hopeless confusion. But because I fear God I shrink from imbruing my
hands in the blood of any man.
“As for Malchus, he was neither in custody nor under any kind of duresse; but on the day on which he pleaded his cause and
lost it, he was without my knowledge taken home by Boniface the notary, who
invited him to dinner. He was treated at the banquet as an honoured guest, but
died suddenly in the night, as I think that you, dear friend, have already
heard.”
At the beginning of 595 the relations seem to have become somewhat more
friendly. On the 12th of March in that year we find the Pope writing to the
Emperor, thanking him for a remittance of 30 lbs. of gold “brought by my
fellow-servant, the Treasury-clerk, Busa,” for distribution among the priests,
the poor, and especially the nuns who had flocked to Rome from the various
parts of Italy that were invaded by the Lombards, and were now eking out a bare
subsistence in the convents and other places wherein they were quartered. He
also reports that Castus, the Master of the Soldiery, has distributed the
donative to the soldiers out of the funds brought by the same messenger: that
this gift has been gratefully received by the soldiers and has put an end to
the murmurs and indiscipline which were before prevalent in the ranks.
Two months later (May, 595) Gregory wrote to Severus, the Assessor of
Exarch Romanus, entreating him to use his influence with his chief in favour of
peace. He says that those who sit by the side of rulers and who love them with
pure affection, ought to make to them such suggestions as, without detracting
from their own reputation for wisdom, may tend to the salvation of the ruler's
soul. ‘Therefore, as I know what faithful love you bear to the Most Excellent
Exarch, I desire to inform your Greatness of the course of affairs, that you,
being in possession of this knowledge, may use your influence with him on
behalf of reasonable proposals.
“Know, then, that Agilulf, king of the Lombards, is not unwilling to
make a general peace, if my Lord the Patrician is of the same mind. He complains
that many things have been done in his district contrary to the terms of the
truce. He claims that compensation shall be made to him for these wrongs, if
they are proved to the satisfaction of the judges, and on the other hand he is
willing to make the fullest reparation if any breach of the peace can be proved
against his side. As this request is reasonable, judges should be appointed to
take cognizance of acts of violence committed by either party; and let us hope
that thus, by God's favour, a general peace may be firmly made. How necessary
such a peace is to all of us you well know. Act, therefore, with your usual
wisdom, that the Most Excellent Exarch may be induced to come in to this
proposal without delay, and may not prove himself to be the one obstacle to a
peace which is so expedient for the State. If he will not consent, Agilulf
again promises to make a separate peace with us; but we know that in that case
several islands and other places will necessarily be lost. Let the Exarch then
consider these points and hasten to make peace, that we may at least have a
little interval in which we may enjoy a moderate amount of rest, and, by the
Lord's help, may recruit the strength of the Republic for future resistance.”
But the Pope’s noble persistence in the cause of peace was not yet to be
crowned with success. Hardly had this epistle been dispatched when he received
a letter from the Emperor, the sharpest and the hardest to bear of all that had
reached him from that quarter. The contents of that letter, itself lost, may
easily be conjectured from the reply. All the transactions with the Lombards
for the five preceding years were passed in review, and Gregory found himself
accused of disloyalty, of presumption, of prodigality and—hardest stroke of
all—of stupidity, all in one breath. The letter of reply is so important that
it is necessary to quote it almost entire.
‘GREGORY TO MAURICE, AUGUSTUS.
“In their most serene commands the Piety of my Lords, whilst rebuking me
for certain faults, has with an appearance of sparing, not spared me at all.
For in your letter, though you politely use the word “simplehearted”, you do in
fact call me “a fool”. Now, in the Scriptures we are always exhorted to let our
simplicity be mingled with prudence, as it is said of Job, He was a man simple
and righteous”: as the Apostle Paul says, “I would have you wise unto that
which is good and simple concerning evil,” and as the Truth Himself says in the
gospel, “Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” It follows, therefore,
that when I, in my Lords' most serene letters, am said to have been deceived by
the wiles of Ariulf, and am called “simple,” without the addition of “prudent,”
your meaning, without doubt, must be that I am a fool. And I myself must
confess that you are right. Even if your Piety did not use the word, my very
circumstances cry aloud “He is a fool.” If I were not, I should never have
consented to suffer those things which I have suffered here from the swords of
the Lombards. As for my report concerning Ariulf, that he was ready with his
whole heart to come over to the Republic, you do not believe me. That means
that I am accused of telling lies. But even if I am not worthy to be considered
a priest, I know this much about the priest's office, that he is bound to
render service to the truth, and that it is a deadly insult to call him a liar.
I have long perceived, however, that more confidence is reposed in Norduulf or in Leo than in me, and now those who come
between us receive more credence than is given to my assertions.
“And in truth if the captivity of our land were not daily and hourly
increasing, I would gladly hold my peace as to the contempt and derision that
are poured upon me. But this sorely afflicts me, that the same temper which
accuses me of falsehood permits Italy to be daily led captive under the Lombard
yoke, and that while no confidence is reposed in my assertions the forces of
the enemy are enormously increasing. I would suggest, however, to my Most Pious
Lord, that he may think of me all the evil that he pleases: but for the good of
the Republic and for the cause of the liberation of Italy, let him not easily
lend his pious ears to the first comer, but let him trust facts rather than
words.
“Do not let my Lord, in the consciousness of his earthly power, be quick
to take offence with bishops, but let him remember Whose servants they are,
that he may show them fitting reverence. God Himself, speaking through the
mouth of Moses, calls priests “gods”, and the prophet Malachi says, “The
priest's lips should keep knowledge and they should seek the law at his mouth,
for he is the angel [messenger] of the Lord of Hosts”. The history of the
Church bears witness that when the bishops were assembled in council [at
Nicaea] Constantine burned the indictments preferred against some of them,
before their faces, saying, “Ye are gods, appointed by the true God. Go and
judge your own causes yourselves, for it is not fitting that we should be the
judges of gods.” In which sentence, pious Lord! he gained more honour for
himself by his humility than he conferred on the bishops by his reverence. Even
the pagan Emperors of old, who worshipped gods of wood and stone, gave highest
honour to their priests, and surely a Christian Emperor should not do less to
his bishops.
“These suggestions I make to my pious Lords, not for mine own sake, but
for the sake of other bishops. For I am but a sinful man, and as I am
incessantly failing in my duty towards Almighty God, so I trust that the
strokes which I am now daily and hourly receiving may somewhat lighten my
sentence at His awful Judgment-day : and I think that you may even please the
Almighty the better, the more harshly you deal with His unworthy servant. For I
have already received many strokes, and when my Lords' orders came, I found
some consolations that I did not hope for. If possible, I will briefly
enumerate these strokes to which I refer.
“The first was that the peace which, without any cost to the Republic, I
had concluded with the bards encamped in Tuscia, was
wrested from me.
“Then, when peace had been broken, the soldiers were removed from Rome.
Some were slain by the enemy, others quartered at Narni and Perugia, and that Perugia might still be held, Rome was left unguarded.
“A heavier stroke after this was the arrival of Agilulf, when, with my
own eyes, I saw Romans coupled together like dogs, with ropes round their
necks, being led away to be sold in France.
“Then, as we who were within the City by God's protection escaped his
hands, an attempt was made to show that we were responsible for the failure of
the corn-supplies, which cannot possibly be stored in any great quantity or for
a long time in this City, as I have shown more fully in another memorandum.
“For myself, I am not harassed by any of these things, because my
conscience bears me witness that I am ready to suffer any adversity, if only I
may escape all these evils without peril to my soul. But for the Glorious
persons, Gregory the Prefect [of the City], and Castus, Master of the Soldiery,
I am distressed, greatly distressed, since they neglected no possible
precaution, but endured the toils of police-duty and sentry-duty during the
aforesaid siege with the greatest alacrity, and then, after all, are struck by
the severe indignation of My Lords. All which plainly shows that it is not
their own conduct, but their connection with me, that brings them into trouble,
and that as they laboured together with me in our tribulations, so they are to
be tribulated together with me after our labours are ended.
“As for my pious Lords reminding me of the awful and terrible judgment
of Almighty God, I pray them in the same Almighty Name not to do that again. We
do not yet know how each man will appear on that day. As the illustrious
preacher Paul says, “Judge nothing before the time, till the Lord cometh who
shall illuminate the hidden things of darkness, and make manifest the secrets
of all hearts.” I will say this, however, briefly, that as an unworthy sinner I
have more hope from the mercy of Jesus when He comes, than I have from the
justice of your Piety. Men know little about His judgment, and perchance the
things which you praise He will blame, and those which you blame He will
praise. Therefore, amid all this uncertainty, I can but have recourse to tears,
and pray that the same Almighty God may guide our most pious lord by His own
hand, and that in that dread day He may find me free from fault, having enabled
me so to please men (if that be necessary) as not to forfeit His everlasting
favour.”
This letter of Gregory, bold almost to insolence, marks the ‘dead point'
of his strivings after peace with the Lombards. He had now occupied the chair
of St. Peter, and Agilulf the throne of Pavia, for nearly five years. Peace was
their common interest, but the relation in which Gregory stood to
Constantinople made that peace as yet unattainable. The Emperor, though
powerless to win back Italy, and not too sure of being able to defend even the
fragments of it which were left to him, would not recognize, and thereby seem
to legalese, the past conquests of the Lombards. For his attempt to persuade
him to adopt that course the Pope had now received a sharp reprimand, which,
had Maurice been Justinian and Gregory Vigilius, would probably have been
followed by deportation to an island in the Propontis,
and a formal charge of laesa majestas.
