CRISTO RAUL. READING HALL THE DOORS OF WISDOM

THE HISTORY OF THE POPES

THE

LIFE AND TIMES OF POPE GREGORY I THE GREAT

A.D. 540 – 604

... But Gregory was resolute. He says, in a letter to the Patriarch on this occasion: "I confidently say, that whoever calls himself universal priest, or desires in his elation to be called so, is the forerunner of Antichrist"…

THOUGH painfully conscious of the many imperfections of the study of Pope Gregory and his times which I now offer to the public, I cannot but feel that the attempt itself to give some detailed account of the most remarkable man of a remarkable age needs no apology. Gregory the Great is certainly one of the most notable figures in ecclesiastical history. He has exercised in many respects a momentous influence on the doctrine, the organization, and the discipline of the Catholic Church. To him we must look for an explanation of the religious situation of the Middle Ages: indeed, if no account were taken of his work, the evolution of the form of mediaeval Christianity would be almost inexplicable. And further, in so far as the modern Catholic system is a legitimate development of mediaeval Catholicism, of this too Gregory may not unreasonably be termed the Father. In recent times an attempt has been made to distinguish the Christianity of the first six centuries from that of the Schoolmen and the later divines. But to anyone who will take the trouble to examine the writings of the last great Doctor of the sixth century, the futility of this arbitrary distinction will soon become apparent. Almost all the leading principles of the later Catholicism are found, at any rate in germ, in Gregory the Great.

Nor, again, can those who are interested only in purely secular history afford to overlook the work of one of the greatest of the early Popes, whose influence was felt alike by the Byzantine Emperors, by the Lombard princes, by the kings in Britain, Gaul, and Spain. Gregory was by far the most important personage of his time. He stood in the very centre of his world, and overshadowed it. He took an interest and claimed a share in all its chief transactions; he was in relation, more or less intimate, with all its leading characters. If the history of the latter part of the sixth century is to be studied intelligently, it must be studied in close connection with the life and labours of that illustrious Pontiff, who for many years was the foremost personage in Europe, and did more, perhaps, than any other single man to shape the course of European development.

Finally, to Gregory the students of English history are more especially bound to devote their attention, since it is he who was the means of introducing Christianity among the English, and of renewing the broken communications between Britain and the Roman world. How far-reaching have been the effects of his action it is unnecessary to point out. I will only remark that, in respect of the history of the doctrine of the English Church, Gregory's theology is of particular interest. For the system of dogma which was introduced into our island by Augustine was the system elaborated by Augustine's revered master.

In view of these considerations, it is certainly astonishing that a satisfactory English biography of the saint has not long ago appeared. That none has been given us is perhaps due to the fact that recent English theologians and ecclesiastical historians have concerned themselves mainly with the period of the Great Councils and with the period of the Reformation, and have passed over the intervening centuries from A.D. 500 onwards as less interesting and less worthy of their notice. But whatever the explanation may be, it is certain that hitherto the life and times of Gregory have not adequately been dealt with in the English language. Foreign writers, particularly in Germany, have shown a more just appreciation of the historical significance of the great Pope, and a few valuable monographs on the subject have been published, the most important of which I shall enumerate below. But some of these works are out of print, and otherwise inaccessible, and not one of them, so far as I know, has been translated for the benefit of English readers.

Under the circumstances, therefore, I conceive that there is room for a detailed study of the life and times of Gregory. The first two books of my biography deal with the history of the saint, and here I have treated my material in the fullest way, endeavouring to pass over nothing that is really pertinent, and supporting my assertions with ample references to the original authorities. I have further aimed at giving some account of the political, social, and religious characteristics of the age, in the hope that my work may prove of some slight service to those who are interested in historical research. The third book of the biography is concerned exclusively with Gregory's theology, and I think that I may claim that it is the first attempt that has been made in English to set forth systematically the dogmatic utterances of the last of the Latin Doctors.

Gregory the First, who was Pope from 590 to 604 A.D., is altogether perhaps the most important figure in the long roll of Roman pontiffs. The epithet Great, which is usually attached to his name, is a measure of the scale by which he has been tested by history. He had the further unusual distinction of having been one of the four Senior Doctors of the Latin Church ; the others being St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St. Jerome. He was also the first ascetic to become Pope, which in itself marks a notable departure in the history of Christianity. As Montalembert reminds us, he shared with Pope Leo the First the distinction of having been styled both Saint and Great. He may be considered as the real founder of the Papacy, in the sense ofits being a great political factor, as well as a religious one, in European affairs, and he looms very big across the ages as a politician, a reformer, a controversialist, and a practical man of business, ubiquitous, and full of zeal and energy, and also of good sense. Perhaps the greatest compliment one couldpayhimwould be to repeatsome ofthesentences in which Gibbon, who had few good words to say of popes, and prelates, and priests, is constrained to speak of Gregory. He sneers at his creduHty, but he highly applauds the man and the politician, and describes his reign as one of the most edifying periods of the history of the Church.

To us Englishmen he must always be a particu larly interesting person. Bede says: "It becomes us to speak at greater length about him, since he con verted our English race from the power of Satan to the faith of Christ . . . hence, while not an apostle to others he is so to us, and we are the sign of his Apostleship." The Council of Clovesho, 747 A.D., prescribes that the day of the Nativity of "Our Pope and Father Gregory" should be always duly observed. Aldhelm calls him "our ever watchful shepherd and teacher " [pervigil pastor et paedagogus noster) and Alcuin styles him praedi cator noster, "our preacher."

Assuredly he deserves tender and continual solicitude at the hands of English students.

In regard to another matter I cannot do better than take a sentence from the admirable Mono graph on St. Gregory by Mr. F. Homes Dudden, an indispensable work from which I shall freely quote, where he says: "In respect of the history of the doctrine of the English Church, Gregory's theology is of particular interest. For the system of dogma which was introduced into our island by Augustine was the system elaborated by Augustine's revered master."

In his Dialogues and his Homily Gregory speaks of Pope Felix as his ancestor and it has been much debated as to which Felix it was. Grisar (whom I quote in the enlarged Italian edition) has made it very probable that it was Pope Felix the Third. He alone among the Popes of the name is known to have been married and to have had a family. He was Pope from 483 to 494, and was the only Pope who was buried in the Basilica of St. Paul outside the walls. There, as we learn from their epitaphs, were also buried his wife Petronia {levitae conjunx, forma pudoris), whom he had married before taking the higher orders, his daughter, Paula, who is styled a charming woman [clarissima femina), and his young son, Gordian (dulcissimus puer), i.e. "a most sweet boy." The last two died in 484 and 485 respectively. A third member ofhis family, also buried in the same Basilica, was named Aemiliana, and is styled a holy virgin [sacra virgo). She was consecrated to God in 489. The recurrence of the names Gordian and Aemiliana among the near relatives of Pope Gregory seems to make it pretty certain that it was Felix the Third from whom he claimed descent. Both Gregory's biographers, Paul and John, tell us he belonged to a senatorial family. Later writers say specifically that this family was the famous Anicia gens (which gave at least one remarkable name to literature in the person of Boethius, several consuls to Old Rome, and two popes, and, perhaps, St. Benedict to the but this theory was probably an invention ofa later age. The Anglian monk's Life of Gregory says his family was not only noble, but religious. His father was called Gordian. He held the important post of regionarius. Rome was, for ecclesiastical purposes, divided at this time into seven regions, each presided over by a deacon, and, according to Hodgkin, each deacon had a lay assistant called a regionarius. Gordian was doubtless a layman. Gregory's mother was called Silvia.

From the family picture presented by Gregory to the Monastery of St. Andrew, which was placed in its atrium and was described by his biographer, John the Deacon, who had seen it, we learn that Gordian was tall, with a long face, green eyes!—let us hope the paint had gone wrong—with a short beard, thick hair, and grave while his wife Silvia is described as of full height (statura plena), with round and fair face somewhat marked with crows' feet. She had blue eyes, small eyebrows, comely lips, and a jovial countenance. In the picture she was dressed in white and held a psalter in her hand from which she was reading the 175th verse of the 1 19th Psalm, while with two fingers of her right hand she was making a cross. On her husband's death Silvia retired from the world, and adopted a religious life at Cella Nova, near the Monastery of St. Saba. Under the pavement of its church there are still remains of Silvia's oratory. She became a saint and was commemorated on the 3rd of November.

Gordian had three sisters, Aemiliana, Tarsilla and Gordiana, who dedicated themselves as virgins, continuing, however, to live in their own house, as was usual with noble ladies. The two former were noted for their austere life. One of them is said to have had callosities on her knees, and elbows like a camel, from continual kneeling, and Gregory tells us, that in consequence of her prayers and fastings she had visions : among others, she saw her ancestor Pope Felix, who invited her to go and join him in heaven. When she presently died, she is said to have appeared to her sister Aemiliana, and bidden her go to her. The latter also died young, a delicious fragrance surrounding her death-bed, and the two were inscribed among the saints. The third sister, Gordiana, is described by her nephew Gregory (who seems to have been greatly troubled and chagrined by the fact) as a frivolous and gay young lady, with no vocation for the life and austerities of a recluse. She adopted a solemn visage in the presence of her exacting sisters, but when their backs were turned she was full of sprightliness and loved the world, and eventually, when she was left alone, married her steward. All this we learn from Gregory's own writings.

Gregory had also a maternal aunt called Pateria, who was married in Campania, and from one of his letters to the Subdeacon Anthemius we learn that he sent him orders to give her forty gold pieces for "shoe-money" for her boys {adcalciariumpuerorum) and four hundred measures of corn for her susten ance. In one of his letters he speaks of his nurse Domna as still living. Ewald and Hartmann sug gest that she was really called Dominica.

We do not know the exact year of Gregory's birth, but it has been generally supposed it was about the year 540, some ten years after St. Benedict had founded his order. He was named Gregory (i.e. the Watchful).^ He is called a Roman by his biographers, but his mother was probably a Sicilian of fortune, since Gregory inherited large estates in the island, and a monastery he founded there is said to have been planted on his mother's property. His letters also show how assiduous he was about Sicilian affairs. He was, no doubt, educated as well and completely as a young Roman nobleman with a father both rich and serious would naturally but he tells us in his letters that he did not know Greek, nor did he write any work in that language, which had once formed a necessary equipment of a Roman gentleman, but was no longer spoken at Rome.

This is especially curious, since he actually lived six years at Constantinople, not as a private person, but as an ambassador, or nuncio, while, on the other hand, a great part of the theology then current was written in Greek. "Justinian was the last Emperor, who, either in public or private life, used the Latin tongue... Procopius, who had travelled in Italy, knew no Latin, and in Gregory's time, at Constantinople, Greek was the language of the Court, of the Church, of the Law Courts, of the Bureaux, of the Hippodrome, and the streets." This makes Gregory's confession astounding. On the other hand, the fact that he carried on such a large and confidential correspondence with people in high positions at Constantinople, always writing to them in Latin, shows that, like French in Ger many in the eighteenth century, the old speech of Rome must have been generally familiar to the upper classes. He complains in several of his letters of the incapacity of the interpreters, and may be that the correspondence on each side had to be interpreted. In a letter to Narses he bids him give his compliments to Dominica (his nurse). He had not answered her letter, he said, because, although her native tongue was Latin, she had written to him in Greek.

Not only did Gregory not know Greek, but he does not show any taste for the humanities and the arts, and in his more austere later life he is found discountenancing what he calls nugis et saecularibus litteris. His was eminently a practical and busi nesslike genius, which was developed by a lawyer's training. Gregory of Tours, his contemporary, tells us (perhaps hyperbolically) how, in the liberal arts of grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic, he was deemed the first in Rome. Paul the Deacon makes a similar statement,^ but Gregory made no pretence to classical finish in his Latin style : thus, in a letter to his friend Bishop Leander, he tells him that he took little heed of the niceties of style, for, as he says, " I deem it an indignity to tie up the words of the sacred oracle by the rules of Donatus." As Mr. Dudden says, the Latinity of the Dialogues and Morals, though certainly not excellent, is yet, on the whole, respectable, and its grammatical sim plicity contrasts favourably, not only with the bar barism of a Gregory of Tours, but also with the pedantry and polish of a Cassiodorus or a Columban. Gregory's style was especiallysuited to letter-writing, of which he was one of the most notable masters. Like other high-born Romans he, no doubt, was well instructed in Roman law,but he apparently cared little for what we call philosophy, or for what was then known as science, which was far removed from that we know by the name. He does not mention astron omy or geometry in any of his works. On the other hand, John of Salisbury reports him as expelling the Sanctus Gregorius ... mathesin jussit ab aula recedere. By this term he no doubt means the astrologers, whom he elsewhere denounces.

His position, character, and knowledge of affairs pointed Gregory out for speedy promotion, and when still young he was nominated Urban Praetor, or more probably Praefect, of Rome by the Emperor Justin the Second. As Praefect, Gregory probably used the insignia of a Consul, and had a right to wear the purple-striped robe (trabea), and to ride in a four-horse chariot, while he largely superintended the government and administration of the city. At this time, however, the office was shorn of much of its old importance, and the greater part of the officials who used to do the bidding of its holder had disappeared. As Mr. Dudden says "There was no longer work for curators of baths, or theatres, or statues, when the baths were waterless, the theatres deserted, and the statues fallen or broken; nor was there need of a Minister of Public Spectacles when the only surviving spectacles were the ceremonies of the Church... The office was still, however, of some consideration; within the walls of Rome the civil administration rested in his hands, his jurisdiction over the citizens being almost unimpaired. In financial matters he was still the great authority. The Government officials of whom he had the superintendence were more in number perhaps than is usually supposed, since at a later date such officers as a Curator of the Aqueducts and a Palace Architect were still in existence." Further, the Prsefect acted with the Pope in buying and distributing grain, and co-operated with the Magister Militum in taking measures for the defence of the City.

The position was still a very arduous as well as dignified one, for during the previous five-and twenty years Rome had been successively entered and plundered by Totila in 546, Belisarius in 547, again by Totila in 548, by Narses in 552, and lastly, in 568 by the Lombard Alboin, and it was, no doubt, in a terribly ruinous and impoverished condition.

On the death of his father, the date of which is not known, but was probably about 575 a.d., Gregory became possessed of great wealth, including large estates in Italy and Sicily and much personal property. Like other serious men of his time, to whom the future of the world seemed dismal, he had been attracted by the peaceful austerities of a religious life, and especially by the example of St. Benedict. Gregory devoted his own patrimony in Sicily to the foundation and endowment of six mon asteries in that island, which Hody calls "the special asylum and paradise of the Church." These monasteries were all in the diocese of Palermo, and still existed at the end of the eighth century. One of them was built on his mother's property (in aedibus maternis).

A more interesting foundation of St. Gregory was the Monastery of St. Andrew on the Caelian Hill, which he endowed with his ancestral residence and with an ample income, thus following the ex ample of other great Roman nobles like Eucherius, Paulinus, Cassiodorus, etc. We shall have more to say of this monastery in a later volume. The balance of his fortune he left to the poor.

By most writers it has been supposed that he became technically a monk, a view in which Mr. Dudden concurs. This seems to be improbable, for about this time he became one of the Seven Deacons who presided over the eleemosynary affairs of the Church at Rome, which office would be incompatible with the life of a monk, and involved a "secular " and not a "regular" vocation; but he no doubt made the monastery he had founded his most cherished home, whither he withdrew for peace and quietude. In a letter written to Marinianus, Bishop of Ravenna, Gregory urges that any one who had attained any ecclesiastical order should no longer have any power in a monastery or any longer dwell there. Gregory of Tours tells us how, in the pursuit of his duties, he who had traversed the streets in be jewelled silken robes now did so in coarse garments, while he dedicated himself to the service of the It has been supposed that his mother's ex ample led him to take this course, and a not improb able legend tells us that he was really persuaded to it by Simplicius and Constantine, the one abbot and the other a monk of Monte Cassino (who had sought refuge at Rome after the burning of their monastery by the Lombards), and by other monks who were his friends. At all events, it is clear that he not only gave up his wealth, but also his heart, to his new ideal of life, and he never flinched in his devotion to it. He remained an ascetic to the end of his days.

Like most people of wealth and position who turn their backs on the world, he pushed his asceticism to great lengths. Inter alia, he is said to have fed on raw vegetables and fruit supplied by his mother, who lived as a recluse close by, and which she sent to him, we are expressly told, on a silver dish. Various stories are told of the way in which he permanently injured his health by his privations and devotion to study. He frequently fainted and was racked by pain from gout, was not able to keep the prescribed fasts, and could barely keep that on Easter Eve, and he tells us he would have succumbed more than once ifthebrethren had not insisted on his taking proper food.

Presently (we do not know at what date) we find Gregory appointed, by Pope Benedict the First, one of the Seven Regionary Deacons of Rome. Baronius suggests they were the precursors of what are now known as Cardinal Deacons. They presided over the administration of alms and other similar duties in the seven ecclesiastical regions into which Rome was divided. Gregory of Tours speaks of him as "the seventh Levite," while Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, makes him an archdeacon, meaning probably the head of the seven deacons, all of which is inconsistent with his having been an actual monk or regular. This appointment was, according to his own confession, very much against his inclina tion, for his heart was pining for the seclusion and austerities of a monastery, and to get away from the world. It was probably still more distasteful to him when the Pope presently promoted him to a more influential place, and made him the papal representa tive or nuncio at the Imperial Court of Constanti nople, which was the most dignified post in his gift. This post Bede calls that of apocrisiarius (from apokrisis, "an answer." The word is glossed in Latin by responsalis).

It will be well to realise the political condition of the Mediterranean lands at this time. The Empire of Byzantium was still by far the most powerful state in Europe. During the reign of Justinian, 527-565, it had largely recovered in wealth and power after the terrible ravages of the Barbarians in the fifth and beginning of the sixth The African province had been recon quered from the Vandals by Belisarius, and now formed, with the valley of the Nile, a famous granary for the Empire. Italy had been similarly recovered from the Goths by Narses, and with the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and Corsica, and the Istrian and Illyrian regions, became in the same reign once more part of the Roman Empire. The Tigris had been maintained by Justinian as the eastern limit of the Empire, as the Danube and the Alps re mained its boundaries on its northern frontier, while the peoples of the Caucasus on the one hand and the Abyssinians on the other had been brought within the influence of the Roman power for the first time.

In the far West, Justinian's general, Liberius, reconquered a large part of the maritime district of Spain, including the cities of Corduba, Carthagena, Malaga, and Assidonia, with many places on the coast, from the Visigoths. Malaga, Assidonia, and Corduba were sixteen years later recovered from the Romans by the great Visigothic chief, Leovigild. The rest of Spain, including the Suevian kingdom in the north, had by the year 616 definitely passed under the rule of the Visigoths, as the greater part of Gaul had passed under that of the Franks.

Having recovered Italy, Justinian on the 13th of August 554 issued a decree known as the Pragmatic Sanction, in which two clauses occur which helped to strengthen the authority of the Church there. In the nineteenth clause he associated the Pope with the decayed remnant of the Senate in supervising weights and measures and the standards of the coin in the great city, and in the twelfth he assigned to the bishops and chief persons of each province the appointment of the provincial governors.

The Empire, with its frontiers thus enlarged by Justinian, did not remain long intact. It is no part of my purpose to describe the attacks upon it of the Slavs and Saracens in the East, and we must limit our short survey to Italy. It was in the year 568 that the Lombards crossed the Alps from Pannonia under their king, Alboin, and speedily conquered Venetia and Cisalpine Gaul which, as Mr. Bury shrewdly says, were in ecclesiastical op position to Justinian and the Roman See, and prob ably in some measure favoured Alboin's conquest. Alboin advanced as far as Tuscany and founded the Lombard kingdom of North Italy. Two of his nobles, named Zotto and Farwald, proceeded farther, and founded the more or less dependent duchies of Spoleto and Beneventum, the latter in 571. These three states during the succeeding half-century considerably enlarged their borders at the expense of the Imperial possessions.

The peninsula was thus divided between two sets of masters, and in each case their possessions were again divided into three groups, each controlled by an important city.

Mr. Dudden and Dr. Bury have given a good condensed account of the division, which I shall follow. The principal Roman posses sions were :

"1. In the north, Istria, Grado, the Venetian Coast, maritime Liguria, and the towns of Padua, Mantua, Monselice, Cremona, Piacenza, Parma, Reggio, and Modena, which belonged to the Empire in 580. To these we must add the Exarchate of Ravenna and the maritime Pentapolis, i.e. the cities of Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, SinigagHa, and Ancona, with the inland Decapolis, i.e. the cities of Jes'i, Gubbio, Cagli, Luceoli, Fossombrone, Valvense, Urbino, Montefeltro, Umana, and Osimo, and also the Emilia, comprising Ferrara, Bologna, Cesena, Imola, etc. "

2. In the centre, the Roman possessions included the city of Perugia and the later Ducatus Romae, a district which stretched from Todi and Civita Vecchia on the north to Gaeta on the south, including all the ancient province of Latium. "

3. The southern group comprising Naples with a small surround ing territory, including Amalfi, Sipontum, on the east coast, Paestum and Agropoli isolated on the west coast, the two provinces of Calabria and Bruttii, and the islands of Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily.

These several districts were all under the Emperor's lieutenant at Ravenna, known as the Exarch, a title which first appears in the time of Gregory.

The Lombard territory also consisted, as I have said, of three states :

1. In the north it was directly subject to the Lombard kings, and included Milan and Pavia, the royal residences, and a number ofsmall subordinate duchies, including those of Bergamo, Brescia, Friuli, Trient, etc., and Tuscany.

2. In the centre was the Great Duchy of Spoleto, which continu ally endeavoured to extend its limits to the north at the expense of the Pentapolis, and to the west at the expense of Rome. It tended to join Tuscany and to include the isthmus of land which lay along the Flaminian road between Rome and the Adriatic, of which the key was Perugia.

3. The Duchy of Beneventum including almost all the territory east of Naples and north of Consentia.

TABLE OF DATES

A.D.

540.  ? Birth of Gregory.

545.    Totila lays siege to Borne.

546.    Rome taken by the Goths.

547.    Rome recovered by Belisarius.

548.    Belisarius leaves Italy.

549.    Rome again taken by the Goths.

552.     Defeat and death of Totila.

558.     Defeat and death of Teias.

The Fifth General Council at Constantinople.

554.    Defeat of Franks and Alamanni by Narses at Capua.

Promulgation of the Pragmatic Sanction.

555.    Death of Pope Vigilius in Sicily: accession of Pelagius I.

560.     Death of Pelagius I: election of John III.

565.     Death of Belisarius.

Death of Justinian: accession of Justin II.

567.     Disgrace of Narses. Longinus succeeds him at Ravenna.

Death of Charibert, king of Paris: Gaul divided into three kingdoms.

568.      Lombards invade Italy under Alboin.

569.      Alboin overruns Liguria and lays siege to Pavia.

571.     Foundation of duchies of Spoleto ana Benevento.

572.    Fall of Pavia.

Murder of Alboin.

Cleph elected king of the Lombards.

578.    ? Gregory Prefect of the City of Rome.

Death of Pope John III.

574.    ? Gregory becomes a monk.

 Benedict I elected Pope.

Cleph assassinated, and the ten years’ interregnum begins.

575.    Murder of Sigibert at Vitry.

577.     Embassy of Pamphronius to Constantinople.

578.   ? Gregory ordained Seventh Deacon.

Death of Pope Benedict I: election of Pelagius II.

Death of the Emperor Justin II: succession of Tiberius.

579.    ? Gregory sent as apocrisiarius to Constantinople.

582.       John the Faster succeeds Eutychius as Patriarch of Constantinople.

 The Emperor Tiberius dies and Maurice begins to reign.

584.    Authari chosen king of the Lombards.

Birth of Theodosius, son of Maurice.

Childebert king of Australia invades Italy.

585.    Smaragdus succeeds Longinus as Exarch.

Death of Hermenigild.

586.    ? Gregory recalled to Rome.

Gregory becomes abbat of St. Andrew's Monastery.

589.    Council of Toledo.

The Exarch Smaragdus superseded by Romanus.

King Authari marries Theudelinda. Floods in Italy.

590.   The Plague in Italy.

Invasion of Franks under Olo, Audovald, and Ohedin.

Death of King Authari: Theudelinda marries Agilulf.

Death of Pope Pelagius II.

Gregory elected Pope.

Gregory ordains a Sevenfold Litany.

Gregory consecrated Pope, September 8.

Gregory publishes his Pastoral Care.

591.     Agilulf proclaimed king of the Lombards.

Ariulf and Arichis become dukes respectively of Spoleto and Benevento.

Drought and famine in Italy.

Maximianus made bishop of Syracuse.

Gregory attacks the African system of Primacies.

? Gregory reclaims and dedicates an Arian church in Rome.

592.      Gregory appoints a governor in Nepi, and provides for the defence of Naples.

Gregory makes peace with Duke Ariulf. The Exarch Romanus comes to Rome.

593.    Agilulf besieges Rome.

Constantins consecrated Archbishop of Milan. Salona trouble begins.

Beginning of the pallium controversy between Gregory and the bishops of Ravenna.

Death of Guntram king of Burgundy.

Synod in Numidia against the Donatists.

Gregory protests against the law of Maurice forbidding soldiers to become monks.

? Gregory publishes the Dialogues.

594.    Council at Carthage against the Donatists.

Gregory refuses the Empress’s request for the head of St. Paul.

Death of Maximianus of Syraouse.

595.      Gregory sends to Maurice the famous “Fool ” Letter.

Gregory confers pallium and vicariate on Virgilius of Arles.

John of Ravenna dies, and is succeeded by Marinianus.

Roman synod passes six decrees.

John and Athanasius tried and acquitted by Gregory. Gregory writes his letters on the “ Ecumenical ” controversy.

John the Faster dies, and is succeeded by Cyriacus.

596.     The affair of the placard at Ravenna.

 Death of King Childebert.

? Death of the Exarch Romanus.

Augustine starts for Britain.

597.    ? Callinicus the Exarch arrives at Ravenna.

Brunichildis requests the pallium for Syagrius.

Augustine lands in Britain and converts King Ethelbert. Augustine is consecrated “Archbishop of the English."

Death of Columba.

599.       Gregory sends the pallium to Leander of Seville.

Gregory endeavours to promote a synod in Gaul for reformation of abuses.

Peace concluded between the Empire and the Lombards. Maximus of Salona submits to the Pope.

600.      Constantins of Milan dies; and is succeeded by Deusdedit.

601.       Renewal of Lombard war: seizure of Agilulf's daughter by the Exarch Callinicus.

Gregory again attempts to get a council held in Gaul.

Second mission to Britain starts.

602.      The Exarch Callinicus superseded by Smaragdus.

Birth of Adalwald, son of Agilulf ana Theudelinda.

The fall of the Emperor Maurice and the coronation of Phocas.

Privilegia sent by Gregory to Brunichildis.

Firminus of Trieste secedes from the Istrian schism. ?

Augustine's first conference with the British bishops.

603.      The Phocas Letters.

Campaign of Agilulf: peace concluded.

The mission of John the defensor to Spain.

Synod at Chalon-sur-Saône.

Augustine’s second conference with the British bishops.

604.     Foundation of the sees of Rochester and London.

Death of Pope Gregory, March 12.