Gregory the Great
c. 540-604
Italian Pope
When Gregory I, or Gregory the Great, became pope in 590, the Church and indeed all of western Europe was still reeling from the destruction of the Western Roman Empire. After failing to win assistance from the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) emperor, Gregory gave up hope of reestablishing Roman power in the West, and set about building the Church as a powerful, self-sufficient political entity. In so doing, he established a locus for Western civilization during the most frightening days of the Dark Ages, and began to consolidate all of the West under Catholic leadership.
Gregory was born a member of a wealthy and powerful Roman family, but the Rome he knew was a mere shadow of its former glory: two centuries of destruction by barbarian tribes such as the Lombards had left it in ruins. His was one of the last generations to have access to the old-fashioned learning that had produced so many well educated Romans in the past, and after receiving his education, Gregory assumed the ancient Roman office of prefect in 573.
In his thirties, Gregory became interested in the growing monastic movement. At first he was content to establish monasteries for others—he set up one in Rome and six more on lands owned by his family in Sicily—but in 574 or 575, he decided to leave the outside world and become a monk himself.
Six years later, Gregory received a commission from Pope Pelagius II (r. 579-590) to serve as emissary to the imperial court in Constantinople. Though he was unsuccessful in his mission to gain Byzantine aid in defending Rome against another wave of Lombard invasions, his work attracted the attention of church leaders, who chose Gregory as Pelagius's successor.
In the year he became pope, there was a famine and flood in Rome, as well as a plague in various parts of Europe. Gregory and other Christians took such events as evidence that the world was coming to an end as predicted in the New Testament, and this gave him a sense of urgency to bring as many people as possible into the fold before Christ returned.
It was ironic that Gregory would find himself in a position of great spiritual and political responsibility, because he stated on many occasions that he would have preferred to live his life quietly in a monastery. Indeed, throughout his years as pope, he maintained a monkish lifestyle, including little food and sleep, that often weakened him for his duties. Yet he pressed on with seemingly boundless energy.
At that time, the bishops of Constantinople, Antioch, and Alexandria vied with their counterpart in Rome for leadership of Christendom. Maintaining that a biblical basis existed for Roman supremacy, Gregory once again attempted unsuccessfully to gain the support of the Byzantine emperor, who naturally favored Constantinople. At that point Gregory determined to lead the Christians of Italy with or without the help of the eastern emperor, a decision that assumed vital importance when Jerusalem and Antioch fell to Muslim invaders a few years after his death. (Constantinople went on to become the seat of the Eastern Orthodox Church, which formally separated from Rome in 1054.)
Gregory's decision formed the cornerstone of medieval politics: instead of relying on a king to protect against the Lombards, or to distribute grain in times of famine, Gregory took on the job himself. Thus the papacy became a politicalas well as a spiritual office. The power of the popes would rise to staggering heights in centuries to come, and it could all be traced back to Gregory—yet Gregory did what he did not because he wanted power, but because he felt he had no choice.
Pope Gregory the Great. (Corbis Corporation. Reproduced with permission.)During his extraordinarily active career, Gregory ransomed prisoners and constantly welcomed refugees from war-torn Italy into the relatively safe confines of Rome. He took power over corrupt bishops guilty of simony (buying and selling church offices), adultery, and other acts inappropriate to their roles as spiritual leaders. He dealt harshly with heresy, yet often negotiated with Lombard leaders who still embraced Arianism, a belief declared heretical in 325.
Among Gregory's achievements, in fact, was the conversion of the Lombards from the Arian heresy. He was also responsible for the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons from paganism under Augustine of Canterbury (d. 604), whom he had sent as a missionary to Britain. Augustine established the archbishopric of Canterbury, a position that retains religious leadership over English Christians today. Gregory also showed his ability to negotiate with the Franks in France and the Visigoths in Spain, even though neither of thesee groups formally accepted th leadership of the pope.
The effects of Gregory's work could be observed throughout Europe, from the haunting tones of Gregorian chants—a type of singing performed by Benedictine monks, committed to writing for future generations under his orders—to the many tales of miracles associated both with his life and death in 604. Yet his greatest legacy was in the formation of the church as a political power, and of Western Christendom as a political and spiritual alliance united under the leadership of a strong pope.
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