Pope Gregory the Great (590–604): Shaping the Medieval Papacy

Pope Gregory the Great, or Gregory I, led the church of Rome from 590 to 604 at a time of plague, war and imperial weakness in Italy. A former city prefect turned monk, he kept Rome fed and defended, reorganised the vast papal estates and sent missionaries as far as England. His writings were among the most widely read texts of the Middle Ages, and his pontificate is often seen as a turning point in the history of the papacy.

Background: Rome in crisis

By the late 6th century the city of Rome had been ruined by the long Gothic War between the Eastern Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths. Soon after imperial rule was restored, the Lombard invasion of Italy in 568 broke the peninsula into a patchwork of Lombard and Byzantine territories.

The emperor in Constantinople was distant and short of troops. Recurring outbreaks of the Plague of Justinian further reduced the population. In this vacuum, the bishop of Rome increasingly took on civic tasks such as feeding the poor and dealing with enemies.

Early life and career

Gregory was born around 540 into a wealthy Roman family with senatorial connections and a tradition of church service. Around 573 he held the office of prefect of Rome, the highest civil post in the city.

Soon afterwards he gave up public life, turned his family house on the Caelian Hill into the monastery of Saint Andrew and founded several monasteries on family estates in Sicily. Pope Pelagius II then made him a deacon and sent him as papal representative, or apocrisiarius, to the imperial court in Constantinople from about 579 to about 586. There he gained diplomatic experience but never learned Greek well.

Election in a year of plague

In February 590 Pelagius II died during an outbreak of plague. The clergy and people of Rome chose Gregory as his successor, although he was reluctant to accept. While awaiting imperial confirmation, he organised a great penitential procession through the city.

A later legend says that during this procession the Archangel Michael appeared above the mausoleum of Hadrian, sheathing his sword as a sign that the plague would end. This story, which gave the building its name of Castel Sant’Angelo, is first recorded centuries afterwards. Gregory was consecrated on 3 September 590.

Administration and defence

Gregory took personal charge of the Patrimony of Saint Peter, the church’s estates in Italy, Sicily and elsewhere. His letters show him correcting dishonest agents, fixing fair rents and directing grain shipments to Rome. The income paid for food distributions, ransoms for captives and the upkeep of churches.

When the Lombard king Agilulf besieged Rome around 593–594, Gregory organised the defence and bought off the attackers. He later helped secure a general truce in 598, partly through contacts with Agilulf’s Catholic queen, Theodelinda. These dealings angered imperial officials, who considered diplomacy their business.

Gregory also clashed with the patriarch of Constantinople, John IV, over the title “ecumenical patriarch”. In response he emphasised his own humility, styling himself servus servorum Dei, “servant of the servants of God”, a phrase later popes continued to use.

His letters also reached far beyond Italy. He corresponded with the Frankish queen Brunhilda about church reform, congratulated the Visigothic king Reccared on his conversion to Catholic Christianity, and kept in touch with bishops in Africa, Illyricum and Gaul. Through this network Rome’s voice was heard across the former western provinces, even though the pope had no means to enforce his wishes outside his own estates.

Writings and ideas

Gregory was a prolific author. His main works include:

• Pastoral Rule (c. 590–591): a handbook on the duties of bishops, later translated into Old English under King Alfred.
• Dialogues (c. 593–594): stories of Italian holy men, including the earliest life of Saint Benedict of Nursia.
• Moralia in Job: a vast moral commentary on the Book of Job.
• Homilies on the Gospels and on Ezekiel.
• Register: more than 850 letters, a major source for the period.

His style was practical and pastoral, aimed at teaching rather than abstract theology. He made monastic ideals central to the church and popularised ideas about purgatory and the value of prayers for the dead. In one homily he identified Mary Magdalene with the unnamed sinful woman of the Gospel of Luke, an interpretation that shaped Western art and preaching for centuries.

Mission to the English

In 596 Gregory sent a group of monks from his own monastery, led by Augustine, to the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Kent. The mission to Kent arrived in 597 and founded the see of Canterbury. Gregory followed its progress through detailed letters giving advice on organisation and on adapting pagan customs to Christian use.

The English church long remembered Gregory as its “apostle”. The famous story that he saw English slave boys in Rome and called them “not Angles but angels” comes from later English sources, including Bede, and is best treated as tradition.

Death and legacy

Gregory suffered from poor health for much of his pontificate, including gout and stomach problems. He died in Rome on 12 March 604 and was buried in Saint Peter’s Basilica. His epitaph called him the “consul of God”, a phrase that later gave its title to a modern biography.

In the generations after his death, his reputation grew steadily. An anonymous monk of Whitby wrote the first full life of Gregory in the early 8th century, and Bede gave him a prominent place in his history of the English church. The Roman deacon John wrote a longer life in the 870s.

Gregory’s works were copied in monasteries across Europe. The Pastoral Rule became a standard guide for bishops, and the Dialogues spread the cult of Saint Benedict, helping the Benedictine way of life to dominate Western monasticism. In 1298 Pope Boniface VIII formally recognised him, with Ambrose, Augustine and Jerome, as one of the four great Latin Doctors of the Church.

Historians today see Gregory as both a late Roman aristocrat and an early medieval churchman. He still thought of himself as a subject of the emperor, yet his actions in Rome, his network of correspondence and his missions beyond the old frontiers anticipated the independent role that the papacy would take in later centuries.

Myths and facts

• Myth: Gregory composed Gregorian chant. Fact: The chant was attributed to him later; it developed mainly in the 8th and 9th centuries.
• Myth: He founded the Papal States. Fact: He managed large estates and acted as a civic leader, but the papal state as a territory took shape in the 8th century.

Timeline

• c. 540: Gregory is born in Rome.
• c. 573: He serves as prefect of the city.
• c. 579–586: Papal representative in Constantinople.
• 590, February: Pope Pelagius II dies of plague.
• 590, 3 September: Gregory is consecrated pope.
• c. 593–594: Lombard king Agilulf threatens Rome; Gregory negotiates.
• 596: Augustine and his companions are sent to England.
• 598: A truce with the Lombards is agreed.
• 604, 12 March: Gregory dies and is buried in Saint Peter’s.

Why it matters

Gregory showed that the bishop of Rome could act as protector, administrator and spiritual guide for the Latin West when imperial power was weak. His books, letters and missionary vision shaped the medieval church for nearly a thousand years.