The Historians' History of the World 08

St. Leo (440-461) gave much prestige to his office by the great rôle he played in public affairs and his successful intercession with Attila. He obtained from Valentinian III a decree in which the emperor invited “the entire church to recognise its head in order that peace might forever be preserved”; and at the same period we see him restoring a Gallican bishop to the see from which he had been driven, and transferring the metropolitan seat from Arles to Vienne.

Under the Ostrogoths the church of Rome, treated elsewhere with leniency, could make no progress. But when their power had fallen (553) and Rome came once more under the authority of the emperor of Constantinople, the great distance of her new master opened up a brighter future. The Lombard invasion brought into the church’s territory a large number of refugees, and the Roman population recovered some of its old energy in the double hatred for barbarians and Arians. As for the exarch whom the eastern emperor had charged with the government of his Italian provinces and invested with direct authority over the dukes and military counts of Naples, Rome, Genoa, etc., this official could scarcely make his authority felt in the western half of Italy, relegated as he was to Ravenna, and separated from Rome by the Lombard dominion which included Spoleto.

[590-604 A.D.]

It was at this juncture favourable, though dangerous in some respects, that Gregory I appeared (590-604). Descended from the noble Anicia family, Gregory added to distinction of birth every advantage of body and mind. While under thirty he was prefect of Rome, but at the end of several months he abandoned honours and thoughts of worldly things, and sought the retirement of the cloister. But his reputation did not permit him the obscurity he desired. Sent to Constantinople about 570 as secretary and later as apocrisiary (a sort of grand almoner) by Pope Pelagius II, he rendered valuable service to the holy see in its relations with the empire and in its struggles with the Lombards. In 590 the clergy, the senate, and the people raised him with one voice to the supreme pontificate, as successor to Pelagius; but as all elections had to be confirmed by the emperor at Constantinople, Gregory wrote in supplication that his might not be sanctioned. The letter was intercepted, and Maurice’s orders of ratification soon arrived. Gregory hid; he was discovered and brought back to Rome.

Pope in spite of himself, he used all his talent and power to fortify the papacy,[85] propagate Christianity, and improve the discipline and organisation of the church. Although he pleaded that the episcopacy, and especially his own, “was the office of a shepherd of souls and not of a temporal prince,” he did not neglect the temporal power of the holy see. It happened, since the emperor was so little in touch with Italian affairs, that the soldiers charged with defending Rome against the Lombards had received no pay. Gregory paid them, took upon himself the work of defence, and armed the clerics. When Agilulf, whose aggression had provoked these preparations, was compelled to withdraw, Gregory treated with him in the name of Rome, in spite of protests from the exarch.

Feeling thus strengthened in his position, he undertook to propagate Christianity and orthodoxy both within and without the limits of the ancient Roman Empire. Within its boundaries there were still some pagans in Sicily, Sardinia, even at Terracina (Tarracina) at the very gates of Rome, and doubtless also in some parts of Gaul, since there exists a decree of Childebert’s dated 554, with the title For the Abolition of the Remainder of Idolatry. There were Arians very close to Rome, the Lombards. By the intervention of Queen Theudelinda, Gregory succeeded in having the heir to the Lombard throne, Adalwald, raised in Catholicism. Since 587 the Visigoths in Spain under Recared had been converted.

As for Great Britain, it was still entirely pagan, and Gregory sent thither the monk Augustine and forty Roman missionaries (596). They landed on the island of Thanet, and going from there sought Ethelbert, king of Kent, who permitted them to preach their doctrines at Canterbury. From this point Christianity spread rapidly towards the north and west, until by 627 it was firmly established in Northumberland. St. Augustine, archbishop of Canterbury, had been named primate of England by Gregory the Great, with whom he kept up a constant correspondence that is still in existence.

Ireland, “the isle of saints,” had already been converted, and now monks were leaving it to win over the barbarians. At this period St. Columban, the monk who denounced Brunehild’s crimes with such boldness, set out to preach the Gospel to the mountaineers of Helvetia, and founded in their midst abbeys surrounded by fertile fields. After him St. Rupert travelled far into Bavaria and established the diocese of Salzburg.