Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 2.13) of 592, to Bishop Iohannes of Velletri (near Rome), orders him, because of barbarian incursions, to move the seat of his diocese to a place dedicated to *Andrew (the Apostle, S00288). Written in Latin in Rome.
Evidence ID
E06332
Type of Evidence
Literary - Letters
Major author/Major anonymous work
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 2.13
Although normally bishops should not move their sees, Gregory recommends that an exception be made in this case to avoid the incursions of the barbarians:
Propterea te Iohannem fratrem coepiscopumque nostrum Vellitrensis ciuitatis sedemque tuam in loco qui appellatur Arenata ad sanctum Andream apostolum praecepimus exinde transmigrari, quatenus et ab hostilitatis incursu liberior exsistere ualeas, et illic consuetudine sollemnium festa disponas.
‘For that reason we have ordered you, John, our brother and fellow-bishop, bishop of the city of Velletri, as well as your see in the place called Arenata, to be moved from there to Saint Andrew the apostle, so that you can live with more freedom from hostile incursions and also arrange festivals there with customary solemnities.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 1, 99-100.
Translation: Martyn 204, vol. 1, 200.
Liturgical Activities
Other liturgical acts and ceremonies
Cult PlacesCult building - unspecified
Source
Gregory's Register is a collection of some 854 of his letters as pope, collected into 14 books (each book representing an indictional year of his pontificate, from 1 September to 31 August) of varied length and deriving from the file-copies that were made in Rome and kept in the papal archive. The original copies survived into the 9th century, but were subsequently lost. From the late 8th century onwards, however, because of the exceptional stature that Gregory had by then attained, various collections were assembled from the original copies (the largest under Pope Hadrian I at the end of the 8th century), and these constitute the Register as we have it today.The Register does not contain all the letters that Gregory despatched as pope, since some whose text survives refer to others which are lost; but the collection we have is unique from the late antique period, and only matched in quantity and range of subjects by the registers of high-medieval popes. Recipients range from papal administrators, through prominent churchmen and aristocrats, to kings and the imperial family, and treat a wide variety of topics, from the mundane administrative affairs of the papal patrimony to deep theological and moral considerations.
For the cult of saints, there is much that is of interest in the letters, but two particular concentrations of evidence stand out. The first is a clutch of around a dozen letters that mention requests for relics from Rome, or that accompanied small personal relics as gifts to influential correspondents. The second concentration of evidence relates to the dedications of churches and other ecclesiastical institutions in southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia. Because the papacy owned extensive estates in these regions, and exercised particular authority there, many of Gregory's letters mention churches and other ecclesiastical institutions by the name of the saint to whom they were dedicated, thereby providing us with a rich panorama of the spread of both local and imported saintly cults.
Gregory's Register has been the subject of two substantial critical editions: the first by Ewald and Hartmann for the Monumenta Germaniae Historica; the second by Dag Norberg for Corpus Christianorum. The numbering of the letters is often the same in both editions, but it can differ, because Norberg removed letters (and other passages) that appear to have been added at a later date to the original Register, assigning them instead to Appendices. We have used Norberg's numbering, which is that now generally used.
(Bryan Ward-Perkins)
Discussion
The 'barbarians' threatening Bishop John were the Lombards.Bibliography
Edition:Ewald, P. and L.M. Hartmann (eds), Gregorii I papae Registrum epistolarum, 2 vols. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Epistolae I and II, Berlin 1891 and 1899).
Norberg, D., S. Gregorii Magni, Registrum epistularum. 2 vols. (Corpus Christianorum Series Latina 140-140A; Turnhout: Brepols, 1982).
English translation:
Martyn, J.R.C., The Letters of Gregory the Great, 3 vols. (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2004).
Further Reading:
Neil, B., and Dal Santo, M. (eds.), A Companion to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
Record Created By
Frances Trzeciak
Date of Entry
11/09/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00288 | Andrew, the Apostle | Andreas | Certain |
|---|
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Frances Trzeciak, Cult of Saints, E06332 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06332