Gregory the Great with a papal letter (Register 3.33) of 593, to Dynamius, patrician of Gaul, sends a small cross containing fragments of the chains of *Peter (the Apostle, S00036) and of the gridiron of *Laurence (deacon and martyr of Rome, S00037); worn round the neck, this cross will free him from sin and lead him to the Lord. Written in Latin in Rome.
Evidence ID
E06343
Type of Evidence
Literary - Letters
Major author/Major anonymous work
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 3.33
Gregory thanks Dynamius for a gift of gold coins sent to Peter the Apostle, and ends his letter as follows:
Transmisimus uero beati Petri apostoli benedictionem, crucem paruulam, cui de catenis eius beneficia sunt inserta, quae illius quidem ad tempus ligauerant sed uestra colla in perpetuum a peccatis soluant. Per quattuor uero in circuitu partes, de beati Laurentii craticula in qua perustus est beneficia continentur, ut hoc ubi corpus illius pro ueritate crematum est uestram mentem ad amorem domini accendat.
‘We have indeed sent over a blessing (benedictionem) of Saint Peter the apostle, a very small cross, into which relics have been inserted from Peter’s chains, which had in fact bound him in their time, but should forever free your neck from sin. Indeed, in the four parts around the cross, relics are contained from the gridiron of Saint Laurence, on which he was roasted, so that this relic of where that man’s body was burnt for the sake of Truth, may set your mind on fire with the love of our Lord.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 1, 179.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 1, 257-8, lightly modified.
RelicsReliquary – privately owned
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Reliquary – privately owned
Contact relic - instrument of saint’s martyrdom
Contact relic - other object closely associated with saint
Transfer, translation and deposition of relics
Division of relics
Transfer/presence of relics from distant countries
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Aristocrats
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
Gregory sent relics, containing filings from the chains that had bound Peter, to a substantial number of his most distinguished correspondents: two were within reliquaries in the form of a cross: E06436 and E06343; most within reliquaries in the form of keys, an obvious echo of Peter's role as the keeper of the keys of heaven: E02814, E02825, E06345, E06363, E06383, E06410, E06422, E06427. Several letters tell us that they were designed to be worn round the neck of the recipient, and would offer protection against various evils. They are sometimes described as a 'most sacred key from the body' of Peter, suggesting that, as well as containing a relic of the chains, they had lain for a period in close proximity to Peter's grave.From a letter of Gregory to Theoctista, the sister of the emperor Maurice (E06375), we learn that at least one such key was made of gold, and that the practice of distributing them began before Gregory's pontificate, since a story told in this letter has a gold key being returned to Gregory's predecessor, Pelagius II (pope 579-590).
Rome also claimed chains that had bound the Apostle Paul, from which Gregory also sent out fragments: E06351 and E06436. In a letter to the empress Constantina, offering her fragments of the chains of Paul (E06351), Gregory explains how these were obtained: by a priest applying a file to them; he is, however, careful to state that this did not always work, implying that divine sanction was also required.
Dynamius (PLRE IIIA, 'Dynamius 1'; PCBE 4, 'Dynamius 3') was a major political figure in Gaul, notably as patrician and governor (rector) of Provence in the 580s and 590s. He was also the author of a Life of the 5th century bishop of Riez, Maximus (E00852), and possibly the Life of the monk Marius of Bodanum (E06686); for his epitaph see E07862.
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:
Dal Santo, M., Debating the Saints' Cult in the Age of Gregory the Great (Oxford: OUP, 2012).
McCulloh, J., "The Cult of Relics in the Letters and Dialogues of Gregory the Great," Traditio 32 (1976), 145-184.
Neil, B., and Dal Santo, M. (eds.), A Companion to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
Pietri, L. and Heijmans, M., Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, 4 Prosopographie de la Gaule chrétienne (314-614), 2 vols. (Paris 2013).
Record Created By
Frances Trzeciak
Date of Entry
30/09/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00037 | Laurence/Laurentius, deacon and martyr of Rome | Laurentius | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
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