Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 5.50) of 595, to Fortunatus, bishop of Naples, mentions the abbot of a monastery of Saint *Martin (ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397, S00050), and an oratory dedicated to *Peter (the Apostle, S00008) and *Michael (the Archangel, S00181), both presumably in the diocese of Naples (southern Italy). Written in Latin in Rome.
E06359
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 5.50
Extract from the opening of the letter:
Theodosius abbas monasterii sancti Martini petitorii nobis insinuatione suggessit, quae habetur in subditis, in domo quondam Marini ex eius uoluntate secundum testamenti seriem oratorium decessorem suum Andream abbam, in qua monachi habitare debeant, construxisse. Et quia id in honore beati Petri principis apostolorum et sancti archangeli Michaelis postulat dedicari, dilectionem tuam praesentibus apicibus duximus adhortandam quatenus ad praedictum locum, cum postulauerit, ingrauanter accedas, uenerandae sollemnia dedicationis impendens, et, quotiens necesse fuerit, a presbyteris ecclesiae tuae in sancto loco deseruientibus celebrentur sacrificia ueneranda missarum.
‘Theodosius, abbot of the monastery of Saint Martin, suggested to us with his notification of a judicial claim (which is included below), that his predecessor, abbot Andrew, had constructed an oratory some time ago in the home of Marinus, according to his wishes as stated in his will, as a place for monks to live. And because he asks for it to be dedicated in honour of Saint Peter, the prince of the apostles, and of Michael, the holy archangel, we thought it proper to encourage your Beloved with the words of this letter to put all differences aside and go to the aforesaid place, when the abbot asks, and to apply the solemnities of a venerable dedication, so that when it is necessary, the revered sacrifices of masses may be celebrated by priests of your church serving in that holy place.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 1, 344.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 2, 376, lightly modified.
Ceremony of dedication
Cult PlacesCult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
Cult building - monastic
Non Liturgical ActivityBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
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
Here Gregory doesn’t provide any details of what a consecration involves. Perhaps it looked something like the consecration he describes in $E06330. The monastery dedicated to Saint Martin in Naples is also mentioned elsewhere in his letters (E06342).Theodosius, abbot of the monastery of Saint Martin (monasterii sancti Martini) also features in Register 5.33 (E06342).
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).
Frances Trzeciak
20/10/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00050 | Martin, ascetic and bishop of Tours, ob. 397 | Martinus | Certain | S00181 | Michael, the Archangel | Michael | Certain |
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Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Frances Trzeciak, Cult of Saints, E06359 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06359