Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 6.50) of 596, to Palladius, bishop of Saintes (western Gaul), discusses a church in Saintes to the Apostles *Peter and *Paul (S00036; S00008), and the Roman martyrs *Laurence and *Pancratius (S00037; S00307), and mentions the despatch of relics of these four saints for altars in the church. Written in Latin in Rome.
E06370
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 6.50
Full text of the letter:
GREGORIUS PALLADIO EPISCOPO SANTONIS GALLIARUM
Ueniens lator praesentium Leuparicus presbyter uester insinuauit nobis fraternitatem uestram ecclesiam in honorem beati Petri et Pauli apostolorum nec non Laurentii atque Pancratii martyrum construxisse atque illic tredecim altaria collocasse, ex quibus quattuor necdum dedicata comperimus remansisse ob hoc, quod suprascriptorum sanctorum reliquias illic collocare deo annuente disponitis. Et quia reliquias sanctorum Petri et Pauli nec non Laurentii atque Pancratii martyrum cum ueneratione praebuimus, hortamur ut eas cum reuerentia suscipere et collocare auxiliante domino debeatis, prouisuri ante omnia ut seruientibus ibidem non debeant alimoniorum deesse suffragia.
‘Gregory to Palladius, bishop of Saintes in Gaul
Your priest Leuparic, the bearer of this letter, came and informed us that your Fraternity has built a church in honour of the apostles, the blessed Peter and Paul, and also of the martyrs Laurence and Pancratius, and has constructed thirteen altars there. We have learned that four of them remain not dedicated as yet, because you are arranging to locate there some relics of the above-mentioned saints, with God’s blessing. And as we have with veneration provided relics of Saints Peter and Paul, and also of the martyrs Laurence and Pancratius, we ask that you receive them with reverence, and locate them there with the Lord’s help, taking care before all else that agreements on the supply of sustenance for those serving here should not be lacking.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 1, 423.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 2, 437-8, modified.
Ceremony of dedication
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Altar
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
RelicsUnspecified relic
Transfer, translation and deposition of relics
Transfer/presence of relics from distant countries
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
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 ninth century, but were subsequently lost; from the late eighth century onwards, however, because of the exceptional stature that Gregory had by then attained, various collections of his letters were assembled from the original copies (the largest under Pope Hadrian I at the end of the eighth 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 in some of those whose text survives there are references to other letters, wholly 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 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.
Discussion
Palladius of Saintes was a contemporary of Gregory of Tours; he is first documented as bishop of Saintes in 573 (Pietri and Heijmans).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).
Pietri, L. and Heijmans, M., Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, 4 Prosopographie de la Gaule chrétienne (314-614), 2 vols. (Paris 2013), vol. 2, 1404-1408, 'Palladius 10'.
Frances Trzeciak
15/11/2018
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00008 | Paul, the Apostle | Paulus | Certain | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00037 | Laurence/Laurentius, deacon and martyr of Rome | Laurentius | Certain | S00307 | Pancratius, martyr of Rome | Pancratius | 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, E06370 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06370