Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 8.5) of 597, to Venantius, bishop of Luna, gives orders for the provisioning of a new female monastery within his city, dedicated to *Peter (the Apostle, S00036), *Iohannes and Paulus (brothers and eunuchs, martyrs of Rome, S00384), *Hermes (martyr of Rome, buried on the via Salaria vetus, S00404) and *Sebastianus (martyr of Rome, S05110); and for the consecration of the monastery's oratory in the countryside nearby; all at Luna (northern Italy). Written in Latin in Rome.
E06377
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 8.5
Full text of the letter:
GREGORIUS VENANTIO EPISCOPO LUNENSI
Fraternitatis uestrae insinuatione didicimus, quae habetur in subditis, intra ciuitatem Lunensem in domo propria monasterium ancillarum dei pro uestra deuotione fundasse, quod in honore beati Petri apostolorum principis et sanctorum martyrum Iohannis et Pauli atque Hermae et Sebastiani desideras consecrari. Et ideo, frater carissime, si nullum corpus ibidem constat humatum, data primitus a fraternitate tua donatione legitima, id est calicem argenteum unum habentem uncias ui, patenam argenteam habentem libras ii, sindones ii, coopertorium super altare unum, lecta strata numero x, in aeramentis capita xx, in ferramentis capita xxx, in caespite fundum Faborianum et Lumbricata in integro constitutum territorio Lunensi miliario ab urbe eadem plus minus secundo iuxta fluuium qui appellatur Macra cum seruis duobus, id est Maurum et Iohannem, et boues paria ii tantum, gestis que municipalibus allegata, praedicti monasterii oratorium absque missas publicas sollemniter consecrabis, et cetera secundum morem.
‘Gregory to Venantius, bishop of Luna
We have learnt from your Fraternity’s reference, that appears in the appendix, that you have founded a monastery within the city of Luna, in your own house, for nuns, as a mark of your devotion, and you desire to have it consecrated in honour of Saint Peter, prince of the apostles, and of the holy martyrs, John and Paul, Hermes and Sebastian. For that reason, my very dear brother, if it is certain that no human body has been buried there, your Fraternity should first of all give the donation fixed by law. That is, a silver chalice of six ounces, a silver plate of two ounces, two rolls of muslin, a single altar cloth, ten beds with blankets, twenty items in bronze pots and thirty items in iron utensils. Then, without public masses, you will solemnly consecrate the oratory of the aforesaid convent, established in untilled territory on a field at the farm of Favorianus and Lumbrica, two miles or so from the same city of Luna, beside the river called Magra, together with two slaves, that is Maurus and Iohannes, and just two oxen likewise, contributed by a municipal act. The rest will be done in the normal way.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 522.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 2, 505, lightly modified.
Ceremony of dedication
Cult PlacesCult building - monastic
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
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
This is one of a number of surviving papal letters - two from Pelagius I (556-561) and four from Gregory the Great (590-604) - permitting, while also carefully regulating, the consecration and dedication to saints of private oratories, either on aristocratic estates or in monasteries, by the use of a set form of wording: E06878 and E06880 (both from Pelagius); E06377, E06390, E06399, E06403 (all from Gregory).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
30/11/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00384 | Iohannes and Paulus, brothers and eunuchs, martyrs of Rome under the emperor Julian | Iohannes, Paulus | Certain | S00400 | Sebastianus, martyr of Rome | Sebastianus | Certain | S00404 | Hermes, martyr of Rome, buried on the via Salaria vetus | Hermes | Certain |
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