Gregory the Great in two papal letters (Register 9.58 and 9.59), both of 598, first authorises the bishop of Fermo to consecrate an oratory dedicated to *Sabinus (bishop and martyr of Spoleto, S01878) in Fermo, and then requests the bishop of Spoleto to send contact relics (sanctuaria) of the saint from Spoleto; all in central Italy. Written in Latin in Rome.
E06390
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 9.58 (to Passivus, bishop of Fermo)
Full text of the letter:
GREGORIUS PASSIVO EPISCOPO
Valerianus notarius ecclesiae fraternitatis tuae petitoria nobis insinuatione suggessit, quod habetur in subditis, in fundo Visiano iuris sui iuxta muros ciuitatis Firmanae oratorium se pro sua deuotione fundasse, quod in honore beati martyris Sauini desiderat consecrari. Et ideo, frater carissime, si in tuae parrochiae memorata constructio iure consistit et nullum corpus ibidem constat humatum, percepta primitus donatione legitima, id est in reditu solidos tres liberos a tributis fiscalibus, gestis que municipalibus allegata, praedictum oratorium absque missis publicis sollemniter consecrabis ita, ut in eodem loco nec futuris temporibus baptisterium construatur nec presbyterum constituas cardinalem. Et si missas ibi fieri forte maluerit, a dilectione tua presbyterum nouerit postulandum, quatenus nihil tale a quolibet alio sacerdote ullatenus praesumatur. Sanctuaria uero suscepta sui cum reuerentia collocabis.
‘Gregory to Bishop Passivus
Valerianus, a notary of the church of your Fraternity, has suggested to us with an ingratiating petition, included herewith in an appendix, that he has founded an oratory to show his devotion, in the Visianus estate under his control, next to the walls of the city of Fermo. He wants this to be consecrated in honour of the blessed martyr Sabinus. And for that reason, dearest brother, if the building mentioned is under the control of your parish, and it is certain that no human body has been buried there, first of all receive the legal donation, that is, three gold coins in return, free of payments to the treasury, and record the transaction in the municipal records. Then you will solemnly consecrate it, without public masses, [ensuring] that [neither now] nor in the future is a baptistery constructed in that place and that you do not appoint its own priest. And if perhaps he should wish masses to be celebrated there, he should know that he must ask for a priest of your choice, so that nothing of that sort is presumed by another priest in any way at all. Once you have received his relics, you will place them therein with due reverence.’
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 9.59 (to Chrysantus, bishop of Spoleto)
The opening sentence of a short letter:
Valerianus notarius ecclesiae firmanae sanctuaria beati martyris Sauini oblata petitione sibi postulat debere concedi, quatenus in eius nomine oratorium propriis constructum sumptibus possit sollemniter consecrari.
‘Valerianus, a notary of the church of Fermo, asks with a petition that he has offered, that contact relics of the blessed martyr Sabinus should be granted him, so that an oratory built at his own expense might be solemnly consecrated in his [Sabinus'] name.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 615-16.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 2, 580-1, modified.
Ceremony of dedication
Cult PlacesCult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
RelicsContact relic - cloth
Transfer, translation and deposition of relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesOfficials
Ecclesiastics - 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).The use of the term sanctuaria strongly suggests that the relics mentioned here were contact relics, made by placing a piece of cloth in close contact with the grave of the saint. For more detail about the process, see E00615 and E00617, and on the word, McCulloh 1976, 158-165.
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:
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).
Frances Trzeciak
12/12/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S01878 | Sabinus, bishop, and companions, martyrs of Assisi and Spoleto | Sabinus | 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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