Gregory the Great in two papal letters (Register 9.67 and 9.83) of 598/599, to Domitius, abbot of Lucuscanum, deals with a dispute over the property of a monastery dedicated to *Maximus (just possibly the martyr of Rome, buried on the via Salaria vetus, S00173) and *Agatha (virgin and martyr of Catania, S00794) in Palermo (Sicily). Written in Latin in Rome.
E06391
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 9.67 (to Domitius, abbot of the monastery of Lucuscanum)
Extract from a long letter dealing with a dispute over property in Sicily:
Et ideo quia de possessionibus Faiano, Nasoniano et Libiniano positis in prouincia Sicilia territorio Panormitano, de quibus inter praepositos monasterii sanctorum Maximi et Agathae quod Lucuscanum dicitur et e diuerso
administratores xenodochii in hac urbe Roma constituti quod Valerii nuncupatur longa se traxit contention.
‘Thus with regard to the possessions of Faianum, Nasonianum and Libinianum, located in the province of Sicily and the territory of Palermo, there has been a long drawn-out dispute over them between those in charge of the monastery of Saints Maximus and Agatha, called Lucuscanum, and on the other side, the administrators of a hostel built in this city of Rome, that is called of Valerius.’
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 9.83 (to the same Domitius, and to Antonius, subdeacon in charge of the Roman xenodochium):
Gregory replicates verbatim the text from 9.67.
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 622-3 and 637.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 2, 584 and 593, lightly modified.
Cult building - monastic
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
That the monastery of Saints Maximus and Agatha (also known as the Lusculanum) was in Palermo is evident from Gregory, Register 9.20. We are, however, very unsure as to the identity of this Saint Maximus: the martyr of Rome (S00173) is a possibility, but he is not a prominent saint outside Rome, and there is no obvious reason why he might appear paired with Agatha of Catania, probably the best-known of all the martyrs of Sicily.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
12/12/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00173 | Maximus/Maximilianus, martyr of Rome, buried on the via Salaria vetus | Maximus | Certain | S00794 | Agatha, virgin and martyr of Catania | Agatha | Certain |
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