Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 9.72) of 598, to Passivus, bishop of Fermo, refers to the foundation and consecration of an oratory dedicated to *Peter (the Apostle, S00036) in Teramo (central Italy), and the reception there of contact relics (sanctuaria) of the saint. Written in Latin in Rome.
E06392
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 9.72
Full text of the letter:
GREGORIVS PASSIVO EPISCOPO DE FIRMO
Anio comes castri Aprutiensis petitoria nobis insinuatione suggessit, quod habetur in subditis, in superscripto castro oratorium se sumptu proprio pro sua deuotione fundasse, quod in honore beati Petri apostolorum principis desiderat consecrari. Et ideo, frater carissime, si in tuae dioceseos, in qua uisitationis impendis officium, memorata constructio iure consistit et nullum corpus ibidem constat humatum, percepta primitus donatione legitima, id est fundos campulos cum conduma una, boues domitos parium unum, uaccas duas, argenti libras quattuor, lectum stratum unum, in peculio capita quindecim, aeramenta capita duo, ferramenta numero quinque, praestantes liberos a tributis fiscalibus solidos sex, gestis que municipalibus allegata, praedictum oratorium sollemniter consecrabis. Presbyterum quoque te illic constituere uolumus cardinalem, ut, quotiens praefatus conditor fieri sibi missas fortasse uoluerit uel fidelium concursus exegerit, nihil sit quod ad sacra missarum exhibenda sollemnia ualeat impedire. Sanctuaria uero suscepta sui cum reuerentia collocabis.
‘Gregory to Passivus, bishop of Fermo
Anio, the count of the castle of Teramo, has informed us in a petition of recommendation, included as an appendix, that he has founded an oratory in the fortress mentioned above, at his own expense, to show his devotion, and he wants it to be consecrated in honour of Saint Peter, the prince of the apostles. And so, my dearest brother, if the construction mentioned above is situated in the jurisdiction of your diocese, in which you fulfil the office of visitor, and it is certain that no human body has been buried there, after first receiving the donation, as set by law, you will solemnly consecrate the aforesaid oratory. The donation is as follows: farms and small estates, with one manor house, one pair of tamed oxen, two cows, four pounds of silver, one bed with bedding, fifteen head of livestock, two copper vessels, five iron implements, six gold coins, of good quality and free from imperial tribute, all of them listed in the municipal records. We also want you to establish its own priest there, so that whenever the aforesaid founder might perhaps want masses said for him, or an assembly of the faithful might require it, there should be nothing that might prevent performing the sacred solemnities of the mass. Also you will locate reverently his relics (sanctuaria) that you have received. ’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 627-8.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 2, 587-8, lightly modified.
Ceremony of dedication
Cult PlacesCult building - dependent (chapel, baptistery, etc.)
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
Bequests, donations, gifts and offerings
RelicsContact relic - cloth
Transfer, translation and deposition of relics
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Aristocrats
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
The description of the process required for consecration and provision of the monastery is formulaic and appears in several other letters (E06366 and E06390). This provides a clear account of the procedure for consecrating a foundation dedicated to a saint.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 | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Frances Trzeciak, Cult of Saints, E06392 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06392