Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 11.26) of 601, to Rusticiana, noblewoman resident in Constantinople, thanks her for a gift of hangings (vela) for the basilica of *Peter (the apostle, S00036) and of alms (elemosina) for the monastery of *Andrew (the Apostle, S00288) on the clivus Scauri in Rome; also recounts some miracles occurring at the monastery. Written in Latin in Rome.
E06421
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 11.26
Extract from a letter thanking Rusticiana for her concern and her gifts:
Ea autem quae ex purissimo et sincerissimo corde beato Petro apostolorum principi munera transmisistis praesente omni clero suscepta atque illic suspensa sunt. Filius enim meus uir magnificus domnus Symmachus, quia ex podagrae dolore aegrotum me et paene desperatum repperit, scripta uestra mihi dare distulit et post multum temporis, quam uela suscepta sunt, dedit. Postmodum uero in scriptis excellentiae uestrae inuenimus, ut cum letania ad beati Petri ecclesiam portari debuissent. Quod ideo minime factum est, quia, sicut praedixi, ante uela quam scripta suscepimus. Tamen praedictus uir cum omni familia domus uestrae hoc fecit, quod nos facere cum clero uoluistis. Sed etsi uoces defuerunt hominum, habet ipsa uestra oblatio apud omnipotentem dominum uocem suam.
‘But those presents that you sent over from your most pure and sincere heart to Saint Peter, prince of the apostles, were received in the presence of all the clergy and were duly hung up there. My son the magnificent gentleman, Lord Symmachus, found me sick with painful gout and almost in despair, so he put off giving me your letters and handed them to me a long time after the hangings had been received. But afterwards we found in your Excellency’s letters that they should been carried to the church of Saint Peter with a litany. And as I have just said, this was not done at all because we received the hangings before the letters. But the aforesaid lord carried out with all the servants of your household, what you wanted us to do with the clergy. And although people’s voices were missing, that offering of yours has its own voice before our almighty Lord.’
Gregory continues, thanking Rusticiana for the alms (elemosina) she sent to his own monastery of Andrew, and tells her of a series of miraculous punishments that occurred to errant monks of the same monastery.
One time, a monk stole some money when out shopping for the brethren; on his return, he was repeatedly tormented by a demon until he confessed his crime. On another, on the saint's feast day (die natalicio), a monk was struck blind. He was taken before the altar of Andrew, where, having ‘returned to himself’ (ad se reuersus), he confessed that he had planned to leave the monastery. On a third occasion, another monk planned to flee, but was seized by a demon every time he attempted to enter the oratory (oratorium); he was cured after confessing and after the brothers had prayed for him for three days.
Dicebat autem eundem se beatum apostolum, dum vexaretur, uidisse seque ab eo increpatum esse, cur uoluisset abscedere.
'He used to say that he had seen that blessed apostle while he was being tormented, and had been rebuked by him for wanting to depart from the monastery.'
The fourth and final miracles also relates to monks seeking to flees St Andrew's. Two of them secretly left, but were found hiding outside the Flaminian gate, thanks to miraculous help offered the search party which had been sent after them.
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 898-901.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 3, 760-3, lightly modified.
Chant and religious singing
Procession
Ceremony of dedication
FestivalsSaint’s feast
Cult PlacesCult building - monastic
Altar
Cult building - independent (church)
Oratory
Non Liturgical ActivityBequests, donations, gifts and offerings
MiraclesPunishing miracle
Miracle after death
Finding of lost objects, animals, etc.
Exorcism
Other miracles with demons and demonic creatures
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesWomen
Aristocrats
Ecclesiastics - monks/nuns/hermits
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Demons
Cult Related ObjectsPrecious cloths
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
Rusticiana was an acquaintance and friend from Gregory's time in Constantinople; she had once resided in Rome, but was now based in the imperial capital. The vela she sent, unquestionably of precious material, unfortunately are not described.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
20/12/2020
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00288 | Andrew, the Apostle | Andreas | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Frances Trzeciak, Cult of Saints, E06421 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06421