Gregory the Great in a papal letter (Register 14.9) of 603, to Iohannes, bishop of an unnamed see, authorises the consecration of a basilica dedicated to *Mary (Mother of Christ, S00033) somewhere in southern Italy. Written in Latin in Rome.
Evidence ID
E06442
Type of Evidence
Literary - Letters
Major author/Major anonymous work
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters 14.9
Full text of the letter:
GREGORIVS IOHANNI EPISCOPO
Basilicam quam a dilectione tua in honorem beatae semper uirginis Mariae per Sauinum subdiaconum nostrum et rectorem patrimonii suggeris esse perfectam consecrandi tibi praeceptionis nostrae serie facultatem noueris attributam, quatenus, frater carissime, deuotionis tuae desiderium complens celebritatis perfectione gratuleris.
‘Gregory to Bishop Iohannes
You suggest that a basilica has been completed by your Beloved in honour of the ever blessed Virgin Mary, through Sabinus, our sub-deacon and manager of our patrimony. Be aware that the right to consecrate it has been attributed to you by the words of our command, so that, my dearest brother, you may rejoice in the perfection of renown, by completing the object of your devotion.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 1079.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 3, 876.
Liturgical ActivitiesEcclesiastics - lesser clergy
Ceremony of dedication
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Non Liturgical ActivityConstruction of cult buildings
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - lesser clergy
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 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
Sabinus was a manager of Gregory’s affairs in Calabria. Although a note in the MGH edition suggests that John was bishop of Palermo, this suggests that a city in mainland southern Italy is more plausible.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).
Record Created By
Frances Trzeciak
Date of Entry
11/01/2019
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00033 | Mary, Mother of Christ | Maria | Certain |
|---|
Please quote this record referring to its author, database name, number, and, if possible, stable URL:
Frances Trzeciak, Cult of Saints, E06442 - http://csla.history.ox.ac.uk/record.php?recid=E06442