Gregory the Great, in a general admonition (Register, Appendix 4), encourages participation in the annual 'greater litany' (laetania maior), with a supplicatory procession from the church of *Laurence (deacon and martyr of Rome, S01229) 'of Lucina', to that of *Peter (the Apostle, S00036) [at the Vatican]; all in Rome, 590/604. Written in Latin in Rome.
E06446
Literary - Letters
Gregory the Great (pope)
Pope Gregory the Great, Register of Letters, Appendix 4
In the ninth-century manuscripts of Gregory's Register in which this text appears it is entitled 'Chartula quae relecta est de laetania maiore in basilica Sanctae Mariae', 'Brief text which is read, concerning the greater litany in the basilica of saint Mary', However, this is almost certainly a ninth-century addition, conflating the laetania maior which had nothing to do with the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore and the laetania septiformis which ended at Santa Maria Maggiore (see Discussion).
Sollemnitas annuae devotionis, filii dilectissimi, nos ammonet, ut laetaniam quae maior ab omnibus appellatur sollicitis ac devotis debeamus auxiliante Domino mentibus celebrare, per quam a nostris excessibus eius misericordiae supplicantes purgari aliquatenus mereamur. Considerare etenim nos convenit, dilectissimi, quam variis continuisque calamitatibus pro nostris culpis atque offensionibus affligamur, et qualiter item coelestis pietatis nobis subinde medicina subveniat. Sexta igitur feria veniente a titulo beati Laurentii martyris qui appellatur Lucinae egredientes, ad beatum Petrum apostolorum principem Domino supplicantes cum hymnis et canticis spiritalibus properemus, ut ibidem sacra mysteria celebrantes, tam de antiquioribus quam de praesentibus beneficiis pietati eius in quantum possumus referre gratias mereamur.
'The solemnity of the annual devotion, most blessed sons, advises us that we should celebrate the litany that all call the greater one, with concerned and devoted minds and with the Lord's help, through which we may deserve to be purged to some extent from our errors, as we pray for His mercy. For indeed it is right for us to consider, most beloved ones, with what diverse and continuous calamities we are afflicted, for our sins and our shortcomings, and how likewise the medicine of heavenly piety then comes to our rescue. Therefore, when next Friday comes round, let us leave the church (titulus) of the blessed Laurence the martyr, called 'of Lucina', and hasten to the blessed Peter, prince of the apostles, praying to our Lord with hymns and spiritual songs, so that we may celebrate the holy mysteries there and deserve to offer thanks to his piety as far as we can for his benefits, as much in the past as now.’
Text: Norberg 1982, vol. 2, 1097.
Translation: Martyn 2004, vol. 3, 885, modified.
Procession
Chant and religious singing
Cult PlacesCult building - independent (church)
Activities accompanying CultMeetings and gatherings of the clergy
Protagonists in Cult and NarrativesEcclesiastics - bishops
Ecclesiastics - lesser clergy
Other lay individuals/ people
Crowds
Ecclesiastics - Popes
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
This document, since it is interpolated into the Register, is datable only to the pontificate of Gregory (590-604).The laetania (or litania) maior, 'greater litany', was, as stated in this document, an annual supplicatory procession through the centre of Rome (from San Lorenzo in Lucina, near the Ara Pacis, to St Peter's) asking God to show mercy on the penitent people of the city. This is the first reference to it, and it is not known when it was instituted. Held on 25 April, in subsequent centuries its celebration (though not necessarily with processions) spread north of the Alps into Francia and Anglo-Saxon England, and it still forms part of the Catholic calendar. It is next documented in Rome in the pontificate of Leo III, for it was during preparations for the laetania maior of 799 that a coup attempt was made on this pontiff (Liber Pontificalis 98.11).
The title given our text, in the ninth-century collection which preserved it – referring to the laetania maior as 'in the basilica of Mary' – is almost certainly an error, conflating this, the laetania maior, which is never subsequently associated with Santa Maria Maggiore (a church that is well off the route from San Lorenzo in Lucina to St Peter's), with the laetania septiformis, a sevenfold supplicatory procession converging on Santa Maria Maggiore, which Gregory organised in 590 and 603 in the face of particular scourges devastating the city (see E02397 and E06449; and, for the erroneous conflation of the two different laetaniae, Andrews 2015, pp. 5 and 292, n. 5).
Bibliography
Editions: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:
Andrews, M.M., "The Laetaniae Septiformes of Gregory I, S. Maria Maggiore and Early Marian Cult in Rome," in: I. Östenberg, S. Malmberg, and J. Bjørnbye (eds.), The Moving City: Processions, Passages and Promenades in Ancient Rome (London, 2015), 155-164.
Hill, J., "The litaniae maiores and minores in Rome, Francia and Anglo-Saxon England: terminology, texts and traditions," Early Medieval Europe 9 (2000), 211-246.
Latham, J.A., "Inventing Gregory 'the Great': Memory, Authority, and the Afterlives of the Letania Septiformis," Church History 84:1 (2015), 1-31.
Neil, B., and Dal Santo, M. (eds.), A Companion to Gregory the Great (Leiden: Brill, 2013).
Frances Trzeciak, Bryan Ward-Perkins
02/10/2023
| ID | Name | Name in Source | Identity | S00033 | Mary, Mother of Christ | Maria | Uncertain | S00036 | Peter, the Apostle | Petrus | Certain | S00037 | Laurence/Laurentius, deacon and martyr of Rome | Laurentius | Certain |
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