596-6011

Mission to the English

255

and upon the aid of Gaulish priests as interpreters of the barbarous English tongue. The mission was, vaguely, to "the nation of the English," for Gregory knew no difference between the men of Deira and the men of Kent; and Augustine would learn at Paris, if not before, that the wife of Aethelberht of Kent was daughter of a Frankish king.

The tale of the landing, the preaching, and the success will be told elsewhere. Here it belongs only to note that Gregory continued to take the keenest interest in the venture he had planned. He instructed Vergilius of Arles to consecrate Augustine as bishop, and spread over Christendom the news of the great work that was accomplished. To Eulogius, patriarch of Alexandria, he told of the conversion due, as he said, to their prayers, and he warmly thanked Syagrius, bishop of Autun, and Brunhild for their aid. To Augustine in 601 he sent the pallium, a mark of favour conferred by pope or emperor, not, it would seem, as conferring metropolitan authority, which Augustine had already exercised, but as recognising his position as a special representative of the Roman See. To the queen Berhta, whose somewhat tardy support of the Christian faith in her husband's land he was able now to eulogise and to report even to the Emperor at Constantinople, he wrote words of exhortation to support Augustine, and to Aethelberht her husband admonition and praise with his favourite eschatological reference. To the end Gregory remained the trusted adviser of the Apostle of the English. He sent special reinforcements, with all manner of things, says Bede, needed for public worship and the service of the Church, commending the new missionaries again to the Gaulish bishops and instructing them especially as to the conversion of heathen temples into Christian churches. And he gave a very careful reply, written with characteristic breadth and tact, to the questions which Augustine addressed to him when the difficulties of his work had begun to be felt. The authenticity of these answers, it is true, has been doubted, but the evidence, external as well as internal, appears to be sufficient.1 The questions related to the support of the mission clergy, the liturgical use of the national Church now formed in England, the co-operation necessary in the consecration of bishops, and to matters touching the moral law about which among a recently heathen nation a special sensitiveness was desirable. Gregory's answers were those of a monk, even of a precisian, but they were also eminently those of a man of affairs and a statesman. "Things," he said "are not to be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things," and the claim of Rome herself depended on such an assertion. As a monk he dealt firmly with morals: as a statesman he sketched out the future organisation of the English Church. London

them.

1 See Mason, Mission of St Augustine, pp. viii, ix. Ewald does not decide against

was to be one metropolitan see, York the other, each with the pallium and with twelve suffragan sees. Neither bishop was to be primate of all England by right, but the senior in consecration was to be the superior, according, it seems, to the custom of the Church in Africa of which he had experience, but restricted as his wisdom shewed to be desirable. It may be that Gregory had already heard of the position of the British Church : if so, he provided for its subjection to a metropolitan. Certainly he judged acutely according to the knowledge he possessed.

The beginnings of the English mission had brought the pope into closer observation than before with the kings and bishops of peoples but recently converted to the faith. In Austrasia, Neustria, and Burgundy reigned a race of kings whose wickedness was but slightly tempered by the Christianity they had accepted. In Spain there was more wisdom and more reality of faith.

From Britain we pass naturally to the country through which Gregory's envoys passed on their way to new spiritual conversion: from Gaul we may pass to Spain. So far did Gregory's interests extend: of his power it may not be possible to speak with so much certainty. In truth the Church in Europe was not yet a centralised body, and local independence was especially prominent among the Franks. Even in doctrine there are traces of divergence, though these were kept in check by a number of local councils which discussed and accepted the theological decisions which came to them from East and West. But the real power resided in the bishops, as administrators, rulers, shepherds of men's souls. Christianity at this period, and notably Frankish Christianity, has been described as a federation of city churches of which each one was a little monarchy in itself. If no one doubted the papal primacy, it was much further away than the arbitrary authority of the kings, and in nothing were the Merovingians more determined than in their control of the Church in their dominions. If in the south the bishop of Arles, as vicar of the Gauls, maintained close relations with the Roman see, the episcopate as a whole held aloof, respectful certainly but not obedient. The Church in Gaul had been engulfed in a barbarian conquest, cut off from Italy, severed from its ancient spiritual ties. The conversion of Clovis gave a new aspect to this separation. The kings assumed a powerful influence over the bishops, and asserted their supremacy in ecclesiastical matters. Whatever may have been the theory, in practice the interference of Rome in Gaul had become difficult, and was consequently infrequent: it had come to be considered unnecessary : the Church of the Franks had outgrown its leading-strings. But in practice? The special privileges of the see of Arles are evidence of a certain submission to the Papacy on the part of the Merovingian kings, though the monarchs were autocrats in matters of religion as well as in affairs of state, and did not encourage resort to the Holy See. It fell to Gregory, here as elsewhere, to inaugurate an era of defined authority.

595]

Gregory and Gaul

257

When he became pope the royal power of the Merovingians was at its height in a few years it would totter to its fall, but now the clergy were submissive and the bishops for the most part the creatures of the court. When he died the claims of Rome to supremacy were established, even if they were not fully admitted. With Gaul throughout his pontificate he maintained close relations. Gregory of Tours tells with what joy his namesake's election was received by the Franks, and from the first sets himself to tell his doings and sayings with an unusual minuteness. Within a year of his accession the new pope was called upon to judge the bishops of Arles and Marseilles, whom Jewish merchants accused to him of endeavouring forcibly to convert them: Gregory reproved and urged the bishops rather to preach and persuade than to coerce. Again, he reproved Vergilius of Arles and the bishop of Autun for allowing the marriage of a nun, commanding them to bring the woman to penitence, and exhorting them with all authority. He intervened in the affairs of monasteries, granting privileges and exemptions in a manner which shews the nature of the authority he claimed. By his advice the difficult questions raised by the insanity of a bishop in the province of Lyons were settled. He claimed to judge a Frankish bishop and restore him to his see, though here he felt it necessary to explain and justify his conduct to the masterful Brunhild. He is found reproving the iconoclastic tendencies of Serenus of Marseilles, and ordering him to replace the images which he has thrown down. He gave directions as to the holding of church councils, he advised bishops as to the administration of their dioceses and the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline. His correspondence with bishops and monks was constant, the requests to him to intervene in the affairs of the Gallican Church were frequent. Thus he prepared himself to inaugurate in Gaul a decisive and necessary reform.

Here he came into direct relations with the kings. In 595 Childebert of Austrasia applied to him for a recognition of the powers, as papal representative, of the bishop of Arles-evidence of the survival of the traditional idea of dependence on the Roman Church. In granting the request Gregory took occasion to develop his scheme of ecclesiastical discipline. Simony, interference with the election of bishops, the nomination of laymen to the episcopate, were crying evils: and the kings were responsible for them. He believed that the Frankish monarchy, the purity of whose faith shone by comparison with the dark treachery of other peoples, would rejoice to carry out his wishes; and in the notorious Brunhild he strangely found a deep religious sense and good dispositions which should bear fruit in the salvation of men: to her he repeated the desires which he had expressed to Childebert and urged her to see that they were carried out. He applied to her to put down crime, idolatry, paganism, to prevent the possession by Jews of Christian slaves-with what success we do not know. Unsuccessful certainly he was when he C. MED. H. VOL. II. CH. VIII. (B)

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Gregory and the Franks

[595-599 urged Theodoric and Theodobert to restore to the bishop of Turin the parishes which he had lost during the barbarian invasion and which the Frankish kings were by no means willing should be under the control of a foreign bishop. But with Brunhild he seems always to have held the most cordial relations: she asked his advice and assistance in matters of religion and politics, in regard to a question of marriage law and to the relation of the Franks with the Empire in the East. And throughout his pontificate the attitude of the kings was one of deep respect, that of the Pope that of father by counsel which easily wore the cloak of authority.

It was thus that early in his pontificate Gregory warned Childebert and Brunhild, as he warned Vergilius and the bishops of Childebert's realm, of the need of instant action against the gross simony which was eating away the spiritual life of the Church. Young men, evil livers, laymen snatched from the business or pleasures of the world, were hurriedly ordained or hurriedly promoted and thrust into the high places of the Church. In 599 he addressed the bishops of Arles, Autun, Lyons, and Vienne in vigorous protest, laying to their charge at least the acquiescence which made gross abuses possible. Ready though he was to submit to lawful exercise of the royal power in nomination, he utterly forbade the ordination of laymen in high office, as inexcusable and indefensible. The Church was to be strengthened against the world by total prohibition of marriage to the clergy and by the summoning of yearly councils for the confirmation of faith and morals. In the councils everything was to be condemned which was contrary to the canons; and two prelates should represent him and inform him of what was done. The abbot Cyriacus was sent on a special mission, with letters to bishops, to kings, and to the queen Brunhild, to bring discipline to the Gallican Church. But the murderous uncertainty of dynastic intrigues set every obstacle in the way of a reform which might make the bishops less the creatures of the kings. To Theodoric at one moment thanks were given for his submission to papal commands, and he was directed to summon a council. At another a special envoy was sent to indicate and insist on reform. At another letter after letter in vehement exhortation was addressed to Brunhild, apparently the real ruler of the distracted realm. Bishops were again and again reproved, exhorted, reproached. But it is difficult, perhaps through the scanty nature of the historical materials of the period, to discover cases of definite submission to the papal authority. It was asserted with all the moral fervour and all the sagacious prudence which belonged to the great man who sat in the papal chair. It was not repudiated by Frankish kings and bishops: rather the assertion was received with judicious politeness and respect.

But beyond this the evidence does not carry us. That the policy of the Frankish State was affected, or that the character of the kings, the ministers of the Crown, or even the bishops, was moulded by the influence

585-586]

Gregory and the Visigoths

259

of the Papacy it would be impossible to say. Tyrannous and fratricidal, the Merovingian kings lived their evil lives unchecked by more than a nominal regard for the teaching of Christian moralists. But Gregory's continual interest in the Frankish Church was not in vain. He had established a personal relation with the barbarous kings: he had created a papal vicar in the kingdom of the South: in granting the pallium to the bishop of Autun he had at least suggested a very special authority over the lands of the Gauls: he had claimed that the Roman Church was their mother to whom they applied in time of need. If the practical result was small; if the Frankish Church maintained a real independence of Rome, and Arles never became a papal vicariate; yet Frankish monks, priests, poets, as well as bishops and kings, began to look to Rome as patron and guide. Venantius Fortunatus, Columbanus, Gregory of Tours, in their different ways, shew how close was the relation of Gregory the Great to the religion of the Franks.

Brighter was the prospect when Gregory turned from the moral chaos of Gaul to the growing unity of Spain. The Visigothic race had produced a great warrior in Leovigild, whose power, as king of all the Goths, extended from Seville to Nîmes. He obtained for his son Hermenegild Ingundis the daughter of Brunhild (herself the child of Athanagild, Leovigild's predecessor as Visigothic king) and the Frankish king Sigebert. From Gregory's letters we learn a story of martyrdom as to which there is no reason to believe that he was deceived. Ingundis, beset by Arian teachers who had obtained influence over Leovigild, not naturally a persecutor, a tyrant, or a fanatic, remained firm in her faith, and when her husband was given rule at Seville she succeeded with the aid of his kinsman Leander, bishop of Seville and friend of Gregory, in converting him to the Catholic belief. War was the result. Leovigild attacked his son, says John of Biclar, for rebellion and tyranny. Hermenegild sought the aid of the Catholic Sueves and "the Greeks the imperial garrisons which had remained since the partial reconquest of Spain by Justinian. But Leovigild proved the victor: the Suevic kingdom was extinguished, and Hermenegild was thrown into prison. Ingundis escaped with the Greeks and died at Carthage on her way to Constantinople. "Hermenegild was killed at Tarragona by Sigisbert" is the simple statement of John of Biclar, Catholic bishop of Gerona. Gregory in his Dialogues tells the tale more fully. On Easter Eve 585 he was offered communion by an Arian bishop, and when he refused to receive it at his hands he was murdered by the order of his father. He was regarded as a martyr and 13 April was observed throughout all Spain. His blood proved the seed of the faith.

A year later his brother Recared became king and accepted Catholicism. "No wonder," says Gregory, "that he became a preacher of the true faith, for his brother was a martyr, by whose merits he is aided in bringing back many souls to the bosom of God." Nor could this have happened had