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serving six years, he returned to his monastery in Rome where he became abbot.
At that time the city was in a state of decay: aqueducts were unrepaired, city walls were falling down,- public buildings were not maintained. To make matters worse, the city was experiencing floods, food shortages, and plague. The Lombards were threatening to destroy the ancient capital Little help could be expected from the East. Pope Pelagius, with the aid of the monks, worked tirelessly to feed the hungry, care for the sick, and bury the dead After Pelagius became ill and died, Gregory was elected pope
Gregory-. The Politician and Reformer. Though Gregory initially resisted taking office, he finally turned his talents and energy to performing its duties. He took Augustine's City of God seriously. He set out to show that the church was the successor to ancient Rome's political power and dedicated himself to repairing the city, providing a food supply, and dealing with the plague Through Gregory's efforts, the control of the Lombards was broken. He became the real ruler of much of Italy. The lands possessed by the pope in Italy came to be known as the Patrimony of Saint Peter They became an important source of papal revenue and often had to be defended. With the reign of Gregory, the pope became the most powerful force in Italy.
Gregory saw himself mainly as a religious leader. He preached often, calling people to renew their commitment to the faith. He promoted clerical celibacy, which was slowly becoming the norm in Italy. He did not claim for himself the papal primacy of Leo but did see himself as the patriarch of the West. He took steps to tighten his control over other bishops in Europe through a new administrative process. In this role, he also wrote letters to the bishops in Africa dealing with the Donatist schism and tried to defend church interests against Frankish rulers. He was not very successful in either of these efforts, however.
Gregory was successful in expanding Christianity through missionaries. Monks were his chief instruments, and their contributions are discussed later. Monks also were useful in expanding the pope's influence Gregory granted them a degree of freedom from the control of local church authorities. This freedom was later expanded so that monks and others in religious orders (monks, nuns, and friars who live in religious communities) were responsible only to the pope. These orders have been a source of tremendous power for the pope.
Gregory: The Theologian. It was not for any of these achievements that Gregory is called the Great in Christian history. He was also a theologian who wrote extensively Gregory was not a particularly original theologian. He drew on the writings of Saint Augustine and applied them to his times.
Augustine was a lively, creative thinker who engaged in much speculation. Gregory turned many of Augustine's speculations into unquestionable doctrines. For example, Augustine had speculated that there might exist a place where the dead could stay for a while to cleanse them from sin before they were ready to go to heaven. Gregory believed the Mass (the ceremony in which the Eucharist is performed) repeated the sacrifice of Christ. It benefited the living and the dead. These ideas were turned into a firm doctrine of purgatory (a place where the dead await to be cleansed of their sins). Gregory recommended the saying of the Mass and other acts for the dead in order to release them sooner from purgatory.
He also taught that original sin was washed away by baptism. Later sins could be forgiven by meritorious (good) works if these were accompanied by penance (confession, repentance, and doing penalties given by a priest).
He also followed earlier Christian traditions and advocated the effective power (almost magic) of religious relics (such as the heelbone of Saint Peter or a piece of the cross) to heal or accomplish tasks for someone who owned them. Likewise, he was quite willing to accept legends and stories no matter how strange or questionable they were as long as they promoted the Christian faith. As a result, misguided information, superstition, and supposed miracles were accepted uncritically into the faith. In most of these tendencies Gregory was just following the popular religious traditions of his time. Nevertheless, his support contributed to trends that would come to characterize the mind of the Middle Ages. Such traditions as purgatory, penance, masses for the dead, and relics would be strongly challenged in the Reformation.
Gregory: Life and Worship in the Middle Ages. Gregory wrote his Pastoral Rule , which would set the standard of behavior for bishops throughout the Middle Ages. The rule also affected secular leaders. Gregory held that either a bishop or a king could rule only if his actions conformed to the conduct demanded by Christ, which became an accepted idea in the Middle Ages. Popes would later use the rule as a tool to subdue their opponents in that the pope claimed the right to determine what conformed to Christ's expectations. Some historians argue that the Pastoral Rule was one of the foundations of medieval society.
Gregory's various writings on Scripture promote the allegorical method as the standard for interpreting Scripture in the Middle Ages. The allegorical method interprets the stories and teachings of the Bible as though they have hidden, symbolic meanings. As a result, interpreters and theologians stayed away from simple, straightforward meanings of the Scripture Even the simplest biblical story was thought to have deep moral and
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spiritual meaning. Some interpretations of biblical passages departed radically from the simplest, most straightforward meanings of the Scripture
Gregory was also involved with work on the liturgy He was credited traditionally with arranging the Gregorian chant, which was so important to church music in the Middle Ages, and the Gregorian sacramentary, an early form of the Latin liturgy that became standard in the Frankish kingdom Modern scholars debate exactly what were his contributions in these areas Gregory the Great's achievements were so widespread that he was considered one of the four Latin doctors of the church. 8 The word doctor means teacher Gregory is one of the great teachers of the church
After the death of Gregory, the papacy began an even closer alliance with the Franks. The Lombards were still a threat in Italy. The Byzantines were unwilling and unable to assist the Romans in their defense. Pope Zacharias (741-752) sought Frankish help to repel the Lombards. In turn, he supported the crowning of Pepin, who had taken the place of the ruling Merovingian king This alliance was further strengthened when Pope Leo III (795-816) crowned Charlemagne as emperor in 800. Interestingly, this act seemed to indicate that the pope had the right to "make" an emperor. Although it increased the prestige of the pope in the rest of Europe, it did very little for him at home Most of the popes during the Carolingian dynasty were weak and ineffective. They were constantly engaged in the petty fights of Italian politics.
One exception was Nicholas I (858-867). Under him the papacy enjoyed a period of independence and supremacy. His claims to primacy were supported by the famous Pseudo-Isodorian, or False Decretals. These were a collection of writings including letters from early popes, rulings from councils, and the "Donation of Constantine " They established the pope as the successor to Peter, asserted the superiority of the church to the state, and held that priests were free from control by secular rulers. According to the Decretals , only God could remove a pope
Although these documents were forgeries, they were still widely accepted for centuries. Certainly Nicholas believed them and came close to presenting a doctrine of papal infallibility (nothing the pope does is wrong) His authority was increased by victories in controversies over secular authorities, the Byzantine emperor and the patriarch of Constantinople, and a German arch-
i
bishop. In all of these controversies, the pope appeared to be the upholder of morality and the defender of right
When Carolingian power collapsed, the papacy also experienced a decline. John VIII (872-882) was poisoned by a group of powerful Italian nobles When the poison worked too slowly, the group broke into the pope's bedroom and bashed his head with a hammer Another low moment occurred
in 897, when Pope Steven VII (896—897) presided over the "Cadaveric Council." He had Formosus, one of his predecessors, dug up from his grave The corpse was dressed in his papal robes, paraded about the city, and tried before a council for numerous crimes. After being found "guilty," the body was mutilated and thrown in the Tiber river.
The tenth century proved even worse. Political and religious intrigue reigned Pope followed pope. At times there were two or even three popes supported by various families or political groups each claiming to be the successor to Saint Peter. One pope was the illegitimate son of an earlier pope and a wealthy married woman from an important Italian family. Another pope was said to have used the papal place as a brothel. Popes were strangled, died of starvation in prison, and murdered their rivals. At the close of the century, the papacy, like the rest of the church, was badly in need of reform.
The history of the expansion of Christianity in western Europe during the early Middle Ages is one of the faith's brighter points. At times the faith was spread by force and used for political purposes. For instance, Charlemagne forced thousands of Frisians, a Germanic tribe from northern Holland, and Saxons to be baptized as an act of submission to him when he conquered them Those who would not be baptized were killed This forced baptism was used partly as a method of political control. As long as the Frisians and Saxons held to their pagan religion, they fought in the name of the pagan gods against Charlemagne. Once they were baptized, they seemed to have believed that their gods had forsaken them. They had no god to turn to but the emperor's Christian God
Early Expansion on the Continent. On the whole, Christianity was spread with great courage by persons of deep conviction. Much of the spread of Western Christianity is owed to countless, unknown Christians as it was with Eastern Christianity. By the time of the barbarian invasions, the Nicene faith had spread to those parts of Europe controlled by the old Roman Empire The barbarian invaders were largely Arian, though some were still pagan.
These barbarians admired the older culture they had replaced They tended to want to adopt Roman ways rather than to destroy them To its advantage, Nicene Christianity was associated with the older culture of Rome. This association led to the conversion of some barbarian groups For instance, the Visigoths who took Spain around 415 were Arian Almost two centuries later their king Recared (586-601) came to believe that the only way to successfully rule the realm was to convert to Nicene Christianity He and many of his nobles converted at a great assembly in Toledo in 589 Arianism soon disappeared Catholic Christianity was deeply involved with running the king-
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