Gregory I (the Great)
Gregory I was a Roman prefect who became a monk, was made pope against his will, and effectively governed Italy for fourteen years. He was born about 540 into a senatorial family, became prefect of the city in his early thirties, and then sold his estates, founded seven monasteries in Sicily and turned the family house on the Caelian into another, and entered it himself. He was serving as papal envoy in Constantinople when he was elected in 590, during a plague that had killed his predecessor. The Italy he inherited had been wrecked by Justinian's reconquest and then by the Lombard invasion, the imperial administration in Ravenna was ineffective and unpaid, and Rome was a half-empty ruin fed by the church's estates. He ran those estates as a government: grain distribution, ransoming captives, paying troops, and finally negotiating directly with the Lombards for a truce, which the emperor regarded as an usurpation and could do nothing about. He also sent Augustine and forty monks to Kent in 596, which is the beginning of the English church, and gave instructions of unusual pragmatism — that pagan temples should be reused rather than destroyed and festivals redirected rather than abolished. He wrote the Pastoral Rule on how bishops should behave, the Dialogues, and some 850 surviving letters, and he called himself the servant of the servants of God, which every pope since has used. The chant is named after him on doubtful evidence. He died in 604. The story that sent Augustine to England is the one everybody knows and is told by Bede. He saw fair-haired boys for sale in the Roman slave market, asked where they came from, was told they were Angles, and answered that they were not Angles but angels.
- Lived: 540 CE – 604 CE
- Nationality: Italian
- Roles: religious_leader, leader
