time being regularly marked. (Giesebrecht, pp. 32–34. Monod, in his 4th chap., investigates the comparative value in different parts of the work of the documentary and oral sources of the History.)
Gregory apologizes more than once for the rudeness of his style. But rough though this might be, he was far from lacking learning or culture such as his age could afford. Though ignorant of Greek, he had a fair acquaintance with Latin authors, quoting or referring to Livy, Pliny, Cicero, Aulus Gellius, etc. (Monod, 112). He does not attempt to make his History a consistent and well-balanced whole, nor to subordinate local to general interests. The fullness of his recital of particular events depends not upon intrinsic importance but upon the amount of information he has at command. So too he follows the dramatic method, putting speeches into the mouths of individuals which are the composition of the author. Even where he depends upon written authorities he is, in detail, untrustworthy. Where he can be compared with writers now extant, as in the first two books of the History, his inaccuracy is seen to be considerable. He transcribes carelessly, and often cites from memory, giving the substance of that which he has read, and that not correctly (see instances ap. Monod, pp. 80 sqq.). Little confidence can be placed in his narrative of events outside of Gaul, and the less the farther the scene of action is removed from Gaul. His sincerity and impartiality have been attacked on various grounds: that he unduly favours the church, or that he traduces the church in his accounts of the wickedness of the bishops of the time, or that he traduces the character of the Franks (Kries, de Gregorii Turonensis episcopi vita et scriptis, Breslau, 1859), whether from motives of race-jealousy or any other. Gregory looks upon history as a struggle of the church against unbelief in heathen and heretics and worldly-mindedness in professing Christians. Hence he begins his History with a confession of the orthodox faith. The epithet ecclesiastica applied to the History from Ruinart's time is a misnomer in the modern sense, for Gregory specially defends his method of mixing things secular and religious. With a man so passionate and impressionable as Gregory, the fact of his being a priest and the bishop of the see of St. Martin, the ecclesiastical and religious centre of Gaul, does influence his feelings and actions towards individuals. But ecclesiastical prejudices did not prevent him recording events as related to him. He shews no rancour in treating of the Frankish conquerors, such as would be natural in the victim of an oppressed nationality. After the first days of the conquest there was no political subjection of Roman to Teuton as such; Romans were not excluded from offices and dignities because of their birth (pp. 101–118).
Gregory's work remains, despite all, as the great and in many respects the only authority for the history of the 6th cent., and his fresh and simple, though not unbiassed, narrative is of the greatest value. He tells us exactly what the Franks were like, and what life in Gaul was like; and he gives us the evidence upon which his judgment is founded.
[T.R.B.]
Gregorius (51) I. (The Great), bp. of Rome from Sept. 3, 590, to Mar. 12, 604; born at Rome probably c. 540, of a wealthy senatorial family. The family was a religious one; his mother Silvia, and Tarsilla and Aemiliana, the two sisters of his father Gordianus, have been canonized. Under such influences his education is spoken of by his biographer, John the deacon, as having been that of a saint among saints. Gregory of Tours, his contemporary, says that in grammar, rhetoric, and logic he was accounted second to none in Rome (Hist. x. 1). He studied law, distinguished himself in the senate, and at an early age (certainly before 573) was recommended by the emperor Justin II. for the post of praetor urbis. After a public career of credit, his deep religious ideas suggested a higher vocation; and on his father's death he kept but a small share of the great wealth that came to him, employing the rest in charitable uses, and especially in founding monasteries, of which he endowed six in Sicily, and one, dedicated to St. Andrew, on the site of his own house near the church of SS. John and Paul at Rome. Here he himself became a monk. The date of his first retirement from the world, and its duration, are uncertain, as are also the exact dates of subsequent events previous to his accession to his see; but the most probable order of events is here followed. During his seclusion his asceticism is said to have been such as to endanger his life had he not been prevailed on by friends to abate its rigour; and it may have partly laid the foundation of his bad health in later life. Gregory Turonensis speaks of his stomach at this time being so enfeebled by fast and vigil that he could hardly stand. Benedict I., having ordained him one of the seven deacons (regionarii) of Rome, sent him as his apocrisiarius to Constantinople, and he was similarly employed in 579 by Benedict's successor Pelagius II. After this Gregory resided three years in Constantinople, where two noteworthy events occurred: his controversy with Eutychius, the patriarch, about the nature of the resurrection body; and the commencement of his famous work Magna Moralia. Recalled by Pelagius to Rome, he was allowed to return to his monastery, but was still employed as the pope's secretary. During his renewed monastic life and in his capacity of abbat he was distinguished for the strictness of his own life and the rigour of his discipline. One story which he tells leaves an impression of zeal carried to almost inhuman harshness. A monk, Julius, who had been a physician and had attended Gregory himself, night and day, during a long illness, being himself dangerously ill, confided to a brother that, in violation of monastic rule, he had three pieces of gold concealed in his cell. This confession was overheard, the cell searched, and the pieces found. Gregory forbade all to approach the offender, even in the agonies of death, and after death caused his body to be thrown on a dunghill with the pieces of gold, the monks crying aloud, "Thy money perish with thee" (Greg Dial. iv. 55).
On Feb. 8, 590, Pelagius II. died, Rome being then in great straits. The Lombards were ravaging the country and threatening the city, aid being craved in vain from the
