GREGORY THE GREAT 155 and industrious bishop to look after the political and social as well as religious welfare of his flock. For ex- His admin- ample, the bishop would take charge of the aque- [hTdt^of ducts which supplied the city with water. Sim- Rome ilarly, Gregory, after he became pope, tried to feed the hungry populace, to relieve the sufferings of the city poor
- and of the war refugees, to ransom Christian captives, and
to allay the ravages of the plague by leading religious pro- - cessions. The exarch at Ravenna found it difficult because -of the Lombards to exercise any close control over the west -coast of the peninsula, and the pope's political influence in- tcreased in consequence. Gregory also acted as the landlord of large private estates which the Roman Church already owned in Italy, Sicily,
- Sardinia, Corsica, and even in Gaul, Africa, and The papal
Illyricum. He was an excellent business man, P atnm ony with as great a genius for small details as Justinian, and he watched very carefully over this private patrimony of the popes, writing frequently to his agents in distant provinces and demanding full reports and strict accounts from them. While he insisted upon the proprietary rights of the Church, he wished to be just to every one, to have none of the cor- ruption and oppression that we have seen disgraced im- perial taxation, and to be merciful and charitable to the poor and unfortunate. Gregory had serfs, if not slaves, upon his estates, like all the great landlords of this period. Gregory wrote letters not only to his real-estate agents and to the overseers of his serfs and tenants, but also to numerous imperial officials great and small Hiswider throughout the West, and to the emperor him- political self concerning these same men. He watched and advised them even in their political actions, and constituted himself a kind of imperial minister of the West. They took his advice, too, because it usually was sound counsel. When the exarch did little or nothing for central and southern Italy, Gregory stepped in and performed his duties for him. The Lombards had been in Italy for over twenty years
