Election 590

In the early months of 590 plague swept Rome and carried off Pope Pelagius II. The clergy, senate, and people of the stricken city chose Gregory — abbot of St. Andrew’s, former urban prefect, former envoy to Constantinople — unanimously and against his will. By a tradition Gregory’s biographers preserve, he tried to refuse the burden: he wrote to the Emperor Maurice begging that the election not be confirmed, and a later legend has him fleeing Rome and being betrayed by a pillar of light. While he waited, plague still raging, he summoned the city to a great penitential procession imploring God’s mercy. The imperial confirmation came, and Gregory was consecrated bishop of Rome on 3 September 590.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism; Pope of Rome; Great Hierarch)

Plague and the Death of Pelagius

Plague — the recurring visitation of the great sixth-century pandemic (see Rome After the Gothic Wars) — returned to Rome at the start of 590 and struck with terrible force. Among its victims was Pope Pelagius II, who died in early 590, leaving the Roman see vacant in the midst of a dying city under Lombard threat. The need for a new bishop was urgent, and there was no real doubt where Rome would turn (Markus 1997, 16–17; Richards 1980, 44–50; Moorhead 2005, 18–21).

The contemporary Frankish historian Gregory of Tours, writing only a few years later, gives the earliest account of what followed, including the deacon Agiulf’s report of the procession; the ninth-century Life by John the Deacon supplies fuller detail (Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks 10.1; John the Deacon, Vita Gregorii 1; Markus 1997, 16–17). By their testimony the choice of Gregory was unanimous: the clergy, the Roman senate, and the people together acclaimed the abbot of St. Andrew’s — a man who had governed the city as prefect, represented it at Constantinople, and was known for his learning and holiness — as the one fit to lead them.

Gregory’s Reluctance

Gregory did not want the office, and his reluctance is no mere convention of hagiography: it is written into his own works. He regarded the contemplative life of the monastery as the higher calling and the burden of pastoral rule as a fearful and dangerous thing, and he had only recently regained the cloister after his years abroad. According to the tradition, on being chosen he wrote to the Emperor Maurice (r. 582–602) — whose confirmation was required for a papal election in the Byzantine system — asking him not to confirm the choice and to release him from the burden; the request was either intercepted or denied (John the Deacon, Vita Gregorii 1.39–40; Markus 1997, 16–17; Richards 1980, 44–50).

A more dramatic legend, current by John the Deacon’s time, holds that Gregory fled Rome and hid in the forests to escape consecration, and that his hiding-place was miraculously revealed by a pillar or column of light shining down from heaven, so that he was found and brought back (John the Deacon, Vita Gregorii 1.40–44) [Disputed: the flight-and-pillar-of-light story is a later hagiographical elaboration, not found in the earliest sources and clearly modelled on the topos of the saint fleeing high office; per METHODOLOGY §3.5 it is reported as the legend John the Deacon transmits, not as established fact. Gregory's genuine and documented reluctance — attested in his own writings and his appeal to the emperor — should be distinguished from this later embellishment (Markus 1997, 16–17; Richards 1980, 47–48)]. Whatever the truth of the flight, the reluctance itself is unquestionable: Gregory turned it into the controlling theme of the Pastoral Rule, the book he wrote at the very outset of his pontificate to set out, fearfully, what the office he had been forced to accept required (see The Regula Pastoralis).

The Penitential Procession

While the confirmation was awaited and the plague still raged, Gregory — already acting as the city’s leader though not yet consecrated — summoned the people of Rome to a great act of public penance. He organized a sevenfold litany or procession (the litania septiformis), the clergy and people processing through the streets in seven groups from different churches, converging while chanting Kyrie eleison and imploring God to lift the pestilence. The procession is recorded by Gregory of Tours on the report of the deacon Agiulf, who was in Rome at the time (Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks 10.1; Markus 1997, 16–17; Richards 1980, 48–50). Later tradition attached to this procession the legend of the Archangel Michael appearing atop Hadrian’s Mausoleum — sheathing his sword to signal the end of the plague, whence the building took the name Castel Sant’Angelo [Disputed: the vision of St. Michael sheathing his sword over Hadrian's Mausoleum and the renaming of the building is a medieval legend attached to the 590 procession, not in the earliest accounts; reported here per METHODOLOGY §3.5 as the cult-tradition it is, not as historical event (Richards 1980, 49)]. The historical core — that the new leader’s first public act was to call the dying city to corporate repentance and prayer — is itself characteristic of the man.

Consecration

The imperial confirmation arrived, and Gregory was consecrated bishop of Rome on 3 September 590, the date from which his pontificate is reckoned (Markus 1997, 17; Richards 1980, 50). He was about fifty years old. He would hold the office for fourteen years, until his death on 12 March 604 (see Relics, Feast, and Cult). The monk who had begged to be left in his cloister had become pope of a ruined city in a plague year, and he set about the work with the energy of a man who had despaired of escaping it: he would feed Rome, reform its clergy, send the gospel to the English, write the books that shaped the medieval West, and govern the Western Church for a generation. The reluctance never left him — he signed himself “servant of the servants of God” (see Servus Servorum Dei) — but neither did the labour.

See Also

References

  • Gregory of Tours. History of the Franks (Decem Libri Historiarum) 10.1. Trans. Lewis Thorpe, Penguin Classics. (The earliest account: the death of Pelagius, Gregory’s election, the litania septiformis, on the report of the deacon Agiulf.)
  • John the Deacon. Vita Gregorii Magni 1.39–44. (Ninth-century life: the appeal to Maurice, the flight, and the pillar of light.)
  • Markus, R. A. Gregory the Great and His World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997, 16–17. (The election and its sources.)
  • Richards, Jeffrey. Consul of God: The Life and Times of Gregory the Great. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980, 44–50. (The accession, the procession, and the legends.)
  • Moorhead, John. Gregory the Great. The Early Church Fathers. London: Routledge, 2005, 18–21.