Gibbon's The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
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Chapter XLV: State Of Italy Under The Lombards.
Part III.
So rapid was the influence of climate and example, that the
Lombards of the fourth generation surveyed with curiosity and
affright the portraits of their savage forefathers. ^49 Their
heads were shaven behind, but the shaggy locks hung over their
eyes and mouth, and a long beard represented the name and
character of the nation. Their dress consisted of loose linen
garments, after the fashion of the Anglo-Saxons, which were
decorated, in their opinion, with broad stripes or variegated
colors. The legs and feet were clothed in long hose, and open
sandals; and even in the security of peace a trusty sword was
constantly girt to their side. Yet this strange apparel, and
horrid aspect, often concealed a gentle and generous disposition;
and as soon as the rage of battle had subsided, the captives and
subjects were sometimes surprised by the humanity of the victor.
The vices of the Lombards were the effect of passion, of
ignorance, of intoxication; their virtues are the more laudable,
as they were not affected by the hypocrisy of social manners, nor
imposed by the rigid constraint of laws and education. I should
not be apprehensive of deviating from my subject, if it were in
my power to delineate the private life of the conquerors of
Italy; and I shall relate with pleasure the adventurous gallantry
of Autharis, which breathes the true spirit of chivalry and
romance. ^50 After the loss of his promised bride, a Merovingian
princess, he sought in marriage the daughter of the king of
Bavaria; and Garribald accepted the alliance of the Italian
monarch. Impatient of the slow progress of negotiation, the
ardent lover escaped from his palace, and visited the court of
Bavaria in the train of his own embassy. At the public audience,
the unknown stranger advanced to the throne, and informed
Garribald that the ambassador was indeed the minister of state,
but that he alone was the friend of Autharis, who had trusted him
with the delicate commission of making a faithful report of the
charms of his spouse. Theudelinda was summoned to undergo this
important examination; and, after a pause of silent rapture, he
hailed her as the queen of Italy, and humbly requested that,
according to the custom of the nation, she would present a cup of
wine to the first of her new subjects. By the command of her
father she obeyed: Autharis received the cup in his turn, and, in
restoring it to the princess, he secretly touched her hand, and
drew his own finger over his face and lips. In the evening,
Theudelinda imparted to her nurse the indiscreet familiarity of
the stranger, and was comforted by the assurance, that such
boldness could proceed only from the king her husband, who, by
his beauty and courage, appeared worthy of her love. The
ambassadors were dismissed: no sooner did they reach the confines
of Italy than Autharis, raising himself on his horse, darted his
battle-axe against a tree with incomparable strength and
dexterity. "Such," said he to the astonished Bavarians, "such
are the strokes of the king of the Lombards." On the approach of
a French army, Garribald and his daughter took refuge in the
dominions of their ally; and the marriage was consummated in the
palace of Verona. At the end of one year, it was dissolved by
the death of Autharis: but the virtues of Theudelinda ^51 had
endeared her to the nation, and she was permitted to bestow, with
her hand, the sceptre of the Italian kingdom.
[Footnote 49: The epitaph of Droctulf (Paul, l. iii. c. 19) may
be applied to many of his countrymen: -
Terribilis visu facies, sed corda benignus Longaque robusto
pectore barba fuit.
The portraits of the old Lombards might still be seen in the
palace of Monza, twelve miles from Milan, which had been founded
or restored by Queen Theudelinda, (l. iv. 22, 23.) See Muratori,
tom. i. disserta, xxiii. p. 300.]
[Footnote 50: The story of Autharis and Theudelinda is related by
Paul, l. iii. 29, 34; and any fragment of Bavarian antiquity
excites the indefatigable diligence of the count de Buat, Hist.
des Peuples de l'Europe, ton. xi. p. 595 - 635, tom. xii. p. 1 -
[Footnote 51: Giannone (Istoria Civile de Napoli, tom. i. p. 263)
has justly censured the impertinence of Boccaccio, (Gio. iii.
Novel. 2,) who, without right, or truth, or pretence, has given
the pious queen Theudelinda to the arms of a muleteer.]
From this fact, as well as from similar events, ^52 it is
certain that the Lombards possessed freedom to elect their
sovereign, and sense to decline the frequent use of that
dangerous privilege. The public revenue arose from the produce
of land and the profits of justice. When the independent dukes
agreed that Autharis should ascend the throne of his father, they
endowed the regal office with a fair moiety of their respective
domains. The proudest nobles aspired to the honors of servitude
near the person of their prince: he rewarded the fidelity of his
vassals by the precarious gift of pensions and benefices; and
atoned for the injuries of war by the rich foundation of
monasteries and churches. In peace a judge, a leader in war, he
never usurped the powers of a sole and absolute legislator. The
king of Italy convened the national assemblies in the palace, or
more probably in the fields, of Pavia: his great council was
composed of the persons most eminent by their birth and
dignities; but the validity, as well as the execution, of their
decrees depended on the approbation of the faithful people, the
fortunate army of the Lombards. About fourscore years after the
conquest of Italy, their traditional customs were transcribed in
Teutonic Latin, ^53 and ratified by the consent of the prince and
people: some new regulations were introduced, more suitable to
their present condition; the example of Rotharis was imitated by
the wisest of his successors; and the laws of the Lombards have
been esteemed the least imperfect of the Barbaric codes. ^54
Secure by their courage in the possession of liberty, these rude
and hasty legislators were incapable of balancing the powers of
the constitution, or of discussing the nice theory of political
government. Such crimes as threatened the life of the sovereign,
or the safety of the state, were adjudged worthy of death; but
their attention was principally confined to the defence of the
person and property of the subject. According to the strange
jurisprudence of the times, the guilt of blood might be redeemed
by a fine; yet the high price of nine hundred pieces of gold
declares a just sense of the value of a simple citizen. Less
atrocious injuries, a wound, a fracture, a blow, an opprobrious
word, were measured with scrupulous and almost ridiculous
diligence; and the prudence of the legislator encouraged the
ignoble practice of bartering honor and revenge for a pecuniary
compensation. The ignorance of the Lombards in the state of
Paganism or Christianity gave implicit credit to the malice and
mischief of witchcraft, but the judges of the seventeenth century
might have been instructed and confounded by the wisdom of
Rotharis, who derides the absurd superstition, and protects the
wretched victims of popular or judicial cruelty. ^55 The same
spirit of a legislator, superior to his age and country, may be
ascribed to Luitprand, who condemns, while he tolerates, the
impious and inveterate abuse of duels, ^56 observing, from his
own experience, that the juster cause had often been oppressed by
successful violence. Whatever merit may be discovered in the
laws of the Lombards, they are the genuine fruit of the reason of
the Barbarians, who never admitted the bishops of Italy to a seat
in their legislative councils. But the succession of their kings
is marked with virtue and ability; the troubled series of their
annals is adorned with fair intervals of peace, order, and
domestic happiness; and the Italians enjoyed a milder and more
equitable government, than any of the other kingdoms which had
been founded on the ruins of the Western empire. ^57
[Footnote 52: Paul, l. iii. c. 16. The first dissertations of
Muratori, and the first volume of Giannone's history, may be
consulted for the state of the kingdom of Italy.]
[Footnote 53: The most accurate edition of the Laws of the
Lombards is to be found in the Scriptores Rerum Italicarum, tom.
-
part ii. p. 1 - 181, collated from the most ancient Mss. and
illustrated by the critical notes of Muratori.]
[Footnote 54: Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, l. xxviii. c. 1. Les
loix des Bourguignons sont assez judicieuses; celles de Rotharis
et des autres princes Lombards le sont encore plus.]
[Footnote 55: See Leges Rotharis, No. 379, p. 47. Striga is used
as the name of a witch. It is of the purest classic origin,
(Horat. epod. v. 20. Petron. c. 134;) and from the words of
Petronius, (quae striges comederunt nervos tuos?) it may be
inferred that the prejudice was of Italian rather than Barbaric
extraction.]
[Footnote 56: Quia incerti sumus de judicio Dei, et multos
audivimus per pugnam sine justa causa suam causam perdere. Sed
propter consuetudinom gentem nostram Langobardorum legem impiam
vetare non possumus. See p. 74, No. 65, of the Laws of
Luitprand, promulgated A.D. 724.]
[Footnote 57: Read the history of Paul Warnefrid; particularly l.
-
c. 16. Baronius rejects the praise, which appears to
contradict the invectives of Pope Gregory the Great; but Muratori
(Annali d' Italia, tom. v. p. 217) presumes to insinuate that the
saint may have magnified the faults of Arians and enemies.]
Amidst the arms of the Lombards, and under the despotism of
the Greeks, we again inquire into the fate of Rome, ^58 which had
reached, about the close of the sixth century, the lowest period
of her depression. By the removal of the seat of empire, and the
successive loss of the provinces, the sources of public and
private opulence were exhausted: the lofty tree, under whose
shade the nations of the earth had reposed, was deprived of its
leaves and branches, and the sapless trunk was left to wither on
the ground. The ministers of command, and the messengers of
victory, no longer met on the Appian or Flaminian way; and the
hostile approach of the Lombards was often felt, and continually
feared. The inhabitants of a potent and peaceful capital, who
visit without an anxious thought the garden of the adjacent
country, will faintly picture in their fancy the distress of the
Romans: they shut or opened their gates with a trembling hand,
beheld from the walls the flames of their houses, and heard the
lamentations of their brethren, who were coupled together like
dogs, and dragged away into distant slavery beyond the sea and
the mountains. Such incessant alarms must annihilate the
pleasures and interrupt the labors of a rural life; and the
Campagna of Rome was speedily reduced to the state of a dreary
wilderness, in which the land is barren, the waters are impure,
and the air is infectious. Curiosity and ambition no longer
attracted the nations to the capital of the world: but, if chance
or necessity directed the steps of a wandering stranger, he
contemplated with horror the vacancy and solitude of the city,
and might be tempted to ask, Where is the senate, and where are
the people? In a season of excessive rains, the Tyber swelled
above its banks, and rushed with irresistible violence into the
valleys of the seven hills. A pestilential disease arose from
the stagnation of the deluge, and so rapid was the contagion,
that fourscore persons expired in an hour in the midst of a
solemn procession, which implored the mercy of Heaven. ^59 A
society in which marriage is encouraged and industry prevails
soon repairs the accidental losses of pestilence and war: but, as
the far greater part of the Romans was condemned to hopeless
indigence and celibacy, the depopulation was constant and
visible, and the gloomy enthusiasts might expect the approaching
failure of the human race. ^60 Yet the number of citizens still
exceeded the measure of subsistence: their precarious food was
supplied from the harvests of Sicily or Egypt; and the frequent
repetition of famine betrays the inattention of the emperor to a
distant province. The edifices of Rome were exposed to the same
ruin and decay: the mouldering fabrics were easily overthrown by
inundations, tempests, and earthquakes: and the monks, who had
occupied the most advantageous stations, exulted in their base
triumph over the ruins of antiquity. ^61 It is commonly believed,
that Pope Gregory the First attacked the temples and mutilated
the statues of the city; that, by the command of the Barbarian,
the Palatine library was reduced to ashes, and that the history
of Livy was the peculiar mark of his absurd and mischievous
fanaticism. The writings of Gregory himself reveal his
implacable aversion to the monuments of classic genius; and he
points his severest censure against the profane learning of a
bishop, who taught the art of grammar, studied the Latin poets,
and pronounced with the same voice the praises of Jupiter and
those of Christ. But the evidence of his destructive rage is
doubtful and recent: the Temple of Peace, or the theatre of
Marcellus, have been demolished by the slow operation of ages,
and a formal proscription would have multiplied the copies of
Virgil and Livy in the countries which were not subject to the
ecclesiastical dictator. ^62
[Footnote 58: The passages of the homilies of Gregory, which
represent the miserable state of the city and country, are
transcribed in the Annals of Baronius, A.D. 590, No. 16, A.D.
595, No. 2, &c., &c.]
[Footnote 59: The inundation and plague were reported by a
deacon, whom his bishop, Gregory of Tours, had despatched to Rome
for some relics The ingenious messenger embellished his tale and
the river with a great dragon and a train of little serpents,
(Greg. Turon. l. x. c. 1.)]
[Footnote 60: Gregory of Rome (Dialog. l. ii. c. 15) relates a
memorable prediction of St. Benedict. Roma a Gentilibus non
exterminabitur sed tempestatibus, coruscis turbinibus ac terrae
motu in semetipsa marces cet. Such a prophecy melts into true
history, and becomes the evidence of the fact after which it was
invented.]
[Footnote 61: Quia in uno se ore cum Jovis laudibus, Christi
laudes non capiunt, et quam grave nefandumque sit episcopis
canere quod nec laico religioso conveniat, ipse considera, (l.
-
ep. 4.) The writings of Gregory himself attest his innocence
of any classic taste or literature]
[Footnote 62: Bayle, (Dictionnaire Critique, tom. ii. 598, 569,)
in a very good article of Gregoire I., has quoted, for the
buildings and statues, Platina in Gregorio I.; for the Palatine
library, John of Salisbury, (de Nugis Curialium, l. ii. c. 26;)
and for Livy, Antoninus of Florence: the oldest of the three
lived in the xiith century.]
Like Thebes, or Babylon, or Carthage, the names of Rome
might have been erased from the earth, if the city had not been
animated by a vital principle, which again restored her to honor
and dominion. A vague tradition was embraced, that two Jewish
teachers, a tent-maker and a fisherman, had formerly been
executed in the circus of Nero, and at the end of five hundred
years, their genuine or fictitious relics were adored as the
Palladium of Christian Rome. The pilgrims of the East and West
resorted to the holy threshold; but the shrines of the apostles
were guarded by miracles and invisible terrors; and it was not
without fear that the pious Catholic approached the object of his
worship. It was fatal to touch, it was dangerous to behold, the
bodies of the saints; and those who, from the purest motives,
presumed to disturb the repose of the sanctuary, were affrighted
by visions, or punished with sudden death. The unreasonable
request of an empress, who wished to deprive the Romans of their
sacred treasure, the head of St. Paul, was rejected with the
deepest abhorrence; and the pope asserted, most probably with
truth, that a linen which had been sanctified in the neighborhood
of his body, or the filings of his chain, which it was sometimes
easy and sometimes impossible to obtain, possessed an equal
degree of miraculous virtue. ^63 But the power as well as virtue
of the apostles resided with living energy in the breast of their
successors; and the chair of St. Peter was filled under the reign
of Maurice by the first and greatest of the name of Gregory. ^64
His grandfather Felix had himself been pope, and as the bishops
were already bound by the laws of celibacy, his consecration must
have been preceded by the death of his wife. The parents of
Gregory, Sylvia, and Gordian, were the noblest of the senate, and
the most pious of the church of Rome; his female relations were
numbered among the saints and virgins; and his own figure, with
those of his father and mother, were represented near three
hundred years in a family portrait, ^65 which he offered to the
monastery of St. Andrew. The design and coloring of this picture
afford an honorable testimony that the art of painting was
cultivated by the Italians of the sixth century; but the most
abject ideas must be entertained of their taste and learning,
since the epistles of Gregory, his sermons, and his dialogues,
are the work of a man who was second in erudition to none of his
contemporaries: ^66 his birth and abilities had raised him to the
office of praefect of the city, and he enjoyed the merit of
renouncing the pomps and vanities of this world. His ample
patrimony was dedicated to the foundation of seven monasteries,
^67 one in Rome, ^68 and six in Sicily; and it was the wish of
Gregory that he might be unknown in this life, and glorious only
in the next. Yet his devotion (and it might be sincere) pursued
the path which would have been chosen by a crafty and ambitious
statesman. The talents of Gregory, and the splendor which
accompanied his retreat, rendered him dear and useful to the
church; and implicit obedience has always been inculcated as the
first duty of a monk. As soon as he had received the character
of deacon, Gregory was sent to reside at the Byzantine court, the
nuncio or minister of the apostolic see; and he boldly assumed,
in the name of St. Peter, a tone of independent dignity, which
would have been criminal and dangerous in the most illustrious
layman of the empire. He returned to Rome with a just increase of
reputation, and, after a short exercise of the monastic virtues,
he was dragged from the cloister to the papal throne, by the
unanimous voice of the clergy, the senate, and the people. He
alone resisted, or seemed to resist, his own elevation; and his
humble petition, that Maurice would be pleased to reject the
choice of the Romans, could only serve to exalt his character in
the eyes of the emperor and the public. When the fatal mandate
was proclaimed, Gregory solicited the aid of some friendly
merchants to convey him in a basket beyond the gates of Rome, and
modestly concealed himself some days among the woods and
mountains, till his retreat was discovered, as it is said, by a
celestial light.
[Footnote 63: Gregor. l. iii. epist. 24, edict. 12, &c. From the
epistles of Gregory, and the viiith volume of the Annals of
Baronius, the pious reader may collect the particles of holy iron
which were inserted in keys or crosses of gold, and distributed
in Britain, Gaul, Spain, Africa, Constantinople, and Egypt. The
pontifical smith who handled the file must have understood the
miracles which it was in his own power to operate or withhold; a
circumstance which abates the superstition of Gregory at the
expense of his veracity.]
[Footnote 64: Besides the epistles of Gregory himself, which are
methodized by Dupin, (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. v. p. 103 - 126,)
we have three lives of the pope; the two first written in the
viiith and ixth centuries, (de Triplici Vita St. Greg. Preface to
the ivth volume of the Benedictine edition,) by the deacons Paul
-
1 - 18) and John, (p. 19 - 188,) and containing much
original, though doubtful, evidence; the third, a long and
labored compilation by the Benedictine editors, (p. 199 - 305.)
The annals of Baronius are a copious but partial history. His
papal prejudices are tempered by the good sense of Fleury, (Hist.
Eccles. tom. viii.,) and his chronology has been rectified by the
criticism of Pagi and Muratori.]
[Footnote 65: John the deacon has described them like an
eye-witness, (l. iv. c. 83, 84;) and his description is
illustrated by Angelo Rocca, a Roman antiquary, (St. Greg. Opera,
tom. iv. p. 312 - 326;) who observes that some mosaics of the
popes of the viith century are still preserved in the old
churches of Rome, (p. 321 - 323) The same walls which represented
Gregory's family are now decorated with the martyrdom of St.
Andrew, the noble contest of Dominichino and Guido.]
[Footnote 66: Disciplinis vero liberalibus, hoc est grammatica,
rhetorica, dialectica ita apuero est institutus, ut quamvis eo
tempore florerent adhuc Romae studia literarum, tamen nulli in
urbe ipsa secundus putaretur. Paul. Diacon. in Vit. St. Gregor.
-
2.]
[Footnote 67: The Benedictines (Vit. Greg. l. i. p. 205 - 208)
labor to reduce the monasteries of Gregory within the rule of
their own order; but, as the question is confessed to be
doubtful, it is clear that these powerful monks are in the wrong.
See Butler's Lives of the Saints, vol. iii. p. 145; a work of
merit: the sense and learning belong to the author - his
prejudices are those of his profession.]
[Footnote 68: Monasterium Gregorianum in ejusdem Beati Gregorii
aedibus ad clivum Scauri prope ecclesiam SS. Johannis et Pauli in
honorem St. Andreae, (John, in Vit. Greg. l. i. c. 6. Greg. l.
-
epist. 13.) This house and monastery were situate on the
side of the Caelian hill which fronts the Palatine; they are now
- occupied by the Camaldoli
- San Gregorio triumphs, and St. Andrew
has retired to a small chapel Nardini, Roma Antica, l. iii. c. 6,
-
100. Descrizzione di Roma, tom. i. p. 442 - 446.]
The pontificate of Gregory the Great, which lasted thirteen
years, six months, and ten days, is one of the most edifying
periods of the history of the church. His virtues, and even his
faults, a singular mixture of simplicity and cunning, of pride
and humility, of sense and superstition, were happily suited to
his station and to the temper of the times. In his rival, the
patriarch of Constantinople, he condemned the anti-Christian
title of universal bishop, which the successor of St. Peter was
too haughty to concede, and too feeble to assume; and the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Gregory was confined to the triple
character of Bishop of Rome, Primate of Italy, and Apostle of the
West. He frequently ascended the pulpit, and kindled, by his
rude, though pathetic, eloquence, the congenial passions of his
audience: the language of the Jewish prophets was interpreted and
applied; and the minds of a people, depressed by their present
calamities, were directed to the hopes and fears of the invisible
world. His precepts and example defined the model of the Roman
liturgy; ^69 the distribution of the parishes, the calendar of
the festivals, the order of processions, the service of the
priests and deacons, the variety and change of sacerdotal
garments. Till the last days of his life, he officiated in the
canon of the mass, which continued above three hours: the
Gregorian chant ^70 has preserved the vocal and instrumental
music of the theatre, and the rough voices of the Barbarians
attempted to imitate the melody of the Roman school. ^71
Experience had shown him the efficacy of these solemn and pompous
rites, to soothe the distress, to confirm the faith, to mitigate
the fierceness, and to dispel the dark enthusiasm of the vulgar,
and he readily forgave their tendency to promote the reign of
priesthood and superstition. The bishops of Italy and the
adjacent islands acknowledged the Roman pontiff as their special
metropolitan. Even the existence, the union, or the translation
of episcopal seats was decided by his absolute discretion: and
his successful inroads into the provinces of Greece, of Spain,
and of Gaul, might countenance the more lofty pretensions of
succeeding popes. He interposed to prevent the abuses of popular
elections; his jealous care maintained the purity of faith and
discipline; and the apostolic shepherd assiduously watched over
the faith and discipline of the subordinate pastors. Under his
reign, the Arians of Italy and Spain were reconciled to the
Catholic church, and the conquest of Britain reflects less glory
on the name of Caesar, than on that of Gregory the First.
Instead of six legions, forty monks were embarked for that
distant island, and the pontiff lamented the austere duties which
forbade him to partake the perils of their spiritual warfare. In
less than two years, he could announce to the archbishop of
Alexandria, that they had baptized the king of Kent with ten
thousand of his Anglo-Saxons, and that the Roman missionaries,
like those of the primitive church, were armed only with
spiritual and supernatural powers. The credulity or the prudence
of Gregory was always disposed to confirm the truths of religion
by the evidence of ghosts, miracles, and resurrections; ^72 and
posterity has paid to his memory the same tribute which he freely
granted to the virtue of his own or the preceding generation.
The celestial honors have been liberally bestowed by the
authority of the popes, but Gregory is the last of their own
order whom they have presumed to inscribe in the calendar of
saints.
[Footnote 69: The Lord's Prayer consists of half a dozen lines;
the Sacramentarius and Antiphonarius of Gregory fill 880 folio
pages, (tom. iii. p. i. p. 1 - 880;) yet these only constitute a
part of the Ordo Romanus, which Mabillon has illustrated and
Fleury has abridged, (Hist. Eccles. tom. viii. p. 139 - 152.)]
[Footnote 70: I learn from the Abbe Dobos, (Reflexions sur la
Poesie et la Peinture, tom. iii. p. 174, 175,) that the
simplicity of the Ambrosian chant was confined to four modes,
while the more perfect harmony of the Gregorian comprised the
eight modes or fifteen chords of the ancient music. He observes
-
332) that the connoisseurs admire the preface and many
passages of the Gregorian office.]
[Footnote 71: John the deacon (in Vit. Greg. l. ii. c. 7)
expresses the early contempt of the Italians for tramontane
singing. Alpina scilicet corpora vocum suarum tonitruis altisone
perstrepentia, susceptae modulationis dulcedinem proprie non
resultant: quia bibuli gutturis barbara feritas dum inflexionibus
et repercussionibus mitem nititur edere cantilenam, naturali
quodam fragore, quasi plaustra per gradus confuse sonantia,
rigidas voces jactat, &c. In the time of Charlemagne, the
Franks, though with some reluctance, admitted the justice of the
reproach. Muratori, Dissert. xxv.]
[Footnote 72: A French critic (Petrus Gussanvillus, Opera, tom.
-
p. 105 - 112) has vindicated the right of Gregory to the
entire nonsense of the Dialogues. Dupin (tom. v. p. 138) does
not think that any one will vouch for the truth of all these
- miracles
- I should like to know how many of them he believed
himself.]
Their temporal power insensibly arose from the calamities of
the times: and the Roman bishops, who have deluged Europe and
Asia with blood, were compelled to reign as the ministers of
charity and peace. I. The church of Rome, as it has been
formerly observed, was endowed with ample possessions in Italy,
Sicily, and the more distant provinces; and her agents, who were
commonly sub-deacons, had acquired a civil, and even criminal,
jurisdiction over their tenants and husbandmen. The successor of
St. Peter administered his patrimony with the temper of a
vigilant and moderate landlord; ^73 and the epistles of Gregory
are filled with salutary instructions to abstain from doubtful or
vexatious lawsuits; to preserve the integrity of weights and
measures; to grant every reasonable delay; and to reduce the
capitation of the slaves of the glebe, who purchased the right of
marriage by the payment of an arbitrary fine. ^74 The rent or the
produce of these estates was transported to the mouth of the
Tyber, at the risk and expense of the pope: in the use of wealth
he acted like a faithful steward of the church and the poor, and
liberally applied to their wants the inexhaustible resources of
abstinence and order. The voluminous account of his receipts and
disbursements was kept above three hundred years in the Lateran,
as the model of Christian economy. On the four great festivals,
he divided their quarterly allowance to the clergy, to his
domestics, to the monasteries, the churches, the places of
burial, the almshouses, and the hospitals of Rome, and the rest
of the diocese. On the first day of every month, he distributed
to the poor, according to the season, their stated portion of
corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil, fish, fresh provisions,
clothes, and money; and his treasurers were continually summoned
to satisfy, in his name, the extraordinary demands of indigence
and merit. The instant distress of the sick and helpless, of
strangers and pilgrims, was relieved by the bounty of each day,
and of every hour; nor would the pontiff indulge himself in a
frugal repast, till he had sent the dishes from his own table to
some objects deserving of his compassion. The misery of the
times had reduced the nobles and matrons of Rome to accept,
without a blush, the benevolence of the church: three thousand
virgins received their food and raiment from the hand of their
benefactor; and many bishops of Italy escaped from the Barbarians
to the hospitable threshold of the Vatican. Gregory might justly
be styled the Father of his Country; and such was the extreme
sensibility of his conscience, that, for the death of a beggar
who had perished in the streets, he interdicted himself during
several days from the exercise of sacerdotal functions. II. The
misfortunes of Rome involved the apostolical pastor in the
business of peace and war; and it might be doubtful to himself,
whether piety or ambition prompted him to supply the place of his
absent sovereign. Gregory awakened the emperor from a long
slumber; exposed the guilt or incapacity of the exarch and his
inferior ministers; complained that the veterans were withdrawn
from Rome for the defence of Spoleto; encouraged the Italians to
guard their cities and altars; and condescended, in the crisis of
danger, to name the tribunes, and to direct the operations, of
the provincial troops. But the martial spirit of the pope was
checked by the scruples of humanity and religion: the imposition
of tribute, though it was employed in the Italian war, he freely
condemned as odious and oppressive; whilst he protected, against
the Imperial edicts, the pious cowardice of the soldiers who
deserted a military for a monastic life If we may credit his own
declarations, it would have been easy for Gregory to exterminate
the Lombards by their domestic factions, without leaving a king,
a duke, or a count, to save that unfortunate nation from the
vengeance of their foes As a Christian bishop, he preferred the
salutary offices of peace; his mediation appeased the tumult of
arms: but he was too conscious of the arts of the Greeks, and the
passions of the Lombards, to engage his sacred promise for the
observance of the truce. Disappointed in the hope of a general
and lasting treaty, he presumed to save his country without the
consent of the emperor or the exarch. The sword of the enemy was
suspended over Rome; it was averted by the mild eloquence and
seasonable gifts of the pontiff, who commanded the respect of
heretics and Barbarians. The merits of Gregory were treated by
the Byzantine court with reproach and insult; but in the
attachment of a grateful people, he found the purest reward of a
citizen, and the best right of a sovereign. ^75
[Footnote 73: Baronius is unwilling to expatiate on the care of
the patrimonies, lest he should betray that they consisted not of
kingdoms, but farms. The French writers, the Benedictine
editors, (tom. iv. l. iii. p. 272, &c.,) and Fleury, (tom. viii.
-
29, &c.,) are not afraid of entering into these humble, though
useful, details; and the humanity of Fleury dwells on the social
virtues of Gregory.]
[Footnote 74: I much suspect that this pecuniary fine on the
marriages of villains produced the famous, and often fabulous
right, de cuissage, de marquette, &c. With the consent of her
husband, a handsome bride might commute the payment in the arms
of a young landlord, and the mutual favor might afford a
precedent of local rather than legal tyranny]
[Footnote 75: The temporal reign of Gregory I. is ably exposed by
Sigonius in the first book, de Regno Italiae. See his works,
tom. ii. p. 44 - 75]
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