Inventing Gregory “the Great”: Memory, Authority, and the Afterlives of the Letania Septiformis

2015 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-31
Author(s):  
Jacob A. Latham
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
The Face ◽  
Late Ninth Century ◽  
Pope Gregory I ◽  
Great Memory ◽  
The Middle Ages

In modern scholarship, Pope Gregory I “the Great” (590–604) is often simultaneously considered the final scion of classical Rome and the first medieval pope. The letania septiformis, a procession organized into seven groups that Gregory instituted in 590 in the face of plague and disease (and performed only once thereafter in 603), has similarly been construed as the very moment when Antiquity died and the Middle Ages were born. However, his Roman contemporaries in the papal curia largely ignored Gregory and his purportedly epochal procession. In fact, memory of the procession languished in Italy until the late-eighth century when Paul the Deacon made it the center of his Life of Gregory. At Rome, remembrance of the procession lay dormant in the papal archives until John the Deacon dug it out in the late-ninth century. How then did the letania septiformis come to be judged so pivotal? Over the course of centuries, the letania septiformis was inventively re-elaborated in literature, liturgy, and legend as part of the re-fashioning of the memory of Gregory. Shorn of its context, the letania septiformis gained greater imaginative power, becoming the emblem of Gregory's pontificate, if not also of an historical era.

Gregory the Great: Reader, Writer and Read

2012 ◽  
Vol 48 ◽  
pp. 12-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Anlezark
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Literature And Society ◽  
The People ◽  
The Status ◽  
Late Ninth Century ◽  
Christian Literature

An episode unique to the late ninth-century Life of Gregory the Great by John the Deacon reports a famine that occurred in the year of Gregory’s death; a hostile party blamed the lavish generosity of the late pope for Rome’s suffering. The fury of the people was roused and they set out to burn Gregory’s books. However, the deacon Peter, Gregory’s familiarissimus, intervened to dissuade them, telling the people that Gregory’s works were directly inspired by God. As proof he asked God to take his life, and promptly dropped dead. This episode is not found in the earlier accounts of Gregory’s life: the brief account in the mid seventh-century Liber pontificalis, the early eighth-century Life by an anonymous monk of Whitby, and the mid eighth-century account by Paul the Deacon. Doubtful as John the Deacon’s account of the exchange between Peter and the mob may be, it does tell us something about the status of Gregory and his works in the mid 870s, when Pope John VIII commissioned the new hagiography. Gregory the Great became one of the most widely read authors of the Middle Ages, and even in his lifetime some of his works were eagerly sought after. With his popularity and influence Gregory not only added to the body of Christian literature, but also made a lasting contribution to the debate over what kinds of works it was appropriate for Christians to read. This essay will survey his works and discuss his ideas on reading and literature, and on the establishment of a Christian literary canon. The influence of Gregory’s works and ideas will be examined in relation to one particular medieval nation - Anglo-Saxon England. As the instigator of the Anglo-Saxon mission, Gregory enjoyed a great reputation as an author in Anglo-Saxon England, where his ideas on literature and society had a lasting impact.

Further Parallels to the ‘Hadrianum' from St. Gregory the Great's Commentary on the First Book of Kings

Traditio ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 364-373
Author(s):  
Henry Ashworth
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Previous Article ◽  
The Past ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Pope Gregory I ◽  
Sufficient Stimulus ◽  
Parallel Texts ◽  
The Middle Ages

A previous study entitled ‘Liturgical Prayers of Pope Gregory I’ sought to establish links between some 80 prayer formulae of the Hadrianum and the recognized authentic works of Saint Gregory the Great. That study, begun and completed several years ago, did not take into account — unfortunately as now appears — works about which there had been controversy in the past and whose Gregorian authenticity was not unanimously accepted. For this reason no parallel texts were given from the Commentary on the First Book of Kings. But Dom P. Verbraken has recently shown in two convincing articles that hesitations concerning St. Gregory's authorship of the Commentary are not justified. Even though the diffusion of this work in the Middle Ages was a very restricted one, there can be no real doubt that it was written by St. Gregory himself. This conclusion was by itself a sufficient stimulus to set about analyzing the Commentary on Kings with a continual eye on the text of the Hadrianum, and the result has not been unrewarding: a new set of parallels can be added to those already published in the previous article, and in addition six new prayers inserted in the list. The very fact that such loca parallela can be found in the Commentary would seem in itself a further proof of the Gregorian authenticity of this work. A few texts have also been taken from the beginning of the Commentary on the Canticle of Canticles, also attributed to St. Gregory.

scholarly journals Hues of Martyrdom: Monastic and Lay Asceticism in Two Homilies of Gregory the Great on the Gospels

2020 ◽  
Vol 138 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-18
Author(s):  
Nikolas O Hoel
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Gregory The Great ◽  
Lay People ◽  
Pope Gregory I ◽  
The Middle Ages

Pope Gregory I was the first monk to hold the office of Bishop of Rome, and he was one of the most prolific papal writers of the Middle Ages. It should not be a surprise that his views on monasticism can be found in everything that he wrote, including the Homiliae in Evangelia. This text includes lessons that would be heard by both monks and lay people, because both would have been listening to the sermons. By looking at the first two of these homilies, it can be determined that Gregory urged his audience to strive for asceticism, which he equated to martyrdom. Yet, the asceticism of the monk could not be the same as that of the lay person. This article argues that Gregory conceived of two types on non-red martyrdom: the white martyrdom of the monks which served as the model for the blue martyrdom of the laity.

scholarly journals BUILDING HIGH-PRECISION AMS 14C BAYESIAN MODELS FOR THE FORMATION OF PERI-ABANDONMENT DEPOSITS AT BAKING POT, BELIZE

Radiocarbon ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 1-26
Author(s):  
Julie A Hoggarth ◽  
Brendan J Culleton ◽  
Jaime J Awe ◽  
Christophe Helmke ◽  
Sydney Lonaker ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Bayesian Models ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Classic Maya ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Maya Lowlands ◽  
Human Skeletal Remains ◽  
Late Ninth Century ◽  
Baking Pot ◽  
Group B

ABSTRACT Deposits linked to abandonment have been widely recorded across the Maya lowlands, associated with the final activities occurring in ceremonial areas of Classic Maya centers. Various models have been applied to explain the activities that lie behind the formation of these contexts, including those linked to rapid abandonment (e.g., warfare) and others focused on more protracted events (termination rituals, and/or pilgrimages). Here, we assess Bayesian models for three chronological scenarios of varying tempo to explain the formation of peri-abandonment deposits at Baking Pot, Belize. Using stratigraphic information from these deposits, hieroglyphic dates recovered on artifacts, and direct dates on human skeletal remains and faunal remains from distinct layers in three deposits in Group B at Baking Pot, we identify multiple depositional events that spanned the eighth to ninth centuries AD. These results suggest that the processes associated with the breakdown of institutionalized rulership and its command of labor to construct and maintain ceremonial spaces were protracted at Baking Pot, with evidence for the final depositional activity dated to the mid-to-late ninth century. This interval of deposition was temporally distinct from the earlier deposition(s) in the eighth century. Together, these data offer a detailed view of the end of the Classic period at Baking Pot, in which the ceremonial spaces of the site slowly fell into disuse over a period of more than a century.

The Meaning of ‘carruca’ in the ‘Leges Barbarorum’

Traditio ◽  
1984 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 297-300
Author(s):  
Theodore John Rivers
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Transitional Period ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Medieval Latin ◽  
Original Meaning ◽  
Literary Sources ◽  
The Middle Ages

The term carruca (or carruga), like many other terms in medieval Latin, acquired a new and different meaning in the Middle Ages in place of its original classical meaning. There is no confusion over the meaning of carruca in Roman historical and literary sources: it clearly means a four-wheeled wagon or carriage. However, its original meaning was modified during the medieval period so that by the early ninth century carruca denoted a wheeled plow. Although the medieval plow is often called a carruca (whereas the Roman plow is called an aratrum), one should not infer that all references to carruca in medieval sources signify a plow, particularly if these sources are datable to that transitional period during which the classical meaning of the word was beginning to be transformed into its medieval one. Characteristic of the sources which fall within this period are the Germanic tribal laws (leges barbarorum), and of these, three individual laws in particular are of interest: the Pactus legis Salicae 38.1, Lex Ribuaria 47.2, and Lex Alamannorum 93.2.

The Maaseik embroideries

1984 ◽  
Vol 13 ◽  
pp. 65-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mildred Budny ◽  
Dominic Tweddle
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Form Part ◽  
The Church ◽  
Made In ◽  
The Middle Ages

Among the relics in the treasury of the church of St Catherine at Maaseik in Limburg, Belgium, there are some luxurious embroideries which form part of the so-called casula (probably ‘chasuble’) of Sts Harlindis and Relindis (pls. I–VI). It was preserved throughout the Middle Ages at the abbey church of Aldeneik (which these sister-saints founded in the early eighth century) and was moved to nearby Maaseik in 1571. Although traditionally regarded as the handiwork of Harlindis and Relindis themselves, the embroideries cannot date from as early as their time, and they must have been made in Anglo-Saxon England. Indeed, they represent the earliest surviving examples of the highly prized English art of embroidery which became famous later in the Middle Ages as opus anglicanum.

Muslim Roma in the Balkans

2000 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 93-128 ◽  
Author(s):  
David M. Crowe
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Fourteenth Century ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Ninth Century ◽  
Byzantine Empire ◽  
Wild Animals ◽  
The Balkans ◽  
The Middle Ages

The Roma entered the Balkans from India during the Middle Ages. They reached Persia sometime in the ninth century and by the eleventh century had moved into the Byzantine Empire. According to the eleventh-century Georgian Life of Saint George the Athonite, the Emperor Constantine Monomachus asked the Adsincani to get rid of wild animals preying on the animals in his royal hunting preserve. Adsincani is the Georgian form of the Greek word Atsínganoi or Atzínganoi, from which the non-English terms for Roma (cigán, cigány, tsiganes, zigeuner) are derived. Adsincani means “ner-do-well fortune tellers” or “ventriloquists and wizards who are inspired satanically and pretend to predict the unknown.” “Gypsy” comes from “Egyptian,” a term often used by early modern chroniclers in the Balkans to refer to the Roma. Because of the stereotypes and prejudice that surround the word “Gypsy,” the Roma prefer a name of their own choosing from their language, Romani. Today, it is preferable to refer to the Gypsies as Rom or “Roma,” a Romani word meaning “man” or “husband.” Byzantine references to “Egyptians” crop up during this period as Byzantine political and territorial fortunes gave way to the region's new power, the Ottomans. There were areas with large Roma populations in Cyprus and Greece which local rulers dubbed “Little Egypt” in the late fourteenth century.

The Art of Warfare in Western Europe during the Middle Ages from the Eighth Century to 1340

1998 ◽  
Vol 62 (1) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Kelly DeVries ◽  
J. F. Verbruggen ◽  
S. Willard ◽  
R. W. Southern
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Western Europe ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
The Middle Ages

Introduction

2007 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Lasker
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Muslim Countries ◽  
The Face ◽  
Historical Relationship ◽  
New Religion ◽  
The Middle Ages ◽  
Rational Arguments

This introductory chapter provides an overview of the historical relationship between Judaism and Christianity, which had not been peaceful. Through the ages, Christian thinkers had made Judaism the object of attack, hoping to convince Jews to abandon their ancestral faith. From the earliest days of the new religion, when Christianity was just emerging from Judaism, Christians sought to demonstrate to Jews that Jesus was the expected messiah and that the doctrines he taught were true. Many Jews did not remain passive in the face of the Christian challenge to their religion. Talmudic and midrashic literature offers evidence that Jews were aware of the story of Jesus as related in the Gospels and basic Christian doctrines, against which they argued. In a later period, Jewish thinkers in Muslim countries polemicized against Christianity. This book therefore studies the Jewish philosophical polemic against Christianity in the Middle Ages. In combating the doctrines of Christianity, Jewish polemicists employed a variety of types of argumentation to strengthen their own beliefs. These arguments may be divided into three distinct categories: exegetical arguments, historical arguments, and rational arguments.

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