Book II. Indiction X. (a.d. 591-2.)
(1.) We meet in this book with the first allusion to the operations of the Lombards in Italy (Ep. 3); and hence this may be a suitable place for giving a brief sketch of Gregory's dealings with regard to them in the light thrown on the subject by his epistles. The Lombard King, Agilulf (as has been said above, p. vii.), had his headquarters at Ticinum (Pavia), the extensive dukedoms of Beneventum and Spoletum in Southern Italy being in the possession of his dukes. Early in the year before us (the 10th Indiction), it appears that Ariulf, duke of Spoletum, was believed to be marching either towards Ravenna or Rome. (See Ep. 3, which is dated in the Collection of Paul the Deacon and in Cod. Colbert. "die V. Kalend. Octob. Indict. 10," i.e. 27 Sept., a.d. 591.) Later in the same Indiction Gregory becomes aware of his approach, and addresses letters (Epp. 29, 30) to officers in command of the imperial forces with the purpose of urging them to meet the impending danger. Subsequently in the same year it appears from a letter to the Bishop of Ravenna (Ep. 46) that Ariulf was already besieging Rome. Gregory in this letter gives a sad account of the savagery of the besieger outside the walls, his own illness and depression, and the difficulties he had to contend with. He complains, in this as in other letters, of the conduct of Romanus Patricius, the Exarch at Ravenna, who would neither send aid nor sanction terms of peace. Further, troops had, he says, been withdrawn from Rome before the siege, so as to leave it insufficiently defended; and the soldiers of a legion that remained there, not receiving their pay, had refused to man the walls. In these straits Gregory appears at length to have come to terms with Ariulf on his own responsibility; for doing which he was afterwards blamed and reproached as having been duped by Ariulf. (See Lib. V., Ep. 40.) The peace, however, was not of long duration. The Exarch (probably soon afterwards, though the date is not clear) marched himself to Rome, and on his return seized certain cities--Satrium, Polimartium, Horta, Tudertua, Ameria, Perusia, Luceoli, and others--which had been ceded to the Lombards under treaty--perhaps that which Gregory himself had made. (Paul. Diac. De gestis Longobard, IV. 8. Cf. Epp., Lib. V., Ep. 40.) Agilulf, the Lombard King, incensed by this breach of faith, now came with an army from Ticinum, recaptured Perusia, and again besieged Rome. In a letter addressed some time afterwards to the Emperor (Lib. V., Ep. 40), Gregory gives a lamentable account of the misery that had ensued. Since the departure of Ariulf, he says, "troops had still further been withdrawn from the city for the fruitless defence of Perusia, the supply of corn had failed, while from the walls they saw Romans led away with ropes round their necks like dogs to be sold in France." He, with the præfect of the city, also called Gregory, and the military commander Castorius, had done all they could under extreme difficulty to guard the walls, for which he complains they afterwards got no thanks, but rather blame for neglect of duty in letting the corn run short. He himself, when the besiegers arrived, had been delivering his well-known course of homilies on Ezekiel, which he had been obliged to break off abruptly. The last ends thus:--"Let no one blame me if henceforth I cease my speaking, since, as you all see, our tribulations have increased; we are surrounded on all sides by swords; on all sides we are afraid for imminent danger of death. Some return to us with their hands cut off; others are reported to us as taken captive or slain. I am now forced to withhold my tongue from exposition, for my soul is weary of life." How long this siege lasted, or on what terms of agreement Agilulf at length departed, we are not told. Whatever arrangement was made, it was evidently due to Gregory alone. Paul the Deacon says only (De gest. Longob., IV. 8), "that King Agilulf, matters being arranged, returned to Ticinum;" and adds, "and not long afterwards, at the suggestion especially of his wife Queen Theodelinda, as the blessed Gregory often admonished her in his letters, he concluded a most firm peace with the same most holy Pope Gregory, and with the Romans." But it is plain from epistles written subsequently that it was not till some years later that anything like a settled truce was concluded: for it was not till the second indiction, i.e. a.d. 598-9 (if the letters are rightly arranged, as they appear to be, by the Benedictine editors), that we find letters of thanks from Gregory to King Agilulf for peace at length concluded, and to Theodelinda for her good offices (Lib. IX., Epp. 42, 43). In the meantime, as appears from various letters, Gregory continued to urge the Emperor or the Exarch to arrange terms of peace, for which he asserts, though he was not believed, that Agilulf was prepared. He declares also that he could have himself made a separate peace with him so as to secure himself and Rome; but that he had been unwilling to do so, having the welfare of the whole republic at heart. He implies that the Exarch and his adherents were but serving their own ends in opposing terms of peace, their own exactions and oppressions during the continuance of hostilities being even more intolerable than the ravages of the Lombards (see Lib. V., Epp. 40, 42). In an urgent letter to the Empress Constantina he complains also of the cruel oppression of the natives of Sicily and Corsica under colour of raising funds for the war, and begs her to plead with the Emperor, for his own soul's sake as well as for real advantage to the republic, against the use of such iniquitous means (Lib. V., Ep. 41). These letters (if rightly placed) were written in the 13th Indiction (a.d. 394-5), and in the next we find a letter to one Secundus at Ravenna, in which negotiations with Agilulf with a view to peace are spoken of as still going on, which this Secundus is urged to further (Lib. VI., Ep. 30). But it was not, as has been already said, till the 2nd Indiction (a.d. 598-9) that any definite terms appear to have been agreed to (see Lib. IX., Epp. 4, 6, 42, 43, 98): and then, it seems, only for a limited time (see Lib X., Ep. 37;--"indicantes cum Langobardorum rege usque ad mensem Martiam futuræ quartæ indictionis de pace, propitiante Domino, convenisse"); and even so, Gregory does not appear to have felt secure: for in a letter written at this time to Januarius, bishop of Cagliari in Sardinia, alluding to the peace that had been made, he warns him to guard the island well in view still of possible danger from the Lombards (Lib. IX., Ep. 6. Cf. also Lib. X., Ep. 37). After the expiration of this truce (which, as has been seen, was from some time in the 2nd Indiction (588-9) to March in the 4th Indiction (a.d. 601), probably for two years), hostilities having again broken out, a second truce was concluded in September, a.d. 603, as appears from Paul the Deacon (De gest. Longob., IV. 29), until April, a.d. 605: and that Gregory had been instrumental in procuring it through the influence of Queen Theodelinda on her husband, may be concluded from what he says in the last letter he addressed to her, not long before his death (Lib. XIV., Ep. 12).
We thus see how indefatigably active Gregory was in the political sphere of things. Lasting peace or security for Italy at that trying time it was beyond the power of man to bring about: but whatever was done towards mitigation of distress, and temporary cessation of hostilities, or approaches to better understanding with the Lombard King, appears plainly to have been due to Gregory. Nor should we leave out of sight his provision for the redemption of captives taken in war, whether out of ecclesiastical funds or others entrusted to him for the purpose, or by the sale, which he cordially sanctioned, of the sacred vessels of churches (IV. 17, 31; VII. 13, 26, 28, 38; IX. 17, &c.).
(2.) Attention may be directed to epistles 22, 23 in this book in connexion with the spiritual jurisdiction exercised by Rome over East as well as West Illyricum.
(3.) We may observe also the important import of epistle 41, with regard to the exemption of monasteries from episcopal control by Gregory. The constitutions, De privelegiis monasteriorum, therein contained were afterwards promulged by a council under him (called Conciliæ Romanum III., sive Lateranense) in April, a.d. 601, being signed by 20 bishops, 14 presbyters, and 3 or 4 deacons.