History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire
State Of Italy Under The Lombards.
Author: Gibbon, Edward
Date: 1782 (Written), 1845 (Revised)
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 - 53.]
[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. i. 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. iii. 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. ix. 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 (p. 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. c. 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. vii. 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,
p. 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
(p. 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. ii. 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. p. 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]
