Gregory the Great and his World

A very important study of Gregory the Great by a major scholar, author of The End of Ancient Christianity.

R. A. Markus (Author)

9780521586085, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 9 October 1997

268 pages, 3 maps 1 table
22.9 x 15.3 x 1.9 cm, 0.385 kg

'Easily accessible to the non-specialist, it is also a carefully argued piece of scholarship …[this] will no doubt be the standard monograph on this famous Pope for a long time to come.' Wolfram Kinzig, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

Markus's new and accessible work is the first full study of Gregory the Great since that of F. H. Dudden (1905) to deal with both Gregory's life and work as well as with his thought and spirituality. With his command of Gregory's works, Markus portrays vividly the daily problems of one of the most attractive characters of the age. Gregory's culture is described in the context of the late Roman educational background and in the context of previous patristic tradition. Markus seeks to understand Gregory as a cultivated late Roman aristocrat converted to the ascetic ideal, caught in the tension between his attraction to the monastic vocation and his episcopal ministry, at a time of catastrophic change in the Roman world. The book deals with every aspect of his pontificate: as bishop of Rome, as landlord of the Church lands, in his relations to the Empire, and to the Western Germanic kingdoms in Spain, Gaul, and, especially, his mission to the English.

Preface
1. Introduction: a contemplative in a troubled world
2. Integritas animi: ministry in the Church
3. Sapienter indoctus: scriptural understanding
4. Appropinquante mundi termino: the world in its old age
5. The Christian community and its neighbours
6. Christiana respublica: within the confines of the Empire
7. Terra mea: Italy between two worlds
8. Argus luminosissimus: the pope as landlord
9. Scissum corpus: the schism of the Three Chapters
10. Ravenna and Rome: and beyond
11. In cunctis mundi partibus
the Far West
12. Inconcussam servare proviciam: dissent in Africa
Epilogue
Appendix: On the distribution of Gregory's correspondence
Glossary of terms for offices
Index to Gregory's works.

Subject Areas: Early history: c 500 to c 1450/1500 [HBLC], European history [HBJD]