Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton.

  • George Gordon Coulton
Date:
1947
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Medieval panorama : the English scene from conquest to Reformation / by G.G. Coulton. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    44/842 (page 24)
    what he thinks. And it is the Emperor’s duty, not as a sovereign, but as a Christian, to accept the doctrine taught by the Church, and the sacraments as administered by her priests. But hundreds of cases must necessarily occur in which the limits between religious and secular authority are highly disputable; and it is all- important to note here the attitude of one of the greatest and boldest of early Popes; of that St Gregory I who was the second converter of England, just a century after this Gelasian Concordat. Writing to the Emperor Maurice,3 he confessed himself “sorely affrighted” by an imperial decree which “closed for many men the way to heaven ”, since it prescribed that no man, once sworn in as a soldier, might enter a monastery until lie had served out his time in the army. Here was a question which touched religion very nearly: yet Gregory, even while remonstrating with the Emperor, writes: “What am I but dust and a worm?.. .Being subject to [your] command, I have caused this law to be promul¬ gated throughout all parts of the earth.” He showed that same Christian moderation in refusing the title of “Universal Bishop”; and again in his instructions to his missionaries in England. Let them shock no prejudices without necessity: while yielding nothing in essentials, let them do all in their power to ignore minor differences. Let them adapt the existing heathen temples to Christian worship; let them suffer men to keep the old feasts, only slaying their oxen no longer as a sacrifice to devils, but in thanks¬ giving to God. It is well to dwell a little more on this Gregory, to whom England owes so much. Not only that his reign marks a definite step in the development of the modern Papacy, but that it comes at a period when the Western Church and its Ruler were still incontestably among the greatest, and probably the very greatest, of civilizing forces in Europe. Gregory, like his contemporaries and predecessors and successors, was haunted by the imminence of Antichrist and Armageddon and the shrivelling of this world like a parched scroll. His overpowering other-worldliness led him into injustice towards the great classical past. He had spent a long time as ambassador in Constantinople, yet had never learned the Greek language. He valued Roman habits of business in politics and in social life, just as he valued the great Roman palace which he had inherited from his ancestors, and which he made into a monastery. But he had no value for Roman literature as