He attached great importance to preaching, and many of his sermons remain to this day. He also wrote “Liber Pastoralis Curæ,” a treatise on the responsibilities and duties of Bishops. This book had immense influence; it was circulated in Spain; the Emperor had it translated into Greek; it was an authoritative text-book in Gaul for centuries; and it was translated into Anglo-Saxon by King Alfred, and was widely disseminated in England. But it is in the services and service-books of the Church that he set his mark most conspicuously. He organized and enriched them, even the Canon of the Mass in which he added to the prayer of oblation the words “Diesque nostras in tua pace disponas.” The work which has been traditionally ascribed to him in the department of Church Music we shall enter into more fully.
From his monastic life onwards Gregory seems to have suffered from bad health, due in part, probably, to his extreme asceticism while living in his monastery. During the last few years of his life he was in continual pain from gout, which makes his activity and his achievements still more astonishing. For long he was confined to his bed altogether. He died on March 12th, 604. In contrast to the enthusiasm with which his accession to the Papacy was greeted, he was now accused by the fickle population of having caused the famine, which was then raging, by his lavish expenditure, though the latter was largely due to the charitable relief which he habitually gave to alleviate the distress which prevailed all the time that he filled the Papal chair. But he was canonized after his death by universal consent in the West, and the Council of Cloveshoo, in 747, fixed the 12th of March for his veneration: “That the birthday of the blessed Pope Gregory, and also the day of the burial of St. Augustine the Archbishop and Confessor (who being sent to the English by the said Pope, our father Gregory, first brought the knowledge of the Faith, the sacrament of Baptism, and the notice of the Heavenly Country), which is the 26th of May, be honourably observed by all: so that each day be kept with a cessation from labour, by ecclesiastics and monastics; and that the name of our blessed father and doctor Augustine be always mentioned in singing the Litany after the invocation of St. Gregory.”
THE
GREGORIAN TRADITION.
The tradition that St. Gregory reformed the Plainsong of his day, especially that of the Antiphonale Missarum, seems to have been held universally till 1675, when Pierre Gussanville brought out an edition of Gregory’s works, in which he threw doubts on the tradition. He was followed in 1729 by George, Baron d’ Eckhart, a friend of Leibnitz, who put forward the theory that it was Gregory II., and not Gregory I., who had done this work. In 1772, at Venice, a new edition of Gregory’s works was published by Gallicciolli; and in this were reproduced the arguments of Eckhart, leaving the question open for future investigation. Nothing more was heard of the theory till 1882, when, at the Congress of Arezzo, some speakers reproduced the doubts of Eckhart and Gallicciolli.
This did not attract much attention at the time, and the question was again reopened in 1890 by M. Gevaert in a lecture given in the presence of the Académie and of the King of the Belgians. The earlier “doubters” had argued the question from a purely historical standpoint: M. Gevaert lays stress especially on the musical side of the question. Theirs was chiefly negative; he proposes a theory of his own. He wishes to substitute Gregory II. or III. for Gregory I. The traditional view has been upheld against him by Dom Morin, Dr. Peter Wagner, and Rev. W. H. Frere.
The Historical Evidence may be summarized as follows, working backwards from a time when the Gregorian tradition was in existence beyond all question:—
I.—John the Deacon (c. 872), Vita St. Gregorii, lib. II., cap. vi., Antiphonarium Centonizans, Cantorum Constituit Scholam. “In the house of the Lord, like a most wise Solomon, knowing the compunction which the sweetness of music inspires, he compiled for the sake of the singers the collection called ‘Antiphoner,’ which is of so great usefulness. He founded also the School of Singers who to this day perform the sacred chant in the Holy Roman Church according to instructions received from him. He assigned to it several estates, and had two houses built for it, one situated at the foot of the steps of the Church of the Apostle St. Peter, the other in the neighbourhood of the buildings of the patriarchal palace of the Lateran. There to-day are still shown the couch on which he reposed while giving his singing lessons; and the whip with which he threatened the boys is still preserved and venerated as a relic, as well as his authentic Antiphoner. By a clause inserted in his deed of gift, he laid down under pain of anathema that these estates should be divided between the two portions of the School in payment for the daily service.“—(Patr. Lat., lxxv., 90.)
This extract may be taken to prove that—
1. In 872 at Rome Gregory I. was believed to be the author of the Antiphoner which bears his name.