‘A great Pope,’ it has been said, ‘is always a missionary Pope.’ Gregory had the true missionary’s enthusiasm, and his writings, all of them theological, bear the stamp of St. Augustine of Hippo’s ardent spirit enforced with a faith absolutely assured and unbending. Besides being instrumental in converting England, Gregory during his pontificate saw the Arian Church in Spain reconciled to the Catholic, while he succeeded in winning the Lombard king to Christianity and friendship.
It was little wonder that the people of Rome, who had been at war with these invaders for long years, looked up to the peace-maker not only as their spiritual father but also as a temporal ruler. Had he not fed them when they were starving, declaring that it was thus the Church should use her wealth? Had he not raised soldiers to guard the walls and sent out envoys to plead the city’s cause against her enemies? There was no such practical help to be obtained from the Exarchs of Ravenna, talk as they might about the glories of Constantinople. Thus Romans argued, and Gregory, who knew the real weakness of Constantinople, was able to disregard the imperial viceroys when he chose, a policy of independence followed by his successors.
Since the Lombard kingdom had split up into a number of duchies each with its own capital, Italy, in the early Middle Ages, tended to become a group of city states, each jealous of its neighbours and ambitious only for local interests. This provincial influence was so strong that it has lasted into modern times. An Englishman or a Frenchman will claim his country before thinking of the particular part from which he comes, but it is more natural for an Italian to say first ‘I am Roman,’ or ‘Neapolitan,’ or ‘Florentine,’ as the case may be. It is only by remembering this difference that Italian history can be read aright.
Supplementary Dates. For Chronological Summary, see pp. [368–73].
| A.D. | |
| The Emperors Valentian and Valens | 364 |
| Battle of Adrianople | 378 |
| The Emperor Theodosius | 379–95 |
| Vandal Invasion of Africa | 441 |
| Battle of Chalons | 451 |
| Huns invade Italy | 452 |
| Pope Leo I ‘the Great’ | 440 |
VI
THE RISE OF THE FRANKS
The historian Tacitus, whose description of the German tribes we have already quoted, had told the people of Gaul that, unless these same Germans were kept at bay by the Roman armies on the Rhine frontier, they would ‘exchange the solitude of their woods and morasses for the wealth and fertility of Gaul’. ‘The fall of Rome,’ he added, ‘would be fatal to the provinces, and you would be buried in the ruins of that mighty fabric.’
This prophetic warning proved only too true when Vandal and Visigoth, Burgundian, Hun, and Frank forced the passage of the Rhine, and swept in irresistible masses across vineyards and cornfields, setting fire to those towns and fortresses that dared to offer resistance. The Vandal migration was but a meteor flash on the road to Spain and North Africa; while on the battle-field of Chalons the Huns were beaten back and carried their campaign of bloodshed to Italy: but the other three tribes succeeded in establishing formidable kingdoms in Gaul during the fifth and sixth centuries.