John Howe
List 2:
The Church in Italy—Gregory I (590-604)
Bibliography on Popes
There are
dozens of histories of the papacy, varying in quality.
Among the more noteworthy:
The Cambridge History
of the Papacy.
Edited by
Iben Fonnesberg-Schmidt. Multivolume,
in progress (2021?).
The Oxford Dictionary of the Popes.
Edited by J. N. D. Kelly. Second Edition. Oxford University Press, 2010.
[The best way to begin to track down the scholarship on any particular
pope.]
Quick but not current references to electronic sources, including on-line Catholic Encyclopedia articles, can be found at the "New Advent Site," which offers a chronological list of popes, their dates, their sainthood (or not), and their bios.
Levillain, Philippe, ed.
Dictionnaire historique de la
papauté,
3 vols. Paris: Fayard, 2000.
The basis of The
Papacy: An Encyclopedia. Translated John W. O' Malley, ed., 3 vols. New
York: Routledge, 2002.
Bruno Steimer and
Michael G. Parker, eds. Dictionary of
Popes and the Papacy. Translated by Brian McNeil and Peter Heinigg. New
York: Crossroad, 2001.
Bibliography on Gregory I:
Clavis Patrum
Latinorum. Third Edition.
Edited by Eligius Dekkers et al.
Corpus Christianorum Series
Godding, Robert. Bibliografia
di Gregorio Magno (1890-1989). Rome:
Città nuova editrice, 1990.
Primary Sources on Gregory I
Biographies
The Earliest Life of Gregory the Great, by an Anonymous Monk of Whitby.
Text, Translation & notes by Bertram Colgrave. Lawrence,
KA: University of Kansas Press, 1968.
The Book of the Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to Ad 715. Translated with an introduction by Raymond Davis. Translated Texts for Historians Latin Series 5. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1989.
Patron Saints of Early
Medieval Italy, AD c. 350-800: History and Hagiography in Ten Biographies.
Translated by NIcholas Everatt. Durham Medieval and Renaissance Texts and
Translations 5. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2016.
English translations of ten early medieval Italian saints
lives.
Opera Omnia
Most of Gregory’s works were
translated into English in the
nineteenth century in vols. 12 and 13 of A
Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, 2nd
series. Translated into English with prolegomena and explanatory notes, under
the editorial supervision of Philip Schaff ... and Henry Wace ... (rpt. Grand
Rapids, Michigan: Wm.B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1961-64.
These can be accessed in the TTU Library in hard cover or in many places
on the web. including “Early Church Fathers” from the
Christian Classics Ethereal Library.
In Latin, J.-P. Migne's Patrologia
Latina edition can be accessed for free on-line at in a
pdf. version For money it is found in a proprietary
electronically searchable version from
Chadwyck Healey. For the definitive Latin editions for scholarly citation,
see Clavis Patrum Latnorum.
Gregory I,
Pastoral Care(
Regula pastoralis):
Translated and annotated by Henry Davis. Ancient Christian writers, the works of
the Fathers in Translation, 11. Westminster,
MD: Newman Press, 1950; Books 3
and 4 are edited in an English version in John Leinenweber,
Pastoral Practice.
Harrisburg, PA: Trinity Press International, 1998.
A full English text is on the New Advent site
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3601.htm. Because of the multitude of MSS,
this lacks a critical Latin edition.
Often cited are
E.W. Westhoff (ed.),
S. Gregorii Papae I. Cognomento Magni
De pastorali cura liber. Westfalia:
Aschendorff, 1860 [Photocopy at TTU: Ann Arbor, MI: University
Microfilms, 1960]; or Floribert Rommel,
Grégoire le Grand:
Règle pastorale,
Sources chrétiennes,381-82.
Gregory I,
Register of Letters (Registrum
Epistolarum): Now translated
into English in John
R.C. Martyn,
The Letters of Gregory
the Great. 3
vols. Mediaeval Sources in
Translation, 40.
Gregory I, Morals on the Book of Job
(Moralia in Job):
Translated, with notes and indices, in
A library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic
Church [v.18,21,23, and 31
Gregory I,
Dialogues
(Dialogii).
Translated by Odo John Zimmerman. Fathers of the Church A New Translation
39. New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1959.
The complete
Dialogues are most accessible in
Latin in Grégroire le Grand: Dialogues,
ed. Adalbert de Vogüé and Paul Antin, 3 vols., Source chrétiennes 251, 260, and
265. Paris: Éditions du Cerf 1979.
Francis Clark has waged a long campaign
to demonstrate that the Dialogues
were not written by Gregory:
compare his “The Authorship of the Gregorian Dialogues:
The State of the Question.” Studia
Patristica 33 (1997): 407-17; and “A Problematic Legacy: The
Dialogues Ascribed to Gregory the
Great,” Papers Presented at the
Fourteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies Held in Oxford 2003,
39 (2004), 315-30; with rebuttals by Claude J. Peifer, “The Origins of
Benedictine Monasticism: State of
the Question,” American Benedictine
Review 51 (2000): 293-315; Adalbert De Vogüé, “Is Gregory the Great the
Author of the Dialogues?
The American Benedictine Review, 56
(2005); 309-314; and Paul Mayvaert, “The Authentic
Dialogues of Gregory the Great,”
Sacris Erudiri, 43 (2004): 55-130.
On the additional homilies and biblical commentaries misattributed to
Gregory, see Clavis Patrum Latinorum.
The
Rule of Benedict: (Regula Benedicti)
was popularized by Gregory. Inexpensive
translations have been published by various monastic groups. Many are posted
on-line. Commented editions include Benedict,
Regula, ed. Adalbert de Vogüė and
Jean Neufville, as La Règle de saint
Benoît, 7 vols., Sources chrėtiennes 181-86bis. Paris
Éditions du Cerf, 1971-77; and Terrance Kardong,
Benedict’s Rule: A Translation and
Commentary (Collegeville MI:
The Liturgical Press, 1996). A
Bibliography for Students of the Rule of Saint
Benedict, by Aquinata Bökmann, is current through 2009. Today the
edition to cite is probably Benedict of
Nursia: The Rule of Saint Benedict, edited and translated by Bruce L.
Venarde, Dumbarton Oaks Medieval Library 6. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2011.
Beneventan Ninth Century Poetry. Edited by Ulla Westerbergh. Acta
Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Studia Latina Stockholmiensia, vol. 4.
Secondary Sources on
Gregory:
Butler,
Cuthbert Western Mysticism:
The Teaching of Augustine, Gregory and
Bernard on Contemplation and Contemplative Life.
London: Constable, 1967.
Cavadini, J. C. ed. Gregory the
Great: A Symposium. Notre Dame Studies in Theology 2.
Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press,
1995.
Cusack, Pearse. An Interpretation of
the Second Dialogue of Gregory the Great:
Hagiography and St. Benedict.
Studies in the Bible and Early Christianity 31.
Dagens, Claude. Saint
Grégoire le Grand: Culture et expérience chrétiennes.
Paris: Études augustiniennes, 1977.
Review both: 1) George E. Democopoulos, “Gregory the Great
and the Sixth-Century Dispute over the Ecumenical Title.”
Theological Studies, 70 (2009):
600-21; and 2) Adam Serfass, "Slavery and Pope Gregory the Great,"
Journal of Early Christian
Studies 14 (2006): 77-103.
Duckett, Eleanor Shipley. The
Gateway to the Middle Ages: Monasticism.
Dudden,
Review Together: 1) Paul Hayward, “Gregory the Great as 'Apostle of the
English' in Post-conquest Canterbury,”
The
Markus, Robert.
The End of Ancient Christianity.
New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Markus, R.A.
Gregory the Great and His World.
Cambridge: University Press, 1997.
McKinnon, James W.
The Advent Project:
The Later Seventh-Century Creation of the Roman Mass Proper.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.
McCready, William D. Signs of Sanctity: Miracles in the Thought of Gregory
the Great. Studies and Texts 91. Toronto: Pontifical
Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1990.
Review Together:
1) Rob Meens, “A Background to Augustine’s Mission to Canterbury,”
Anglo-Saxon England 23 (1994): 5-17;
and 2) Ian Wood, “The Mission of Augustine of Canterbury to the English,”
Speculum 69 (1994): 1-17.
Petersen, Joan M. The Dialogues of Gregory the Great in Their Late Antique
Cultural Background. Studies and Texts 69. Toronto:
Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval
Studies, 1984.
Rapp, Claudia.
Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity:
The Nature of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition.
The Transformation of the Classical Heritage 37.
Berkeley: University of
California Press, 2005.
Review Together: 1) Joan M.
Petersen, "Homo Omnino Latinus: The
Theological and Cultural Background of Pope Gregory the Great,"
Speculum 62 (1987): 529-51; and 2)
John M. McCulloh, "The Cult of Relics in the Letters and 'Dialogues' of Pope
Gregory the Great: A Lexicographical Study,"
Traditio 32 (1976): 145-84.
Richards,
Jeffrey. The Consul of God: The Life and
Times of Gregory the Great.
London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
Straw, Carole.
Gregory the Great: Perfection in
Imperfection. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1988.
Review Together: 1) Benedicta Ward, “The Miracles of Saint
Benedict,” in Benedictus:
Studies in Honor of Benedict of Nursia, ed. by E.
Rozanne Elder, Studies in Medieval Cistercian History 8. Kalamazoo:
Cistercian Publications, 1981. Pp. 1-13;
2) John E. Lawyer, “Longing and loss in the Life of St. Benedict according to
Gregory the Great,” The American
Benedictine Review 54 (2003): 72-95; and 3) John Howe, “St. Benedict as a
Model for Italian Benedictine Life:
Some Hagiographical Witnesses,” The American Benedictine Review 55
(2004): 42-54.
Willis, Geoffrey Grimshaw.
A History of Early Roman Liturgy to the
Death of Pope Gregory the Great, with a Memoir of G.G. Willis by Michael Moreton.
London / Rochester, NY:
Published for the Henry Bradshaw Society by Boydell Press, 1994.