Inventing Gregory “the Great”: Memory, Authority, and the Afterlives of the <i>Letania Septiformis</i>
Jacob A. Latham
In modern scholarship, Pope Gregory I “the Great” (590–604) is often simultaneously considered the final scion of classical Rome and first medieval pope. The letania septiformis , a procession organized into seven groups that instituted in 590 face plague disease (and performed only once thereafter 603), has similarly been construed as very moment when Antiquity died Middle Ages were born. However, his Roman contemporaries papal curia largely ignored purportedly epochal procession. fact, memory languished Italy until late-eighth century Paul Deacon made it center Life . At Rome, remembrance lay dormant archives John dug out late-ninth century. How then did come to be judged so pivotal? Over course centuries, was inventively re-elaborated literature, liturgy, legend part re-fashioning Gregory. Shorn its context, gained greater imaginative power, becoming emblem Gregory's pontificate, if not also an historical era.
Church History