Character Catalog

A handbook for the ideal bishop, written at the time of his election as pope. Translated into Greek during his lifetime and into Old English by King Alfred the Great, this text served as a guide for the Western episcopate throughout the Middle Ages.

A vast commentary in 35 books on the Book of Job, combining literal, allegorical, and moral exegesis. A masterpiece of Latin patristic theology, it was one of the most copied and widely read texts of the Middle Ages.

A collection of lives of Italian saints in four books, including the famous biography of Saint Benedict of Nursia (Book II). These accounts of miracles helped spread the Benedictine monastic model throughout the Western world.

Forty homilies delivered to the people of Rome on passages from the Gospels. These accessible texts showcase Gregory's gifts as a preacher and his determination to reach all the faithful.

More than 850 letters to correspondents from across the world — bishops, kings, emperors, abbots — spanning fourteen years of his pontificate. An invaluable historical source on the Church and politics at the close of the 6th century.

Gregory sent the monk Augustine with forty companions to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons. The mission led to the baptism of King Ethelbert of Kent and founded the Church of England, of which Canterbury remains the primatial see.

Gregory unified and organized the Roman liturgy, including sacred music. 'Gregorian chant,' codified and developed after his death within the tradition he had established, shaped Western Church music all the way through to the Renaissance.

Gregory to Augustine, Bishop of the English: 'The temples of the idols among that people should not be destroyed, but only the idols themselves... for if those temples are well built, it is necessary to convert them into places where the true God is worshipped.'

Quid est enim quod in hac vita arripit homo, quando ad mortem festinat? — 'What does a man grasp in this life, when he hastens toward death?' For all things that pass away are as though they had never been.

The art of guiding souls is the art of arts. He who governs others must first govern himself, lest, in tending to the wounds of others, he neglect his own.

There arose in the province of Nursia a man of great holiness, by name Benedict. From his earliest years he had the heart of an old man, and living a life beyond his years, he gave not his soul over to pleasure.

See, my dearly beloved, how this woman seeks the one she loves: she weeps before the tomb, she stoops to look inside, and she does not leave even after seeing that the tomb is empty.

Gregory's birthplace and the seat of his pontificate. From there he administered the Church, negotiated with the Lombards, and organized relief for starving populations using the patrimony of Saint Peter.

Founded by Gregory in his own family home around 575, this Benedictine monastery was his spiritual refuge. It was from here that Augustine and his companions departed for England in 596.

Capital of the Byzantine Empire, where Gregory resided as papal legate from 579 to 585. He observed imperial power there and preached, but the experience convinced him of the urgency of an autonomous Roman Church.

The city where the mission sent by Gregory in 596 established itself. Augustine became its first archbishop, founding a religious institution that shaped English Christianity for centuries.

Birthplace of Saint Benedict, whose biography Gregory wrote in his Dialogues. The Benedictine Rule, which Gregory deeply admired, inspired his entire ecclesiology and his vision of monastic life.