Note 78 — Front matter (continued 2)

Lives of Gregory must be read with discretion. The best and most ample source of knowledge is the stout volume of his letters, but there are early biographies by Paul the Deacon and John the Deacon. Paul wrote about 780, but his fairly sober sketch—into which miracles have been interpolated—does not help us much. John wrote about a century after this, and his fantastic and utterly undiscriminating work is almost useless. The best biography of Gregory is the learned and generally candid work of W.F.H. Dudden (Gregory the Great, 2 vols., 1905).