Note 25 — Chapter IV · PIPPIN, KING OF THE FRANKS.

Gregory I., surnamed the Great, was born about the year 540, and reigned as pope from 590 to his death in 604. He was famous for his zeal in enforcing ecclesiastical discipline and promoting missionary activity, especially in sending Christian missionaries to England. He is also noted for his arrangement of church music into what are still known as “Gregorian modes” or chants. His claim to being the greatest of the sixteen Gregories can be disputed by Gregory VII. (Hildebrand) alone. But there is a serious stain on his memory in a letter written to Phocas who had acquired the imperial throne at Constantinople by usurpation and murder. “The joyful applause with which” this successor of the apostles “salutes the fortunes of the assassin, has sullied, with indelible disgrace, the character of the saint.” Apart from this one fault, Gregory was meek, kind, sympathetic, and marvellously efficient. It is the more remarkable that such a man could so fawn upon even an emperor.