See previous thesis blog post: Pestilence & Prayer: Vita of St. Bernardino of Siena (16)
Gregory the Great is known for a multitude of accomplishments; he is one of the most influential Popes of the Middle Ages and a Doctor of the Catholic Church (Note: four influential ecclesiastical writers had received the title of Doctor of the Church by the Middle Ages: St. Gregory the Great, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome; but there more recognized Doctors of the Church). Gregory was born c. 540 CE and was elected Pope in 590 CE. He was very active with his writings, ministry, and development of the Roman liturgy. Among his great achievements is proactive leadership in assembling a procession to end the plague afflicting Rome in 590. According to The Golden Legend:
One day the Tiber overflowed its banks and rose so high that its waters poured over the city walls and caused the collapse of many houses…the whole atmosphere was polluted with the stench of [the dead sea serpents’] rotting bodies. A terrible pestilence ensued, called the bubonic plague, and people claimed that they could actually see arrows falling from heaven and striking victims down.
It is reported that Gregory saw the Archangel Michael wiping a bloody sword and replacing it back into his sheath: a sign that the plague was at its end. This angel appeared above Hadrian’s Tomb now called the Castel Sant’Angelo (Note: there is a bronze statue now atop the Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome commemorating this legendary act).
Read more: Sunday in Rome: Jessica Strikes Back
In plague imagery, Gregory is depicted in the midst of his procession, with the dead and dying surrounding him and/or the Archangel Michael. In most images, St. Gregory is depicted in his papal attire. An example of St. Gregory’s papal costume can be seen in a fifteenth century woodcut in which Gregory is depicted with Sebastian. St. Sebastian is recognized by the labels: “Sancto Sebestiano” and “Martyr Christi” above and below him; similarly, St. Gregory is identified by the words “Sanctus Gregorius” and “Pontifex Domini.” Even without the labels, Gregory is clearly a papal saint: he wears the triple-tiara, long robes of a Pope and holding a staff and book. The staff is a symbol of Christ as the shepherd of the Christian sheep; the Popes carry staffs because they are believed to be the descendants of Christ through his Apostle Peter (Note: the related text of the New Testament are found in the parables in Luke 15:3-7 and John 10:1-18).
St. Gregory not only survived the sixth century pestilence, but he was the first Pope to organize a plague procession. Processions were opportunities for collective expressions of piety and ways of actively venerating a particular saint or the Virgin Mary. A procession may either escort a saint’s relic or image through a city or it may be a community pilgrimage to a particular holy site for celebration. In the Medieval period, the concept of sin and sickness were closely related. Processions were seen as healing actions in which society performed a necessary action to release the city from the plague’s deathly grasp because epidemics were seen as nondiscriminatory experiences that struck the guilty and innocent. Biblical epidemic precedents, such as the Davidian Plague, played an important part in affecting medieval peoples’ understanding of the plague outbreaks they experienced. During the Davidian plague in 2 Samuel, David organized public good works and community processions to appease God (Note: he Davidian Plague and King David’s response of giving alms to the poor and organizing building of religious buildings greatly affected medieval experiences of pestilence).
Note: In contrast to the plague, leprosy was considered “the disease of the soul” and its symptoms the outward manifestation of the sinner. Although both the bubonic plague and leprosy decay the body, society treated the sufferers very differently.
The oldest known fresco of St. Gregory’s procession is in San Pietro in Vincoli, Rome. St. Gregory’s Procession was painted in reaction to the plague of 1476. Although the fresco is in poor condition, it clearly depicts the same image as the other two processional stories. St. Gregory is in the midst of leading a crowd as men expire around him. The sense of mass carnage and a community-wide panic are evident (the Church in the medieval period was very communal). Gregory’s success story serves as a reminder to the faithful that while they are undergoing a reappearance of the bubonic plague, there is hope for deliverance. As can be seen, St. Gregory the Great had a clear reputation as a plague intercessor, there was art commissioned including him that was related to the plague, and there is literary evidence of his intercessionary powers.
See next thesis blog post: Pestilence & Prayer: Third Tier Saints – St. Fabian (18)
Resources:
- Boeckl, Christine, M. Images of Plague and Pestilence: Iconography and Iconology. Kirksville: Truman State University Press, 2000.
- Hall, James. Dictionary of Subjects and Symbols in Art. Boulder: Westview Press, 2008.
- Phillips, Brian. The History of the Church in Art. California: Getty Publications, 2008.
- Thomas, Sarah Fawcett. Butler’s Lives of the Saints. Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 2000.
- Voragine, Jacobus de. The Golden Legend. Translated by Christopher Stace. London: Penguin, 1998.
- Voragine, Jacobus de. The Golden Legend. Edited by William Caxton. Bronx: Fordham University Internet Medieval Sourcebook, January 2001. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/goldenlegend/index.asp.
