The strength of the Church lay in its leadership, and by the sixth century, the supreme leader was the pope of Rome. Gregory I (540-604) was the greatest pope of the medieval papacy. He was city prefect of Rome for a time and for six years served as an envoy of the pope at Constantinople. He practiced asceticism in his own home after his return and was the superior of a family of monks. Upon the death of the sitting pope from the bubonic plague he was elected by the will of the clergy and the people to succeed him. He acted as civil as well as the ecclesiastical head, checked the inroads of the last German invaders of Italy, and defended the supremacy of the Roman Church against the Byzantine emperor. The trend of the papacy was toward autocracy, but Gregory liked to speak of himself as “servant of the servants of God.” Gregory had a great reputation as a preacher and as a reformer in church music. Aside from his worth as an administrator, his greatest contribution to medieval Catholicism was his interpretation of Latin theology and his evangelistic mission to England. Gregory expressed his ideas through his writings as well as in his sermons. They included letters, a bishop’s manual, and a commentary on Job.
Impact: Gregory, the first monk to sit on the papal chair, marked the transition from the ancient to the medieval. Appreciative of the old, he preserved orthodoxy while instituting changes that carried the Church forward. He also launched missionary campaigns to unreached barbarians north of the old frontier.