Table Of ContentArbitration International, 2018, 34, 579-591
doi: 10.1093/arbint/aiy031
Advance Access Publication Date: 29 November 2018
OXFORD
Article
Pope Gregory the Great and the Disputes of
Sardinian Women 591-604
Susanna Hoe1
ABSTRACT
Pope Gregory the Great wrote hundreds of letters to all comers of the Roman
Catholic world during his papacy AD590-604. They conveyed his wishes concerning
the behaviour of his flock, but many of them were also about disputes and his recom
mendation for their resolution. It is striking that his preference was for mediation and
arbitration over litigation, and he was clear how that should be carried out. A discrete
example of this preference can be found in letters he wrote to Sardinia, particularly
concerning the disputes of women there.
1. INTRODUCTION
Pope Gregory the Great wrote hundreds of letters to all corners of the Roman
Catholic world during his papacy AD590-604. They conveyed his wishes concerning
the behaviour of his flock, but many of them were also about disputes and his recom
mendations for their resolution. It is striking that his preference was for mediation
and arbitration over litigation, and he was clear how that should be carried out. A dis
crete example of this preference can be found in letters he wrote to Sardinia, particu
larly concerning the disputes of women there.
2. POPE GREGORY I
In 534, The Emperor Justinian incorporated Sardinia into the Byzantine Empire, the
Eastern Roman Empire, the capital of which was Constantinople. The best sight of
the women of that time, particularly religious ones, is contained in the extensive
cache of the letters of Pope Gregory I (the Great; 540-604) preserved in the medie
val manuscript Epistolarum Registrum. His special connection with, and concern for,
women encapsulates their lives and, particularly, their problems. His attitude towards
women may have stemmed from his upbringing among strong women—his mother,
her sister and his father’s three sisters—his father being much occupied with affairs
of property and of state.
Department of History, University of Papua New Guinea, Waigani.
1 Author, with Derek Roebuck, of Women in Disputes: A History of European Women in Mediation and
Arbitration (2018); and, forthcoming 2019, Sardinia: Women, History, Books and Places.
© The Author(s) 2018. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the London Court of International Arbitration.
All rights reserved. For permissions, please email: joumals.permissions(a)oup.com
579
580 • Disputes of Sardinian Women
3. THE LETTERS
Eleven of the 41 letters written to Sardinia between 591 and 604 were about the dis
putes, and attempts to resolve them, of several kinds of women, most, but not all, re
ligious. These included four abbesses: Pomponiana, Juliana, Desiderata and Gavina,
the nun Theodosia with problems building a monastery, Catella, a religious woman
beset by men, and a nun corrupted by a wicked man. He also wrote about Sardinia
to the Empress Constantina Augusta (560-605). The letters, in Latin, together with
English translation, are most accessible in John RC Martyn’s Pope Gregory and the
Brides of Christ, but they are also available, in different translations, on various
websites.2 3
4. ABBESS POMPONIANA
Five letters concerned the disputes of Pomponiana—a litigious, prickly, devout and
determined abbess from a senatorial family of Caralis (Cagliari). She was a mature
woman by the time we meet her. The last letter reveals that her daughter is called
Matrona and that her late son-in-law, a church reader, was Epiphanius. Several of the
letters concern his will which is disputed and his wishes sidelined. Other women and
their problems break up chronologically those about Pomponiana, but she deserves
an unbroken narrative of her own. The others will have their turn, and their stories
too are best told through quotations from the letters.
The first letter about Pomponiana was written in June 591 to Theodorus,
Byzantine Duke (Dux) of Sardinia, commander of the army, calling on him to arbi
trate the dispute:
. . . Pomponiana... a religious lady, who is known to have founded a convent
in her own house, has complained that the mother of her deceased son-in-law
wishes to annul his will, to the end that her son’s last disposition of his prop
erty may be made of none effect. On this account we hold it necessary with pa
ternal charity to exhort your Glory to lend yourself willingly, with due regard
to justice, to pious causes, and kindly order that whatever these persons have a
rightful claim to be secured to them.
It may be that Theodorus failed to help Pomponiana: Martyn writes that the Dux
‘showed such injustice and violence towards the clergy and people of Sardinia that
the Pope complained strongly to the Emperor and to the governor of Africa whose
province included Sardinia.’4 On the other hand, perhaps Pomponiana was difficult
2 John JC Martyn, Pope Gregory and the Brides of Christ (Cambridge Scholars 2009). Internet sources: www.
sermonindex.net (Sermon); catholicculture.org (Cathcult); newadvent.org (Advent); clerus.org (Clerus);
epistolae.ctl.columbia.edu/women (Epistolae). Only the letters translated by Martyn and Joan Ferrante for
Epistolae are dated, and Martyn includes a chronological list, Iv-lvi. Letters from the internet take their
date from that; if Martyn does not include a letter, the approximate date has been guessed from the con
text. Letters are quoted from in some detail; words such as ‘aforesaid’ are omitted.
3 Sermon, Epistle XLVIII.
4 The province of Sardinia was ruled by a praeses provinciae, also known as the iudex provinciae, based in
Caralis. The dux was responsible for military matters and was based at Forongianus (Forum Traiant).
Theodorus’s injustice, etc, Martyn, Brides, 51.
Disputes of Sardinian Women • 581
to help, or she simply had more than one problem, for in July 591 Gregory wrote to
Januarius, Bishop of Caralis, on her behalf, once again suggesting arbitration:
Though your Fraternity. . . gives fitting attention to the protection of divers
persons, yet we believe that you will be more prone to succour those whom a
letter from us may commend to you. Know that Pomponiana, a religious
woman, has represented to us through one of her people that she endures
many grievances continually and unreasonably from certain men, and on this
account has petitioned us to commend her in our letters to you. . . Wherefore
we have felt that we must. . . commend the. . . woman to you, that, with due
regard to justice, thy Fraternity may not allow her to be aggrieved in any way
contrary to equity, or to be subjected to any expense unadvisedly. But if it
should happen that she has any suits, let the matter of dispute be debated be
fore chosen arbitrators, and whatsoever shall be decided, let it be so carried
into effect quietly through your assistance that both reward may accrue to you
for such a work, and she who has been commended by our letters may rejoice
in having found justice.
It seems that Januarius, too, had failed to satisfy Pomponiana and, indeed, had ques
tions to answer concerning accusations of both Pomponiana and the rich and aristo
cratic nun Theodosia, because in May 593 Gregory wrote to the notary Sabinus in
Sardinia inviting the two women to Rome. It seems that there had also been an accu
sation, later found to be untrue, against a priest confusingly with the same name as
Pomponiana’s deceased son-in-law, Epiphanius. Part of Gregory’s letter reads:5 6
... If the religious women, Pomponiana and Theodosia, wish to come here to
gether with their claims, provide them with your support in every way so that
they can satisfy their desires through your cooperation. . . .
.. . Since some wrongdoings have been reported to us concerning the charac
ter of the priest Epiphanius, it is necessary that you should examine all of these
quite diligently. Hurry also to bring here either the women with whom he is
said to have erred or others whom you think know something about this case,
so that the truth can be clearly revealed for an ecclesiastical sentence.
There appears to be no record of what must have been a fascinating meeting.
For seven years, there seems to have been nothing to bother Gregory concerning
Pomponiana. But in October 600, he wrote again to Januarius. He started by praising
his pastoral vigilance but then it becomes clear that Pomponiana is again complain
ing, this time concerning her late son-in-law’s will and the plans for his property next
door to her convent; there was certainly something of a tangle that needed to be
unravelled. The letter quoted almost in full shows not only the complications but
5 Cathcult, Epistle LXVIIL
6 Martyn, Brides, letter 3.36, 45.
582 • Disputes of Sardinian Women
also how alert the Pope was to intricate details concerning his far-flung flock; cer
tainly Pomponiana had her means of keeping him informed:
For indeed it has been reported to us that you forbade a monastery from being
built in line with his will in the house of Epiphanius; a one-time reader of your
church. This was done so that the seduction of souls should not develop
thereby^ the house being next-door to a convent. We praised you highly for
taking precautions against the snares of the old enemy with suitable foresight;
as was fitting. But we have been told that the pious lady Pomponiana wants to
remove the nuns from that convent and return them to their own convents
from where they had been taken, and to establish a community of monks in
their place. So it is necessary that if this has been completed; then the disposi
tion of the deceased should be adhered to fully.
But if this has not been done, to prevent the testator’s will from being totally
frustrated; this is our wish. Because the monastery of the late abbot; Urban; lo
cated outside the city of Caralis; is said to be so destitute that not a single monk
remains there; John should be ordained as its abbot; if there is nothing to prevent
him. For it was he that the above-mentioned Epiphanius appointed as abbot in
the monastery that he had decreed should be built in his house.... The relics
that had been stored in the house of. . . Epiphanius must be deposited there;
and whatever. .. Epiphanius had contributed to the monastery that he thought
should be built; must be applied to the other monastery completely.
And so, even if his will is not carried out in that place because of the warning
mentioned above, its benefits should be preserved unimpaired all the same.
And let your Fraternity arrange all of this together with the defender; Vitalis;
and take care to settle it so usefully that you can be rewarded as much for your
laudable prohibition as for your good arrangement. It may be superfluous for
that monastery to be recommended to your Fraternity; yet we fully exhort you
to have it recommended to you, for the sake of justice, as is fitting for you.
By 603 poor Bishop Januarius, who had received 26 known letters from the Pope over
the years, was too sick and old to take mass; Gregory wrote, therefore, to the defender
Vitalis about his continuing Sardinian concerns. Finally, in the last letter mentioning
Pomponiana’s affairs, we learn the name of her convent and meet her daughter:
Furthermore, in the case of the convent of Saint Hennas, constructed in the
home of the religious lady Pomponiana it must be treated with tactfulness
7 ibid, letter 11.13, 47.
8 ibid, letter 14.2, 54-5. I have changed Martyn’s translation of ‘Your Experience’ back to Latin and
explained the greeting title. Martyn’s original translation of the ending to the last sentence read ‘a judg
ment over this case with her to an elected jury, so that the court’s decision may declare whether her com
plaint is true and just.’ Derek Roebuck, noting the translation ‘elected jury’, preferred to re-translate,
adding, Martyn may be forgiven his mistranslation. He may not have fully realized the importance of
Gregory’s preference for arbitration.
Disputes of Sardinian Women • 583
rather than with strictness. Your Experientia [you with your experience, or O
Wise One] must be keen to handle that woman with charm, so that she does
not put off the will of its founder, which would be sinful on her part, and so
that you can successfully provide advantages for the convent. As for the girls
whom. . . Pomponiana converted earlier on in her convent, with a change of
religious dress, do not let them be alienated by her, or disturbed in any way,
but let them remain with God's protection in their present holy way of life.. . .
. . . Furthermore, that religious lady, Pomponiana, has complained to us that
your Experientia, together with our most reverend brother and fellow-bishop
Januarius, have unjustly taken away the inheritance of her late son-in-law,
Epiphanius, in which he had appointed his wife Matrona, daughter of. . .
Pomponiana, as its usufructuary, for the convent that he had decided to found
in his own home, and to the benefit in all ways afterwards when the usufruct
was extinct, as well as other items that are proved to belong to the same
Matrona by right of possession. So far no income from this has benefitted ei
ther her daughter or the convent. But if that is true, or you know that you have
done something improperly, without any delay, restore what you took away, or
certainly, if you think that it is not so, in case the opposite party should appear
to be prejudicially oppressed, do not in any way put off submitting the decision
of the matter to the chosen ones, so that by the award of the decision makers
(fudicii) it may be declared whether her complaint is true.
There is something unsatisfactory about leaving Pomponiana’s problems there; nev
ertheless, those five letters show not only how hard the Pope tried to resolve them
for her through arbitration and mediation, but also hint at the power of an abbess,
well-connected or not, in the early days of the establishment of the Christian church
in Sardinia.
5. ABBESS JULIANA
At the start of the same letter of June 591 in which Gregory first mentioned
Pomponiana, he asked Dux Theordorus to arrange for arbitrators to settle the case
of Juliana, abbess of the Convent of St Vitus. Like Pomponiana, she had her own
means of approaching the Pope to put her case and, like her, her problem concerned
rights to her convent. Gregory wrote that she:9
. . . has suggested to us that the legal document proving possession of the afore
said convent is being held by Donatus, a relative of yours. While this gentleman
sees that he is fully protected by your Excellency, he does not deign to submit to
being examined in court. But now your Glorious self must order this same offi
cial to appear before a court of arbitration with the aforesaid abbess, so that
whatever is decided by the verdict of the judges over such a dispute as theirs,
may be put into effect. Thus he will see himself either losing control of it or
retaining it, in accordance with the justice of law and not due to an act of man.
9 ibid, letter 1.46, 50-1.
584 • Disputes of Sardinian Women
This letter confirms the adverse reputation of Dux Theodorus, as well as adding to
evidence of corruption prevalent in Sardinia, including in the Church. Unfortunately,
there is no indication of the outcome of Juliana’s case which may suggest that the ar
bitration had gone in her favour.
6. CATELLA, A RELIGIOUS WOMAN
A month later, Gregory wrote to Bishop Januarius about another woman’s com
plaint, with a similar suggestion as to its resolution, without the ‘annoyance of legal
proceedings’:
. . . having been given to understand that Catella, a religious woman who has a
son serving here [Rome] in the holy Roman Church over which under God
we preside, is being troubled by the exactions and molestations of certain per
sons, we think it needful to exhort your Fraternity by this letter not to refuse
(saving justice) to afford your protection to this. . . woman, knowing that by
things of this kind you both make the Lord your debtor and bind us to you the
more in bonds of charity. For we wish the causes of the . . . woman, whether
now or in future, to be terminated by your judgment, that she may be relieved
from the annoyance of legal proceedings, and yet be by no means excused
from submitting to a just judgment.
What these persons’ were up to is unclear, but this time the conduit to the pope appears
to have been Catella’s son who would surely have made sure that his mother’s obviously
legal problem was, with Gregory’s intervention, brought to a happy conclusion.
7. THE NUN THEODOSIA
The nun Theodosia who was invited to visit the Pope in Rome in May 593, at the
same time as Pomponiana, had almost as complicated a problem, as detailed in
Gregory’s letter to Januarius of September that year, presumably as a result of her
visit. It also concerned the wishes of the deceased, this time Theodosia’s late husband
Stephen who wished a convent or a monastery to be built:1 110
She has asked us to send a letter to your Fraternity to obtain your help, with
our recommendation. She asserts that her husband had decided that a convent
should be constructed on a farm called Piscenas, recently under the control of
the hostelry of the late Bishop Thomas. Although the tenant of the property
would permit her to found this convent on another person’s land, yet the
owner seems reluctant. We have agreed therefore that she should construct a
convent in a house belonging to her, which she claims to own in Cagliari. But
as some guests and casual visitors are overrunning her home, we exhort your
Fraternity to assist her in all these matters, participating in the reward for her
late husband and her sense of duty.
10 Sermon, Epistle LXII.
11 Martyn, Brides, letter 5.2, 48-9.
Disputes of Sardinian Women • 585
What happened to affect Theodosia’s behaviour between then and what must be a
later, undated, letter from Gregory to Januarius, is difficult to fathom, as are the dif
ferent facts of the case. Martyn, who wrote of a convent (for nuns), does not include
it. A different translator uses monastery (for monks):12 13
... It has come to our knowledge that your Stephen, when departing this life,
by his last will and testament directed a monastery to be founded. But it is said
that his desire is so far un-accomplished owing to the delay of the honourable
lady Theodosia, his heiress. Wherefore we exhort thy Fraternity to pay the ut
most attention to this matter, and admonish the above-named lady, to the end
that within a year’s space she must establish a monastery as has been directed,
and construct everything without dispute according to the will of the departed.
But if she should put off the completion of the design out of negligence or art
fulness (as, for instance, if she is unable to found it in the place that has been
appointed, and it is thought fit that it be placed elsewhere, and the matter is
neglected through the intervening delay), then we desire that it be built by the
diligence of thy Fraternity and that, all things being set in order, the effects
and revenues that have been left be appropriated by thee to this venerable
place....
Theodosia’s case rumbled on, and changed course again. In September 594, Gregory
wrote about it once more, this time to Bishop Felix and Abbot Cyriacus. Martyn
describes them as "the pope’s most trustworthy agents, sent to clean up the mess and
convert the heathen in Sardinia.’ This letter clarifies that the establishment in ques
tion was to be for monks:
The tenor of the report submitted to you explains adequately the complaint of
Theodosia, a religious woman, in which we have read a good many charges
against our brother and fellow-bishop Januarius, and ones not befitting the
clemency of a priest, stating that after she had founded a monastery for the
monks, everything pertaining to avarice, disturbance and prejudice is said to
have appeared at the time of the actual dedication of the oratory. Wherefore, if
what we have discovered in her previous suggestion is true, and if you know
anything else was done improperly in this matter, we exhort you first of all to
remove all types of prejudice, and then to encourage Musicus ... of the monas
tery of Agilitanus, to find time without delay for those monks of his, whom he
had begun to admit therein. In this way, after you have settled that venerable
place in a decent and regular manner... we may neither be shaken by the fre
quent complaint of the. . . religious woman over the non-fulfillment of her
desires.. .
12 Clerus, Epistle VIII.
13 Martyn, Brides, letter 5.2, 48-9.
586 • Disputes of Sardinian Women
8. SNARES OF THE OLD ENEMY’
The same month that Gregory wrote his first letter to Januarius about Theodosia,
September 593, he drew his attention to a more general concern and, as so often, it
contained criticism of the bishop himself:14 15
It has come to our attention that you are taking inadequate care over the con
vents in Sardinia. Your predecessors prudently arranged that certain approved
men from the clergy should attend to their needs, but this has now been totally
neglected, so that women dedicated to God are forced to go on their own to
public officials for their land taxes and other dues, and are forced to run
through villages and farms on men’s business to supplement their incomes.
Then he spells out an earlier allusion to "snares of the old enemy’; the adultery he
speaks of is presumably a reference to a nun being the bride of Christ:
If any of these nuns, through their earlier freedom, or through an evil custom
of impunity, has either been seduced in the past or will be dragged down into
the abyss of adultery in the future, we want her to suffer the severity of appro
priate punishment, and then be consigned to another stricter convent of vir
gins, to do penance. There let her improve herself with prayers and fasting and
penitence, and let her provide a fearful example to others of a stricter disci
pline. But the man who is found in some wicked act with women of this sort
must be deprived of communion, if he is a layman. If he is a cleric, he must
also be removed from his office and be confined to a monastery, to bewail his
failures in self-control for evermore.
To be fair to the Pope, he was fairly even-handed between the sexes in the punish
ment to be meted out. A letter he wrote to Bishop Mariniano in October 599, gives
an example of a nun fallen from grace:
If the complaint of the bearer of this letter, that most famous gentleman
Stephen, has some basis in truth, your Fraternity must understand that we are
extremely distressed by the fact that you have been so sluggish and indolent
that we have heard of the wickedness of the deed before its punishment.
Stephen complained that a man called Peter, an extremely wicked person, had
finally persuaded one of Stephen’s relatives, with diabolical intent, to leave her
convent. Our Notary, Gratiosus, did recall her subsequently to the convent she
had left, and got her to put on her habit again, but that extremely wicked man
again used unfair techniques to lure her out of the convent once more, and un
til now he has been keeping her shamelessly in his house.
Gregory spelt out to the bishop what action he had to take, getting several men able
to persuade wicked Peter to let the nameless nun be returned to her convent—in
14 ibid, letter 4.9, 41-2.
15 ibid, letter 10.3, 94-5.
Disputes of Sardinian Women • 587
other words, to mediate: In this way we could then write to the royal city
[Constantinople], asking that the offence which manages to escape being punished
as it should be, receive its just retribution.’
9. EMPRESS CONSTANTINA AUGUSTA
Six months after Gregory had written his final, September 594, letter about
Theodosisa, at the same time sending bishops to Sardinia to convert the rump of
pagans, he obviously realised that he needed to go to the highest temporal authority.
Christianity was relatively new in Sardinia and he was not only a proselytising pope,
but one who wished to root out corruption of all sorts, at all levels. Thus he came to
write to the Empress Constantina Augusta. She was the daughter of the Emperor
Tiberius and wife of his successor Maurice. They had married in 582 and went on to
have nine children, one of whom was Gregory s godson. He knew Maurice well from a
sojourn in Constantinople and was friendly with his two sisters as well as with
Constantina. He found it useful to be able to write to her, knowing how to excite her
interest, and of her influence with Maurice. What is more she had special oversight of
Sardinia’s government, in particular its taxation, and the appointment of its judges.
Extracts from the Pope’s letter to the Empress provide a useful background to
Sardinia at the time:1 176
Since I knew that there were many pagans on the island of Sardinia and that in
the custom of depraved paganism they were devoted to sacrifices to idols and
that the priests of the same island were sluggish in preaching about our re
deemer, I sent there from the bishops of Italy one who, with the Lord assisting,
led many pagans to the faith. But he has reported to me a sacrilegious practice:
that those among them who sacrifice to idols pay a fee to a judge so that he will
let them do this. While some of these were baptized and have now stopped
sacrificing to idols, the fee that they were accustomed to pay before for the sacri
fice to idols is still charged even after baptism by the same judge of the island...
Our most serene lady should survey all of this wisely and check the complaints
of the oppressed. For I suspect that these matters have not reached your most
devoted ears. For if they could have reached, they would not have remained
there until now. You must mention these things to your most pious lord at an
appropriate time so that a great weight of sin such as this may be lifted from
his soul, from the empire and from his children.. . .
And so let it be enough that I have relayed these matters briefly, so that if your
piety were unaware of what was being done in these regions, the sin of my si
lence would not punish me before a harsh judge.
16 Martyn, Queens to Slaves: Pope Gregory's Special Concern for Women (Cambridge Scholars, 2011) 26.
Evidence for Gregory’s relationship with the Imperial Family comes from Henry H Howorth, St Gregory
the Great (John Murray 1912) 186.
17 (Epistolae) Epistolae: Medieval Women's Latin Letters, biographical introduction and translation by Joan
Ferrante, ‘A letter from Gregory I, Pope’ (595, June 1).
588 • Disputes of Sardinian Women
John Martyn suggests, in Gregory and Leander, that he was right to trust her: that his
pleas to her regarding the tax burden on the islanders bore fruit.18 1 B9ut still the prob
lems concerning the women in his flock came to his attention, and he had not given
up on Januarius to solve them.
10. DISTINGUISHED LADY NEREIDA
Most of Gregory’s letters concerned the problems of religious women, but the letter
he wrote to Januarius in 599 shows that there were exceptions; indeed, it seems that
as long as a woman could find a way of approaching the Pope, he would respond;
and the Bishop’s Fraternity could themselves be in the firing line. As usual, Gregory
would prefer mediation or arbitration to litigation, and the meat of his letter tells the
main story better than any attempt to describe it, though he does refer to other com
plaints of Nereida without specifying them:
The most distinguished lady Nereida has complained to us that your
Fraternity does not blush to exact from her a hundred soldi for the burial of
her daughter, and would bring upon her the additional vexation of expense
over and above her groans of sorrow. Now, if the truth is so, it being a very se
rious thing and far from a priest’s office to require a price for earth that is
granted to rottenness, and to wish to make a profit out of another’s grief, let
your Fraternity refrain from this demand, and be no more troublesome to her,
especially as she tells us that Hortulanus, to whom she asserts she bore this
daughter, had formerly been munificent to your Church in no small degree.. . .
.. . With regard to other cases included in the petition of the aforesaid
Nereida, we exhort thee, if possible, to settle them by an amicable arrange
ment, or certainly not to omit sending an instructed person to the court, de
puted by us, for which purpose we have sent to your parts Redemptus our de
fender [guardian] the bearer of these presents, that he may compel the parties
to appear for trial, and carry out with summary execution what may be
adjudged.
11. ABBESS DESIDERIA
Pomponiana and Theodosia were by no means the only women to visit Gregory in
Rome about their disputes, as his letter to Januarius of September 602 confirms.
This time an abbot was the other party, and the Fraternity were to be involved in the
resolution:20
. . . the abbess Desideria, who bears this letter, came here complaining that the
fortune of her parents, and equally that of her brother, rightly belonged to her,
but were being unjustly retained by the Abbot John. She asks for that case to be
18 Martyn, Gregory and Leander (Cambridge Scholars, 2013) 97.
19 Sermon, Epistle III.
20 Martyn, Brides, letter 13.4, 74-5.
