2 - Gregory: the apostle of the English

Summary

When, at some point in the early 990s, Ælfric set out to compose his homily for the feast day (12 March) of Pope Gregory the Great (590–604), he will have been sharply aware that he was recording the uita of the saint who, apart from Christ's apostles, had enjoyed the longest and most universal veneration in Anglo-Saxon England. By the time Ælfric was writing, the cult of St Gregory in England stretched back at least 300 years. In the light of the universality and the venerable tradition of Gregory's cult in England, Ælfric will no doubt have given especial attention to what he chose to relate about the saint in the first vernacular account of his life ever to be written. For an adequate assessment of how Ælfric, the Benedictine monk and Winchester alumnus, saw Gregory, and how he wished his lay audience to see the saint, a twofold approach will be necessary. In the first part of this chapter I shall try to establish what may be assumed Ælfric the scholar knew about Gregory's life, his personality and writings, and the development of his cult. In the second part I shall examine what of his knowledge Ælfric the priest and teacher thought suitable to impart to his audience, and what, possibly, was the rationale for his decision.

THE APOSTLE OF THE ENGLISH

In the collective memory of the English church Gregory had always been doctor et apostolus of the gens Anglorum.