Arbitration 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.