Letter 5

From: Pope Gregory the Great To: Theudelinda, Queen of the Lombards Date: ~601 AD Context: Gregory sends copies of his Dialogues to Theudelinda, cementing a relationship that was central to the eventual conversion of the Lombards. Gregory to our most excellent daughter Theudelinda. I am sending you, as you requested, additional copies of the Dialogues for distribution to those who have expressed interest. That they have found such a receptive audience among the Lombard nobility is a source of genuine wonder to me — not because Lombards are incapable of being moved by stories of sanctity, but because the speed with which it has happened exceeds anything I had reason to hope for. The power of the stories, I think, is that they are about Italian saints — men and women who lived in the countryside and the cities that the Lombards now inhabit. The tomb of Benedict at Monte Cassino is in Lombard territory. When a Lombard noble reads about Benedict, he is reading about a man who prayed on the same hills his own horses walk across. This is not nothing. I want you to know that the hope I have for the full conversion of the Lombard people rests more on your continued faithfulness than on any diplomatic negotiation or theological argument. The steady example of a Catholic queen who governs well, treats people justly, and holds to her faith without either hiding it or making it a weapon — this is the most powerful argument for Christianity that the Lombards will ever encounter. God keep you in his peace. Gregory