This translation of the "Registrum epistularum" of Gregory the Great, the first complete version in English, will provide all medievalists access to one of the most important documentary collections to have survived from the period. All fourteen books of the letters are presented in three volumes, each with a preface of its own but sharing the introduction found in the first volume.

What made Pope Gregory I “great”? If the Middle Ages had no difficulty recognizing Gregory as one of its most authoritative points of reference, modern readers have not always found this question as easy to answer. As with any great figure, however, there are two sides to Gregory – the historical and the universal. The contributors to this handbook look at Gregory’s “greatness” from both of these angles: what made Gregory stand out among his contemporaries; and what is unique about Gregory’s contribution through his many written works to the development of human thought and described human experience. Contributors include: Jane Baun, Philip Booth, Matthew Dal Santo, Scott DeGregorio, George E. Demacopoulos, Bernard Green, Ann Kuzdale, Stephen Lake, Andrew Louth, Constant J. Mews, John Moorhead, Barbara Müller, Bronwen Neil, Richard M. Pollard, Claire Renkin, Cristina Ricci, and Carole Straw.

"With the Lombards invading Italy, and Slavs invading Illyria, and very active slave-dealers at work, the number of men and women who reached Rome and carried a papal letter, to sort out a legal or personal problem at home, is quite surprsing, considering the slowness and the very real dangers of often long journeys in boats or on horseback. ... [T]hey came from all over the civilized world, many briefly appearing on the stage, their mission quite often not reported later on."--Page 4 of cover.

Pastoral Care, or The Book of the Pastoral Rule, is a treatise on the responsibilities of the clergy written by Pope Gregory I in which he contrasted the role of bishops as pastors of their flock with their position as nobles of the church: the definitive statement of the nature of the episcopal office. Gregory enjoined parish priests to possess strict personal, intellectual and moral standards which were considered, in certain quarters, to be unrealistic and beyond ordinary capacities. The influence of the book, however, was vast and became one of the most influential works on the topic ever written. It was translated and distributed to every bishop within the Byzantine Empire.