Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 177

That women should not dwell with monks. That in the monasteries of certain islands boys should not be received before the eighteenth year of age. Gregory to Anthemius the subdeacon. Just as we have undertaken the place of governance, God disposing it as it pleased Him, so it behooves us to be solicitous for the souls committed to us. Now we have learned that on the island of Eumorphiana, on which the oratory of blessed Peter, Prince of the Apostles, is known to be situated, many of the men, with their women, of divers patrimonies have fled thither because of the necessity of barbarian savagery: which we have judged unseemly, that while other places of refuge are near, why should women dwell there together with monks?

Therefore by this present order we command your Experience that from the present time you permit no woman further to dwell or reside there, whether she be of ecclesiastical right or of any other's, but let them provide a refuge for themselves where they prefer, since, as has been said, so many places are near, so that thenceforth all consorting of women may be removed; lest, if we cease to bear the care which is in us, and to meet the snares of the enemy, we thence—which God forbid—become culpable, should anything untoward happen.

And so to Felix the abbot, the bearer of the present letter, you did not delay to give fifteen hundred pounds of lead, of which he is known to have need on that same island; which may afterwards be credited in your accounts, when the reckoning of the whole quantity shall be known. So act, therefore, that you provide for yourself, if it can usefully be expended on the building works of that same island. But since the congregation of monks is hard on the islands, forbid also that boys be received in those same monasteries before the times of eighteen years. Or if there now are any, let your Experience remove them and send them to the city of Rome. This too we wish you by all means to observe in Palmaria and the other islands. Gregory to all the monks established on the island of the Mount of Christ.

It has come to us that you keep none of the precepts of the monastic rule: on which account we have been compelled to direct to you the bearer of this present order, the abbot Horosius, so that, carefully inquiring into all your deeds, he may arrange whatever shall seem to him right, and report to us what shall have been ordained by him. Accordingly we admonish you to render him all obedience; and whatever he shall have arranged, keep it as if arranged by me, with due reverence.