Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 287

Gregory to Bona, abbess. Ecclesiastical advantage suffers no loss, if, the truth being known, it restores things belonging to others. We have learned, then, that John, formerly a presbyter of the holy Roman Church, which, God being its author, we serve, in a house of his own right situated in this city of Rome, near the Baths of Agrippa, built an oratory, and there left certain revenues under the title of a legacy through the document of his testament; in which oratory also he established that there should be a congregation of the servants of God; and all these things, that they should have been fulfilled, he is known to have committed by the page of his testament to our predecessor Pelagius of holy memory.

But because, overtaken by death, it did not occur to him to fulfill this, and that same house with its garden is held by the agents of our Church, and therefore hitherto the will of the deceased has not yet been completed, the reason of justice vehemently urges us, through your solicitude, to fulfill the disposition of this pious arrangement, and this which was enjoined upon our predecessor. But since there, on account of the difficulty of the times, a new congregation of the servants of God could not be established, we decree that a congregation of women at least is to be constituted, and therefore also solemnly to dedicate that same place.

And because the monastery where you formerly were had been placed in danger of ruin, we have perceived, God assenting, that you ought by all means to settle there with your congregation, so that in the monastery of the above-written house, according to the will of the deceased, a congregation might be serving the Lord our Redeemer, and you might be able to avoid the impending peril. Whence it is necessary that both now and in future times the praises of God be there celebrated in all ways through that congregation which now exists or shall succeed.

Considering, therefore, the will of the aforesaid presbyter, that the monastery should exist there in perpetuity, we constitute, by right of property, that the same house in its entirety, with its garden and the things designated below, which were left by the testator, should pertain to it; namely, the estate of Maguliana with its appurtenances on the Nomentan Way at about the eleventh milestone, a shop in this city which is situated near the Palacenae, and the Salgamum situated before the house of the above-written monastery. It behooves, then, that your love diligently keep watch, both that the praises of God there, as we said before, be celebrated with wholesome zeal and devotion, as is the custom, and that the above-written things pertaining to its right may not, through your negligence, perish on any occasion.

For this solicitude we constitute that not only you, but likewise those who shall have succeeded in your place in the aforesaid monastery and in the things designated above, should nonetheless display.