Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 459

Gregory to Respecta, abbess. The petition of a pious will ought to be fulfilled with an effect that follows it, to the end that both the sincerity of devotion may laudably shine forth, and the usefulness petitioned may without doubt take on strength. Accordingly, for the monastery which has been consecrated in honour of Saint Cassian, over which you are known to preside, according to the petition of our sons Dynamius and Aureliana—who are proven to have joined it, by religious devotion, to a house of their own right with buildings united—we have foreseen that these privileges be granted: decreeing that, when the abbess of the aforesaid monastery dies, no stranger, but one whom the congregation shall choose for itself from its own, be ordained; whom nevertheless, if she be judged worthy of this ministry, the bishop of that place shall ordain.

But in the affairs or in the disposition of that same monastery we decree that neither the bishop nor any of the ecclesiastics is to have any power; but we ordain that these belong in all things to the care of your solicitude, or of whoever after you shall be abbess in that same place. On the day, indeed, of the birthday or of the dedication of the aforesaid monastery, let the bishop come thither to celebrate the sacred solemnities of the Masses; by whom, however, this office is so to be discharged that his chair be not set up save on the aforesaid days, while he there celebrates the solemnities of the Masses. When he departs, likewise let his chair also be removed from that same oratory.

But on the other days, let the offices of the Masses be performed by a presbyter who has been deputed by that same bishop. Moreover, concerning the life and acts of the handmaids of God and of the abbess who shall be established in the above-written monastery, we ordain that the bishop apply his solicitude according to the fear of God; so that if any one of those dwelling there, her fault requiring it, must be subjected to punishment, he himself, according to the vigour of the sacred canons, ought by all means to take vengeance. With these things, therefore, decreed and granted by us, so study to show yourself the more solicitous and earnest in all things in the disposition of your congregation, that the malice of the wicked enemy may find nothing there that can be stained.

All these things, therefore, which this page of ordinance embraces, we decree—Christ protecting—to be preserved for your monastery in all things and by all men in perpetuity, to the end that the benefits of the privileges to be granted may ever remain inviolably in their firmness. In the month of November, indiction 15.