Pastoral Rule, Dialogues & Letters 738

Gregory to Augustine, bishop of the English. Since it is certain that ineffable rewards of the eternal kingdom are reserved for those who labour for the almighty God, it is nevertheless necessary for us to bestow benefits of honours upon them, so that they may be able the more manifoldly to toil in the pursuit of the spiritual work through the recompense. And because the new Church of the English has been brought to the grace of almighty God, that same Lord granting it and you labouring, we concede to you the use of the pallium in it only for celebrating the solemnities of the Mass, so that in individual places you may ordain twelve bishops who shall be subject to your jurisdiction;

so that the bishop of the city of London may ever hereafter be consecrated by his own synod, and receive the pallium of honour from this holy and apostolic see, which by God's authorship I serve. But to the city of York we wish you to send a bishop whom you yourself shall have judged fit to be ordained; so that, if that same city with its neighbouring places should receive the word of God, he too may ordain twelve bishops, that he may enjoy the honour of a metropolitan, since to him also, if life be his companion, we dispose, the Lord favouring, to grant the pallium — yet whom we wish to be subject to the disposition of your fraternity. But after your death let him so preside over the bishops whom he shall have ordained, that he be in no way subject to the jurisdiction of the bishop of London.

But let there be henceforth this distinction of honour between the bishops of the cities of London and York, that he be accounted the senior who was first ordained. Yet by common counsel and concordant action let them arrange whatever is to be done for the zeal of Christ, let them with one mind think rightly, and let them accomplish what they have thought without disagreeing among themselves.

But let your Fraternity have subject to you, by the authority of the Lord our God, not only those bishops whom you shall ordain, nor only those who shall be ordained by the bishop of York, but also all the priests of Britain, so that from the tongue and life of your Holiness they may receive the pattern both of believing rightly and of living well, and, fulfilling their office in faith and morals, may attain, when the Lord shall will it, to the heavenly kingdoms. May God keep you safe, most reverend brother. Given on the tenth day of the Kalends of July, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our lord Maurice Tiberius, most pious Augustus, the eighteenth year after the consulship of the same lord, in the fourth indiction.