“Me fatuum appellat ” Tensions between Gregory the Great and Maurice

Abstract

The relationships between the Roman bishop and the East Roman Empire have presented different issues throughout history. The epistles of Gregory the Great‘s Registrum epistularum are, in such sense, a central heuristic instrument to understand the disagreements between this bishop and the emperor Maurice. The admission to monasteries, the position to be adopted against the Lombard enemy and the struggle around the use of the term universalis by the Constantinople‘s patriarch were topics which led to rough discussions between both government men. However, such dissensions do not represent an inflection point in the relationships between Rome and Constantinople at the times of Gregory. As a matter of fact, along his government, the East Roman Empire continued being Rome‘s political horizon. The frank turn of the Papacy arrives centuries later.