Register of Letters

The collection known as the Register preserves the letters of Gregory’s fourteen years as pope in order, one book for each year. The letters deal with everything that reached the pope’s desk: the estates of the Roman church, the appointment and discipline of bishops, the Lombard war, relations with the emperor and with the patriarch of Constantinople, and the conversion of the English.

They are Gregory’s own words, dictated for a practical purpose, which makes them a better witness to what he did than any later Life. Bede had copies of several of the letters about the English mission, brought to him from the Roman archive, and quotes them in his History. The letters show what Gregory ordered and argued. What actually happened in Kent has to be taken from Bede.