There evidently was ample motive for a thorough reformation, and Gregory accordingly addressed himself energetically to the work of enforcing the canons. In his decretals there are numerous references to the subject, showing that he lost no opportunity of reviving the neglected rules of discipline regarding the ordination of digami,[264] the residence of women, and abstinence from all intercourse with the sex.[265] In his zeal he even went so far as to decree that any one guilty of even a single lapse from virtue should be forever debarred from the ministry of the altar[266]—a law nullified by its own severity, which rendered its observance impossible. In 587, his predecessor Pelagius had ordered that in Sicily the Roman rule should be followed of separating subdeacons from their wives, but it appeared cruel to Gregory that this should be enforced on those who had no warning of such rigor when accepting the subdiaconate, and one of the earliest acts of his pontificate was to allow them to resume relations with their wives; but he ordered that they should abstain from all service of the altar, and that in future no one should be admitted to that grade who would not formally take a vow of continence.[267] There is not much trace in contemporary history of any improvement resulting from these efforts, and towards the very close of his pontificate, in 602, we find him entreating Queen Brunhilda to exercise her power in restraining the still unbridled license of the Frankish clergy—a task which he assures her is essential if she desires to transmit her possessions in peace to her posterity.[268] He also endeavored to reform the perennial abuse of the residence of women, a reform which the church has been vainly attempting ever since the canon of Nicæa.[269] That Gregory’s zeal, however, exercised some influence is manifested by the fact that tradition in the Middle Ages occasionally associated his name with the introduction of celibacy in the church. The impression which he produced is shown by the wild legend which relates that, soon after issuing and strictly enforcing a decretal on the subject, he happened to have his fishponds drawn off, when the heads of no less than six thousand infants were found in them—the offspring of ecclesiastics, destroyed to avoid detection—which filled him with so much horror that he abandoned the vain attempt.[270] Yet in Italy the residence of wives was still permitted to those in orders, under the restriction that they should be treated as sisters;[271] and Gregory relates as worthy of all imitation the case of a holy priest of Nursia who, following the example of the saints in depriving himself of even lawful indulgences, had persistently relegated his wife to a distance. When at length he lay on his death-bed, to all appearance inanimate, the wife came to bid him a last farewell, and placed a mirror to his lips, to see whether life was yet extinct. Her