But while the Church was thus entering into all the national life, as a sharer in its interests of every kind, it was the monastic ideal, there can be little doubt, which ultimately exercised the greatest influence on the Franks. The saints who won reverence were for the most part monks. The work of Columban passed into the work of Benedict, and when Luxeuil accepted {59} the Benedictine rule, and when the Council of Autun in 670 declared it to be the rule for all monks everywhere, a great step was taken towards the intimate union of Gaul with the rest of Christendom in the things on which they had begun to set most store. [1] Bury, _History of the Later Roman Empire_, vol. i. p. 396. [2] Greg. Tur., ii. 38 (Migne, _Patr. Lat._, p. 236). [3] Bouquet, _Recueil_, tom. iv. p. 59, epist. 15: cf. Gasquet, _L'Empire byzantin et la Monarchie franque_, p. 165. [4] Greg. Turon., _Hist. Franc._, x. 29 (Migne, p. 560): cf. also his _Vitae Patrum_, 17. Hontheim, _Historia diplomatica_, i. 47. [5] Cf. Greg. Turon., v. 3, on the frightful cruelty of Rauching. [6] Vol. v. p. 262. [7] S. Greg., _Epp._ v. 58. [8] F. H. Dudden, _Gregory the Great_, ii. 69. [9] Cf. E. Lavisse, _Hist. de France_, tome ii. p. 219, [10] M. Roger, _L'Enseignement des lettres classiques d'Ausone a Alcuin_, p. 100. [11] W. P. Ker, _The Dark Ages_, p. 125. {60} CHAPTER V THE PONTIFICATE OF GREGORY THE GREAT [Sidenote: Gregory the Great.] About 540 was born in Rome, of a noble family, the great Pope Gregory, whose work was to place the papacy at the head of Italian politics, and to lay the lines on which papal action for many centuries was to be based. When he was a child it might well have seemed that Italy under a strong Gothic rule would submit to the Arian teaching which the State supported. Theodoric endeavoured to make an united Italy; but the Church knew that there could be no compromise on the doctrine of the perfect Godhead of the Lord Jesus, and her attitude preserved Italy both for Catholicism and for the Empire. Gregory was taught as a Catholic, but he was taught also in classical grammar, composition, rhetoric, and the writings of the great Romans--pre-Christian, as well as of later days. He began his life's work as a Roman official, and by the year 573 he is found as prefect of the city. A year later, it would seem, he became a monk, giving up all his property, all his signs of rank and wealth, all his power and place. Soon, if not at once, he came to serve under the rule of S. Benedict, whose life he afterwards wrote, in the monastery dedicated to S. Andrew on the Caelian hill. {61} [Sidenote: The Lombard invasion, 568.]