It was as statesman and administrator, and fosterer of missionary work that Gregory was truly great. In Rome he ruled as a temporal governor rather than a bishop. It was he who provided against the attacks of the Lombards, arrayed soldiers for the defence of the walls, fed the starving people from the funds of the church, and negotiated with the chiefs of the enemy in behalf of the people of the _Ducatus Romanus_. In 592 he concluded, on his own authority, a truce with the duke of Spoleto, while the exarch was set on continuing the war. Maurice stigmatised this conduct as ‘fatuous;’ but, as the emperor left Rome to provide for itself, he should hardly have complained. [Sidenote: Secular activity of Gregory.] In another crisis, Gregory appointed, on his own authority, a tribune to command the garrison of Naples and a governor for the Tuscan town of Nepi. Finally, it was he who, in 599, negotiated the treaty of peace with king Agilulf, which ended the thirty years of continuous war which had followed the first coming of the Lombards to Italy. When rebuked by the exarch, he claimed to take precedence of him, not only in virtue of his priestly office, but also in place and dignity. In short, for all practical purposes, Gregory made himself the half-independent governor of Rome. But Gregory’s progress in asserting his authority as Patriarch of the West was even more important than his advances toward temporal power. He it was who recovered Spain and Britain for the Catholic Church—the former by the conversion of Reccared from Arianism,[32] the latter by sending the mission of St. Augustine to Kent, and obtaining the baptism of king Ethelbert. Through the influence of queen Theodelinda, he obtained control over the Lombard king Agilulf, and induced him to bring up his son Adaloald as a Catholic.[33] [Sidenote: International authority of Gregory.] He could claim, in short, that he had reunited Italy, Spain, and Britain to the body of the Church of Christ. He also exercised considerable influence in Gaul, mainly through the influence of the great queen-mother Brunhildis, a favourer of all things Roman, with whom he maintained a long and friendly correspondence. We have already shown how the bishops of the Imperial provinces of Africa and Illyricum deferred to his judgment and decisions. Justly, then, may Gregory be styled the first Patriarch of the united West. Footnote 32: See pp. 141, 142. Footnote 33: See p. 195. His successors were, for many generations, not men of mark. But by his work he had gained for them a temporal authority and a spiritual precedence which they were never again to lose. When he died, in 604, he left the Roman See exalted to a pitch of greatness which it had never before known, revered by all the Teutonic peoples of Europe, and half-freed from its allegiance to the rulers of Constantinople. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XII