e
imperial exarchate, by which Italy was ruled after its reconquest by
Belisarius and Narses. Gradually, step by step, the popes claimed
cognisance of secular matters, intervened in politics, and stood forth
as a leaders in Italian affairs. The imperial administration saw the
danger, and, from time to time, made definite {62} opposition to the
papal pretensions. It endeavoured to restore the unity of the Church,
to secure the universal condemnation of the Three Chapters, but under
sanction of Ravenna rather than of Rome. Thus the exarch Smaragdus, in
587, led Severus, patriarch of Aquileia, before the Ravennate prelates
to make submission;[1] and later the emperor Maurice interfered to
present the pope compelling the patriarch to submission. But these
endeavours were futile; and the great Gregory, statesman and
administrator of the first order, made the papacy the most important
political power in the western provinces of the Empire. In 599 this
was apparent in Gregory's negotiation with the Lombard king, Agilulf.

[Sidenote: The Benedictines in South Italy.]

2. The papal influence was increased, and the Greek power diminished,
by the direct replacement of Eastern monks by Benedictines.[2] The
monasteries founded by Greeks during the imperial restoration, no
longer replenished from Constantinople, fell into the hands of the
great papal force founded by the greatest saint, and marshalled by the
greatest administrator of the century.

[Sidenote: Missions from Rome.]

3. And, lastly, the power of the papacy was at once evidenced and
increased by the revival of its missionary energy. What Pelagius II.
had stayed, Gregory the Great accomplished--conversion of England by
the mission of Augustine. Spain, too, was won from Arianism by a
personal friend of Gregory's, though without Roman intervention;[3] and
within Italy itself the {63} pope began the great work of the
conversion of the Lombards to the Catholic faith, with the full
teaching both of the Tome of Leo and of the Fifth General Council.
Gregory sent the Acts of the Council to be taught to the little child
Adalwald, the Lombard king.

Thus in each of these three directions the progress of papal power is
connected with the influence of Gregory the Great. It is of his papacy
therefore that we must speak as the critical point in the upward
movement. Between 574 and 590 Gregory gained experience in many ways.
To a strict monastic training he added, in 579