ny letters extant written by Gregory to
abbesses in various parts of the Western world. These furnish us with
sidelights upon the personnel, the duties, customs, and standing of the
women who were placed in charge of these convents.

In a letter written to Thalassia, abbess of the convent which Brunehaut
founded in the city of Autun, Saint Gregory sets forth the privileges
and the manner of electing a woman to that office. He says: "We indulge,
grant and confirm by decree of our present authority, privileges as
follows: Ordaining that no king, no bishop, no one endowed with any
dignity whatsoever, shall have power, under show of any cause or
occasion whatsoever, to diminish or take away, or apply to his own uses,
or grant as if to other pious uses for excuse of his own avarice,
anything of what has been given to the monastery by the above-written
king's children, or of what shall in future be bestowed on it by any
others whatever of their own possessions. But all things that have been
there offered, or may come to be offered, we will to be possessed by
thee, as well as those who shall succeed thee in thy office and place,
from the present time inviolate and without disturbance, provided thou
apply them in all ways to the uses of those for whose sustenance and
government they have been granted." The use and benefit of papal
supremacy is beginning to be seen. This cumbrous legal enactment
conferred upon Thalassia a life lease and freehold in the property of
her convent, as secure as the tithes of his parish are to an English
incumbent.

In this same letter, which was written some time in the latter part of
the sixth century, there is also a clause concerning the election of an
abbess. There is to be nothing crafty or secret about it. The election
is to be conducted in the fear of God. The king is to choose such a
woman as will meet with the approval of the nuns; she is then to be
ordained by the bishop. This all goes to show that, even in those early
times, for a woman who was willing to forego the attractions of married
life, or was unwilling to accept its cares, the position of abbess was
one which might well stir the ambitious. But, however that might be, in
the same letter, Gregory, who evidently knew the weaknesses of human
nature, prevented the questionable methods which the ambitious might be
tempted to adopt. "No one," he says, "of the kings, no one of the
priests, or any one else in person or by proxy, shall dar