Carolinne White is Research Fellow in the Faculty of Classics at the University of Oxford and Assistant Editor of the Dictionary of Medieval Latin from British Sources.
Gregory, who became pope in 590, oversaw great changes in the church. He was an able pastor and theologian, a promoter of monasticism, and, most significantly, a reformer of the Western church who expanded the prestige and the authority of the papacy. Most of his activities were concerned with the practical shape of the Christian life. He made important changes in the liturgy; wrote an influential treatise, "Pastoral Rule," that set out directives for the pastoral life of a bishop; developed a doctrine of purgatory; wrote treatises, such as his Morals on the Book of Job, that contributed to monastic spirituality. He also promoted the conversion of the Arian Visogoths to Catholicism,… initiated the conversion of the Anglo-Saxons in England, and reformed the administration and expenditure of the revenues of the landed estates that supported orphanages, schools, and hospitals. Notwithstanding the great influence that Gregory had on the church as it entered into the Middle Ages, he is remembered for his humility. He rejected the suggestion of the patriarch of Constantinople to style himself the "Universal Patriarch"; rather, he referred to himself as "the servant of the servants of God."