In administrative power Gregory was perhaps inferior to Leo I. The Church was very wealthy, owning lands by this time all over Western Europe and in Africa. The Pope had to rule these vast estates as a mighty landlord. Subdeacons were his agents. Tenants were controlled politically as well as religiously. The surplus income was given to the clergy, papal domestics, monasteries, churches, cemeteries, almshouses, and hospitals. On the first of every month he distributed to the poor corn, wine, cheese, vegetables, oil, fish, meat, clothes, and money. The country was full of tramps and poor clergy; these he provided for and also supported impoverished nobles.[190:3] His letters are full of items about law-suits, disputes over weights and measures, collection of rents, emancipation of slaves, marriage of tenants, produce accounts, and a multitude of other affairs.
In addition to these multitudinous duties, he was virtual King of Italy. He denounced the corrupt exarch and drilled the Romans for military defence, though he always laboured for peace. He held the haughty Lombards in check and converted them to Christianity. He extended his authority over Africa, Spain, Gaul, England, and Ireland and even claimed jurisdiction over the East. He was the first Pope to become in act and in influence, if not in name, the temporal sovereign of the West. He paved the way for Hildebrand and Innocent III.
In culture Gregory was a true son of an age of credulity and superstition. He believed all the current tales about ghosts, miracles, and supernatural manifestations. The linen of St. Paul and his bondage-chains, he declared genuine and possessed of miracle-working power.[191:1] To the converted Visigothic King in Spain he sent a key made from Peter's chain, a piece of the true cross, and some hairs from the head of John the Baptist. Indeed this was a practice which he followed in the case of many of his friends whom he desired to especially favour.[191:2] The "monuments of classic genius" he despised, asserting that it was his wish to be unknown in this world and glorified in the next. He very severely censured the profane learning of a bishop who taught grammar, studied the Latin poets, and pronounced Jupiter and Christ in the same breath. It was his constant habit, on the other hand, to enforce upon all Christians--clergy and laity alike--the great duty of reading the Bible. Still his own literary work was rather voluminous. He wrote 850 letters--more than all his 69 predecessors together--on all topics and to all Christendom. In addition he produced his _Magna Moralia_,[192:1] some homilies, a book on pastoral rule, and liturgical treatises. His productions are below mediocrity and he cannot compare with Leo I. as a critic, expositor, or original thinker. He had but a slight knowledge of Greek and knew no Hebrew, nor did he possess a deep acquaintance with the Church Fathers. Yet for that age he was a cultured man and enjoyed a high reputation for piety and learning, and spoke to unborn generations.