ИСТИНА

Pope Gregory the Great disseminated his political ideas in a narrow circle of ecclesiastics and monks. Sometimes they influenced secular authorities. In the middle ages the interpretations and ideas suggested by the pope in his various works became available and appealing to a wider audience through various important medieval texts, such as the influential Gratian's Decretum, the twelfth-century collection of church law and the oldest part of the Corpus iuris canonici. Excerpts from his writings were widely used and included in the canonical collections and mirror of princes literature. In my paper I would like to analyze Frankish and Anglo-Saxon usage of Gregory's political ideas, mainly contained in the Moralia in Iob and Pastoral Care (Regula pastoralis), in the ninth century. The principal sources for this analysis are the texts related to the activity of Anglo-Saxon king Alfred, bishop Jonas of Orléans and archbishop Hincmar of Rheims. The following questions will be discussed in the paper: What did the ninth century political thinkers borrow from Gregory the Great in order to shape a model of medieval European kingship and what did they reject? How did they represent a good ruler (rector bonus) according to the principles outlined by Gregory the Great and, by contrast, a bad ruler? What did they have to do with the latter? How did the Frankish (ecclesiastically motivated) and Anglo-Saxon (initiated by Wessex enlightened monarch and "ruler of all the Christians of the island of Britain") traditions differ?