In this book I am trying to portray Gregory in his proper setting. Gregory lived in late sixth-century Rome, with a brief spell in Constantinople. His world was sixth-century Europe. We live, however, in several worlds: not only the world we see and hear and act in and upon; but also the world of our imagination, perceptions, representations and ideas. The worlds we live in are not separate; they interpenetrate unpredictably. In calling this book Gregory the Great and his world I had all these in mind. To come to grips with his work, we need to place him firmly in both his worlds: the social reality and the intellectual and imaginative construct.

There is, of course, a large literature on Gregory. The most complete attempt to carry out a project akin to the one I have set myself is Homes Dudden's, now ninety years old. His book remains the classic account, at any rate in English. The first two parts of the book, devoted to Gregory's life before his pontificate and the account of his pontificate, need revision in the light of ninety years of historical scholarship. But many of his narratives of chains of events are masterpieces of unravelling untidy strands, and I have often been helped by them. Dudden's Books I and II remain the best narrative history available of Gregory's pontificate. I record here my general debt, and would refer the reader to them for fuller accounts of episodes I have not discussed in detail.