how "Unde genus ducit," &c., can refer to
the latter. But it fits Gregory I. in this way: Pope Felix was his
great-great-grandfather; so that, on succeeding to the papacy, he as
it were entered on a family inheritance.

This prologue proves that the Antiphoner was ascribed by tradition to St.
Gregory in the latter half of the eighth century.

IX.--Egbert, Archbishop of York (732-766), is a still more important
witness. Born about 678, he was ordained deacon at Rome, and received the
archiepiscopal pallium from Gregory III. in 735. He was the disciple and
friend of Bede, the confidant and benefactor of St. Boniface, and the
teacher of Alcuin. Shortly after he became archbishop he composed a work
addressed to his brother bishops, and called _De Institutione Catholica_.
The following extracts from it refer to the Ember-day Fasts.

"As for us in the Church of England, we always observe the Fast of the
First Month in the first week of Lent, relying on the authority of our
teacher, St. Gregory, who has thus regulated it in the model which he
has handed down to us in his Antiphoner and his Missal through the
medium of our pedagogue the Blessed Augustine." (_Patr. Lat._ lxxxix.,
441.)

"As for the Fast of the Fourth Month, the same St. Gregory, by the same
envoy, has prescribed in his Antiphoner and his Missal the week which
follows Pentecost as that in which the Church of England ought to
celebrate it. And this is attested not only by our own Antiphoners, but
also by those which we have inspected with their corresponding missals
in the Churches of St. Peter and St. Paul." (_Ibid._)

Egbert brings us back to the seventh century, but during that century
(the beginning of which saw the death of Gregory) we have no direct
evidence. There are some considerations, however, which may account for
this.

In the first place, we have very little light thrown on the history of
St. Gregory by the sources of the seventh century. Apart from his
Registrum there is little recorded that would by itself justify his
surname of the Great. In the _Liber Pontificalis_ there are only a few
lines about him, whilst the Hellenic Popes, who sat in the Papal chair
from 685 to 741, have detailed biographies, generally very laudatory. The
mission of Augustine for the conversion of England is undoubtedly one of
the most striking facts in Gregory's life; but the only chronicler of the
seventh century who mentions it is the Contin