GREGORY, the name of 16 popes:  G. I., the Great, Pope from 590 to 604; G. II., st., pope from 715 to 731; G. III., Pope from 731 to 741; G. IV., pope from 827 to 844; G. V., Pope from 996 to 997; G. VI., pope from 1045 to 1046; G. VII., Pope from 1073 to 1085; G. VIII., pope in 1187; G. IX., Pope from 1227 to 1241; G. X., pope from 1271 to 1276; G. XI, Pope from 1370 to 1378; G. XII., pope from 1406 to 1415; G. XIII., Pope from 1572 to 1585; G. XIV., pope from 1590 to 1591; G. XV., Pope from 1621 to 1623; G. XVI., Pope from 1831 1846.  Of these the following are worthy of note:—­

GREGORY I., THE GREAT, and ST., born in Rome, son of a senator; made praetor of Rome; relinquished the office and became a monk; devoted himself to the regulation of church worship (instituting, among other things, the liturgy of the Mass), to the reformation of the monks and clergy, and to the propagation of the faith; saw some fair-haired British youths in the slave-market at Rome one day; on being told they were Angles, he said they should be Angels, and resolved from that day on the conversion of the nation they belonged to, and sent over seas for that purpose a body of monks under Augustin.

GREGORY II., ST., born at Rome and bred a Benedictine; is celebrated for his zeal in promoting the independence of the Church and the supremacy of the see of Rome, and for his defence of the use of images in worship.

GREGORY III., born in Syria; was successor of Gregory II., and carried out the same policy to the territorial aggrandisement of the Holy See at a time when it might have been overborne by secular invasions.

GREGORY VII., HILDEBRAND, born in Tuscany; bred up as a monk in a life of severe austerity, he became sensible of the formidable evils tending to the corruption of the clergy, due to their dependence on the Emperor for investiture into their benefices, and he set himself with all his might to denounce the usurpation and prohibit the practice, to the extent of one day ex-communicating certain bishop who had submitted to the royal claim and those who had invested them; his conduct roused the Emperor, Henry IV., who went the length of deposing him, upon which the Pope retaliated with a threat of excommunication; it ended in the final submission of Henry at CANOSSA (q. v.); the terms of submission imposed were intolerable, and Henry broke them, elected a Pope of his own, entered Rome, was crowned by him, and besieged Gregory in San Angelo, from which Guiscard delivered him to retire to Salerno, where he died, 1035; he was a great man and a good Pope.

GREGORY IX., UGOLINO, born in Campania; had during his pontificate contests with the Emperor Barbarossa, whom he twice over excommunicated; was the personal friend of St. Francis of Assisi, whom he canonised; died at a very advanced age.

GREGORY XIII., born in Bologna; was skilled in canon law; distinguished himself in the Council of Trent, and by his zeal against the Protestants; celebrated the Bartholomew Massacre by public thanksgivings in Rome, and reformed the calendar.