Last Will And Testament

Letter 3,58 - to Fortunatus, bishop of Naples. August 593

"It is right to fulfill religious desires when it is not difficult. And this is so in the case of the Abbess Gratiosa, who has joined her community in presenting a petition, which is contained in her appendix. In it she has claimed that Rustica, recorded as a patrician, is known to have built a convent for nuns, through her final decision of her will, in the city of Naples. It is her own home, in the region of Herculaneum, in a village called Lampas. Here she has arranged that the aforesaid Gratiosa should be abbess in charge. She has also built an oratory, and, to carry her vow, Gratiosa has suggested that she withdraw a third of her whole fortune, and she want it to be consecrated in honor of the blessed Mary, ever virgin and mother of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And for that reason, my very dear brother, we thought that your Beloved should be encouraged with the present injunction to inspect the final will first of al and, if it remains lawful, to make certain that the same third has in all truth spent on the same convent."

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), I: 278.