Rules and Order

Quote from Letter 9.30 to the farmers and slaves on the estates or farms established in the territory of Syracuse and Catana. October 598

Know that we have decided with our arrangement that you are under the care of our defender. And for that reason, we order that you should show obedience, without any reluctance, with regard to what he sees fit to impose on you for the benefit of the Church. 
For we have given him power of such sort that he may seize and punish strictly those who are disobedient or try to be insolent.

Cited from: The Letters of Gregory the Great, trans. John R.C. Martyn (Toronto: PIMS, 2004), II, 565