this patrimony: his book is called the "Polypticum." When
Gregory the Great ascended the pontifical throne, the Roman
Church had great possessions in Sicily, Calabria, Sardinia,
Corsica, Southern Gaul, Dalmatia, Istria, the exarchate of
Ravenna, Campania, and Central Italy. According to informa-
tion given by Theophanius, the annual revenues from Sicily
alone amounted to nearly eighty thousand dollars. ¹ And in
one of his letters to the subdeacon Peter, inspector of
pontifical property in Sicily, Gregory mentions the fact that
the holdings of the Roman Church in that country were
worth four hundred thousand dollars. ²

The vast domains ³ of Sicily, of Africa, of southern Gaul,
of Istria, and of Corsica made the Pope a rich landlord, but
that was all. They brought him treasure, but no political
authority. The Italian possessions present a different
spectacle. There the colonists who laboured for the enrich-
ment of St. Peter and of his Vicar had, as a further mission,
to defend him in the hour of danger. They were both work-
men and soldiers. The Pope had an army which came to his
assistance whenever he needed it, and to which, if he wished,
he could add the local forces of northern Italy. ⁴

In 692 the emperor Justinian II. sent Pope Sergius the
Acts of the council in Trullo, ordering him to affix his
signature. Sergius refused. Then an imperial officer arrived
at Rome from Constantinople, and sought to remove the
recalcitrant pontiff and bring him before the emperor. But
he had not taken into account the colonists of the patrimony
of St. Peter. The troops hastened from Ravenna and Penta-
polis to defend the Pope. The unfortunate imperial officer
escaped death only through the intervention of the Pope, who
protected him against the fury of the populace. Nine years

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