In the papal chancery it was used at an early date, evidence of its presence there being found in the biography of Gregory I.
He died in January 590, and was succeeded by Gregory I.
She was a protectress of the Church, and Pope Gregory I.
The lost books seem to have disappeared between the 7th century and the revival of letters in the 15th - a fact sufficiently accounted for by the difficulty of transmitting so voluminous a work in times when printing was unknown, for the story that Pope Gregory I.