Les Dialogues de Grégoire le Grand et leur postérité: Une certaine idée de la réforme?

Reform, according to Gregory the Great (between Antiquity and the Middle Ages), is a mean to achieve organization, correction and restructuration, without having to make any explicit reference to the apostolic golden age of an ideal primitive community. It deals much more with a moral reform of the lay world, based on the model of the monastic world. That was indeed the very model in which Gregory found earlier on his full bloom. Hagiography is a very appropriate genre to express these aspirations, as well as the multiplicity and the importance of the miracles is a proper way to show their radically. The Dialogues 'authenticity has been for a long time under suspicion because of the many miracles it contains. But these should better be understood as Gregory's weapons to reform Christian communities. The Dialogues 'success was at once a huge one. This study of three texts, either directly inspired by the Dialogues (Vitae sanctorum patrum Emeretensium, Vita Praeiecti) or dealing with Gregory'life itself (first Vita Gregorii), allows us to see whether the hagiography of the next century retains or not the aspirations to reform.