The Transformation of the Roman West 9781942401445

Citation preview

The Transformation of the Roman West

PAST IMPERFECT Past Imperfect presents concise critical overviews of the latest research by the world’s leading scholars. Subjects cross the full range of fields in the period ca. 400—1500 CE which, in a European context, is known as the Middle Ages. Anyone interested in this period will be enthralled and enlightened by these overviews, written in provocative but accessible language. These affordable paperbacks prove that the era still retains a powerful resonance and impact throughout the world today.

Director and Editor-in-Chief Simon Forde, ‘s-Hertogenbosch

Acquisitions Editors Erin Dailey, Leeds Ruth Kennedy, Adelaide

Production

Ruth Kennedy, Adelaide

Cover Design

Linda K. Judy, Michigan

The Transformation of the Roman West Ian Wood

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

© 2018, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds Permission to use brief excerpts from this work in scholarly and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is an exception or limitation covered by Article 5 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC) or would be determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 Page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copy­right Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94-553) does not require the Publisher’s permission.

ISBN (print): 9781942401438 eISBN (PDF): 9781942401445 eISBN (EPUB): 9781942401452 arc-humanitiespress.org

For Peter Brown

Contents

Preface and Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Introduction. The End of the West Roman Empire: From Decline and Fall to Transformation of the Roman World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1. Gibbon’s Secondary Causes: “The Disorders of Military Despotism” and “the Division of Monarchy” . . . . . . . . . . 15 Chapter 2. Barbarism: “The Invasion and Settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 Chapter 3. Religion and the Transformation of the Roman World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Chapter 4. Religion: “The Rise, Establishment, and Sects of Christianity” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

viii  Contents Chapter 5. Religious Reaction to the Fall of Rome . . . . 43 Chapter 6. Doctrinal Division . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47 Chapter 7. The Impact of Christianity: A Quantitative Approach . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57 Chapter 8. Clerics, Soldiers, Bureaucrats . . . . . . . . . . . 79 Chapter 9. Ecclesiastical Endowment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91 Chapter 10. Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff . . . . . . . . 109 Appendix. Clerical Ordinations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139

Preface and Acknowledgements

This short book is a greatly expanded version of the plenary lecture entitled “Religion and the End of the Roman West,” which was delivered at the 51st International Congress on Medieval Studies on May 14, 2016. I am very grateful to the organizers for the invitation to deliver a plenary, and in particular to Simon Forde, who asked me to turn the lecture into the present publication. I am also very grateful to an old friend, Professor Thomas F. X. Noble, who acted as chair at the lecture. The Medieval Institute at Western Michigan provided me with the opportunity to examine a subject that has long troubled me: how is one to keep in balance at least a sample of the numerous rewarding approaches to the period from the fourth to the seventh centuries, when many of them, it seems to me, have followed differing, sometimes seemingly mutually exclusive, trajectories? The most obvious rift is between socio-religious history on the one hand and socio-economic history on the other. The solution that I offer here is to present the Church, which is usually treated from a religious or social viewpoint, in terms of numbers, following a largely empirical line of argument: for me the idea probably derives from a sadly unpublished paper by Anthony Bryer, in which he provided a spell-binding analysis of the Byzantine Church as an economic institution.

x  Preface and Acknowledgements I am indebted to numerous friends, and an even larger number of students, who have discussed aspects of the topic with me over the years: I think in particular of friends in the “Bucknell/Woolstone” group, of peers involved in the “Transformation of the Roman World” project, colleagues and students associated with “Texts and Identities” and “Networks and Neighbours,” as well as Robert Wiśniewski’s team working on “Presbyters in the Late Antique West,” with whom I debated often during a fellowship at the Polish Institute of Advanced Studies. Many of them appear in the footnotes, and to name them all would take up a very considerable number of lines. I would, however, like to thank specifically those friends who have commented on the book in one of its drafts: Stanisław Adamiak, Ann Christys, John Haldon, Pawel Nowakowski, Helmut R ­ eimitz, Mark Stansbury, Jerzy Szafranowski, Chris Wickham, and Robert Wiśniewski; as well as Adrien Bayard, who very kindly tracked down a citation that had eluded me. Above all I would like to thank Peter Brown, not only for reading a draft of what follows, but also for over forty years of teaching and encouragement: this short book is dedicated to him.

Introduction

The End of the West Roman Empire: From Decline and Fall to Transformation of the Roman World

In the final paragraph of the last volume of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Edward Gibbon sketched the issues that had most concerned him. In the section of the list which covers the causes of the end of the Roman West one finds “the disorders of military despotism; the rise, establishment, and sects of Christianity; the foundation of Constantinople; the division of the monarchy; the invasion and settlements of the barbarians of Germany and Scythia.”1 All these issues had certainly attracted Gibbon’s attention in previous volumes, although in an even more succinct précis he had placed particular emphasis on two factors: “I have described the triumph of Barbarism and Religion.”2 In what follows I wish to examine the relationship between the “triumph of Religion” and the “Decline and Fall” of the west Roman Empire—taking “Decline and Fall” as the period from the fourth to the seventh centuries, and not in a strictly Gibbonian sense. Although one can certainly say that the Empire came to an end in the West at some point in the fifth or sixth century,3 my prime concern is not with the significance of the deposition of the last western emperor (nor even with the fall of the Empire), but rather with the difference between western Europe, and the western Mediterranean more broadly, in 300 and

2  Introduction in 600. While this is not intended as a critique of Gibbon, his interpretation provides a useful scaffolding for examining the changes that took place between those two dates. The distinction between the late- and post-Roman western Mediterranean can be seen as illustrating a “Decline,” but, as will become clear, I doubt whether the qualitative judgement that the word implies is helpful when one considers the major changes that took place. Even though Gibbon’s concerns, most especially that of religion, will provide the main focus for the line of argument that I will put forward, it should be stated immediately that his summary can no longer be regarded as providing an adequate list of the causes of the fall of the west Roman Empire.4 It is, therefore, worth beginning by sketching a small number of the factors that Gibbon ignored or downplayed: as we will see, they are relevant to a discussion of the significance of the religious changes that took place during and after the period of “Decline and Fall.” It is also instructive to set this discussion within an outline of some of the major historiographical developments relating to the material. Of course Gibbon was aware of social and economic issues—indeed his interpretation of both the army and the Church raises the matter of the distribution of resources— but he chose not to underline them. This is scarcely surprising, given the relative development by the mid-eighteenth century of the sciences of sociology and economics in comparison with those of theology and politics. But it is not just the development of sociology and of economics since Gibbon’s day that has rendered his comments on social and economic issues inadequate. Modern interpretations of the late Roman economy and society depend on archaeology, and they do so to an extent that the interpretation of religion and politics does not.5 To be fair, almost all our archaeological data was unavailable to Gibbon, hav-

THE END OF THE WEST ROMAN EMPIRE  3

ing been unearthed in the course of the twentieth century. Particularly valuable have been the discoveries of papyri in Egypt, which have meant that the region of the Lower Nile is understood with far greater precision than any other part of the Roman Empire. So too, ceramics have shed very considerable light on one major industry, and also on the distribution patterns associated with it.6 Not that the interpretation of the social and economic history of the last years of the Empire and its aftermath had to wait until the publication of the Egyptian papyri, or for the unearthing of late- and post-Roman ceramics. As early as the fifth century Salvian had placed the social and economic failings of the aristocracy at the heart of his reading of the crisis faced by the Empire—although he presented the case in primarily religious and moral terms.7 If we move forward to Gibbon’s own day, the question of the treatment of the general population of the Empire was a key point in the common eighteenth-century reading of Rome as being a despotism. This was an interpretation that was championed by a number of political theorists, not least Montesquieu in his Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence, published in 1734, and in the last two books (30 and 31) of the De l’Es­ prit des Loix.8 Building on the arguments of Henri comte de Boulainvilliers, and offering a critique of the work of the abbé Du Bos, Montesquieu presented the Roman Empire as a despotic institution, which he saw as providing a strong parallel for the despotism of the Bourbon monarchy of the eighteenth century.9 Gibbon did not share Montesquieu’s concern to use the Roman Empire in order to critique the French government of his day, and his discussion of the second century, which he saw as the Golden Age, is to a large extent a response to the French philosopher. Ancient history, including the fifth and sixth centuries, continued to provide material for discussing social

4  Introduction oppression in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but whereas for Montesquieu it was the Roman emperors who had oppressed their subjects, there was a growing tendency from the time of the French Revolution onwards to present the barbarian incomers of the Migration Period, rather than the Roman government, as the major oppressors. They could be seen as lording it over the indigenous population.10 A picture of Frankish oppression of the Gallo-Romans, especially as formulated by Augustin Thierry,11 was borrowed by Alessandro Manzoni and applied to Italy. There Manzoni saw the Lombards not only as oppressors of the native Italians but also as the model for all subsequent invaders of the peninsula.12 Thus during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages provided the subject matter for consideration of the notion of social oppression. While allowing that the barbarians overthrew the Empire, Jean Charles Léonard Simonde de Sismondi was less inclined to see them as agents of oppression. Indeed, he took a position that in some ways had more in common with that of Montesquieu and those who had seen Rome as despotic. Sismondi, however, argued his case from the vantage point of economics: one of the great economists of the nineteenth century, he had already offered a devastating critique of Adam Smith, having personally witnessed the effect of wealth disparity in the new industrial world of the North of England. Not surprisingly, his explanation for the fall of the Roman Empire put a good deal of emphasis on class and economic inequality. The wealthiest squeezed the small proprietors, and although some emperors, including Diocletian (284–305), recognized the problem, in trying to redress it they stamped on liberty.13 Sismondi’s analysis is sharp but, at least by comparison with his massive studies of the Italian Republics and the French people,14 relatively slight. A much more substantial

THE END OF THE WEST ROMAN EMPIRE  5

examination of the social structure of the late and post-Roman world was undertaken after 1870 by the ancient historian Numa Denis Fustel de Coulanges. Like many of the trailblazing scholars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Fustel was concerned first and foremost with the territory of France—and with the transformation of Roman Gaul into Merovingian Francia. His great Histoire des institutions de l’ancienne France (the first volume of which was published in 1874, while the sixth appeared posthumously in 1892, edited by his pupil Camille Julien)15 also argued against a thesis of collapse caused by the barbarians; it insisted rather on a steady transformation of Roman institutions, and above all the evolution of the ancient patronage system into early medieval feudalism. Fustel’s argument was formulated at a sensitive time, and the context in which he was writing certainly had an impact on his scholarship: the French had just been defeated in the course of the Franco-Prussian War, a victory that led directly to the formation of a united Germany. There was undoubtedly strong anti-German feeling underlying Fustel’s denial of significance to the barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire, which is not to say that his argument lacked evidential support: far from it.16 Yet despite his claim to rely only on the sources, he was responding to earlier interpretations that emphasized the role of the Germanic peoples. In addition, his use of the evidence was not above criticism: there were problems with his treatment of the charter material—he had little time for the growing science of diplomatics.17 Nevertheless, his detailed analysis of social change, and above all of what he saw as the emergence of feudalism out of Roman systems of patronage, shifted the debate about the fall of Rome away from a grand narrative of invasion towards a more complex presentation of the social developments of the period from the fourth to the eighth centuries.

6  Introduction In certain respects his arguments were taken up in the early twentieth century by the great Austrian historian Alfons Dopsch in his Wirtschaftliche und soziale Gun­ dlagen der europäischen Kulturentwicklung von Cäsar bis auf Karl den Großen of 1918/20, which appeared as an abridged English version under the title The Economic and Social Foundations of European Civilization in 1937.18 For Dopsch the end of the Empire saw the integration of two cultures, the provincial Roman and the barbarian, which were not markedly dissimilar (their supposed differences he regarded as being largely the creation of legal historians), and which therefore did not involve any major disruption. His interpretation was initially well regarded. However, there was inevitably a “Germanic” backlash—one not confined to German scholars but more generally from all those with an interest in the post-Roman lawcodes.19 The approach of Fustel de Coulanges and Dopsch, with its emphasis on continuity despite the arrival of the barbarians, was echoed in Pirenne’s Mahomet et Charle­ magne, published posthumously in 1937, although the author had already sketched out its arguments in a number of articles following the end of the First World War.20 At first sight Pirenne’s focus seems to be very different from that of both Fustel and Dopsch. He was, however, every bit as much a socio-economic historian as they were, and the question that he posed to himself (which was to explain the economic development of the Low Countries in the post-Carolingian Age) was at heart a socio-economic one, as was the answer—that the end of Antiquity came with the breaking of Mediterranean unity. Yet that answer was largely given in narrative terms, and according to Pirenne’s narrative the Germanic barbarians did not disrupt the Ancient World, whereas the Muslims did. Meanwhile the classicists were offering their own views of the end of Rome. Some were inclined to see the bar-

THE END OF THE WEST ROMAN EMPIRE  7

barians as playing a role. For J. B. Bury, who provided an enduring narrative of the period from Theodosius to Justinian and, indeed, in an earlier work from Arcadius to the eighth-century Byzantine empress Irene, contingency was the key: the Empire was overwhelmed by the sheer weight of events, which included the arrival of the barbarians.21 Others were closer to Fustel, Dopsch, and Pirenne in downplaying the significance of the incomers. Among the great German scholars, Otto Seeck, who also provided a strong narrative of the period, took a gloomy view of the later Empire, presenting it as decadent and tyrannical despite the energetic attempts of the best of the emperors to salvage it: the barbarians were not responsible for its failure.22 The barbarians were even less significant for the Russian emigré Michael Rostovtzeff, not least because his focus was on the period before the fourth century—it was explicitly concerned with Ancient, not early Medieval, history. He set out his interpretation of the fall of Rome in 1926 in The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire.23 His emphasis on the socio-economic weaknesses of the Empire reflected his experience of the Russian Revolution.24 Rostovtzeff’s own summary of his argument is as follows: The foundation of the Empire, the urban middle class, was not strong enough to support the fabric of the world-state. Resting as it did on the toil of the lower classes—the peasants of the country and the proletariat of the cities—the municipal bourgeoisie, like the imperial aristocracy and bureaucracy, was unwilling to open its ranks to the lower orders … and the society of the Empire became more and more divided into two classes or castes—the bourgeoisie and the masses, the honestiores and the humiliores. A sharp antagonism arose and gradually took the form of an antagonism between the country and the cities. … It was this antagonism which was the ultimate cause of the crisis of the third century, when the aspirations of the lower classes were expressed by the army and countenanced

8  Introduction by the emperors. … The bourgeoisie were destroyed, and there arose a new form of government which was more or less suited to the conditions—the Oriental despotism of the fourth and fifth centuries, based on the army, on a strong bureaucracy, and on the mass of the peasants.25

He goes on to provide an important caveat: “I regret that I have been unable in this volume to deal with … the spiritual, intellectual, and artistic life of the Empire. Without a thorough treatment of those sides of life the picture must clearly be one-sided and incomplete.”26 Despite the contributions of Fustel, Dopsch, and Rostovtzeff, the second quarter of the twentieth century, reflecting the ideological interests of Nazism, saw a shift away from a socio-economic reading of the end of the Roman World to one dominated by barbarians—with German scholars, at least in the two decades prior to 1945, often taking a positive view of the role of migrating peoples in the destruction of the Empire,27 while others (and especially the French after the end of the Second World War) saw them as killing off the civilized Classical World: this was most famously stated by André Piganiol, who claimed that Roman civilization did not die naturally but was assassinated.28 Even after 1945, however, there were those who did not place the barbarians at the forefront of their interpretation of the fall of Rome. In 1948 the English Marxist historian F. W. Walbank published The Decline of the Roman Empire in the West, which was reissued in 1969 as The Awful Revolution.29 Like Rostovtzeff, Walbank chose to focus on the second and third centuries, rather than on the period that followed.30 For him, the Roman Empire was intrinsically weak because it was founded on an inefficient slave economy, and although the State attempted to prevent its collapse, it did so by an overambitious attempt to control the economy and the military, which was bound to

THE END OF THE WEST ROMAN EMPIRE  9

fail. This emphasis on slavery was subsequently expanded by Geoffrey De Ste Croix.31 Despite their different approaches, both Rostovtzeff and Walbank saw the late Roman State as top heavy. This is an image that was further reinforced by the vast gathering of material made by A. H. M. Jones in The Later Roman Empire (1964), despite the fact that for him the Empire was in working order and the West only collapsed because of the barbarian invasions.32 Jones provided a narrative,33 together with a painstaking description of imperial, social, and ecclesiastical organization, and a clear analysis of the economy. The result is a work that remains a first port of call for many in search of evidence, but one in which the detail ultimately outweighs the interpretations it has to offer. That detail gives the impression of a world swamped by the demands of the government and the army, despite the rather Gibbonian line taken on both the barbarians and the Church. The image of the later Roman Empire that was prevalent in the later 1960s was largely an oppressive one, dominated as it was by the reading of Jones, and to a lesser extent Rostovtzeff and Walbank, and even Seeck. This bleak picture was suddenly and dramatically challenged in 1971 with the publication of The World of Late Antiquity by Peter Brown.34 Here the later Empire was presented as a dynamic place that experienced dramatic change, and, moreover, change that could be presented positively. We will need to return to Brown’s work in the context of the religious history of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. However, for the moment we need to note that The World of Late Antiquity challenged the very notion of “Decline and Fall” to the extent that the late and post-Roman periods came to be defined in the 1990s as marking the “Transformation of the Roman World.” This was indeed the title of a scientific programme set up by the European

10  Introduction Science Foundation between 1989 and 1992, which then ran for a further six years and involved well over two hundred scholars.35 The word “Transformation” was deliberately chosen in order to avoid the negative connotations of “Decline,” which for the Greek scholars involved in the project (and particularly for Evangelos Chrysos, who was one of the coordinators) were clearly anathema: no Greek Byzantinist could accept the east Roman State of the fifth and sixth centuries as an institution in decline.36 For the majority of the scholars involved in the “Transformation of the Roman World” project the emphasis was on continuity and development rather than on catastrophe, although the meaning of the word “transformation” can in fact encompass sudden change—and, indeed, as any lover of traditional English theatre knows, the cataclysmic scene in a pantomime, when the scenery collapses to reveal a different (usually devastated) world, is called the “transformation scene.” The emphasis on continuity prompted an adverse reaction from at least two of those who participated in the project: Peter Heather and Bryan Ward-Perkins. The latter, indeed, who explicitly called into question the notion of “transformation,”37 went so far as to title his study of the period The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization. The response of the former came largely in a series of grand narratives, which placed the barbarians, most especially the Huns, in the forefront of events.38 The years after the publication of The World of Late Antiquity not only marked a complete re-evaluation of the period between Marcus Aurelius and Muhammad; they also reflected a revolution in the evidential base available to scholars. Archaeology came to provide new material that deeply altered subsequent discussion. To see the scale of material provided by the spade in recent years (and here one is talking even more about ceramics than about the remains of buildings, except in Egypt, where the evidence

THE END OF THE WEST ROMAN EMPIRE  11

of the papyri is dominant), and its impact on historical interpretation, one can jump forward to the first decade of the twenty-first century, and to the work of Ward-Perkins and of Chris Wickham. In The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization the former presented a cataclysmic picture, and laid the responsibility for the catastrophe firmly at the door of the barbarians. Ward-Perkins’s case rests largely on the evidence of ceramics and of the ground-plans of buildings supplied by archaeology, which do indeed suggest a decline in material culture, at least for the uppermost levels of society. Archaeology, however, has complicated rather than simplified the picture: it reveals a good deal more than destruction and degeneration. The most sustained reading of the period—Chris Wickham’s Framing the Early Middle Ages—has pointed firmly to a great deal of diversity, with the various regions of the Roman World developing in markedly different ways and at diverse speeds, both socially and economically. Despite the divergences, however, trade and communication continued.39

12  Introduction

Notes Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 71. Because of the number of editions available I have chosen to cite Decline and Fall by chapter rather than page number. 2 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 71 (under the second of the “four principal causes of the ruin of Rome”); Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, esp. vol. 1, p. 2. 3 Wood, “When Did the West Roman Empire Fall?.” 4 See the list of 210 suggested causes for the collapse of the Western Empire in Demandt, Der Fall Roms, p. 695. 5 Esmonde Cleary, The Roman West; Christie, The Fall of the Western Empire. 6 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages; Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization. For an archaeological survey that does not concentrate on ceramics, Christie, The Fall of the Western Roman Empire. 7 Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, IV, 20–36. 8 Montesquieu, Considérations sur la grandeur des romains et de leur decadence; Montesquieu, De l’Esprit des Loix. 9 Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 37–41, 61–64. 10 Ibid., pp. 45–51. 11 Thierry, The Historical Essays and Narratives of the Mero­vingian Era; Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 97–102. 12 Manzoni, Discorso sopra alcuni punti della storia longobardica in Italia; Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 114–19. 13 Simonde de Sismondi, A History of the Fall of the Roman Empire; Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 84–93. 14 Simonde de Sismondi, Histoire des Français; de Sismondi, His­ toire des Républiques italiennes du Moyen Age. 15 Fustel de Coulanges, Histoire des Institutions Politiques de l’ancienne France. 16 Hartog, Le XIXe siècle et l’histoire. 17 Ibid., p. 113. 18 Dopsch, Wirtschaftliche und soziale Grundlagen der euro­ päischen Kulturentwicklung; abridged English trans., The Eco­­nomic and Social Foundations of European Civilization. 19 Review by Joliffe, English Historical Review 53 (1938): 277–83. 20 Pirenne, Mahomet et Charlemagne; English trans., Moham­ med and Charlemagne; Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 224–36. 1

THE END OF THE WEST ROMAN EMPIRE  13 21 Bury, A History of the Later Roman Empire; Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian; Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 210–17. 22 Seeck, Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt. 23 Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. 24 Cameron, “A. H. M. Jones and the End of the Ancient World,” p. 236. 25 Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, pp. xii–xiii. 26 Ibid., p. xv. 27 Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 244–67. 28 Piganiol, L’empire chrétien, p. 422. 29 Walbank, The Decline of the Roman Empire in the West, reissued as The Awful Revolution; Cameron, “A. H. M. Jones and the End of the Ancient World,” p. 235. 30 For a summary of recent views of the importance of the crisis at the end of the second century see Haldon, “Framing Transformation, Transforming the Framework,” p. 341. 31 de Ste Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World from the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests; Cameron, “A. H. M. Jones and the End of the Ancient World,” p. 238; for views of the importance of slavery in subsequent centuries, McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. 32 Jones, The Later Roman Empire. For a recent assessment of the work see A. H. M. Jones and the Later Roman Empire, ed. Gwynn. 33 A much fuller narrative of the Later Empire was already available in Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian. 34 Brown, The World of Late Antiquity. 35 Wood, “Report: The European Science Foundation’s Programme on the Transformation of the Roman World and Emergence of Early Medieval Europe”; Noble, “The Transformation of the Roman World.” 36 See also Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century, pp. 1–2. 37 Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization, pp. 4, 174. 38 Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire; Heather, Empires and Barbarians. 39 Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages; see also McCormick, Origins of the European Economy. Among several thought-provoking responses to Wickham, see Banaji, “Aristocracies, Peasantries

14  Introduction and the Framing of the Early Middle Ages”; Haldon, “Framing Transformation, Transforming the Framework”; and Shaw, “Rome’s Medi­ terranean World System and its Transformation.”

Chapter 1

Gibbon’s Secondary Causes: “The Disorders of Military Despotism” and “the Division of Monarchy”

The economy is not a dominant element in Decline and Fall, and indeed the relevant evidence was almost entirely unavailable in the eighteenth century. What Gibbon chose to emphasize was “Religion and Barbarism,” but he also pointed to “the disorders of military despotism,” “the foundation of Constantinople,” and “the division of the monarchy.” These last three issues can usefully be taken first, before we turn to the two factors on which Gibbon came to place most emphasis. Gibbon did not share Montesquieu’s view that the Roman Empire had been despotic for much of its existence. For him the Roman Empire did indeed become despotic, but not until after the Age of the Antonines, and, as his summary suggested, with regard to the internal problems of the Empire his emphasis was very largely on what he called “the disorders of military despotism.” There is a great deal to be said for the argument that military matters were central to Rome’s problems. The maintenance of the army was at the heart of much imperial policy. It underpinned the tax regime, which was extremely burdensome for most sections of the population. Not so for the aristocracy, which was expected to contribute rather more to the Empire through acts of munificence than through the payment of taxes (though they

16  Chapter 1 were not exempt from State exactions).40 To describe such acts the French have long spoken of Roman évergétisme (“evergetism”), borrowing a word from the Greek.41 Imperial income was in large measure dedicated to paying the army, which employed a huge number of men: by combining the evidence of John Lydus, who talks of an army of 389,704 soldiers and a fleet of 45,562 sailors in the days of Diocletian,42 with the narrative of the sixth-century Byzantine historian Zosimus, who refers to some 581,000 soldiers in the civil wars of 312,43 with the late fourth-/early fifth-century evidence for the distribution of officials and their legions to be found in the Notitia Digni­ tatum,44 its size has been estimated at between 400,000 and 600,000 men,45 out of an overall population of perhaps 55 million. None of these figures, however, is any more than a guess, and even if those given by John Lydus and Zosimus are accurate, they refer to a very specific period of time, while any estimate made from the Notitia depends on assumptions about the extent to which legions were kept up to strength. At the same time, figures for the general population have varied between 20 and 200 million.46 The exact numbers do not concern us here, although the substantial size of the army (perhaps as many as one in ten adult males, but more likely closer to 1 percent of the population) is a point to which we shall have occasion to return. Maintaining such a number of soldiers was a major problem, and the issue of military manpower is not surprisingly a constant refrain in imperial legislation.47 One solution was to draft barbarians into the army in a variety of different categories: as career soldiers (some of whom achieved the highest military rank), as federates, and (in the case of defeated barbarian groups) as subject forces known as laeti and as dedicitii, that were usually deployed on the frontiers.48 Although there is nothing to suggest that military standards declined as a result of the deploy-

GIBBON'S SECONDARY CAUSES  17

ment of barbarians,49 what was perceived as a resulting barbarization of the army was an issue that worried contemporaries, and is raised both by Vegetius in his military handbook50 and by Synesius of Cyrene in the De Regno.51 Recruitment, and particularly the recruitment of barbarians, was not the only military problem. Throughout Roman history the ambitions of individual generals posed a threat to the State, and the fourth and fifth centuries were no exception. A situation approaching civil war was a regular feature of the late Roman period. Constantine (306–37), indeed, established himself in the course of a series of civil wars, following the retirement of Diocletian and Maximian in 305. In the Roman West attempts to seize the imperial title continued throughout the fourth century and on into the fifth, for instance in the rebellions of Magnentius (350–53), Magnus Maximus (383–88), Eugenius (392–94), Constantine III (407–11), and Johannes (423–25). Between the death of Valentinian III in 455 and the deposition of Romulus Augustulus 21 years later every emperor was challenged within a short period of taking office (and indeed no emperor during that period lasted longer than five years). Interestingly, some fragmentary annals, which almost certainly originated in the west Roman court at Ravenna and which cover the years 411–12, 421–23, 427–29, 434–37, 440–43, and 452–54, clearly see the problems posed by would-be usurpers as the major cause for concern in the early fifth century. In the one surviving manuscript, which appears to be a careful Carolingian copy of the late Roman original, preserving the style of its paleography and of its illustrations, the failure of each rebel is neatly illustrated with a sketch of a decapitated head on a pole.52 For most of the fifth century, however, more significant than the challenge offered by would-be usurpers was competition involving the leading generals of the period

18  Chapter 1 (including Stilicho (d. 408), Aetius (d. 454), and Ricimer (d. 472)), who, rather than making a bid for the imperial title itself, were content with high military office, above all the title of magister militum, from which they attempted to control the western emperor and the fortunes of the western Empire.53 There is indeed a very strong case for thinking that the rivalries of the magistri militum and of the other leading generals in the 80 years following the death of the emperor Theodosius I (379–95) were a central factor in the Empire’s failure to deal with the barbarians, and that the divisions they caused had yet wider repercussions.54 For Gibbon a more important division was that between Rome and Constantinople.55 The division of the Empire was, of course, intended to deal with another problem: the sheer difficulty of governing an entity that stretched almost from Mesopotamia to the Atlantic, and from Hadrian’s Wall to the Sahara. Yet dividing the Empire could only provide a solution if all the imperial contemporaries cooperated. Diocletian’s attempt to ensure cooperation through the establishment of the Tetrachy foundered very soon after his own retirement from imperial office in 305, which initiated a period of civil war lasting until Constantine’s seizure of the whole of the Roman World in 324. Later divisions of the Empire were not much more successful. At crucial moments emperors failed or were not given the chance to help their colleagues, as happened in 378 when Valens (364–78) decided to face the Visigoths at Adrianople without waiting for western reinforcements sent by his nephew Gratian (367–83).56 Rivalries between the western and eastern courts were a factor in the failure of the western magister militum Stilicho to deal with the Visigoths when they reached the West in the 390s, and subsequently to deal with the Vandals, Alans, and Sueves after they crossed the Rhine in 406/07.57 As a result of his conflict with successive advisers to the east Roman

GIBBON'S SECONDARY CAUSES  19

Emperor, Arcadius (383–408)—namely Rufinus and Eutropius—Stilicho found himself consistently challenged rather than supported by the court in Constantinople. As Gibbon noted, “the foundation of Constantinople” and “the division of the monarchy” were factors that contributed to the fall of the west Roman Empire.

20  Chapter 1 Notes Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, p. 71. Veyne, Le pain et le cirque. 42 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, pp. 679, 1279–80. 43 Treadgold, Byzantium and its Army, 284–1081, p. 53. 44 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, pp. 680–83. 45 Ibid., p. 683; Duncan-Jones, Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy, pp. 105–17; Treadgold, Byzantium and its Army, 284–1081, pp. 44–59; Elton, Warfare in Roman Europe, AD 350–425, p. 89; Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire, p. 63. 46 Ward-Perkins, “Land, Labour and Settlement,” p. 320. For the Byzantine East, Haldon, Warfare, State and Society, pp. 107–15. 47 Codex Theodosianus, VII, 13; VII, 18. 48 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, pp. 613–23; Lee, “The Army,” pp. 222–24; Whittaker and Garnsey, “Rural Life in the Later Roman Empire,” pp. 279–80; Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376–568, pp. 149–50. 49 Lee, “The Army,” pp. 223–24. 50 Vegetius, De re militari, I, 28, trans. Milner, pp. 27–28, with comments on pp. xxix–xxx. 51 Synesius, De Regno, 19, PG 66, cols. 1099–1100 (online trans. at livius.org). 52 Bischoff and Koehler, “Eine illustrierte Ausgabe der spätantiken Ravennater Annalen,” pp. 127–29. 53 O’Flynn, Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire; McEvoy, Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367–455. 54 Delaplace, La fin de l’Empire romain d’Occident. 55 See now Two Romes, ed. Grigg and Kelly. 56 Lenski, Failure of Empire, pp. 356–67. 57 Cameron, Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Hon­ orius, pp. 63–92, 124–88. 40 41

Chapter 2

Barbarism: “The Invasion and Settlements of the Barbarians of Germany and Scythia”

Of the two factors singled out by Gibbon for special emphasis, that of the role of the barbarians in the collapse of the Roman West has divided opinion more than any other. In the post-1945 world there was a strong view, particularly prevalent in France, that the barbarians were to blame for the fall of Rome, and this is echoed, in more measured terms, in Jones’s Later Roman Empire.58 Rather less inclined to pin blame on the Germanic peoples, however, is The Barbarian West 400–1000, published in 1952, in which Michael Wallace-Hadrill condensed the events of the late fourth, fifth, and early sixth centuries into a single chapter, before allocating greater space to the Lombards in Italy, the Franks in Gaul, and (in a third edition) the Visigoths in Spain.59 A recurrent theme is the survival or restoration of romanitas, rather than its collapse. At the same time, early barbarian society was subjected to intense, and in many ways sympathetic, analysis by Edward Thompson, whose Marxism led him to explore the development of social division among the Germanic peoples over the course of the Migration Period.60 The real challenge to the notion that Rome was overthrown by the barbarians, however, came in a series of sharply argued articles and books, the first of which was published in 1980. Here Walter Goffart downgraded the

22  Chapter 2 importance of the so-called Germanic peoples, not least by questioning the scale of the barbarian migrations, the Völkerwanderung.61 His reading has been vigorously challenged, especially by Heather and Ward-Perkins, albeit with only limited success.62 They have reminded us of the reality of the disruption, even if the barbarian numbers were small. The brutality and destruction, however, were geographically confined and chronologically short-lived. This is not to deny that disruptive military violence was a regular feature of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, but much of it was not instigated by barbarians.63 The Vandals, Alans, and Sueves unquestionably caused major damage on their route from the Rhine through to Spain between 407 and 409, as has been well mapped,64 but already by 418/19 there were signs of revival in Gaul, famously characterized by the senatorial poet Rutilius Namatianus as ordo renascendi, “renaissance.”65 In north-western Spain the crisis caused by the arrival of the barbarians lasted longer than it did in most other regions of the Roman West, as is evidenced by the mid-fifth-century chronicle of Bishop Hydatius, with its extremely hostile view of the invaders, and particularly of the Sueves, who settled in the old province of Gallaecia.66 By the second half of the sixth century, however, even the Suevic kingdom was a centre of significant religious culture, as can be seen in the writings of Martin of Braga (d. 580) and Paschasius of Dumio (d. 583). Archaeology also seems to be revealing an unexpected level of “civilisation,” in the buildings of Martin’s monastery at Dumio, the basilica at Coimbra, and especially in the royal acropolis at Falperra.67 Of course the ordo renascendi perceived by Rutilius was interrupted both by the mid-fifth-century civil wars of Roman generals, and also by the renewed aggression of the Huns. Attila’s devastation of cities in the Balkans in the 440s and in northern Gaul in 451 may have been more

BARBARISM  23

long-lasting than any destruction caused by the arrival of the Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, and Sueves: at least writers in the sixth and seventh centuries imply as much.68 Yet, for all the terror caused by the arrival of the Huns, the threat posed by Attila was short-lived, covering not much more than a decade. In the provinces of Gaul the places that suffered significantly from the Hunnic attack are limited to the area between the Rhine and the Seine; the territory to the south and west, in other words the majority of the region, was untouched. Certainly more widespread was the damage in Pannonia and Moesia, above all because of the sacking of Sirmium, Singidunum, Margus, and Naissus.69 The passage of Goths, Huns, Slavs, and Bulgars through the Balkans may have caused levels of disruption in the Balkans that were not replicated elsewhere in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. Although Attila created a sizeable confederacy (and at the height of his power he may well have been leading significantly larger numbers than did any other barbarian leader), we should be careful when considering the numbers of the Huns themselves. Supposedly they were based in what is now the Hungarian Plain, in which case we should remember that much of it was either marshland or liable to flooding until it was drained in the late nineteenth century. Large amounts of the region did not constitute an ideal landscape for horsemen or the breeding of horses.70 Moreover, being a confederacy, rather than a vast horde of Huns, Attila’s following disintegrated immediately after his death. Although not everyone has agreed with Goffart’s radical reduction of the scale of the barbarian invasions, most scholars have taken on board the need to treat the evidence precisely and with extreme caution. Recent events, however, have inevitably prompted populist and ill-informed comparison between the migrants of the fourth and fifth

24  Chapter 2 centuries on the one hand and those of the present day on the other: for instance, from the Dutch politician Geert Wilders71 and from the modern historian Niall Ferguson.72 Here I will simply say that the current crisis in Europe has made it clear that the tens of thousands of barbarians who settled within the Empire, first in the fourth century and then again in the fifth, would not, on their own, have been remotely capable of overthrowing it. And there certainly were only tens, not hundreds of thousands—unless one adds together the numbers of all the incomers over two centuries. Roman commentators, who are likely to have exaggerated rather than underestimated the numbers of barbarians, claimed that 80,000 Burgundians arrived at the banks of the Rhine, apparently in 363, while the same number of Vandals is supposed to have crossed to Africa in 429. For the Burgundians our information comes from the Chronicle of Jerome, whose figures were repeated by Orosius.73 Whatever the number of Burgundians at the moment of their arrival on the borders of the Empire, Socrates Scholasticus talks only of 3,000 in a battle against the Huns in the 430s.74 And archaeology scarcely supports the idea that there was a group of anything like 80,000 when it came to their settlement in Sapaudia—territory in the vicinity of Geneva—in the course of the 440s.75 As for the figure of 80,000 Vandals, Victor of Vita, who provides the number, makes it clear that it was a figure that was designed to impress, for it included women and children as well as the old.76 Procopius supplies the same number when discussing the presence of Vandals in Africa, and he too presents it as an exaggeration, for Gaiseric achieved the impression of so many by dividing his Vandal and Alan followers into eighty groups, each led by a chiliarch (theoretically the leader of a thousand men), and the Byzantine author adds the observation that previously the two groups had been thought to number no more than 50,000,

BARBARISM  25

although he also notes that the numbers had increased, and that they had been joined by other barbarians.77 Yet even if one accepts that Gaiseric led 80,000 migrants, the figure is scarcely large. Orosius, who as we have seen talks of that number of Burgundians, gives the same figure for the number of troops that the Persian shah Darius lost in the course of crossing the Danube.78 They would have been a fraction of the supposedly 700,000-strong army. This, of course, is legend. But according to the seventh-century poet George of Pisidia, there were 80,000 Avar and Sclavene troops involved in the siege of Constantinople in 62679—without even listing the numbers of Persians on the other side of the Bosporus. Beyond the figures for the Burgundians and Vandals for the incoming barbarians of the fourth and fifth centuries we have only vague assertions of large numbers or modern estimates derived from what we know of the course of events. The number of Visigoths, for instance, is calculated largely from what is known of the Battle of Adrianople in 378, where the combined forces of the Tervingi and Greutungi may have amounted to 20,000.80 To approach the figures in another way, 80,000—the number given for the Burgundians and for the Vandals—is the same as the number of people to whom Constantine allocated free corn within his new foundation of Constantinople,81 which was rather fewer than the 200,000 who received the equivalent allocation in Rome in the days of Augustus, although that figure later dropped to around 120,000.82 Despite the problems of estimating the number of barbarians, and despite the danger of entering current populist debate, a modern comparison is instructive: in 2015 there were over 2,291,100 asylum seekers (“temporary protection beneficiaries”) in Turkey,83 a country of 79 million; in Germany, a country of over 80 million, the number of new applicants for asylum in the same year was 443,000;84

26  Chapter 2 in the EU as a whole, with a population of 507 million, the number was 1,321,560. 85 One may compare those figures not only with the 80,000 given for the Burgundians and for the Vandals but also with Hans Delbrück’s old but still compelling estimate of 60,000 Visigoths (men, women, and children) entering the Roman Empire,86 which in 376 perhaps boasted a population of 55 million (to take an average estimate). This is not a contribution to the modern political argument, but an indication that the Romans ought to have been able to cope. If one points out that the current migrants are not a militarized force, whereas the Goths (according to Heather) may have boasted 20,000 fighting men87 or perhaps (according to Delbrück) only 15,000,88 one can counter that late fourth-century Rome, with an army that is usually thought to have numbered between 400,000 and 600,000, was a good deal more militarized than are most modern European countries.89 If the barbarians overwhelmed the Empire in any way, it was as a result of a combination of factors: the inability of the local administration to cope with a sudden influx of refugees in 376, a subsequent failure of political will associated with rivalry between Constantinople and Rome, a willingness among the Roman generals to see their colleagues discomforted, and an unwillingness among the landed classes to help out (weaknesses most of which, alarmingly, have their parallels throughout modern Europe and the United States). There is, however, one very striking difference between the refugee crisis of the early twenty-first century and that of the fourth and fifth centuries. We have already noted that the Ravenna Annals pay plenty of attention to would-be usurpers but none to barbarians, even though this was a period in which Visigoths, Vandals, Alans, and Sueves were all causing damage in parts of the West. In the one reference to an event that can be associated with barbarians, the sack of Aquileia in

BARBARISM  27

452 (Aquileia fracta est XV kal. Aug: Aquileia was crushed on July 18), there is no reference to the Huns, who did indeed destroy the city.90 Although there were plenty of authors writing in the early fifth century who did comment on the damage being caused by the Visigoths, Vandals, and Sueves,91 clearly the west Roman court in Ravenna did not see the barbarians as a major problem. In other words, the barbarian incomers of the fourth and fifth centuries put pressure on the Roman Empire, and at the battle of Adrianople they inflicted a major defeat on the east Roman army under the command of Valens—a defeat that had repercussions for generations to come.92 But the barbarian threat was not, of itself, significant enough to bring the west Roman World to an end. Adrianople, one might note, was the only major barbarian victory, and it was over the forces of the East. It is often forgotten that although it was the west Roman Empire that ultimately fell, it was the north-eastern frontier (that of the Lower Danube) and the eastern army that broke first. When the Visigoths finally left the Balkans, the court in Constantinople was only too happy. In the West they caused plenty of trouble but they achieved no major military victory (except arguably over Attila at the Catalaunian Plains in 451); nor did any subsequent barbarian army. In any case, few of the barbarians, most of whom had long been subject to Roman influence well before they crossed the frontier,93 wanted to damage the Empire; rather they wished to live within it and benefit from it. Famously, although Athaulf (411–15), the Visigothic successor of Alaric I, the leader who sacked Rome, supposedly contemplated substituting Gothia for Romania, he thought better of the idea, and decided to uphold Rome with Gothic arms.94 Perhaps significantly, however, neither he nor the later Ostrogothic ruler Theodoric thought of reclassifying barbarian troops as Roman. But before 476

28  Chapter 2 all the barbarian groups (even the Vandals and Sueves) sought some sort of accommodation within the Empire, and indeed the Burgundians under the Gibichung family continued to see themselves as imperial agents down to the collapse of their rule in the Rhône valley in the 530s,95 over half a century after the deposition of the last western Emperor. In fact there is a case for seeing the period between 476 and Justinian’s Italian wars as that of a “Byzan­­tine Commonwealth.”96 Moreover, given the problem of recruitment to the army, the Empire could well have made more use of the manpower that the barbarians had to offer than it did. The problem was not the barbarians but the failure of imperial elite to respond sensibly to their presence—the emperors, their generals, and the senatorial aristocracy concentrated on their own interests, rather than the broader well-being of the State.

BARBARISM  29

Notes 58 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 1068; Cameron, “A. H. M. Jones and the End of the Ancient World,” p. 234. 59 Wallace-Hadrill, The Barbarian West. 60 See especially Thompson, Romans and Barbarians. As Chris Wickham has suggested, he may well have had in mind Engels, “The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State.” 61 Goffart, Barbarians and Romans AD 418–584; also Goffart, Barbarian Tides. 62 Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire; Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization. 63 Shaw, “Rome’s Mediterranean World System and its Transformation,” stresses the significance of violence for the transformation of the Roman World. 64 Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire, pp. 206–11. 65 Rutilius Namatianus, De reditu suo; Matthews, Western Aris­ tocracies and Imperial Court, pp. 329–51. 66 Hydatius, Chronicle; Muhlberger, The Fifth-Century Chroni­ clers, pp. 193–266; Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, pp. 137–60. 67 Thompson, Romans and Barbarians, pp. 161–87: Fontes, “A Igreja Sueva de São Martino de Dume”; Silva de Andrade, Arquite­ tura e paisagem monásticas no território bracarense. O caso de Dume; Martínez Tejera, “Edilicia cristiana tardo-antigua en Conimbriga? La ‘basílica paleocristiana’ de la domus tancinus a debate”; J. Martínez Jiménez, “Crisis or Crises? The End of Roman Towns in Iberia, between the Late Roman and Early Umayyad Periods,” pp. 84–85. 68 Thompson, The Huns, pp. 86–102; Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire, pp. 300–12; Kelly, Attila the Hun, pp. 90–98. 69 Lee, “The Eastern Empire: Theodosius to Anastasius,” p. 42; Whitby, “The Balkans and Greece, 420–602,” pp. 704–12. 70 Szende, “Stadt und Naturlandschaft im ungarischen Donauraum des Mittelalters,” p. 383. 71 Wilders compared the current migrations with those of the late Roman period in the Annual Lecture at the Magna Carta Foundation, Rome, March 25, 2011. 72 Ferguson, “Paris and the Fall of Rome,” Boston Globe, November 16, 2015. 73 Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, VII, 32, 11. 74 Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 30. 75 Escher, Genèse et évolution du deuxième royaume burgonde (443–534): les témoins archéologiques.

30  Chapter 2 76 Victor of Vita, Historia Persecutionis, I, 2: Merrills and Miles, The Vandals, pp. 52–54. 77 Procopius, Wars, III, 5, 18–21. 78 Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, II, 6, 12 79 George of Pisidia, De bello Avarico, l. 219 (PG 92, col. 1277). Pohl, Die Awaren, p. 250, accepts the figure as plausible, but one may doubt whether such a number could logistically have been involved in a siege. 80 Heather, Goths and Romans 332–489, pp. 139, 146–47; Delbrück, The Barbarian Invasions, pp. 275–76, 296; Curran, “From Jovian to Theodosius,” p. 98. The fullest narrative reconstruction is Wolfram, History of the Goths, pp. 117–31. 81 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, pp. 696–97, 1285–86; citing Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, II, 13 (PG 67, col. 210). 82 Morley, “Population Size and Social Structure,” p. 37 83 UNHCR figures: asylumineurope.org (accessed January 21, 2017). 84 ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/Asylum_ statistics. 85 www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-34131911: PewResearchCenter figures: pewglobal.org (accessed 21 January 2017). 86 Delbrück, The Barbarian Invasions, p. 293. 87 Heather, Goths and Romans 332–489, pp. 139, 146–47. 88 Delbrück, The Barbarian Invasions, p. 293; also Halsall, Bar­ barian Migrations and the Roman West 376–568, pp. 144–49. 89 The statistics are available at data.worldbank.org. 90 Bischoff and Koehler, “Eine illustrierte Ausgabe der spätantiken Ravennater Annalen,” p. 129. 91 The material is usefully, but uncritically, gathered by Courcelle, Histoire littéraires des grandes invasions germaniques. 92 Lenski, “Initium mali Romano imperio: Contemporary Reactions to the Battle of Adrianople”; Lee, “The Army,” pp. 222–23. 93 Geary, Before France and Germany, pp. vi–viii; Wolfram, The Roman Empire and its Germanic Peoples, pp. 35–101; Halsall, Bar­ barian Migrations and the Roman West, pp. 149–61. 94 Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, VII, 43: Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-haired Kings, pp. 25–48. 95 Wood, “The Germanic Successor States”; Wood, “When Did the Roman Empire Fall?”; Handley, “Inscribing Time and Identity in the Kingdom of Burgundy.” 96 Wood, “When Did the Roman Empire Fall?.”

Chapter 3

Religion and the Transformation of the Roman World

Hitherto we have avoided the topic of “Religion,” which for Gibbon was, alongside “Barbarism,” one of the two key factors in the collapse of the West. We have been able to do so because social, economic, and political interpretations of Rome’s Fall have largely been divorced from discussions of religious change during the period. Although there have been notable exceptions, most scholars have tended either to talk of politics, economics, and society, or of religion and culture. As we noted, Rostovtzeff regretted his failure to deal with the whole picture.97 Despite the regrets of the Russian historian, few have been as successful as Gibbon in keeping an eye simultaneously on both the religious and the non-religious aspects of the story.98 Even in his own day Gibbon himself was unusual in making religion central to his interpretation of the fall of Rome. His French predecessors—among them, of course, Montesquieu, as a leading Enlightenment scholar—had said little about the Church. Moreover, it was the negative role that Gibbon assigned to Christianity in Chapters 15 and 16 that most provoked criticism of Decline and Fall at the time of publication and in the nineteenth century:99 the secular elements in his account fared better than did the religious. In the middle of the nineteenth century, however, there were scholars, particularly Catholic scholars,

32  Chapter 3 who did come to place religion at the heart of their reading of the end of the Roman Empire, albeit from a very different viewpoint from that taken by Gibbon. Above all there was Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam, writing in the 1840s.100 For him rather than being a factor in the fall of the West, Christianity was in fact responsible for salvaging classical civilization. The corrupt Roman Empire had been overthrown by barbarians, who had nothing to put in its place: it therefore fell to the Church to save what was worthwhile from Antiquity and to cast it in a new Christian mould. This spiritually engaged reading of the end of the Roman World ran parallel to but had little impact on the secular readings of the period, which revolved around either Rome’s weaknesses or the strength of the barbarians. It surfaced at regular intervals throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, receiving its most popular statement in Christopher Dawson’s The Making of Europe (1932),101 a book that, at least in its treatment of the centuries between the fourth and seventh, adds little to Ozanam’s interpretation.102 Whereas Ozanam, and subsequently Dawson, had integrated the history of Christianity into that of the fall of Rome—and in so doing had effectively reversed Gibbon’s reading—most twentieth-century scholars of the Church kept the two themes apart. The triumph of Christianity ran parallel to the last centuries of west Rome, but the two narratives were rarely combined. It was not that the history of Christianity was assessed entirely out of context but that the context in which it was considered was usually cultural rather than social or economic. One can see this most clearly in Henri-Irenée Marrou’s Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique of 1938, which almost shockingly placed the Church Father in a sterile intellectual world, suffocated by the traditions of the Roman educational system. A second edition of the book added a Retracta­

Religion and the Transformation of the Roman World  33

tio, which acknowledged that the first reading had been excessively negative.103 The major (albeit sympathetic) challenge to Marrou’s picture, however, would not come until 1967, with the publication of Brown’s Augustine of Hippo,104 followed four years later with the broader interpretation of The World of Late Antiquity.105 Here, in place of a decadent and stifling Later Empire, the reader was faced with a new, and vibrant, late antique society. It was an image that Marrou himself readily embraced in his later writings.106 Despite his acknowledgement of broader political devel­­ opments (in both The World of Late Antiquity and The Rise of Western Christendom), the majority of Brown’s work (like that of Robert Markus, above all in his End of Ancient Christianity)107 is concerned primarily with “religion and society.” This concern is already apparent in the string of articles written by Brown in the 1960s and 1970s, as in the major books that followed them.108 It is equally dominant in the more recent Through the Eye of a Needle.109 Although the subtitle of this last work is Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550 ad, Brown’s main concern here, as elsewhere, is not with political change but with the interplay of society and religion,110 and while wealth, the wealthy, and the poor, are examined in some detail, the focus is social rather more than economic. Although Brown has insisted that the history of religion and the history of society are inseparable, it is striking that his reading has rarely been integrated into general studies of socio-economic change.111 Nor has religion often played a major role in more straightforwardly political narratives, except at those moments when doctrine impinges on politics.112 It is true that numerous studies of the late and post-Roman periods include a chapter on the Church or on Christianity,113 and that Michael McCormick,

34  Chapter 3 in his study of communications and commerce, makes much of pilgrims and of the trade in relics.114 Yet when we consider the political and economic history of the fifth and sixth centuries on the one hand, and the religious and cultural on the other, it is often as if we are dealing with two parallel worlds. The historiographical problem facing us is not, to my mind, one of deciding which of the various readings of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries is correct, for none of them is entirely without an evidential base (and some are supremely well grounded in the source material), but rather to work out how they relate one to another: the issue is one of integration. For Gibbon “Religion and Barbarism” were at work at the same time. They both contributed (alongside other factors) to what many would now regard as the “Transformation of the Roman World.” Yet many a student of the period, content with reading a basic narrative of the fall of Rome and the creation of the successor states, could be forgiven for not appreciating the scale of the Christian cultural and religious achievement (despite the fact that most of our written documentation is ecclesiastical), while many a student of religious history could be forgiven for not being aware of the socio-economic context of the later Patristic Fathers (despite modern discussions of post-Roman society). My concern in what follows is to consider some ways in which religion and the Church can be reintegrated into what has become a largely secular discourse.115

Religion and the Transformation of the Roman World  35

Notes 97 Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, p. xv. See now Cameron, “Education and Literary Culture.” 98 Jones saw the importance of the Church (Gwynn, “Idle Mouths and Solar Heroes”), but overall it does not bulk large in The Later Roman Empire. 99 Pocock, Barbarism and Religion, vol. 5, Religion: The First Tri­ umph, pp. 303–71. 100 Ozanam, Études Germaniques pour servir à l’histoire des francs; Ozanam, La Civilisation au Cinquième Siècle; Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 140–47. 101 Dawson, The Making of Europe 400–1000 AD. 102 Wood, Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages, pp. 270–74. 103 Marrou, Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique; see the Rectractatio appended to the second edition. 104 Brown, Augustine of Hippo. 105 Brown, The World of Late Antiquity; see “SO Debate.” 106 Marrou, Décadence ou antiquité tardive? IIIe–VIe siècle. 107 Markus, The End of Ancient Christianity. 108 For the essays, Brown, Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine; Brown, Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. 109 Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle. 110 Wood, “‘There is a World Elsewhere’,” pp. 23–24. 111 Despite chapters on “Religion and Society in the Age of Gregory the Great” and “Heraclius, Persia and Holy War,” religion is only an intermittent topic in Sarris, Empires of Faith. For a juxtaposition of socio-economic and religious readings see Shaw, “Rome’s Mediterranean World System and its Transformation.” 112 O’Donnell, The Ruin of the Roman Empire, makes more of doctrine than most—not surprisingly, given the author’s previous studies of Augustine and Cassiodorus. See also Hunt, “The Church as a Public Institution.” However, the relative insignificance of poli­ tical and economic subjects in Cain and Lensky, The Power of Reli­ gion in Late Antiquity, is striking. 113 See, for instance, Wickham, The Inheritance of Rome, pp. 50–75. 114 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, pp. 129–38, 197–210, 283–318. 115 Haldon, The Empire that would not Die, pp. 12–15, 79–158; Shaw, “Rome’s Mediterranean World System and its Transformation.”

Chapter 4

Religion: “The Rise, Establishment, and Sects of Christianity”

Since the question that concerns me in what follows derives from Gibbon, it is as well to begin with those aspects of Christianity that he regarded as contributing to the decline and fall of Rome. He did, after all, distinguish between what he described as “a pure and humble religion” on the one hand, and “the triumphant banner of the Cross on the ruins of the Capitol” that grew out of it,116 which he associated with “Superstition,” on the other hand. In looking at what he saw as the negative role played by the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries we should, therefore, stick with his very specific criticisms. In the “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West” he claimed that the “clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity”; that a “large proportion of public and private wealth”—including “the soldiers’ pay”—“was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion”; that “the Church, and even the State, were distracted by religious factions”; and that “the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods.” He continued by stating that “the bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience” and that “the sacred indolence of the monks was undoubtedly embraced by a servile and effeminate age.” He did, however, acknowledge that “if the decline

38  Chapter 4 of the Roman Empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall …”117 In what follows I will regroup Gibbon’s points and consider the supposed role of Christianity in weakening the State, before turning to the distractions of religious disagreements (Gibbon’s factions, and the importance of the synods) and thereafter to issues that are susceptible to some numerical analysis: the number of churchmen and the finances supporting the Church. Because these last issues can, to some extent, be dealt with in terms of facts and figures, they allow us to set the Church (and therefore “Religion”) at the heart of what is usually presented as purely secular history. The first of Gibbon’s complaints is perhaps the easiest to dismiss. His notion that concentration on salvation led to a failure of martial spirit is obviously derived from Augustine’s insistence that the Civitas Dei mattered more than the Civitas Terrena.118 Augustine’s, however, was not the only voice. As Jaroslav Pelikan noted, in a slim volume (The Excellent Empire) that has been largely (and unaccountably) ignored by many historians, already at the end of the second century Tertullian had insisted that Christians were praying for the emperor, for the stability of the Empire, and for Rome.119 Eusebius’s vision of the Christian Empire of Constantine was most certainly not intended to undermine it.120 The mid-fifth-century Byzantine ecclesiastical historians Sozomen and Socrates recorded the sack of Rome in 410, but they also saw in the contemporary successes of the eastern emperor Theodosius II the effect of divine approval.121 Their exact contemporary in the West, Salvian, while preaching the need for a truly Christian lifestyle, was at the same time adamant that the upper levels of society were failing in their political and social obligations: that is, he wanted the Empire to continue, but to do so while following the precepts of Christianity more closely.122

RELIGION  39

Of course, one might argue that there was a streak of pacifism in Christianity and that this is reflected in numerous hagiographic accounts, not least those of the legendary soldier martyrs of the Theban Legion, who died refusing to obey orders,123 and that of the unquestionably historical figure of St. Martin, who made a great show of leaving the army.124 Martin was certainly rejecting the military life. However, although the story of the Theban Legion, supposedly relating to the year 286, is in all probability a fiction, it is worth stressing the fact that it does not revolve around a refusal to fight, but rather around a refusal of a Christian body of troops to kill their fellow believers. Moreover, it has been argued that the legend was developed in the early 390s in the context of the military conflict between Theodosius I and the usurping emperor Eugenius, who was supposedly friendly towards pagans.125 There is, in fact, quite a collection of late Roman soldier saints, even if the majority of them are apocryphal.126 Far from presenting the military as inimical to the Christian message, their cults show an enthusiasm for presenting Christianity as a religion for the army. Moreover, as early as the fifth century we hear of the involvement of clergy in military affairs, although they were certainly not as directly or as frequently involved in warfare as were bishops of the Carolingian era. According to Constantius of Lyon, Bishop Germanus of Auxerre was involved in a campaign against the Saxons in Britain around 430.127 Nor were the Christian emperors notably less bellicose, or indeed less cruel,128 than their pagan predecessors: leaving aside their Byzantine successors, Constantine, Constantius II (337–61), Valentinian I (364–75), Valens, Theodosius I, and Majorian (457–61) were all soldier emperors. The Christian commitment of the emperors, and especially of Constantine, Theodosius, and, in the East, Marcian (450–57) and Justinian (527–65), means that the Church

40  Chapter 4 can scarcely stand condemned for undermining regard for the Empire; rather it very quickly became central to its ideology. And of course one can always fall back on the Gospel of Matthew, which records Christ’s words, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”129 In short, Gibbon’s suggestion that Christianity inculcated a sense of passive spinelessness in the Romans does not stand up to scrutiny, despite the well-known departure of the wealthy and pious aristocrats Melania and Pinian from Rome in 408 to avoid the threat of the Visigoths130 and the removal of the Gallic aristocrat Honoratus and his companions to the Mediterranean island of Lérins, where they created a monastic community in around 410, following the Vandal rampage through Gaul.131

RELIGION  41

Notes Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 15. Ibid., chap. 38: “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West.” 118 Markus, Saeculum. 119 Pelikan, The Excellent Empire, pp. 46–48. 120 Ibid., pp. 72–75; Maier, “Dominion from Sea to Sea: Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine the Great, and the Exegesis of Empire”; van Nuffelen, “Theology versus Genre? The Universalism of Christian Historiography in Late Antiquity”; Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradi­ tion and Innovation, ed. Johnson and Schott. 121 Pelikan, The Excellent Empire, pp. 67–76. 122 Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei; Salvian, Ad Ecclesiam; Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, pp. 433–53. 123 The best texts of the two Passiones Acaunensium martyrum are to be found at http://passiones.textandbytes.com. 124 Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini, 3–4. 125 Woods, “The Origin of the Legend of Maurice and the Theban Legion.” 126 Delehaye, Les légendes grecques des saints militaries; Binon, Essai sur le cycle de saint Mercure; Haldon, A Tale of Two Saints. 127 Constantius, Vita Germani, 17–18. 128 Liebs, “Unverhohlene Brutalität in den Gesetzen der ersten christlichen Kaiser.” 129 Matthew 22:21; also Mark 12:17. 130 Gerontius, Life of Melania, p. 18; Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, pp. 291–300. 131 For the date, Valentin, Hilaire d’Arles, Vie de saint Honorat, p. 22; Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, pp. 419–23. 116 117

Chapter 5

Religious Reaction to the Fall of Rome

The reactions to the devastation of parts of Gaul and Spain, and to the activities of the Visigoths within Italy did, however, have their religious side. Some pagans attributed the taking of Rome by the barbarians in 410 to the abandonment of the old gods, while some Christians saw the disaster as a just retribution on a sinful world. One need only recall the letters of Jerome and Pelagius, and the sermons of Augustine,132 written in the immediate aftermath of the Sack of Rome; or the subsequent, and very much more considered, response of the bishop of Hippo in the City of God.133 Orosius reversed the pagan argument: the destruction had been unleashed by God on the ungrateful city, and indeed the major damage to the forum had been caused by a divine thunderbolt, which destroyed all the idols.134 Even so, in his view, the three-day sack in 410 was as nothing compared with a fire that had devastated the city 700 years after its foundation (i.e. in 54/53 bc),135 not to mention the one that lasted six days during the reign of Nero136 or the total sack of Rome by Brennus following a six-month siege in ca. 399 bc.137 In any case, the Gothic sack famously morphed into a religious procession after Alaric ordered the restitution of “the sacred vessels” to the Church of St Peter.138

44  Chapter 5 It is worth pausing here for a moment on some of the ideas relating to the Empire and its demise that were current in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries. Eusebius, of course, had set out a very positive view of the Empire as the fulfilment of Christian history. In one way or another his view was adapted in the East to fit the developments of the fifth century139—the reigns of Theodosius II (401–50) and of Marcian could still be seen as belonging to the triumph of the Christian Empire. In the West, despite the fact that Eusebius’s Chronicle, in Jerome’s translation, seems to have been better known than it was in the East, it was harder to follow a pure Eusebian line. Not surprisingly there is an apocalyptic strain to be found in a number of chronicles of the period, notably that of Bishop Hydatius writing in north-west Spain in the middle of the fifth century.140 Such a strain is already present in Jerome’s reaction to the sack of Rome,141 although not in Augustine’s. Rather less frequently recognized than the millenarian views of some ecclesiastical writers, the notion that the Empire was about to collapse was present in pagan thought long before 410.142 According to an anecdote to be found in Livy and a number of other early historians, as Romulus and Remus were digging the foundations of Rome the latter observed six vultures, while his brother saw twelve.143 This story was interpreted, following oracular comments to be found in the Sybilline books, as meaning that Rome would last twelve centuries. The logic of this prophetic fable was that the city would fall in the 440s or 450s (depending on the calculation of the foundation of the city, which is not consistently 753 bc).144 The expectation was serious enough for Stilicho to order the destruction of the Sybilline books in 405 to prevent further discussion of the matter.145 Nevertheless, allusions to vultures can be found in our sources up until 455, when Sidonius Apollinaris seems to have gone out of his way

Religious Reaction to the Fall of Rome  45

to scotch the idea that Valentinian III’s murder was not the fulfilment of the Sibylline prophecy: in his panegyric on the emperor Avitus, delivered in 456, he insisted that the Empire was still flourishing despite the twelve vultures of Romulus.146 We may, however, have a reflection of the prophetic view that Rome would fall in 454 (one of the possible centenaries of the city’s foundation) in the Chronicle of Marcellinus Comes. He famously dated the fall of the western Empire to 476, but he also described the murder of Aetius in terms similar to those he employed for the later event: of the death of Aetius in 454 he wrote that “with him fell the Western kingdom” (cum ipsum Hespe­ rium cecidit regnum), and of the deposition of Romulus he stated “with this Augustulus perished the Western Empire of the Roman people” (Hesperium Romanae gentis impe­ rium … cum hoc Augustulo periit).147 Certainly, apocalyptic readings of events continued in Constantinople long after the fall of the West.148 In fact our sources provide us with quite a range of dates that were perceived by contemporaries as marking the fall of the Empire in the West—some of them stretching into the sixth century.149 The Burgundian Gibichungs, for instance, seem to have regarded themselves as agents of the Empire down to the destruction of their state by the Franks in the 530s.150 However, for those who believed in the Sibylline oracle, that was around eighty years after the time that the Empire had been expected to fall.

46  Chapter 5 Notes 132 Jerome, epp. 122, 123, 126, 127, 128, 130; Pelikan, The Excel­ lent Empire, pp. 43–52; Pelagius, ep. to Demetrias, 30, 1 (PL XXX); de Bruyn, “Ambivalence within a ‘Totalizing Discourse’”; Salzmann, “Memory and Meaning: Pagans and 410,” pp. 295–301. For the sack of Rome, see now Meier and Patzold, August 410—ein Kampf um Rom; and The Sack of Rome in 410 AD, ed. Lipps, Machado, and von Rummel. 133 Brown, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 287–312. 134 Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, II, 19, 15; and VII, 39, 18. On Orosius’s accounts of the sack of Rome, see Meier, “Alarico— Le tragedie di Roma e del conquistatore,” and McLynn, “Orosius, Jerome and the Goths.” 135 Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, VI, 14, 5; and VII, 2, 10–11; 39, 15. 136 Ibid., VII, 7, 4; 39, 16. 137 Ibid., II, 19, 7–16, 138 Ibid., VII, 39, 3–14. 139 Pelikan, The Excellent Empire, pp. 67–77. 140 Muhlberger, The Fifth-Century Chroniclers, pp. 193–266. 141 Pelikan, The Excellent Empire, p. 45. 142 It is well known to historians of Roman religion, but is rarely noted in the context of debates over the fall of Rome. See Stanley, “Rome, ‘ΕΡΩΣ and the Versus Romae.” See also Wood, “When Did the West Roman Empire Fall?.” 143 The versions of the story are discussed in Levene, Religion in Livy, pp. 129–31. 144 Momigliano, “The Origins of Rome,” p. 82. 145 Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu Suo, II, ll. 41–42, pp. 824–25; Cameron, The Last Pagans of Rome, p. 213. 146 Sidonius Apollinaris, Carm. VII, ll. 357–58. 147 Marcellinus Comes, Chronicle, s.a. 454, 476, trans. Croke, pp. 22, 27. 148 Brandes, “Sieben Hügel”; Brandes, “Kaiserprophetien und Hochverrat.” 149 Wood, “When Did the West Roman Empire Fall?.” 150 Ibid.; Handley, “Inscribing Time and Identity in the Kingdom of Burgundy.”

Chapter 6

Doctrinal Division

Turning from the disagreements between pagans and Christians over the causes of the sack of Rome to disagreements between the Christians themselves—Gibbon’s “sects of Christianity”—no one could deny the fact that the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries were riven by doctrinal conflict. This was a key period in the definition of orthodoxy and, as a corollary, the designation of doctrinal opponents as heretics. Without considering any of the minor heresies one can list Arianism, Donatism, Priscillianism, Pelagianism, Nestorianism, and Monophysitism as doctrinal positions that caused major conflict in the course of the three centuries following the conversion of Constantine. Some, though not all, modern histories of the fall of Rome have integrated these doctrinal disputes into their narratives. Ecclesiastical historians, of course, have most certainly not lost sight of the importance of doctrine, or of the significance of the ecumenical councils, which have attracted notable attention in recent years. The wider social and political implications of doctrinal debate, however, were rather more central to scholarship in the 1970s than is now the case. In 1972 Bill Frend published his account of The Rise of the Monophysite Movement, in which he placed the religious debates over the nature of Christ in the fifth and sixth centuries firmly at the centre of his reading of the

48  Chapter 6 history of the early Byzantine World.151 But he had already looked at the history of the African Donatist Church in a similar vein in 1952.152 Frend’s arguments led to heated discussion as to whether ancient heresies were national or social movements in disguise.153 Most scholars would see the debate as long concluded, and as it was formulated by Frend this is surely the case. Yet equally there is no doubt that the debates over Monophysitism in the fifth and sixth centuries caused lasting divisions in the eastern Empire—divisions which Justinian’s attempts to solve did nothing but exacerbate. Indeed, in condemning the writings of Sozomen, Socrates, and Ibas in an attempt to win over some of the critics of the settlement at Chalcedon, the emperor caused the controversy of the Three Chapters, which for a while split East and West, and continued to trouble the West into the seventh century.154 Unlike Frend, Gibbon, of course, did not see the arguments over the nature of Christ, which was at issue at the councils of Ephesus in 431 and Chalcedon 20 years later, in regional, “national,” or social terms. Rather (equally unlike the Church historians of Late Antiquity), he saw them simply as a pointless distraction. As Gibbon observed, the issue of religious orthodoxy created a totally new concern, which occupied the attention of emperors and led to wide-scale conflict. The ensuing doctrinal debates diverted the attention, energies, and resources of the government. Whether or not they were pointless, Gibbon was surely right to see them as distracting emperors from other concerns, political, military, and social. Theological debate consumed time, energy, and resources. Before Constantine the minutiae of orthodoxy were not an imperial concern. At Nicaea in 325 the emperor himself had to intervene. Even if we leave aside the doctrines debated at the great councils (and there can be no question that the arguments occupied a considerable number of people and

Doctrinal Division  49

were a cause of major disagreements) and concentrate simply on the logistics of the gatherings, we can see that they were hugely costly affairs, demanding considerable resources and a good deal of imperial attention. According to Athanasius of Alexandria, 318 bishops attended Nicaea, though this number is now thought to be too high and Eusebius’s figure of 250 is thought more likely.155 Although Hosius of Cordoba is sometimes said to have presided, few bishops from the West are known to have attended, but there certainly were western representatives. We are also told by Theodoret that the bishops and their retinues tra­ velled and were housed at public expense.156 In 381, 150 orthodox and 36 heretical bishops attended the Council of Constantinople, admittedly none of them from the West.157 At Ephesus in 431 there were somewhere between 200 and 250 clerical attendees, as well as a very sizeable military presence under Count Candidian, which was much needed given the fractious nature of the gathering.158 At Chalcedon 20 years later there was more than twice the number of bishops than there had been at Ephesus.159 As at the earlier council, there was scarcely anybody from the West, in part because Attila’s invasion of Gaul had given the Latin Church something else to think about but also, perhaps, because the newly elevated emperor Marcian had summoned the council before he had been recognized by the western emperor Valentinian III. From the documentation we have for both Ephesus and Chalcedon, we can get an impression of the extraordinary deployment of resources needed—including secular officials and the military—but there is nothing to suggest that either council had any impact on the western Empire’s dealings with the barbarians, or on its political collapse. The juxtaposition of Chalcedon and Attila’s defeat at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains is a useful reminder that the Christological controversies of the early and mid-

50  Chapter 6 fifth century (Nestorianism and Monophysitism) were largely east Roman affairs.160 Indeed Prosper of Aquitaine, while dating the summons for Chalcedon to the year 450, placed his account of the resolution of the council under the year 453, thus giving himself space to set out Attila’s invasions of Gaul and Italy in the years 451 and 452.161 By contrast with these Christological heresies, Donatism, the fourth-century religious conflict concerned with the aftermath of backsliding in North Africa during the course of the Great Persecution, which first attracted Frend, was an almost entirely western affair. It rumbled on into the fifth century and was indeed still an issue for Augustine, but it was effectively confined to North Africa.162 Even so there is nothing to suggest that it contributed to the speed of the Vandal takeover of the African provinces. Although the Priscillianist controversy of the 380s, focussing as it did on the charismatic challenge to the estab­­lished Church presented by the ascetic Priscillian, was equally a western affair, and although the usurping emperor Magnus Maximus (383–88) became caught up in it,163 it scarcely weakened the West, whereas the civil wars that Maximus instigated can definitely be seen as a drain on imperial resources. Pelagianism was an issue that surfaced in the first decade of the fifth century, and indeed occupied the leading Latin theologians, including Augustine and Jerome, in its consideration of Divine Grace and Free Will.164 Although its reverberations reached the East, being debated at Diospolis in the Holy Land in 415 and subsequently condemned at Carthage three years later and at Ephesus in 431, and although it attracted imperial legislation, it was largely a western heresy. Pelagian doctrine even survived in the British Isles into the seventh century, but no one would now see it, as did J. N. L. Myres and John Morris, playing a central role in a British independence movement.165

Doctrinal Division  51

Arianism is perhaps a rather different matter, at least in the fourth century.166 Writing in his Chronicle in ca. 404, just before the arrival of the barbarians in Gaul, Sulpicius Severus remarked that the whole world was shaken by the religious attacks on Athanasius, the orthodox patriarch of Alexandria (328–73) and that the Church seemed infected with disease.167 By the end of fourth century, however, the Arian crisis seemed to have passed. The Age of Theodosius and Ambrose marks the triumph of orthodoxy. Historians of the fifth and sixth centuries, however, have seen the religious affiliation of the majority of incoming Germanic peoples as marking a revival of Arianism.168 In so far as doctrinal issues have impinged on debates relating to the fifth- and sixth-century West a point of continuing discussion has been whether the Arianism of the Germanic invaders was an important factor in their failure to assimilate into western Europe. Although it is true that at a handful of very particular moments in Vandal Africa, Ostrogothic Italy, and Visigothic Spain there was serious conflict between Arian rulers and specific Catholic elements in the populations over which they were ruling, contemporary evidence for the persecution of Catholics is almost entirely lacking outside the Vandal kingdom. Victor of Vita, and subsequently the author of the Life of Fulgentius of Ruspe (either Redemptus or Ferrandus), certainly put religion at the heart of the problems experienced by the Romans of Vandal Africa—although they unquestionably make the persecution appear a good deal more widespread than it really was.169 So too, persecution in Visigothic Spain is best known from the Lives of the Fathers of Mérida,170 and from the account in Gregory of Tours’s Ten Books of Histo­ ries, both of which had specific agendas. Indeed, the general image of Arian–Catholic conflict can be shown to be largely a post-hoc construction, formulated most potently by Gregory of Tours.171

52  Chapter 6 If we limit our question of the significance of Arianism to the period between 376 and 476, we can note that Valens’s defeat and death at Adrianople was associated by some with his religious affiliation, but the heretical beliefs of the barbarians themselves were rarely an issue. Salvian was less bothered about Gothic Arianism than he was about the behaviour of the senatorial aristocracy.172 As for the heretical Vandals, they were more laudable than the Romans of Africa.173 Orosius and Socrates were far more concerned with the conversion of the barbarians to Christianity than they were with their precise doctrinal affiliation. Socrates even viewed the Burgundians as being converted initially to Catholicism, and he may have been right to do so, despite the later claims of Gregory of Tours.174 In the second half of the fifth century there is no evidence that the magister militum Ricimer,175 or indeed his nephew and successor Gundobad,176 who were both unquestionably Arian, encountered any difficulties because of their religious persuasion. In other words, while we can certainly agree with Gibbon that doctrinal debate was divisive and that it occupied a good deal of time and resources, it is hard to see it as playing a role in the fall of the West. Yet even if we conclude that doctrinal controversy was not central to events in the western Empire, we can acknowledge that the construction of orthodoxy had huge implications. Averil Cameron has written sharply of “the violence of orthodoxy.”177 The extent to which it impinged on the imperial administration is clear from the Codex The­ odosianus. The Sixteenth Book of the Theodosian Code, on religion, with its initial law of 363 or 364 de fide catholica is unlike anything that a scholar of the early Empire has to study: its sheer novelty is thus more apparent to classicists than it is to early medievalists.178 Despite the real terror that was caused by the Great Persecution and its antecedents, adherence to correct doctrine was a more

Doctrinal Division  53

constant concern under the Christian emperors than pagan sacrifice had been in earlier centuries. Covering the chronological span that he did, Gibbon appreciated the impact of Christianity rather better than do many scholars whose field of study begins with Constantine. In taking the Christian Empire as their starting point, too many modern students of Late Antiquity fail to see how very different was the role of religion within the Empire and society of Rome before Constantine’s conversion.

54  Chapter 6 Notes Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement. Frend, The Donatist Church. 153 Jones, “Were Ancient Heresies National or Social Movements in Disguise?”; Frend, “Heresy and Schism as Social and National Movements”; Markus, “Christianity and Dissent in Roman North Africa”; Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. Ircinschi and Zelletin, esp. Cameron, “The Violence of Orthodoxy.” 154 The Crisis of the Oikoumene, ed. Chazelle and Cubitt. 155 Williams, Arius, p. 67; Honigmann, “La liste originale des Pères de Nicée.” 156 Theodoret, Historia Ecclesiastica, I, 6. 157 Hefele, Histoire de Conciles, II, 1, p. 5. 158 Ibid., II, 1, pp. 290–301. 159 Ibid., II, 2, pp. 665–69. 160 Frend, “The Monks and the End and Survival of the East Roman Empire in the Fifth Century.” 161 Prosper, Chronicle, 1362, 1364, 1367, 1369, ed. Mommsen, pp. 481–82. 162 The Donatist Schism, ed. Miles. 163 Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila; Natal and Wood, “Playing with Fire: Conflicting Bishops in Late Roman Spain and Gaul”; Burrus, The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority and the Priscillianist Controversy. 164 Rees, Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic. 165 Myres, “Pelagianism and the End of Roman Rule in Britain”; Morris, “Pelagian Literature.” 166 See now Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed, ed. Berndt and Steinacher. 167 Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle, 40, 3. 168 Brennecke, “Deconstruction of the So-called Germanic Arianism.” 169 Merrills and Miles, The Vandals, pp. 177–203. 170 Vitas Patrum Emeretensium, V; Koch, “Arianism and Ethnic Identity in Sixth-Century Visigothic Spain.” 171 Wood, “Gregory of Tours and Clovis”; James, “Gregory of Tours and ‘Arianism’.” 172 Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, VII, 38–44. 173 Ibid., VII, 45–108. 174 Socrates, Historia Ecclesiastica, VII, 30, 379; see also Orosius, Historia adversus Paganos, VII, 32, 13; 41, 8; Gregory of 151 152

Doctrinal Division  55

Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, II, 32; Wood, “Arians, Catholics and Vouillé,” pp. 143–45. 175 Mathisen, “Ricimer’s Church in Rome.” 176 Wood, “Arians, Catholics, and Vouillé.” 177 Cameron, “The Violence of Orthodoxy.” 178 Whitmarsh, Battling the Gods, pp. 236–38.

Chapter 7

The Impact of Christianity: A Quantitative Approach

Gibbon’s other observations on the role of religion in the fall of Rome require rather more attention. They can largely be regrouped into a slightly different formulation. The establishment of the Church had vast logistical implications in terms of the creation of a new category of religious persons (clergy and monks), which necessitated the transfer of very considerable quantities of wealth, to begin with largely of treasure but increasingly of land. Although these developments will scarcely help explain the fall of the west Roman Empire, they will shed a good light on why what had been the Roman World looked very different in 600 than it had three hundred years earlier. Moreover, unlike questions of culture and belief, topics that can be studied in terms of numbers perhaps are more amenable to integration into the broader history of the end of the western Empire. Clergy, ecclesiastical treasure, and Church property do allow some quantitative observations. We will look at these issues in turn. Let us begin with numbers, and first with Gibbon’s image of the bishops fulminating from 1,800 pulpits.179 This figure can only be guesswork. Mommsen, in fact, reckoned that there were 5,627 civitates (cities and their surrounding districts) in the Roman Empire180—and given that many if not all civitates also came to function as dioceses

58  Chapter 7 one might conclude that 1,800 bishops is an underestimate. A. H. M. Jones, however, reckoned that there were only about 1,000 cities in the eastern Empire in the days of Justinian,181 among them there were at least 330 bishoprics in the province of Asia.182 For the West we do not have comparable figures, though we do know of 114 civi­ tates in Gaul,183 while Gildas speaks of a further 28 in Britain.184 We can question the likelihood of there being 28 bishops in Roman Britain, and can certainly agree that whatever Church organization was in existence in the early fifth century was radically disrupted in the course of the following 150 years. Yet across the Channel there were around 130 Merovingian dioceses, few of which are likely to be post-Roman foundations.185 According to Jones, the documentary evidence suggests that the provinces of North Africa contained around 500 bishoprics.186 Christian Courtois noted that there were 565 bishops at the 411 Council of Carthage, 286 of them Catholic and 279 Donatist, and he estimated that in total there must have been around 870 bishoprics, 470 of which were Catholic.187 From the sixth year of Huneric we have a list of 466 Catholic bishops who attended a meeting with their Arian counterparts at the order of the king.188 Even without lists for Donatists and Arians this comes close to Jones’s figure. Although Spain boasted between 300 and 400 civi­ tates,189 most of these do not seem to have been equal in significance or comparable in function to the cities elsewhere in the West, and only 82 bishoprics are known from the Visigothic period.190 In 1933 Sergio Mochi Onory reckoned that there were 250 Italian bishoprics in the sixth century—around 53 in northern Italy and around 197 in the middle and south of the peninsula.191 The number of dioceses in existence in late Roman Italy would therefore seem to have been nearly equal to the current 225 bishoprics in the region. Taken all together Gibbon’s figure of

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  59

1,800 bishops for the later Empire is not implausible and is certainly not an overestimate. Any attempt to deduce the number of clergy in the Later Empire from the number of bishoprics is necessarily tentative. Some cities would have had very many more clergy than others. Already in 251 Bishop Cornelius claimed that the Church of Rome supported 46 presbyters, 7 deacons, 7 sub-deacons, 42 acolytes, readers, and doorkeepers, and more than 1,500 widows and distressed persons.192 Although we cannot establish the number of clergy in the papal city at any precise moment during Late Antiquity, most of the vitae in the Liber Pontificalis conclude with a statement of the number of bishops, priests, and deacons ordained by each pope. Between the pontificate of Silvester I (314–35) and that of Gregory I (590–604), the Liber Pontificalis records the ordination of 933 priests, 238 deacons, and 1,437 bishops in 69 ceremonies, the majority of which were held in December.193 The high number of episcopal consecrations (on average 5 per year) presumably reflects the role of the pope as the metropolitan of the suburbican sees in the immediate environs of Rome and of the dioceses of central Italy, as well as the fact that the pontiff could be involved in the consecration of those from further afield. By contrast the numbers of priests and deacons are surprisingly low: on average slightly more than 3 priests and slightly fewer than 1 deacon were consecrated each year. This would imply that Rome scarcely boasted more clergy under the Christian Empire than had been the case in the days of Bishop Cornelius. These figures would seem to be hardly adequate for the servicing of the churches to be found in the city. We know that by 500 Rome boasted 5 major basilicas, 29 titular churches, 4 non-titular churches, 8 oratories, and 4 monasteries and hospices within the city itself, and a further 8 major and 3 ordinary basilicas, 13 oratories and 6 monasteries in the

60  Chapter 7 suburban area,194 which must surely have required over 100 clergy and many more religious. We might explain some of the shortfall in the numbers provided by the Liber Pontificalis if we note that the priests and deacons ordained by the pope would only have served within the city, while some of the suburban institutions may have been under the oversight of bishops of the suburbican sees. However, there may have been ordination ceremonies other than those listed—which are described as occurring in either December or February (and in Lent and September under Gregory the Great). Of course, such numbers escalated in the following centuries.195 As a city, Rome was surely exceptional, although Constantinople must have run it close, or even exceeded it, in terms of the number of its clergy. From the Novels of Justinian we learn that in 535 the Great Church, or Hagia Sophia, alone had 60 priests, 100 deacons, 40 deaconesses, 90 subdeacons, 110 readers, 25 singers, and 100 doorkeepers.196 By 612, according to a Novel of Heraclius, those numbers had risen to 80 priests, 150 deacons, and 160 readers; the number of deaconesses and singers had remained the same but the number of subdeacons had dropped to 70 and doorkeepers to 75. For the Church of the Blachernae we hear of 12 priests, 18 deacons, 6 deaconesses, 8 subdeacons, 20 readers, 4 singers, and 6 doorkeepers.197 Unfortunately we lack numbers for other Constantinopolitan churches. We may have a better overall impression of some other cities. Carthage is said to have had at least 500 clergy in the Vandal period.198 The smaller but politically more important city of Ravenna boasted at least 60 clergy, other than the bishop. We have their names from a judgement issued by Pope Felix IV (526–30), which is preserved by Agnellus in his History of the Bishops of Ravenna, written in the 840s. The judgement was concerned with

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  61

a dispute between Bishop Ecclesius (522–32) and some members of his clergy over the division of ecclesiastical income that had grown so acrimonious that the participants travelled to Rome. In the bishop’s party we hear of 6 priests, 7 deacons, 4 subdeacons, 5 acolytes, 5 lectors, 3 defensors, and 4 cantors, while on the other side there were 4 priests, 4 deacons, 1 subdeacon, 7 acolytes, 7 lectors, 1 orrearius, and 2 decani.199 These clerics must have been away from Ravenna for some time. The distance between the two cities is around 175 miles. Messengers in the imperial period achieved 72 to 73 miles a day over the same route,200 but 60 members of the clergy would surely have taken three or four times as long, and must therefore have been travelling for over a week in either direction. They are likely to have spent some days in Rome waiting for the papal judgement. They must have been away from home for over three weeks. Since the city of Ravenna cannot have been left for so long without the provision of cult, we can assume that even though Agnellus states that Ecclesius went to Rome cum clero universo, the total number of clergy of the city was much higher than the 60 that attended the judgement of Pope Felix. It is also worth remembering that the dispute occurred before the Justinianic reconquest of Italy, when there was still a thriving Arian Church: a Catholic bishop would scarcely have left his flock to the mercy of heretics. Arian clergy continued to be active in Ravenna as late as 551, as can be seen from a surviving charter of that year.201 The Ravenna papyri suggest that the orthodox took over the properties of the heretical Church when it was disbanded.202 The figures of the number of clergy to be found in a handful of episcopal cities is striking: equally thought-provoking are the numbers known from the whole territory, urban and rural, of certain bishoprics. Unfortunately, with regard to the East our most meticulous, and extraor-

62  Chapter 7 dinary, document with detailed numbers of clergy and churches comes not from the fourth, fifth, or sixth centuries but from ninth-century Jerusalem. From 808 we have a remarkable inventory of clergy in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, drawn up for Charlemagne. Here the priests for all the city’s churches amount to 39, whilst the total number for the region amounts to 4 bishops and 40 priests.203 After a century and a half of Muslim rule in the region this can only have been a pale shadow of the number of clergy in the pre-Islamic period, when the clergy had to cater not only for the local congregations but also for the numerous pilgrims. The recently created Onomasticon of the late antique monuments of the provinces of Iudaea, Palestina, and Arabia mentioned in Greek and Latin sources, begun by Michael Ayi-Yonah, lists over 325 churches, as well as numerous other religious sites.204 For diocesan clergy our evidence is generally stronger for the West than for the East, which may simply reflect the subsequent histories of the regions.205 The western evidence that we have, however, comes largely from the late sixth and seventh centuries, and it may well represent a relatively new situation, following more than a century in which clerical numbers had increased. In the canons of two councils of Carthage (397 and 401) and in the letters of Augustine we hear of a lack of clergy.206 It is unclear whether this reflects a particular African problem, and indeed whether it was remedied by 600. Victor of Vita talks of 4,966 bishops, priests, deacons, and other members of the Church going into exile in the desert. This same event is recorded by Victor of Tununa under the year 479, where he talks of the exile of 4,000 bishops, clergy, monks, and lay people.207 The figure is striking, but how many of those involved were clergy is by no means clear. It is possible that clerical numbers in the each of the numerous African dioceses were always low.208

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  63

By the end of the sixth century in Gaul, however, we have some useful information. Thus we have the list of 34 priests, 7 abbots, and 3 deacons, together with the bishop, who signed the canons of the diocesan Synod of Auxerre (561/605). This must give us a minimum number of clergy for the diocese.209 Clearly one should allow that there were priests who did not attend—not least because some clerical provision would have been needed in the distant parts of the diocese during the duration of the synod (just as priests would have been needed to officiate at the Mass during the visit of Ecclesius of Ravenna and his clergy to Rome). More difficult to assess are the records of the numbers of ordinations carried out in the diocese of Le Mans, which are contained in the mid-ninth-century Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium. Correlation of these figures with the lengths of episcopates given in the Actus suggests that around 10 priests and 7 deacons were ordained each year—in addition to as many other clergy as were needed (alios ministros aecclesiasticos quantum necesse praevidit).210 The Actus is a text that goes out of its way to authenticate the picture that it presents by including transcripts of a large number of earlier documents.211 Some of these documents, however, were certainly tampered with, and on occasion straightforwardly forged. Even the lengths of individual episcopates, which are usually given in terms of years, months, and days, are questionable and sometimes provably wrong—which of course means that any attempt to estimate an average number of ordinations is automatically invalid. Robert Godding also called into question the authenticity of the ordination figures on the grounds that, since the Le Mans Actus was clearly modelled on the Liber Pontificalis, the author may have invented the numbers in order to echo the contents of the papal history.212 For Godding, the numbers of those ordained according to the Actus seem to be

64  Chapter 7 too high. As we have already noted, however, the numbers of Roman ordinations look to be rather lower than what would actually have been required for the papal city. Moreover, from various lists provided by the Le Mans Actus Margarete Weidemann identified 90 churches, which she describes as Pfarrkirchen (“parish churches”—although a parish system as currently understood did not exist in the early Middle Ages).213 While there are problems with the chronology of the lists, following Weidemann’s examination of the totality of the Le Mans evidence 34 churches belong to the period before 500, with the remainder dating to the period up to the mid-seventh century.214 Such figures are certainly compatible with the numbers of ordinations listed in the Actus, regardless of the accuracy of their association with individual bishops. Numbers of churches similar to those known for Le Mans can be established for other Gallo-Roman and Frankish dioceses. Working through the hagiographical and historical sources for the diocese of Tours, Clare Stancliffe identified 6 vicus churches as having been established by St Martin between 371 and 397, 6 by his successor Brice (d. ca. 444), 4 by Eustochius (ca. 444–61), and 6 by Perpetuus (461–ca. 491). In the sixth century, Eufronius (ca. 556–73) founded a further 3, while his successor, the historian Gregory of Tours (573–94), claimed to have dedicated too many churches and oratories to mention.215 All in all, 4 churches are known to have existed by ca. 500 in the city of Tours itself, and a further 20 in the vici of the diocese. By ca. 600, that figure had risen to 16 churches, oratories, and monasteries in the diocesan centre, and 42 in the countryside.216 These figures are, as noted by Weidemann, directly comparable with those from Le Mans.217 Moreover, since these churches are referred to in texts written before the end of the sixth century, there is no possibility that the numbers are exaggerated. Similar figures are

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  65

known from Auxerre, where 36 Pfarrkirchen (the phrase parrochias ipsius pagi is used) are listed in the Institutio of Bishop Aunarius, which is transcribed in the ninth-century Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium, the “Deeds of the bishops of Auxerre.”218 These are certainly not the full numbers of churches to be found in the diocese—the list excludes those of the city of Auxerre itself (some of which are listed elsewhere in the Institutio),219 and it surely omits the churches and oratories of private villas, for which clerical provision was required, even if it was provided by a local “parish” priest. Vicus churches—that is, churches of significant population centres other than the main city of the civitas— were obviously institutions of some importance. The 567 Council of Tours implies that a vicus church was lead by an archpriest, who was supported by deacons as well as a group of 7 subdeacons, lectors, and approved laymen.220 Nor were these the only clergy in the vicus: the canon refers to additional priests, deacons, and subdeacons (rel­ iqui presbyteri et diaconi ac subdiaconi vicani). In other words, every vicus had a significant number of clergy. If we link this information with the evidence of the Synod of Auxerre, we might guess that each vicus church had sent one representative—the number of clerical signatories (34) is remarkably close to the 36 parrochiae listed in the Institutio of Aunarius, the bishop who in fact presided over the Synod.221 From the legislation of the Council of Tours we can be sure that there were other priests, deacons, subdeacons, and lectors in the diocese. Indeed the Tours canon suggests that we can multiply the number of par­ rochiae or vici by at least ten to get an impression of the number of all the levels of clergy in the diocese. The evidence for Tours and Auxerre thus tends to back the plausibility of the Le Mans figures. Moreover, Le Mans is what one might regard as a very ordinary diocese. It is

66  Chapter 7 large but not out of line with other Merovingian sees. Further, it did not boast a major saint cult, which would have required a shrine, which might have skewed the number of clergy to be found. It would seem reasonable, therefore, to conclude from the documentation that we have from Le Mans, Auxerre, and Tours that already in the Merovingian period most dioceses would have had well over 100 clergy, including deacons and subdeacons as well as priests and archpriests, and thus that there were over 10,000 priests and other clergy in the Gallic provinces (with their 130 episcopal sees) as a whole. Although Godding found the names of only 381 Merovingian priests,222 rather than regard this as indicating a relatively small priesthood, one should probably be impressed by the fact that so many ordinary clerics are known by name. Equally eye-opening is the so-called Parochiale Sue­ vum, a list drawn up in Galicia between 572 and 582.223 This lists 107 churches (ecclesiae) (a handful of which are later interpolations) and 25 pagi (the pagus being an administrative unit incorporating several vici: in the definition of José Carlos Sanchez Pardo in Spain it was a rural district with a dispersed population).224 The churches and pagi of the Parochiale were to be found in the dioceses of Bracara (Braga), Portugale (Porto), Lameco, Conimbriga (Coimbra), Viseo, Dumio, Egitania, Luco (Lugo), Auria (Ourense), Asturica (Astorga), Iria, Tude (Tuy), and Britonia,225 in the Suevic kingdom—a region of Europe one might have expected (certainly wrongly, in the light of recent archaeological work) to have been isolated, and thus less christianized than most other regions. Despite the title given to the source, and its use of the term paro­ chia, we should not talk of parishes. We have already noted the problem of talking about parish churches in the early Middle Ages, and Pablo Diaz has preferred to speak of “public churches.” The Parochiale clearly does not list

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  67

all the churches of the seven dioceses of the Suevic kingdom—if it did, one would have to conclude that those were very much less well endowed than was that of Le Mans. In fact the places listed are unequally distributed, with 73 of the references confined to the three dioceses of Tuy, Braga, and Porto.226 As for the dioceses themselves, some of them were very small: Dumio is effectively a suburb of Braga, which is a mere 47 kilometres/29 miles from Porto. Moreover, it would seem that the list only includes those churches with significant administrative functions, and therefore that it is most informative about places closely associated with royal power.227 In other words, although it provides us with nothing like the detail that we can deduce from the Le Mans evidence, the Parochiale does give us information that is not out of line from what we find in the very different Tours materials, and it shows that the Church was well-established in north-west Spain by the last decades of the sixth century. If we take the Le Mans documentation as providing an indication of the clerical provision for an ordinary Gallic diocese, and allow similar numbers for Italy and Spain, we might reckon that the average diocese of the continental regions of western Europe boasted at least 100 priests and lower clerics. Whether the same numbers were to be found elsewhere is problematic. Certainly the situation in the Balkans may not have supported numerous clergy, and the earlier evidence for Africa also suggests that figures may have been much lower there. The same may be true of the province of Asia, where the number of known clergy is remarkably low.228 Even so, given the very substantial number of clergy to be found in Constantinople, and surely the other great cities of the East, it is likely that by 600 the secular clergy of the territories of what had been the Roman Empire, including bishops, priests, and deacons, numbered over 100,000.

68  Chapter 7 Even more than clergy, monks earn Gibbon’s opprobrium. Among the numbers that he lists are the 1,400 who followed Pachomius, the 50,000 “religious persons” who might attend his Easter celebrations, and the 10,000 monks and 20,000 virgins to be found in Oxyrhynchus.229 This is, of course, the Egyptian world of Derwas Chitty’s The Desert a City.230 It derives largely from the Historia Monachorum, the Lausiac History, and Jerome.231 As Ewa Wipszycka has shown, these figures are totally implausible, but communities of 200 and 300 monks and nuns certainly existed.232 Unfortunately we have no reliable figures for the numbers of monks to be found in Alexandria,233 although various sources claim that the city and its territory boasted 600 monastic communities in the late sixth and seventh centuries, which is plausible.234 For Antioch and Jerusalem in the fifth and sixth centuries we are less well informed than we are about Egypt. We do, however, have a list, preserved in a number of recensions, purporting to provide the number of bodies found and subsequently buried at various sites within the city of Jerusalem following the Persian sack in 614. The total varies (according to the different lists) between 33,067 and 66,509. If we follow Jósef Milik’s reading of the figures as being derived from accounts given by gravediggers, and if we accept his identification of certain of the groups within the text as being largely monastic, we have 7 dead from the monastery of St George; perhaps 290 from the Nea church of Mary Theotokos and 70 from its library; 2,212 (nuns) from SS Cosmas and Damian; 212 from the monastery of the Anastasis; perhaps 200 monks from the quarter of the church of the Samaritan (identified with the monastery of Photineus); either 308 or 317 from the community of the Torrent of St James; 4,219 from the monastery on the Mount of Olives; 50 before Golgotha, and a proportion of those killed at the Tower of David. This would add up

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  69

to something in the region of 8,000 monks and nuns who were killed. And given that there were survivors, some of whom were taken to Persia, this would suggest an overall total of 10,000 monks and nuns in Jerusalem before 614.235 Of more certain accuracy is Charlemagne’s inventory from 808, which records 471 monks, 38 hermits, and 68 nuns to be found in the Holy Land more than 150 years after the Muslim takeover.236 From 569, however, we have a letter of the archimandrites of Arabia, which lists 138 monastic agents.237 To this information we can add more than 165 known monastic buildings to be found in the Onomasticon of Iudaea, Palaestina, and Arabia.238 We are perhaps better informed for the Byzantine capital. Three lists of monastic institutions survive attached to the canons of the Second Council of Constantinople: there are 23 named institutions in a petition from 448, 53 or 54 from the Synod of 518, 63 from 528, and 108 from 536. From these lists and other documentation Peter Hatlie compiled a “Master List” of 265 monasteries in existence in the region of Constantinople and its hinterland between 350 and 850.239 At the start of the fifth century one of the largest of the capital’s monasteries (that of Olympias) housed around 250 monks;240 by the end of the first quarter of the century the monastery of Eutychius, like that of the Akoimetae (the Sleepless Ones) held around 300, as by 450, did that of Bassianus.241 At the same time there were communities of between 50 and 100 religious in the suburbs.242 By the end of the century the largest of the Constantinopolitan monastic communities, that of the Akoime­ tae, which had been reestablished following the expulsion of its monks in 428, numbered around 1,000 according to Pseudo-Zacharias, who also talks of 250 nuns in the reign of Anastasius.243 By the early sixth century, in other words, the numbers of monks and nuns in Constantinople were in the thousands.

70  Chapter 7 Elsewhere in the East numbers are extremely elusive. Sylvain Destephen has listed all the known references to monastic communities in the province of Asia, and has identified a mere 85, half of them uncertain, for the fourth to seventh centuries,244 while of the 1,402 entries in the Prosopographie chrétienne for the province a mere 80 are monastic.245 This may suggest a relatively undeveloped monastic tradition, despite the importance of Basil of Caesarea as a legislator and guide for ascetics. However, the low figures may also reflect the disruptions of later history. Certainly Palladius of Helenopolis records the presence of a remarkable 2,000 nuns (perhaps to be found in a confederation rather than a single community) in Ancyra.246 For the West our documentation before the seventh century is rather weaker, and indeed during the later Empire and immediately afterwards, monastic life was less developed than in the East.247 By 700, however, mon­ asticism in Gaul (if not in Italy and Spain) was at least as significant as it was in the Byzantine East, and given the advance of Islam and its impact on Christian communities, more significant than in the Levant, Egypt, and the Maghreb.248 We have no figures for Rome to compare with those of Constantinople, despite the importance of ascetic aristocratic houses to be found in the western capital before 410. Monks are listed in the early medieval liturgical Ordines of the papal city, and there are descriptions in narrative sources of their presence in processions, but numbers are not provided.249 Easily our richest evidence for monasticism in the late antique and early medieval West concerns Gaul. Already in the fourth century Martin had established significant monasteries in Ligugé and at Marmoutier near Tours; at the latter monastery there were supposedly 80 inmates,250 and almost 2,000 monks are said to have attended the saint’s funeral.251 By the middle of the fifth century there

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  71

were important centres of monasticism in Provence, where Lérins and John Cassian’s communities in Marseille attracted numerous inmates, as in the early sixth century would Caesarius’s foundations in Arles.252 The explosion of monasticism in Gaul, however, was largely a development of the late sixth and seventh centuries. It has been estimated that by 600 there were around 220 monasteries in Francia, rising to 550 by the early eighth century.253 Some of these houses would have had few inmates, but others are recorded as having monks or nuns in their hundreds. A puzzling list apparently dating from the seventh century but preserved in the early eleventh-century Vita Clari records 1,525 monks in 12 monasteries in the Rhône-valley city of Vienne, and adds that there were a further 60 communities within the bounds of the diocese.254 Clearly we should take some of the figures (like the 800 monks at Jumièges and the 500 at the island monastery of Lérins)255 with a pinch of salt. But there are reasons to believe some figures in the low hundreds. Surely credible is Gregory of Tours’s statement that there were around 200 nuns in the monastery of the Holy Cross at the time of Radegund’s death in 587.256 That numbers in the hundreds are plausible is also supported by what we know of other deaths in Merovingian houses. Leaving aside the Anglo-Saxon Liber Vitae of Durham, the great registers of dead monks begin in the Carolingian period, but we are told that in the course of an outbreak of disease 50 nuns died at Remiremont, in the valley of the Moselle.257 This might be hagiographical exaggeration, but for the community of Faremoutiers, which would seem to have been initially quite small, we know of 16 deaths during the first 20 years of its existence: 13 of those deaths are of named individuals, and most of the nuns were young.258 Equally, Columbanus tells us that 17 of his companions died during the 12 years of his stay in the Vosges,259 although in its

72  Chapter 7 earliest years Luxeuil and its satellites would have been filled with young men, and not aged ascetics on the verge of death. Moreover, when he left, Luxeuil Columbanus still had enough disciples to join him in the Italian foundation of Bobbio, which left a deeply divided community in Gaul. Elsewhere in western Europe the evidence for early medieval monasticism is less rich and extensive. Cassiodorus wrote about the enthusiasm for founding monasteries in aristocratic circles,260 but there may have been a major disruption in the course of the Ostrogothic wars, and Georg Jenal listed no more than around 100 monasteries in sixth-century Italy.261 One might note that very few of them are in the south, where Cassiodorus’s own monastery of Vivarium was to be found,262 which may suggest that a substantial number of communities have left no record. For Spain, only 86 early medieval monasteries are known, but there were surely more.263 The Life of Fruc­ tuosus of Braga talks of numerous monks in the saint’s communities, and implies that he initiated a major monastic movement in the mid-seventh century. In the light of the surviving information, and making due allowance for the possibility that monasticism was better established in Francia than in Spain or Italy, the best we can say is that by the late seventh century there were probably tens of thousands of monks in the West, but that the figure had been very much lower 150 years earlier, although even then it may not have been negligible. The chronological question is something to which we will return in Chapter 9. In considering the numbers of clerics and monks to be found in the fifth and sixth centuries, it is important to remember the novelty of such a body of religious. Although one may be able to draw parallels with the priest­­ hood of Ancient Egypt or in the temple cities of the Hellenistic Levant,264 in the pagan Roman world priests were markedly different from their Christian counterparts. The

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  73

majority of them held their positions for a short term; the priesthood was not a full-time occupation. Even more alien to the Classical World were the monks and nuns, who might be found in communities of a hundred or more, the existence of which were supported by donations of land and wealth. The Christian religious of the fourth and fifth centuries were to all intents and purposes a new section within society, even if many of them were also involved in some kind of work, and indeed provided for themselves.265

74  Chapter 7 Notes 179 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 38: “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West”; the same figure is stated in chap. 20. 180 Mommsen, “Die Städtezahl des Römerreiches,” pp. 559–60. 181 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 713 182 Destephen, “Quatre études sur le monachisme asianique”, p. 206. 183 Notitia Provinciarum et Civitatum Galliae. 184 Gildas, De Excidio Britonum, 3, 2. 185 Duchesne, Fastes épiscopaux I, pp. 1–2: Godding, Prétres en Gaule mérovingienne, p. 209, speaks of around 110—a figure which presumably takes account of interruptions in the existence of certain dioceses. 186 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 715; earlier estimates in Mesnage, L’Afrique chrétienne, évêches et ruines antiques. 187 Courtois, Les Vandales et l’Afrique, p. 110. 188 Notitia provinciarum et civitatum Africae, ed. Halm, pp. 63–71. 189 Kulikowski, Late Roman Spain and its Cities, pp. 14, 323 n. 54. 190 Provinciale Visigothicum; Liebeschuetz, “Transformation and Decline: Are the Two Really Incompatible?,” p. 466. 191 Mochi Onory, Vescovi e Città (sec. IV–VI), pp. 5–6, with n. 7, For early lists see De Terminatione Provinciarum Italiae, and De Pro­ vinciis Italiae. 192 Brown, Treasure in Heaven, p. 26 193 See appendix. 194 Guidobaldi, “‘Topografia ecclesiastica’ di Roma (IV–VII secolo),” p. 45. 195 For the pre-Carolingian lists, Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae, De locis sanctis martyrum quae sunt foris civitatis Romae and Ecclesiae quae intus Romae habentur, Itinerarium Malmesburiense. Rosamond McKitterick (personal communication) suggests that the Liber Pon­ tificalis ordination figures may only relate to the Lateran, and not to ceremonies held elsewhere in the city. 196 Justinian, Nov. III, 1; McCormick, Charlemagne’s Survey of the Holy Land, p. 24. 197 Heraclius, Nov. I, 64–68; McCormick, Charlemagne’s Survey of the Holy Land, pp. 24–25. 198 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 911; Moorhead, Popes and the Church of Rome, pp. 117–18 199 Agnellus of Ravenna, Liber Pontificalis sive Vitae Pontificum

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  75

Ravennatum, 60, ed. Holder-Egger, pp. 319–21; Moorhead, Popes and the Church of Rome, p. 118. 200 Laurence, The Roads of Roman Italy, p. 81. 201 Delyannis, Ravenna in Late Antiquity, p. 145. 202 Tjäder, Die nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri Italiens, vol. 1, n. 3. 203 McCormick, Charlemagne’s Survey of the Holy Land, pp. 33, 36–37. 204 Di Segni, Tsafrir and Green, The Onomasticon of Iudaea, Pal­ estina, and Arabia, vol. 1, pp. 395-412. See also Hamarneh, Topogra­ phia cristiana ed insediamenti rurali nel territorio dell’odierna Gior­ dania. 205 Compare the 1,402 entries (870 of them bishops) for the Roman province of Asia (Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas Empire, vol. 3, Diocèse d’Asie (325–641), ed. Destephen) with over 3,000 entries for both Africa and Gaul (Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas Empire, vol. 1, Afrique (303–533), ed. Mandouze, and vol. 4, La Gaule chrétienne (314–614), ed. Pietri and Heijmans). Italy is on the same scale as Gaul, Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas Empire, vol. 2, Italie (313–604), ed. Pietri and Pietri. 206 Augustine, ep. 213; Council of Carthage (397), can. 55; Council of Carthage ((401), pref. and can. 57. My thanks to Jerzy Szafranowski and Stanislaw Adamiak for the references. 207 Victor of Vita, Historia Persecutionis, II, 26: see the edition by Lancel, p. 301 n. 167; Victor of Tununa, s.a. 479. 208 Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas Empire, vol. 1, Afrique (303–533), ed. Mandouze, provides entries on ca. 3,000 clergy of all levels from around 500 dioceses. Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas Empire, vol. 4, La Gaule chrétienne (314–614), ed. Pietri and Heijmans, has approximately the same number of entries for 130 dioceses. Of course, continuity in the two regions was markedly different. 209 Synod of Auxerre, ed. Basdevant, pp. 502–05. Godding, Prêtres en Gaule mérovingienne, p. 209. 210 Godding, Prêtres en Gaule mérovingienne, p. 458. See appendix. 211 Weidemann, Geschichte des Bistums Le Mans. 212 Godding, Prêtres en Gaule mérovingienne, pp. 209–11, 458. 213 Weidemann, Geschichte des Bistums Le Mans, vol. 3, p. 426. 214 Ibid., vol. 3, pp. 426–43. 215 Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, X, 31; Stancliffe, “From Town to Country,” pp. 46–48.

76  Chapter 7 Stancliffe, “From Town to Country,” p. 51. Weidemann, Geschichte des Bistums Le Mans, vol. 3, p. 438. 218 Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium 19, ed., Sot, vol. 1, pp. 70–72; Atsma, “Klöster und Mönchtum im Bistum Auxerre,” pp. 9–10; Weidemann, Geschichte des Bistums Le Mans, vol. 3, p. 440. 219 Picard, “Auxerre,” lists the names of 29 churches, oratories, and xenodochia known from Merovingian Auxerre. 220 Council of Tours (567), ca. 20, ed. Basdevant, pp. 364–69. 221 Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium 19, ed. Sot, vol. 1, pp. 70–77. 222 Godding, Prêtres en Gaule mérovingienne, pp. 209–11. 223 Parochiale Suevum. 224 Sánchez Pardo, “Organización eclesiástica y social en la Galicia tardoantigua,” p. 459. 225 Ibid., p. 441. 226 Díaz, “El Parrochiale Suevum,” p. 41. 227 Sánchez Pardo, “Organización eclesiástica y social en la Galicia tardoantigua,” p. 460 228 Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas Empire, vol. 3, Diocèse d’Asie (325–641), ed. Destephen; Destephen, “Quatre études sur le monachisme asianique,” p. 196; also Hübner, Der Klerus in der Gesellschaft des spätantiken Kleinasiens. 229 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 37. 230 Chitty, The Desert a City. 231 Wipszycka, Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte, pp. 403, 423, 435–36, citing Historia Monachorum, 5, 1–6, and Jerome’s translation of the Regula Pachomii. 232 Wipszycka, Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte, pp. 403–36, esp. 423. 233 Ibid., pp. 403, 423. 234 Ibid., pp. 414–15. 235 Milik, “La topographie de Jérusalem vers la fin de l’époque by­ zan­tine,” esp. at pp. 133, 139, 146-58, 164, 167, 172, 184, 186, 188. 236 McCormick, Charlemagne’s Survey of the Holy Land, p. 36. 237 Lettre des archimandrites d’Arabie aux évêques orthodoxes, ed. Chabot. 238 Di Segni, Tsafrir, and Green, The Onomasticon of Iudaea, Palaestina, and Arabia, vol. 1, pp. 413–22. 239 Hatlie, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, pp. 452–72. 240 Ibid., p. 76. 216 217

THE IMPACT OF CHRISTIANITY  77

Ibid., pp. 76, 109. Ibid., p. 77. 243 Ibid., p. 109. 244 Destephen, “Quatre études sur le monachisme asianique,” pp. 202–06. 245 Ibid., p. 214 n. 70. 246 Ibid., p. 213. 247 Frend, “The Monks and the End and Survival of the East Roman Empire in the Fifth Century,” p. 14. 248 Whereas the comparisons in Frend, “The Monks and the End and Survival of the East Roman Empire in the Fifth Century” are valid for the fifth century, they are irrelevant for later periods. 249 Romano, Liturgy and Society in Early Medieval Rome, pp. 101–02. 250 Sulpicius Severus, Vita Martini, 10, 5. But see Figuinha, “Martin of Tours’ Monasticism and Aristocracies in Fourth-Century Gaul,” p. 13. 251 Sulpicius Severus, ep. 3, 18. 252 Prinz, Frühes Mönchtum im Frankenreich, pp. 19–87. 253 Atsma, “Les monastères urbains du Nord de la Gaule,” p. 168; Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 41. 254 Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 67. 255 Berlière, “Les nombres des moines dans les anciens mona­ stères”; Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 68. 256 Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria Confessorum, 104. 257 Jonas of Bobbio, Vita Columbani, II, 10. 258 Ibid., II, 11–22. 259 Columbanus, ep. 2, 5. 260 For some details of monasteries in the south of Italy, Brown, Gentlemen and Officers, pp. 181–82. 261 Jenal, Italia ascetica atque monastica; Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 46. 262 See the map in Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 47. 263 Moreno Martín, La arquitectura monástica hispana, pp. 691–92; Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 49; Quiroga, “Monasterios altomedievales hispanos.” 264 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 933; Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 71. 265 Hatlie, The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, p. 77; Wipszycka, Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte, pp. 471–565. The eastern debates over whether monks should work or not are central to Brown, Treasure in Heaven. 241 242

Chapter 8

Clerics, Soldiers, Bureaucrats

The point that I wish to stress at this moment is that Gibbon’s figures for clerics and monks are perfectly reasonable. Hundreds of thousands entered the Church either as secular clergy or as monks in the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries—far more, one should note, than the number of barbarians who entered the Empire, under any assessment. Combining all the levels of clergy as well as the numbers of monks and nuns, despite the probable decline of the Church in the Balkans, there may have been as many religious in what had been the lands of the Roman Empire in 600 as there had been soldiers in 400, who, as we have already noted, are usually thought to have numbered between 400,000 and 600,000. And when one compares the two estimates one should remember the likelihood of an overall decline in the population between the fourth and late sixth centuries, and the possibility of a substantial collapse in the population resulting from the Justinianic Plague, which several scholars, including Michael McCormick and Lester Little, have seen as being of crucial importance in preventing social and economic revival following the barbarian migrations.266 Some have estimated a death rate of the scale of the Black Death. This estimate of the mortality rate can be no more than a guess. We have literary evidence for the eastern Empire

80  Chapter 8 (though Procopius’s account may be rather too influenced by Thucydides)267 and for certain cities of Gaul, where the information supplied by Gregory of Tours may be rather more reliable;268 we also have references from the British Isles.269 As yet, however, significant quantities of archaeological evidence are lacking—although the presence of rats, the likely carriers of the disease, has been noted on some sixth-century sites.270 The best we can do is say that the evidence suggests some cities and districts were very significantly affected, but we do not have adequate source material to make any secure deductions about others. Assuming that there was a population decline of some scale, if there were as many clerics, monks, and nuns in the early seventh century as there had been soldiers in the mid-fourth, they would have constituted a larger proportion of the population. Fourth-century soldiers and fifth- and sixth-century clerics and ascetics would, however, have been distributed differently across the landscape. In the Roman period there was a distinction between soldier and civilian. Moreover, most soldiers were based on the frontiers, although forces were clearly stationed close to major resources like mines, not least because they needed to keep an eye on the slave labourers. Roman archaeology thus points to a distinction between the area of the limes, where a significant proportion of the sites are military, and that of the civilian provinces, with their cities and villas. As a result, it is possible to envisage the Roman Empire as a largely civilian institution protected by a line of troops.271 By contrast, clergy were to be found in every city of the Empire and of the successor states. They would also have been found in the major pagi and vici. In the seventh century, cities that had rarely seen a soldier would have been endowed, sometimes well endowed, with churches and with priests. But equally, frontier regions that had been

Clerics, Soldiers, Bureaucrats  81

packed with soldiers would have boasted communities of clerics of no more than an average size. Monasteries and nunneries were less regularly distributed across the landscape. Certain cities and regions boasted numerous communities, while others attracted few monasteries or nunneries before the seventh century. Intriguingly, one region that did boast numerous monastic communities in the seventh century because of the activities of Fructuosus and Valerius, the Bierzo, had also been a centre of Roman mining, and thus of military importance. One wonders whether an earlier implosion of the local economy made this a good recruiting ground for ascetics. Yet, although, in general, monasticism grew in importance in the course of the sixth and seventh centuries, in some areas there was unquestionably a decline in religious institutions after the collapse of the west Roman government. This is certainly the case on the Middle Danube. For instance, even though we have some evidence for cult centres surviving through to the Carolingian period, Noricum seems to have had few if any monks following the migration of the community of St. Severinus to Italy.272 Because a sizeable proportion of the finances of the Roman State was directed to pay for the army, it is worth pausing on the question of the military. Whereas there was a distinction between military and civilian in the Roman period,273 there was no such division in the early medieval West in the centuries that followed. Byzantium did not follow the Roman model exactly, but the army remained an institution to be paid for by the State,274 although even in the Greek East numerically it was a shadow of its former self.275 In the seventh-century West, leaving aside the clergy, most able-bodied males would have been under obligation to bear arms if called upon. A recurrent image of barbarian Europe is that of the weapon-grave276—in the sixth and seventh centuries a military man could be found

82  Chapter 8 anywhere. But one should not conclude from the erosion of a distinction between soldier and civilian, or from a comparison between Roman villas and post-Roman cemeteries, that the period of the so-called successor states was more militaristic than the Empire had been. We have weapon burials from the sixth century but we have no barracks, whereas the forts of the Roman limes all contained them. Although most males in the seventh century were potentially members of warbands, many must have avoided military service of any kind. There were unquestionably conflicts in the seventh-century West but few of them seem to have involved forces numbering more than a few hundred—and this was probably also the case in Anglo-Saxon England, where kingdoms were more frequently at war than was the case elsewhere.277 No western battle in the seventh century involved numbers of the sort that were deployed at Adrianople, the Catalaunian Plains, in Justinian’s Italian wars, or even in such civil-war battles as that between Theodosius I and Eugenius at the River Frigidus in 394. Of course, in the East the threat posed first by Persia and then by Islam meant that the Byzantines had to field larger armies throughout the period than would have been found in the West, but even there one can question their scale.278 Moreover, the arrival of Islamic forces first in Spain in 711 and subsequently in Francia necessitated the revival of larger armies under the Carolingians. Surprising though it may seem, western Europe may have seen less large-scale military activity in the seventh century than in any other period of European history. It is telling that whereas ransoms are mentioned regularly in the hagiography of the fifth and early sixth centuries,279 they do not feature in the saint’s Lives of the seventh. So much for the epithet “the Dark Ages.” Perhaps one reason kings allowed the Church to acquire the property and exemptions that had the potential to undermine the mili-

Clerics, Soldiers, Bureaucrats  83

tary efficacy of the kingdoms was simply that during the seventh century they had no need to summon vast numbers of troops. By contrast, as a result first of the Muslim invasion of Spain and then of Carolingian aggression against the Lombards, Avars, and Saxons, followed by the threat of the Vikings, militarization was a necessity in the eighth-century West, and it led to removal of property from the hands of churchmen, or at least its subjection to military obligations.280 Although there is a symbolic comparison to be drawn between clerics and monks on the one hand and soldiers on the other, in that the former are frequently described as soldiers of Christ (a notion derived ultimately from the sixth chapter of Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians), an alternative comparison may be just as instructive for what it implies about the numbers of clerics and monks: that to be made with the late-Roman bureaucracy. Indeed Jones used the phrase “idle mouths” to cover not only Gibbon’s indolent monks,281 but all those supported by the Empire, including the bureaucracy.282 Christopher Kelly has estimated that there were approximately 34,000 late-Roman bureaucrats,283 which is about one-tenth of the number of soldiers in the fourth century and thus probably equivalent to around one-tenth of the number of clergy and monks to be found in the seventh, if all the above estimates are correct. One should, however, note that while we can make a sensible guess at the number of high-ranking government officials, the number of minor functionaries there were is open to question; 34,000 may be a radical underestimate of the numbers of bureaucrats in the fifth century. But even that number would have been considerable by comparison with the numbers of secular officials to be found in the successor states. Jones, like many others, presented the late Roman State as bureaucratic. By analogy the post-Roman world

84  Chapter 8 must have been swamped with ecclesiastics. Again, we need to remember that bureaucrats, like soldiers, would have been concentrated in certain places, and that the number of bureaucrats to be found in a city of government might well have been considerably higher than the number of clerics and monks to be found in the same city in the late sixth or seventh century. However, by that time some cities that had been associated with later Roman government (like Rome, Constantinople, and Ravenna) would seem to have been disproportionately well endowed with major basilicas and monasteries. Did the emergence of the priesthood lead to a siphoning off of talent, which might otherwise have benefited the Empire? One can undoubtedly point to the fact that Ambrose already had a notable career as consular prefect of Liguria and Emilia before being forcibly elected bishop of Milan in 374.284 So too, Germanus of Auxerre had been an official, though exactly what post he held before his election as bishop in the early fifth century is unclear.285 Augustine was thought to have had a major career as a rhetor ahead of him but he experienced a breakdown and subsequently entered the Church.286 With the imperial court in the West hit by crisis and ultimately disestablished, the Roman system of offices, the cursus honorum, that had provided a career path for ambitious aristocrats no longer existed—except in a somewhat reduced manner in Ostrogothic Italy.287 The Church could offer an alternative path to distinction, although examples of members of the senatorial aristocracy who pursued a notable secular career before entering the Church are relatively few. The life of Sidonius Apollinaris, which included the office of City Prefect before he moved sideways into the episcopate, as bishop of Clermont, does provide an example but, as Jill Harries has pointed out, there are not many like him.288 In secular distinction Ambrose scarcely compares. There

Clerics, Soldiers, Bureaucrats  85

are more obvious examples of aristocrats who entered the episcopate having led an ascetic life, rather than one in imperial service—notably Honoratus and Hilary of Arles.289 It is also important to realise that although we do know of aristocratic bishops in the sixth and seventh centuries, especially in Francia, they only constitute a minority of the senior clergy for whom we have evidence, while of the origins of the majority of the episcopate we know nothing.290 In other words, while it is certainly probable that talented men (and even women) of high status came to follow Church careers as a result of the collapse of the imperial adminis­­tration, the case can be overstated. We should, nevertheless, remember the extent to which ecclesiastics took over the functions of bureaucrats and office-holders in the post-Roman period.291 In the most extreme cases they effectively became the government— especially in Rome, where much of the administration of the city was taken over by the papacy, and where Gregory the Great could even describe himself as the treasurer (saccellarius) of the city.292 Elsewhere we see the development of what has been called Bischofsherrschaft—episcopal lordship.293 Here, however, one needs to recognize that this was not a universal development, and that it depended on individual bishops, laymen, and circumstances. Some cities were dominated by their bishops by the eighth century, others were still in under the control of secu­­lar officials, above all counts (comites).294 However, even if we leave aside Rome and the papal estates as exceptions, elsewhere the Church and churchmen had considerable and, overall, increasing influence in the exercise of rule. As the main literate group in the post-Roman world, ordinary ecclesiastics must often have acted as the copyists of official documents. More important, leading clerics certainly acted as advisers of kings. Some late-Roman bishops had notably influenced individ-

86  Chapter 8 ual emperors: one can point to the admittedly intermittent influence of Eusebius of Nicomedia on Constantine295 and of Ambrose on a sequence of emperors. The bishop of Milan seems to have been the driving force behind Gratian’s anti-pagan policy, and he was a ferocious opponent of Justina, the mother of Gratian’s half-brother and successor, Valentinian II. His most famous interventions in imperial policy, however, took place during the reign of Valentinian’s successor, Theodosius I.296 Ambrose was almost always able to get his way in his dealings with west­­ern emperors: his nearest eastern counterpart, John Chrysostom, was not so successful, although clerical influence on the court at Constantinople can be seen clearly in the politics leading to the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon.297 Bishops seem to have had less influence on the western court in the fifth century. However, the regent Galla Placidia was known for her piety, and interestingly the first known act of the government of the infant Valentinian III after his return to Italy in 425 was exiling Manichaeans, schismatics, and astrologers from Rome,298 which suggests that a public alignment with orthodoxy was very high on the agenda of the new regime. In some successor states we have plenty of evidence for the presence of bishops and ascetics at court, or perhaps more often, supplying advice from their episcopal seats. Avitus of Vienne was called upon by Gundobad and Sigismund:299 Remigius of Rheims influenced Clovis.300 From the late sixth century we have plenty of evidence of churchmen offering advice to the Merovingians, in the writings of Gregory of Tours and Venantius Fortunatus, as well as the hagiography of Jonas of Bobbio, where Columbanus emerges as a confidant of kings.301 The great gatherings of the court, for the Franks as for the Burgundians, seem to have been on the major religious festivals, especially Easter. To judge by the surviving references the

Clerics, Soldiers, Bureaucrats  87

essentially secular Marchfield (the gathering on the “Field of Mars,” held on May 1) was largely a development of the Carolingian eighth century.302 Although the history of the seventh-century Merovingians is often presented as that of the rise of mayors of the palace, and ultimately of the Carolingians,303 we can just as well describe it as the triumph of the episcopate. The centrality of clergy to the seventh-century Merovingian World is apparent from the extremely political hagiography of the period.304 The same picture is to be found in the evidence of the letter collections. Whereas the laymen are a strong element in the Epistolae Austrasicae of the sixth century, the letters of Desiderius of Cahors (alongside the hagiography) suggests that an increasingly large proportion of those influential at court were either churchmen or else deeply involved in Church life, not least through monastic foundation. There is no comparable evidence for the Ostrogothic, Vandal, or later Lombard kingdoms (although Secundus of Trent would seem to have been influential during the reign of Agilulf, as indeed was the Irish saint Columbanus).305 Similarly, for the Visigothic kingdom before the conversion of Reccared to Catholicism in 587 we hear little about episcopal influence, but thereafter the councils of Toledo were central to Spanish State and in the early seventh century Isidore, although based in Seville, was certainly in close contact with the royal court. Of course, we should note that the evidence comes to be almost entirely ecclesiastical in origin, despite the importance of the Epistolae Austrasicae and the surviving correspondence from Visigothic Spain, and indeed of such narratives as those of Fredegar, Paul the Deacon, or the Historiae Wambae Regis, which while being the compositions of churchmen, do give some indication of the influence of secular aristocrats. And there is no gainsaying the importance of the mayors of the palace, or of the leading

88  Chapter 8 military figures of the period. But generals and court officials had always been influential. The influence of bishops and ascetics in high politics has no obvious parallel in the pagan period of Roman history, except perhaps at the time of the Second Sophistic in the early third century, when the empress Julia Domna (d. 217), the wife of Septimius Severus, patronized a number of leading philosophers. There was, however, no tradition of pagan priests influencing imperial policy. The influence of bishops, abbots and holy men marked a change in the structure of politics. Bill Frend argued that the amalgamation of Church and State, which he saw as being uniquely present in the fifth-century Roman East, ensured its survival.306 Such an argument should not lead us to ignore the integration of Christianity into the structures of the West.

Clerics, Soldiers, Bureaucrats  89

Notes 266 McCormick, Origins of the European Economy, pp. 38–41; McCormick, “Tracking Mass Death During the Fall of Rome’s Empire I”; McCormick, “Tracking Mass Death During the Fall of Rome’s Empire II”; Plague and the End of Antiquity, ed. Little. 267 Procopius, Wars, II, 22–23; Little, “Life and Afterlife of the First Plague Pandemic.” For some cautionary words, Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, pp. 548–49, and Haldon, “Framing Transformation, Transforming the Framework,” pp. 346–47. 268 Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, IV, 31. 269 Dooley, “The Plague and its Consequences in Ireland,” pp. 216–19. 270 McCormick, “Tracking Mass Death During the Fall of Rome’s Empire II.” The bones of rats have been discovered in the excavations of Caričin Grad led by Rainer Schreg. 271 See map IV in Jones, The Later Roman Empire, between pp. 1069–70, as well as the tabulation of the evidence of the Notitia Dignitatum, pp. 1429–61. 272 Wolfram, Die Geburt Mitteleuropas, pp. 54–63, 109–16. 273 For the Roman distinction, MacMullen, Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire. 274 Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century, pp. 208–53. 275 Haldon, Warfare, State and Society, pp. 107–15. 276 Theuws and Alkemade, “A Kind of Mirror for Men”; Haldon, “Framing Transformation, Transforming the Framework,” pp. 333–34, rightly notes the military self-representation of the western elites, although I would question whether “warfare and fighting” were in reality that important in the seventh century. 277 On the size of Anglo-Saxon armies, see Sawyer, The Age of the Vikings, p. 123. 278 Haldon, Warfare and Society, pp. 107–15. 279 Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul, pp. 101–02; Lenski, “Captivity and Romano-Barbarian Interchange,” esp. pp. 189–90, with n. 19; Klingshirn, “Charity and Power.” 280 Wood, “Land Tenure and Military Obligations in the AngloSaxon and Merovingian Kingdoms.” 281 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 38: “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West.” 282 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, pp. 1045–47; see the comments of Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire, pp. 117–18. 283 Kelly, “Emperors, Government and Bureaucracy,” p. 163 n. 132;

90  Chapter 8 see also Kelly, Ruling the Later Roman Empire; Whitby, “The Late Roman Empire Was before All Things a Bureaucratic State.” For the Byzantine period, Haldon, “Bureaucracies, Elites and Clans: The Case of Byzantium, c. 600–1000.” 284 Moorhead, Ambrose, pp. 21–30. 285 Constantius, Vita Germani, 1; Wood, “The End of Roman Britain,” pp. 9, 11. 286 Brown, Augustine of Hippo, pp. 109–10. 287 Radtki, “The Senate at Rome in Ostrogothic Italy.” 288 Harries, Sidonius Apollinaris and the Fall of Rome, pp. 170–71. 289 Mathisen, Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Religious Contro­ versy in Fifth-Century Gaul, pp. 85–92. 290 Patzold, “Zur Sozialstruktur des Episkopats und zur Ausbildung bischöflicher Herrschaft in Gallien.” 291 For continuing lay activity, Brown et al., Documentary Culture and the Laity. 292 Gregory I, Register, V, 39; Markus, Gregory the Great and his World, p. 101. 293 Heinzelmann, Bischofsherrschaft in Gallien; Diefenbach, “‘Bischofs­herrschaft’”; Brown, The Ransom of the Soul, pp. 167–71. 294 Durliat, “Les attributions civiles des évêques mérovingiens”; Wood, “The Ecclesiastical Politics of Merovingian Clermont”; Barbier, Archives oubliées du haut Moyen Âge, pp. 69–134. 295 Barnes, Constantine and Eusebius, pp. 230, 259–60. 296 Moorhead, Ambrose, pp. 113–28, 182–202. 297 Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops, pp. 157–227. 298 Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 5, 62. 299 Shanzer and Wood, Avitus of Vienne, pp. 13–23. 300 Barrett and Woudhuysen, “Remigius and the ‘Important News’ of Clovis Rewritten.” 301 Jonas of Bobbio, Vita Columbani, I, 6, 18–19, 24, 27, 30. 302 Wood, “‘There is a World Elsewhere’,” p. 31. 303 Gerberding, The Rise of the Carolingians and the Liber Histo­ riae Francorum. 304 Fouracre, “Merovingian History and Merovingian Hagiography”; Fouracre and Gerberding, Late Merovingian Hagiography. 305 Garstad, “Authari in Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, Secundus of Trent, and the Alexander Tradition in Early Medi­ eval Italy”; Jonas of Bobbio, Vita Columbani, I, 30. 306 Frend, “The Monks and the End and Survival of the East Roman Empire in the Fifth Century.”

Chapter 9

Ecclesiastical Endowment

Bishops, clergy, and ascetics had to be provided for, and the establishment of churches and the growth of the clergy had major socio-economic implications.307 Already by the time of Pope Gelasius (492–96) there was a papal tradition of a fourfold division of ecclesiastical revenue—the notion is alluded to in a letter of Pope Simplicius (468–83), but it finds its clearest expression in the Decreta Papae Gelasii addressed to the bishops of Lucania. There the pope states that the Church’s income should be divided between the bishop himself, the other clergy, the poor, and church fabric.308 The point was reiterated by Pope Gregory the Great (590–604) in his Responsiones to Augustine: “all money received should be divided into four portions: that is, one for the bishop and his household for the purposes of hospitality and entertainment, a second for the clergy, a third for the poor, and a fourth for the repair of churches.”309 The new religious caste of priests, monks, and nuns had to be supported on a daily basis. These are a major element among the “idle mouths” highlighted by Jones:310 we can question the adjective but not the noun. Many of them were involved in some sort of productive work,311 but they all needed accommodation, food, and water: Pseudo-Zacharias tells us about the decision of Anastasius to

92  Chapter 9 limit the water supply available to the Akoimetae of Constantinople.312 Then there are what Gibbon termed “the specious demands of charity and devotion”: the virgins, the widows, and the poor.313 Definitions of the poor in Late Antiquity are remarkably fluid, and the amount that was distributed to individuals varied, apparently in recognition of the social status of the beneficiary.314 “Distressed gentlefolk” (to borrow a Victorian phrase) were as likely to benefit from alms as did the genuinely destitute. The sheer number of people registered on the poor lists (matriculae) is remarkable: 3,000 widows and orphans in fourth-century Antioch; 7,500 in seventh-century Alexandria.315 We lack comparable figures for the West but we know that equivalent lists existed. Gregory the Great’s letters provide details of individual donations of alms.316 In seventh-century Francia, Eligius of Noyon arranged to use fiscal income to support the poor.317 In the early eighth century the exarch Isaac sequestrated the treasure that the papacy had set aside to be distributed to the poor and to ransom prisoners.318 We also know that in times of crisis—war, famine, plague— the lists could expand dramatically and push the clergy into dramatic measures. We can see this in the hagiography relating to such bishops as Caesarius of Arles, who liquidated assets of his Church to ransom prisoners319 and in doing so, as Bill Klingshirn has demonstrated, he greatly extended his episcopal patronage.320 One sees much the same in the activity of the non-episcopal, ascetic saint Severinus of Noricum.321 In addition to a concern with the ransom of captives, the Church was also increasingly concerned with the care of freedmen.322 One related concern that impinged on support for the poor and needy was that of funeral expenses, which might prove too heavy for the relatives of the deceased. In Constantinople we know that the income of 1,100 shops was

Ecclesiastical Endowment  93

allocated in the days of Anastasius and Justinian, to defray “the funeral expenses of the Holy Principal Church,” and that these shops, as a result, were exempt from taxes. Nor was it only Hagia Sophia that received such income. Justinian’s Novel reveals that other churches and monasteries were also endowed in this way, among other reasons to support travellers.323 Not surprisingly the arrangements for Hagia Sophia had repercussions, affecting a further range of shops, and also reducing imperial income. Churches needed huge funds to carry out their obligations of pastoral and social care, and some of them certainly received them. As for the repair of churches noted by both Gelasius and Gregory, we have little information but clearly their construction involved the deployment of wealth and material resources. It is tempting to illustrate the point by turning to surviving structures. However, leaving aside the well-documented monuments of Rome and Ravenna, we should be careful when we date standing monuments. For instance, Spanish churches that were once regarded as sixth- or seventh-century and described as Visigothic have been reassigned to the ninth or tenth centuries— although now the earlier chronology is being revived in a number of cases.324 Equally, ongoing excavations at the Johanniskirche in Mainz suggests that much of the building is seventh century, rather than Carolingian, as was previously thought. Yet whether or not fabric survives from the fifth or sixth centuries, every Christian community had to have a meeting place: we have already noted the evidence of Gregory of Tours, the Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium, the Gesta pontificum Autissiodorensium, and the Parochiale Suevum, not to mention that of the Liber Pontificalis. To these we can add the evidence from the city of Metz, a centre favoured by the Merovingians and subsequently by the Arnulfings (or early Carolingians),

94  Chapter 9 and therefore not necessarily representative of the cities of the Frankish kingdom in general. This had 43 churches by the eighth century325—it is difficult to believe that the majority of them were late Merovingian foundations. Elsewhere archaeology is revealing extraordinary building activity. The constructions of Bishop Sabinus of Canusium (d. ca. 566) were known from his ninth-century vita,326 but the accuracy of the hagiographical account has only been revealed by the spade.327 Obviously there were thousands of churches to be built in the centuries immediately following the Christianization of the Roman World. Some, and especially the Constantinian basilicas, were much more impressive than others, but then there would have been very considerable difference in the pagan period between the great temples of the Olympian and imperial cults and the small rural shrines. Many of the late antique and early medieval churches that have survived are built out of spo­ lia, sometimes taken from ancient temples,328 but even old stone had to be given or paid for. Monasteries, or at least some ascetic communities, were established in villas: one can point to such famous examples as the Primuliacum of Sulpicius Severus, or Cassiodorus’s Vivarium, but that too involved a transfer of wealth. One matter that is not directly stated in Gelasius’s fourfold division is the need to provide light for churches. These buildings, some of which were sizeable, required considerable numbers of lamps and candles to illuminate them: that is they needed oil and wax, both expensive commodities. One striking aspect of Merovingian immunities, that is the waiving of fiscal financial demands, is a formula stating that “whatever our fisc had been able to hope for should now in perpetuity go towards the lights of the church.”329 We even hear of property dedicated to providing lights (ad luminaria), and of men involved in their provision (lumi­ narii).330 Here, at least, we gain a specific insight into the

Ecclesiastical Endowment  95

economic requirements of monastic churches—and indeed any church would have needed illumination, although monasteries, because of the night offices, would have required candles and oil for lamps more or less constantly. In recent years Peter Brown has drawn our attention to the significance of the transfer of wealth to the Church for understanding the spiritual and social life of Late Antiquity: concern for personal salvation led many to donate treasure and land to the Church.331 Benefaction can, of course, be set within a long tradition: the cities of the Ancient World had depended on evergetism, the benefactions of the rich, perhaps most famously Herodes Atticus who financed public building in Athens in the second century. Evergetism glorified a city or a province above all through the provision of public buildings. It is not difficult to see the building of churches, or indeed the provision of liturgical vessels required for the performance of cult, as being related to this ancient tradition; moreover it is something that we know could attract the donations of rather humbler people than the great second-century benefactors. In the sixth century, minor and major donors had their names inserted into the mosaic floors of north Italian churches.332 The most spectacular distribution of wealth was that of the senatorial couple Melania and Pinian, who sold their vast estates, and distributed the proceeds to various churches as they travelled from Rome to the Holy Land.333 This was to cause a frenzy among the congregations they passed through, which were anxious to acquire a share in their wealth. Yet, as Brown has noted, it also caused consternation among clerics as wise as Augustine who understood that the Church needed something other than one-off donations that might fund a building or pay for its chalices, pattens, and crosses; regular income was more desirable.334

96  Chapter 9 Apart from what survives from some exceptional centres, we have relatively little evidence for the endowment of churches and monasteries before the mid-sixth century: in the West our best information is to be found in charters, which, with very few exceptions, come from the seventh century and later. We do, however, know a fair amount about donations to the Church of Rome from the Age of Constantine onwards, because the accumulation of land and treasure was listed in the Liber Pontificalis. This records the gifts made to the Church of Rome in the course of each pontificate. The most striking aspect of the lists is the quantity of treasure conveyed, with gold and silver objects sometimes weighing hundreds of pounds.335 But in the entries covering the popes from Silvester I (314–35) down to Xystus III (432–40), the Liber Pontificalis also records the property donated by the emperors to the papacy for the upkeep of the churches.336 Particularly impressive are the gifts supposedly made by Constantine.337 Despite the scale of the property given to the Church by the first Christian emperor, it would appear that the transfer of land became much more significant in the course of the fifth century and thereafter than had been the case previously. Essentially, the economic implications of the grant of treasure were relatively short term: from the point of view of an aristocrat who conveyed treasure to the Church, retaining property allowed one to replenish one’s moveable wealth within a short period of time. Churches, however, needed greater security than was conveyed by treasure alone. Here again we may think back to the pagan past: temples often received treasure, and indeed the seizure of temple-treasures by Constantine and his successors occasioned much adverse comment,338 but having no permanent priesthood they did not need a permanent endowment of land. So far as we can see, with the exception of a few institutions (notably the Vestal

Ecclesiastical Endowment  97

Virgins, whose property was confiscated and conveyed to the imperial treasury),339 temples did not possess much landed property.340 But, as Anglo-Saxonists who have studied the origins of the charter have long understood, churches needed land.341 In other words, we are looking not only at the spiritual economy of pious transactions, but also the necessary accumulation of land. Certainly in the course of the fifth century most churches must have secured some landed property. Augustine tells us that the Church of Hippo was reasonably well endowed, with what Brown estimates may have been an income of 1,000 solidi a year.342 The Theodosian Code contains general legislation on the right of anyone to leave property to the Catholic Church,343 and an important law of Theodosius II and Valentinian III from 434 states that the property of bishops and other clergy, as well as monks and nuns, who die intestate and without close family should pass to the church with which they were associated.344 In addition, there is an intriguing law of Marcian relating to a case where a grant to a cleric made by a widow had been challenged as invalid,345 but otherwise there is strikingly little in fourth- and fifth-century legislation on the ecclesiastical acquisition of land. There would seem to be rather more references to various exemptions from taxes and obligations owed on Church property.346 In the sixth and seventh centuries, however, the accumulation of Church estates became a major issue. Bishops were expected to bequeath their property to the Church, and more particularly to individual establishments with which they were associated, as we can see in Gregory of Tours’s account of the disappointed reaction of the priest of the church in Lyon where Bishop Nicetius was buried, when he discovered that the prelate had endowed it only with his body. The following night the dead saint appeared, and informed the wretched cleric that his corpse was his most precious

98  Chapter 9 possession.347 Nicetius had, in fact, been a great patron of the Church of Lyon before his death, building churches and houses, and also looking after the agricultural holdings of the diocese.348 Many bishops either came from extremely wealthy families (as did Nicetius) or in the course of their period of office were the recipients of considerable estates. What this might mean can be seen most dramatically in the Testament of Bertram of Le Mans (587–623),349 who would seem to have left something in the region of 0.5 per cent of the area of modern France to the churches of his diocese when he died.350 His will is preserved in the Actus of Le Mans, which as we have seen was a Carolingian compilation, using earlier documents, not all of which are above suspicion. However, the Testament of Bertram is, like that of his successor Hadoind (623–54),351 accepted as being largely authentic. Bertram’s will is unique in its scale (although there are a handful of other Merovingian wills, most of them clerical)352 and there is no doubt that such huge donations must have been rare. Yet Bertram himself was not a particularly remarkable bishop—he scarcely appears in our sources outside of the Le Mans Actus, which contains his Testament as well as that of his successor Hadoind. He was not a figure of great importance for the history of Merovingian Francia, although his loyalty to Chlothar II gained him considerable rewards, which he passed on to the churches of his diocese. Moreover, while the Testament of Bertram is unique, we have enough additional sources—wills, charters, and narrative accounts—to suggest that other bishops and clergy also gave very substantial amounts of land to their Churches. The Gesta of the bishops of Auxerre, like that of the bishops of Le Mans, provides information on episcopal gifts to the diocese. In particular, while it does not transcribe their testaments in full, it describes large

Ecclesiastical Endowment  99

donations by bishops Aunarius (561–605)353 and Desiderius (605–23).354 Nor was it only bishops who gave so much to the Church. Gregory of Tours relates that his friend Aredius, founder of an abbey in Limoges, left what property he had at his death to saints Hilary and Martin,355 that is to the dioceses of Poitiers and Tours. Francia is particularly well represented in the evidence for property donations. For Italy we have the evidence for papal landholding: above all there is the information provided by the Liber Pontificalis, but there are also references in papal letters, most especially those of Gregory the Great, which have much to say about the papacy’s Sicilian estates.356 Outside the papal patrimony our main collection of material is to be found in the surviving charters from Ravenna, which provide a glimpse of the wealth of the churches of that imperial city, and from the narrative provided by the ninth-century historian Agnellus.357 In the course of the dispute between Bishop Ecclesius and his clergy, which was finally settled by Pope Felix IV, we learn that the clerical fourth of the patrimony of the Church of Ravenna was 3,000 solidi, so the overall income ought to have been 12,000 solidi—quite apart from a whole list of payments that were received in kind.358 Even so, it would appear that the Church of Ravenna fared less well than did either the papacy in the south or the dioceses of Francia. Tom Brown has noted that Bishop Agnellus left his patrimony to his family and that Gregory the Great regretfully saw this as normal practice, despite his insistence that the property of a bishop should pass to his Church. Gregory, indeed, saw the Italian Church as underendowed.359 He also, however, reveals tensions caused by the expansion of ecclesiastical property holding.360 In Spain, our information is yet patchier, although we do have an account of how in the course of the mid-sixth century (the precise dates are unknown) Mérida became

100  Chapter 9 the richest diocese in the peninsula. Bishop Paul, a Greek, who before entering the Church had been a doctor, saved the life of the wife of a senator by performing a Caesarean section and removing a dead foetus. In recompense the couple transferred their wealth to the bishop. He left everything to his nephew, Fidelis, whom he wished to succeed him in office. When there was an attempt to prevent Fidelis from becoming bishop he threatened to leave, taking all his wealth with him. The opposition crumbled, and he remained as bishop, apparently investing his wealth in the diocese.361 To this episcopal accumulation of property we have to add that acquired by monasteries.362 Hagiography of bishops and the histories of the dioceses of Le Mans and Auxerre provide us with information relating to the acquisition of estates by episcopal churches already in the sixth and early seventh centuries. However, our detailed information for monastic property belongs almost entirely to the late seventh century and beyond, and much of it comes from charter material, rather than narrative Gesta or Acta, although in the Gesta Abbatum Fontanellensium we do have a history of a monastic community (that of St. Wandrille) to equal those of the episcopal churches of Le Mans and Auxerre.363 In the early eighth century St. Wandrille was in possession of at least 3,964 estates. Moreover, its Gesta provides an unequalled insight into the ecclesiastical use of precaria—the leasing of property to tenants, often men of some status.364 The major transfer of property to monasteries obviously went hand in hand with the increasing number of monastic foundations that are a mark of the seventh century. On the other hand, such aristocratic foundations as Lérins were clearly well endowed already in the fifth century. Historians looking at the scale of donations to the Church made by Frankish aristocrats have seen a deliber-

Ecclesiastical Endowment  101

ate policy, whereby families used monastic foundations to retain control over their property. By giving land to a monastery, and by retaining control over the choice of abbot or abbess, a family might preserve its estates from the threats posed by conflict, politics, or even by accidents of marriage.365 There is much to be said in favour of this, though one should note that families did die out (indeed it is rare that they remained important enough for us to be able to trace them through more than three or four generations),366 and one should also recognize that those that survived did not always manage to keep control of the institutions they had founded—even the Merovingians lost control of the great monastery of St Denis.367 In other words, although historians have plausibly seen the endowment of monasteries and churches as an aspect of dynastic politics, we should not overlook the significance of the ecclesiastical accumulation of land: this was every bit as important as the strategies used by families to keep property within their kin-group—and in the long term arguably more so.368 When we add up the, admittedly patchy, figures that we have, and when we add in the expectation that bishops would leave their property to the Church—even if this was a practice that was followed more regularly in some regions than in others,369 and even though the Church of Francia was probably better endowed than those of its neighbouring kingdoms—it is a reasonable guess that a third or more of western Europe was in the hands of the Church by the year 700. David Herlihy’s famous assessment of the extent of ecclesiastical property in the pre-Carolingian period is certainly far too low.370 When the Frankish king Chilperic claimed in around 580 that he was being impoverished by the Church, he was stating a fact, not making an unjustified complaint,371 and he was not the only Merovingian monarch to do so.372 Even churchmen

102  Chapter 9 seem to have been aware of the impact of the transfer of wealth. According to Jonas of Bobbio when the king (who he wrongly names as Sigibert) offered to support Columbanus, the saint replied that “he would not become rich on the wealth of others.”373 In the early eighth century Bede had a clear understanding of the relationship between the transfer of property to the Church and the weakening of a kingdom’s military strength.374 We should not, however, see the transfer of wealth to the Church in the fourth and fifth centuries as initiating imperial decline. Leaving aside imperial gifts, the large donations of land seem to begin in the sixth century. Indeed, the transfer can be seen as much as a result of the crisis of the collapse of the Empire, as a cause. On the other hand, while the endowment of churches may have reduced the resources available to the emperors and their agents in the fourth and fifth centuries only marginally, it certainly limited the resources available to the kings of the sixth and seventh. Here there is a related issue, which may have been an aspect of Chilperic’s complaint, and was unquestionably of significance to rulers of the seventh and eighth centuries: that of exemptions (two varieties of which we have already mentioned, in connection with burial expenses in Constantinople and the provision of lights for churches in Merovingian Francia). From the time of Constantine onwards Church property and churchmen were exempted from various taxes and menial duties.375 Some of these exemptions were already noted as being problematic before 476. As early as 329 ex-municipal officials, who had clearly used ordination as a way of avoiding State obligations, were forced back into municipal offices:376 there was also a ban on rich plebeians becoming clergy,377 doubtless because of the economic implications of their ordination. In 398 the emperor Honorius was careful to insist

Ecclesiastical Endowment  103

not only that priests should be drawn from the locality but also that they should continue to pay their own capitation tax,378 though they continued to be exempt from other payments.379 Exemptions, or immunities, however, had greater implications for the late Merovingian period than for the fifth century, and not just because of the scale of the grants made to monasteries in the course of the seventh century.380 Unlike the Roman World and the ensuing Byzantine Empire, where the standing army was financed by taxation,381 as we have noted, the post-Roman kingdoms relied on the performance of military obligations associated with land.382 This surely marks a huge distinction between Byzantium and the West once one reaches the seventh century. Perhaps because the successor states of the West did not usually need to mobilize enormous numbers of troops, the Church could largely avoid any military obligations and on occasion, perhaps even regularly, claim exemption from them. The need to reverse this position is a major feature of the eighth century in both Francia and England.383 It is worth remembering that among the “compulsory public services of a menial nature” from which there was no exemption according to the Theodosian Code were duties to keep roads, bridges, and pavements in order.384 The maintenance of roads and bridges constituted part of what was once termed the trinoda necessitas, the threefold obligations that Anglo-Saxon kings in the eighth century tried to reimpose on the Church. Nicholas Brooks plausibly suggested that the medieval administration of Rochester bridge had its origins in the Later Roman Empire.385 In both Francia and England an attempt by rulers to limit or even to reduce Church property is a feature of the second quarter of the eighth century. By that date the Visigothic kingdom in Spain had already been overthrown by the Muslim invaders. There is, however, some slight

104  Chapter 9 indication that immunity from taxation had attracted royal attention in Spain before the disaster of 711. In a law issued in 675, King Wamba decreed that property held by a couple, one of whom was an ecclesiastical freedman or freedwoman, which would previously have passed to the Church, should instead be inherited by the heirs of the free parent. The justification for this was public utilitas.386 According to David King, this would suggest that Wamba was intent on limiting the amount of land immune from public taxation, and that he was doing so in the interests of the State.387 The establishment of the Church was unquestionably a cost to the Roman State, and it is important to emphasise the fact that it had no real equivalent in the pagan period (unless one looks back to pharaonic Egypt or the hellenistic Middle East).388 Yet one would be hard pressed to argue that it caused irreversible harm to the Empire’s finances. There is certainly nothing to suggest that it led to vast areas of land being taken out of secular control before the later sixth century, and the land that did pass to the Church in the Roman period continued to be subject to the standard land tax, the canonica inlatio.389 It would only be from the late sixth century onwards that the financing of religion and religious institutions radically affected the income and resources available to rulers. By the late seventh century ecclesiastical property and wealth was a major issue throughout western Europe.

Ecclesiastical Endowment  105

Notes 307 Haldon, “Framing Transformation, Transforming the Framework,” p. 347. 308 Gelasius, ep. IX, 27 to the bishops of Lucania (Decreta papae Gelasii) (PL 59, col. 56, C): Quatuor autem tam de reditu quam de oblatione fidelium, prout cujuslibet ecclesiae facultas admittit, sicut dudum rationabiliter est decretum, convenit fieri portiones. Quarum sit una pontificis, altera clericorum, pauperum tertia, quarta fabricis applicanda. On the so-called quadripartum, see Richards, The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, pp. 296–97. 309 Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum, I, 27, ed. Colgrave and Mynors, pp. 80–81. 310 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, pp. 1045–47. 311 Wipszecka, Moines et communautés monastiques en Égypte, pp. 471–565. Elsewhere monks and nuns could also be involved in production. 312 Greatrex, “The Fall of Macedonius Reconsidered,” p. 128. 313 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 38: “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West”; also Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 899 314 Brown, Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire, pp. 58–60. 315 Ibid., p. 65. 316 Richards, The Popes and the Papacy, p. 296. 317 Heinzelmann, “Eligius monetarius: Norm oder Sonderfall?”. 318 Liber Pontificalis 73 (Vita Severini); Richards, The Popes and the Papacy, p. 296. 319 Cyprian, Firminus, Viventius, Messianus, and Stephanus, Vita Caesarii, I, 20, 32–44; II, 8–9, 23–24. 320 Klingshirn, “Charity and Power”; Lenski, “Captivity and Rom­ ano-Barbarian Interchange,” esp. pp. 189–90, with n. 19; Mathisen, Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul, pp. 101–02. 321 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 9, 1; 10, 1–2; 17, 1; and Lenski, “Captivity and Romano-Barbarian Interchange,” p. 190 n. 19. 322 Esders, Die Formierung der Zensualität. 323 Justinian, Nov. XLIII, trans Scott; Banaji, “The Economic Trajectories of Late Antiquity,” p. 84. 324 Fontaine, L’art préroman hispanique; Caballero, “Observations on Historiography and Change from the Sixth to Tenth Centuries in the North and West of the Iberian Peninsula.” For a recent

106  Chapter 9 overview of the debates, Chavarría Arnau, “Churches and Aristocracies in Seventh-Century Spain.” 325 Klauser, “Eine Stationsliste der Metzer Kirche aus dem 8. Jahr­ hundert”; Claussen, The Reform of the Frankish Church, pp. 276–86. 326 Acta Sanctorum, February, vol. 2, pp. 323–28; Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, p. 501. 327 Volpe, “Città e campagna, strutture insediative e strutture ecclesiastiche dell’Italia meridionale.” 328 Brenk, “Spolia from Constantine to Charlemagne: Aesthetics Versus Ideology”; Alchermes, “Spolia in Roman Cities of the Late Empire”; Kinney, “‘Spolia, damnatio’ and ‘renovatio memoriae’”; Greenhalgh, Marble Past, Monumental Present. 329 Fouracre, “Eternal Light and Earthly Need,” pp. 68–78; the translation is Fouracre’s, on p. 68. See also Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, pp. 500–02. For the late Merovingian and Carolingian evidence, Esders, Die Formierung der Zensualität, pp. 66–73. 330 Esders, Die Formierung der Zensualität, p. 68. 331 Brown, The Ransom of the Soul; Brown, Treasure in Heaven. 332 Ward-Perkins, From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages, pp. 51–84. 333 Gerontius, Life of Melania, 19–22. 334 Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, pp. 291–300, 322–25. 335 Davis, Book of the Pontiffs, vol. 1, p. xxviii. 336 Ibid. 337 Marazzi, I “Patrimonia sanctae Romanae ecclesiae” nel Lazio (secoli IV–X), pp. 25–47. 338 Thompson, A Roman Reformer and Inventor, p. 52. See also Libanius, Oration 30, ed. and trans. Norman, pp. 100–51. 339 Symmachus, Relationes III; Ambrose, epp. 72–73, trans. Liebeschuetz, pp. 61–94; Codex Theodosianus, XIII, 3, 8. 340 Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 71. 341 Wormald, Bede and the Conversion of England. 342 Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, p. 325. 343 Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 2, 4. 344 Ibid., V, 3, 1. A variant of this law was included in the Codex Euricianus (335), ed. Zeumer, p. 27. On this and Codex Euricianus 306 (p. 17) see Heil, “The Homoians in Gaul,” pp. 280–81. On the acquisition of the property of those without legally close family see also Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe. 345 Marcian, Novel, 5 (trans. Pharr, pp. 566–67). 346 Compare the lists provided by Pharr, The Theodosian Code,

Ecclesiastical Endowment  107

under the index entries “clerics, estates of,” and “clerics, exemptions and privileges of.” 347 Gregory of Tours, Liber Vitae Patrum, VIII, 5. 348 Gregory, Decem Libri Historiarum, IV, 36; Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, p. 497. 349 Weidemann, Das Testament des Bischofs Berthramn von Le Mans. 350 Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 43. 351 Weidemann, Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degen­ tium, vol. 2, pp. 202–06, classifies it among the “authentische und interpolierte authentische Urkunden.” 352 Nonn, “Merowingische Testamente”; Geary, Aristocracy in Provence. 353 Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium 19, ed., Sot, vol. 1, pp. 82–85. 354 Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium 20, ed., Sot, vol. 1, pp. 90–111. 355 Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, X, 29. 356 Marazzi, I “Patrimonia sanctae Romanae ecclesiae” nel Lazio (secoli IV–X), pp. 103–10; Brown, Gentlemen and Officers, pp. 182–83. 357 Tjäder, Die nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri Italiens, vol. 1, wills: papyri 4–5, 6; charters in favour of the Church of Ravenna: papyri 12, 13, 14–15, 16, 18–19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27; charter in favour of the Church of Rome: papyrus 17. Brown, Gen­ tlemen and Officers, pp. 175–89; Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 48. 358 Agnellus of Ravenna, Liber Pontificalis sive Vitae Pontificum Ravennatum, p. 60; Richards, The Popes and the Papacy, p. 297. 359 Brown, Gentlemen and Officers, p. 183, with n. 14. 360 Ibid., p. 180. 361 Vitas Patrum Emeretensium, IV, 2, 5. 362 Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church.” 363 Gesta Patrum Fontanellensis coenobii. 364 Wood, “Teutsind, Witlaic and the History of Merovingian precaria.” 365 Fox, Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, pp. 195–218; for a similar reading of the Italian evidence, Brown, Gentlemen and Officers, p. 189 366 Cammarosano, Nobili e re: L’Italia politica dell’alto medio­ evo, p. 1; Fouracre review of Fox, Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, in Peritia 27 (2016): 263–65. For families that can be recon-

108  Chapter 9 structed over more generations, Le Jan, Famille et Pouvoir dans le monde franc. 367 Wallace-Hadrill, The Long-haired Kings, pp. 241–42. 368 Goody, The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe. 369 Brown, Gentlemen and Officers, pp. 182–83. 370 Herlihy, “Church Property on the European Continent 701–1200,” pp. 87–89; Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” pp. 37–38, 45, 72–73. 371 Gregory of Tours, Decem Libri Historiarum, VI, 46. 372 Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 61. 373 Jonas of Bobbio, Vita Columbani, I, 6, trans. A. O’Hara and I. Wood, Jonas of Bobbio, Life of Columbanus, Life of John of Réomé, and Life of Vedast, p. 108. 374 Bede, Epistola ad Ecgbertum, 11. 375 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 898. 376 Codex Theodosianus, XVI, 2, 6, and 19 377 Ibid., XVI, 2, 17 378 Ibid., XVI, 2, 33. 379 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 898 380 Fouracre, “Eternal Light and Earthly Needs.” 381 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, pp. 623–29; Haldon, Byz­ antium in the Seventh Century, pp. 208–53. For a comparison with the West, see Haldon, “Framing Transformation, Transforming the Framework,” p. 332. 382 Halsall, Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450–900, pp. 40–70. 383 Wood, “Land Tenure and Military Obligations in the AngloSaxon and Merovingian Kingdoms.” 384 Codex Theodosianus, XI, 16, 15, 18; XV, 3, 6. 385 Brooks, “Rochester Bridge, ad 43–1381.” 386 Lex Visigothorum, IV, 5, 7. 387 King, Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom, pp. 67–68. 388 Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church,” p. 71; Stambaugh, “The Functions of Roman Temples,” pp. 574–76. 389 Jones, The Later Roman Empire, p. 898.

Chapter 10

Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff

We may disagree with Gibbon in seeing religion as a cause of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire but nevertheless agree with him that the late Roman period saw “the rise, establishment, and sects of Christianity,” that “the Church, and even the State, were distracted by religious factions,” and that “the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods.” We may deny that “the sacred indolence of the monks was undoubtedly embraced by a servile and effeminate age,”390 but it is clear that monasticism was a major issue from the fifth century onwards. We can also go further than Gibbon in emphasizing the economic impact of the rise of the Church. This would not be reversed until the Reformation and the subsequent secularization of ecclesiastical property. In a sense the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries mark the economic formation of western Christendom, and the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth its de-formation (and not just its Reformation). Whether the endowment of the Church in the sixth and seventh centuries meant any more than the transfer of property from secular to ecclesiastical hands is surely a question that needs to be asked. Did the exploitation of land change in the immediate post-Roman period because of the new clerical landlords?391 Or did Church property simply replicate the

110  Chapter 10 landholding of the secular aristocracy of the Later Empire, some of whose lands were scattered across vast areas, just as the holdings of the great monasteries and bishoprics came to be?392 Peter Brown has pointed to the rise of the managerial bishop, interested in model farming.393 Did such men change the economy? In the West, at least, we know a good deal more about ecclesiastical property in the seventh century than we know about secular estates three centuries earlier. From Merovingian St. Martin’s at Tours we have an extraordinary accounting document that provides a glimpse of payments required from the peasantry.394 Can we just read back from the known to the less known? Or should we hypothesize some significant change? A pri­ ori, the need to feed large monastic communities and to provide them with light changed distribution and demand, if not production. A community of monks did not move, whereas a Roman aristocrat with a comparable spread of estates could have progressed, and no doubt often did, between the major centres of his or her property, as we know did medieval kings. The frontier army (the limitanei), of course, had been largely static; however, it had been at the end of a complex supply chain that provided for a partially different set of needs than those of monks. We can see the results of monastic communities being static in that the hagiography reveals difficulties in supplying large groups in rural areas: the recurrence of miracles relating to mills shows that the provision of flour for monasteries in the countryside was a major issue395—and it must have been replicated for every sizeable foundation. We also see the problems of providing for pilgrims in centres where there were flourishing shrines, and some Merovingian shrines seem to have produced their own coinage, which is an indication of local fiscal activity.396 On top of this, in every city the Church had to support widows, orphans and the poor. By the seventh century there was unques-

Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff  111

tionably a new ecclesiastical economy, driven by concern to buy spiritual salvation.397 It might plausibly be seen as replacing the military economy of the west Roman Empire. The Church should surely be central to research on the early medieval economy. To conclude, however, let us pick up briefly on Rostovtzeff’s statement that consideration of the later Empire which failed to consider spiritual, intellectual, and artistic issues was bound to be “one-sided and incomplete.”398 Religion apart, these were not major concerns for Gibbon, but they have been the subject of much important recent research, on some aspects of which, in concentrating on the economic aspects of the Church, we have scarcely touched. They deserve mention, because they reinforce the point that Christianity dominated almost all aspects of life by the seventh century. We can reasonably begin with an issue to which we have already alluded, if only by implication: cult, and more specifically the liturgy, a version of which was performed weekly if not daily by every priest and in every church.399 The post-Roman period was the period that saw the fixing of liturgy according to the forms set out in various types of missal, sacramentary and lectionary, in Rome, Francia, and Spain under the eye not just of the pope and of regional bishops but also, and increasingly, of kings.400 Not everyone attended services, and there was a significant debate about Sunday work in the course of the sixth century, apparent both in Church canons and in hagiography,401 which suggests that many were avoiding religious observance, but the regularity of the provision of cult was an important aspect of the culture of a Christian State. The majority of the population, even those who were illiterate, could hear the written word declaimed from the pulpit—and not just the 1,800 pulpits of the bishops but also those of the priests who read out versions of the sermons of the likes of Augustine and Caesarius.402

112  Chapter 10 Much more eye-catching in recent scholarship has been the development of one particular aspect of Christian cult: that of the saints.403 There had been pagan holy men and there had been places of pagan (and indeed Jewish) pilgrimage, but the cult of the saints and the associated Christian pilgrimages seem to have been on a different scale—even if the survival of evidence for pagan cult makes comparison difficult. For Classical Antiquity, of course, one has the evidence of Pausanias, and comparison has been made between his information and that relating to Christian pilgrimage.404 For the sixth century one has the information supplied by Gregory of Tours, above all in his books concerned with the Glory of the Martyrs and of the Confessors.405 The majority of the 110 chapters in the latter work are concerned with saints who were buried in Gaul. Not all of them were the subject of cults406 but a good number of them were, and there were certainly other saints and martyrs, not mentioned by Gregory, whose shrines were to be found in Francia. It is possible that the cult of the saints was more deeply entrenched in the Merovingian World than elsewhere—the Dialogues of Gregory the Great may imply as much407—but it was surely widespread throughout the West. There had been works of pagan hagiography,408 but the Christian saint’s Life—initially martyr acts and subsequently the lives of holy men, bishops, and abbots—is a distinctive feature in the cultural world from the fourth century onwards.409 A group of model texts was quickly established, as one can see in the prefaces of numerous vitae of the early medieval period. The list of earlier Lives provided by Jonas of Bobbio in the Vita Columbani, written in 643, can stand for many such citations: blessed Athanasius excellently passed down to our times the memory of Antony; Jerome that of Paul and Hilarion, and of others, whom devotion to the good life made praisewor-

Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff  113

thy; Postumianus, Severus, and Gallus, that of Martin, and many that of others whom either fame or examples of good works and monuments of virtues have commended, such as, for example, those of the pillars of the churches, Hilary, Ambrose and Augustine …410

This was an age of hagiography, in which the hagiographers were very conscious of what earlier practitioners of the genre had written. Strikingly, however, although hagiography may seem now to be one of the dominant literary forms of the period, when one looks at the manuscript record of the pre-Carolingian period saint’s Lives feature only very rarely.411 There is a remarkable manuscript from 517 containing the hagiographical works of Sulpicius Severus and Jerome’s Vita Pauli.412 From the sixth- or seventh-century West there is Eucherius’s Passion of the Martyrs of Agaune413 and also the Roman Life of the Martyrs John and Paul.414 From the seventh century there are Lives of Pionius and Theodosia,415 and a translation of the Life of Abraham, which some attribute to Ephraem the Syrian.416 Written at Iona at some date shortly before 713 there is the Schaffhausen manuscript of Adomnán’s Life of Columba.417 Also from the early eighth century there is a Life of Wandregisel (Saint Wandrille),418 and from later in the same century the Transitus beati Fursei.419 This, however, is clearly a poor reflection of the amount of hagiography composed and circulated during the late and post-Roman period, and is certainly no guide to the popularity of the cult of the saints. More impressive is the survival of patristic literature— much of it, indeed composed in the fourth and fifth centuries. There are at least 26 manuscripts of various works of Augustine from Merovingian Francia, 22 of Jerome, 19 of Gregory the Great, 16 of Isidore, 7 of Caesarius and 6 of Origen.420 By analogy with the hagiographic material, this must be a very poor reflection of what once existed.

114  Chapter 10 In any case the manuscript numbers pale into insignificance with the numbers of citations of patristic authors to be found in works composed in the sixth, seventh, and early eighth centuries, but which are known only from Carolingian or later manuscripts. One can get an impression of the richness of religious knowledge from a florilegium put together around the year 700 by Defensor, an almost unknown monk of the monastery of Ligugé, a foundation of Martin of Tours that had drifted into the background. In addition to the books of the Bible, Defensor cites the works of more than thirty authors. These include classical writers, such as Aristotle, Cicero, Hegesippus, Hesiod, and Terence, but above all there are the Fathers of the Church. Defensor knows at least four works of Augustine, in addition to several letters, eight of Jerome, as well as numerous pieces of correspondence. He also has access to works written closer to his own time, including seven of Gregory the Great and four of Isidore of Seville.421 The Liber Scin­ tillarum is a remarkable witness to the depth of Christian knowledge in the seventh century. Compiled by a monk of apparently little significance in a monastery that is not otherwise known as a centre of learning, it provides an indication of the resources in what seems by 700 no longer to have been at the centre of spiritual activity. The knowledge demonstrated by Isidore in early seventh-century Toledo is vastly superior,422 but was probably unparalleled in the 200 years between Gregory the Great and the highpoint of the Carolingian Renaissance, except perhaps in Wearmouth and Jarrow in the days of Bede. Nor was it only works of theology that were read and transcribed. Legal manuscripts are present in some numbers. Leaving aside the “Germanic” law codes issued by Frankish, Visigothic, and Lombard rulers (which do not, in fact, survive in pre-Carolingian manuscripts), the Mero­ vingians and the Visigoths transcribed Roman law for

Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff  115

posterity: we have four Gallo-Roman Merovingian manuscripts (or fragments thereof) of the Theodosian Code and perhaps six of the so-called Breviary of Alaric, the Lex Romana Visigothorum.423 Less often noted is the evidence for canon law collections, which bring us back to the Church. From the sixth and seventh centuries we have our earliest collections of canon law. Around the year 600 a bishop of Lyon put together a collection that would develop into what is known as the Vetus Gallica.424 Shortly afterwards, following the Fourth Council of Toledo (633) a collection was made of Church canons, probably under the eye of Isidore of Seville. A revised version was made, perhaps by Julian of Toledo, after 681 and another after 694.425 This Collectio Hispana included not only the canons of councils held in Spain but also of some of the early Gallic councils, as well as papal letters. Neither the Vetus Gallica nor the Collectio Hispana survive in pre-Carolingian manuscripts (the earliest manuscript of the former is of the late eighth century,426 while there are two of the latter from the eighth or ninth centuries),427 but we do have manuscripts of smaller collections from the sixth century onwards.428 Equally important, these people thought hard about their place in history. Leaving aside the great early Byzantine historians, one might be tempted to point to the obvious sequence of writers who used to be categorized simply, and as we now know misleadingly, as “the narrators of barbarian history.”429 Jordanes, however, although he wrote in Latin, was almost certainly a resident of Constantinople, and is best considered alongside Procopius and Marcellinus Comes. Bede and Paul the Deacon, of course, belong to the eighth century. Nevertheless, the evidence for historical writing in the post-Roman West remains striking. First, there is Gregory of Tours: his work survives in five pre-Carolingian manuscripts.430 He was most cer-

116  Chapter 10 tainly not a historian of the Roman Empire, despite his use of Eusebius-Jerome, and of Orosius. The Romans indeed come off remarkably badly in his version of events, being largely represented as persecutors of the Christians. But nor was he a chronicler of the Franks, being intent on placing the history of his own times firmly within a Christian framework that looked back to Adam and Eve.431 One finds an equally wide vision in the mid-seventh-century chronicler known as Fredegar. Historians tend to cite only what he has to say about the late sixth and early seventh centuries, but he prefaced his compilation with a version of the Liber Generationis of Hippolytus and thus, once again, with Adam and Eve.432 Even richer was the historical thought of Isidore of Seville, who wrote no less than three different histories.433 Almost every historian and chronicler attempted to place their own time within the history of salvation—and there were many more histories and chronicles than is generally realized, because copyists edited the histories they were transcribing to make them into something new. As a result, every recension (practically each manuscript) is effectively a different work and deserves study in its own right.434 History at the hands of these writers meant something very different from what had concerned the annalists and historians of Classical Antiquity.435 For them the Roman Empire was a phase that the people of the Mediterranean and the Latin West had passed through in the course of a far more significant universal story. Such a notion was not, of course, new to the sixth and seventh centuries, let alone the fourth and fifth. The notion of salvation history goes back to the Bible and then to its early use by the Christians. The novelty of the post-Roman period is the fact that almost all historical writing, including seemingly simple chronicles, is concerned to fit its material into a religious scheme. Even when more traditional Roman

Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff  117

chronologies are used (from the foundation of Rome, AUC, ab urbe condita, as well as imperial and consular dating), these become mere adjuncts to dating from the Creation or from Abraham. Thus, by the seventh century, historical or linear time in the Christian West was largely dominated by a concept of salvation history. Cyclical time, that of the seasons and of feast days, was equally viewed through the lens of religion. In place of lists of Roman festivals, such as we can find in the so-called Calendar of Philocalus, from 354,436 we have in the Hieronymian Martyrology a calendar of feasts of the saints, initially compiled it would seem in the early seventh century.437 And we have tables combining the date of the spring equinox with that of the Passover moon to calculate the day on which Easter should be celebrated.438 Time itself had been christianized. Life in the post-Roman West was certainly rougher, at least for the upper classes, than it had been in the fourth century. However, it was still cultured—and that culture is attested in numerous places in the Merovingian, Visigothic, Lombard, and papal areas. Intellectually it was less innovative than what had come before—though despite the reserved assessment of Augustine initially given by Marrou, there are few other periods that can boast as many intellectual giants as were writing in the late fourth and early fifth centuries. However, the centuries that followed nevertheless boasted great minds, not least Gregory the Great and Isidore; even some of the lesser figures were deeply thoughtful about history and their place in the universe. They get neglected because their concerns are classified as theological, rather than philosophical, historical, or even (in the case of those who wrote about the calculation of the date of Easter) scientific.439 But just as the Church came to dominate other aspects of post-Roman life, so it unquestionably dominated the intellectual.

118  Chapter 10 Where does all this leave Gibbon’s account of Decline and Fall, and indeed the interpretations of those who have followed in his footsteps? Many of his detailed observations still ring true, but his general association of Religion and Barbarism with the collapse of the Roman West hardly stands up. As we have seen, the barbarians really cannot be held responsible for the fall of Rome—although the failure to deal with them was politically catastrophic. Nor can the end of the western Empire be laid at the door of religion, although Gibbon was unquestionably right to place the Church at the heart of the changes that look place between the early fourth and early seventh centuries. Essentially if we begin by looking at the early fourth century we see a Roman Empire that was only incipiently Christian; 300 years later we are in a world of thoroughly christianized kingdoms. This is only the “end of civilization” if one sees Christianity as retrograde. We avoid that qualitative judgement if we regard the period as marking a fundamental transformation, which had the establishment of the Church at its core and which affected not just religion but also every aspect of politics and society. Although I have used material from the whole of the Mediterranean World, I have concentrated on the West, which is often presented as less influenced by the Church than was the Byzantine East. Indeed Frend specifically attributed the differing fortunes of the two halves of the Empire in the fourth and fifth centuries to the different strengths of monasticism in the two regions, arguing that it was the monks that ensured the survival of the Roman East.440 It is almost certain that monasticism was more advanced in the East than in the West in the fifth century, but this was probably not the case by the seventh century. Of course we can say that by then the western Empire had already collapsed and that its place was taken by a number of so-called “barbarian” kingdoms. By the

Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff  119

year 600 we can also make a clear comparison between the administrative sophistication and the military organization of the Byzantine and western worlds. In religious and perhaps even cultural terms, however, we should by that same date beware of seeing a great distinction—the successor states of the sixth- and seventh-century West were as dominated by bishops, clergy, and holy men as was the East. The emphasis that I have laid on the Church has one further implication. It suggests that we need to re-evaluate the eighth century. Rather than seeing the Carolingians as rejuvenating a religiously and culturally impoverished Age, we need to ask rather if Charles Martel and Pippin III temporarily undermined an essentially religious socio-political system. While we tend to see the Carolingian Age as marking a major development in the Christian ideology of rule, we should perhaps see it also as marking a reconstitution of a religious system that the Arnulfing ancestors of the Carolingians themselves had broken through the secularization of Church property by Charles Martel—a policy necessitated by the need for military reform following the arrival of the Islamic forces. In other words the triumph of Christianity, and particularly of the Church, and not the fall of Rome or the coming of the barbarians was the central feature of the fourth to seventh centuries. Despite Gibbon’s view, I would not see this as a retrograde step but I would also insist that we should not see it as marking the beginnings of Modern History—even though the Modern History School in the University of Oxford takes 284 as its starting date. Rather, I would argue that the religiously ordered world of the post-Roman period requires comparison with other “temple societies,” such as Pharaonic Egypt, the Classic Maya, the Chola and Vijayanagara states of India, or the Buddhist civilization of Cambodia.441 Despite the numer-

120  Chapter 10 ous cultural and political continuities, the early Medieval World was profoundly different from the Classical World out of which it had emerged, and the key difference lay not in the coming of the barbarians but in the dominance of the Christian Church in almost all walks of life.

Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff  121

Notes 390 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. 38: “General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West.” 391 Banaji, “Aristocracies, Peasantries and the Framing of the Early Middle Ages,” pp. 152–58, uses the Merovingian charters and wills (all of which are ecclesiastical) to illustrate economic change, without once considering the nature of the Church as an institution, conceptualizing it solely as representative of the aristocracy. 392 Wood, The Merovingian Kingdoms, pp. 214–17. 393 Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, pp. 496–98. Compare the evidence for Ireland: Davies, “Economic Change in Early Medieval Ireland.” 394 Gasnault, Documents comptables de Saint-Martin de Tours à l’époque mérovingienne; Wickham, Framing the Early Middle Ages, p. 109. 395 For example, Jonas, Vita Columbani, II, 2, trans. O’Hara and Wood, p. 181 n. 479, for parallels. 396 For the coinage of Brioude, see Berger, Droit, société et parenté en Auvergne médiévale (VIe–XIVe siècles), vol. 4, App. n° 6, “Essai de synthèse sur la numismatique médiévale ancienne du vicus arverne de Brioude et de son Église Saint-Julien,” pp. 213–310. 397 Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle; Brown, The Ransom of the Soul; Brown, Treasure in Heaven. 398 Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire, p. xv. 399 Hen, Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul. 400 Hen, The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul, pp. 1–41. 401 Wood, “Early Merovingian Devotion in Town and Country,” pp. 62–66; Wood, “How Popular was Early Medieval Devotion?.” 402 Klingshirn, Caesarius of Arles, pp. 146–59; Bailey, Christian­ ity’s Quiet Success. 403 Brown, The Cult of the Saints; The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, ed. by Howard-Johnston and Hayward. 404 Bull, “Pilgrimage,” p. 206. 405 Gregory of Tours, Liber in Gloria Martyrum and Liber in Gloria Confessorum. 406 Wood, “How Popular was Early Medieval Devotion?.” 407 Gregory I, Dialogues, I, prol. 7. 408 Musurillo, Acts of the Pagan Martyrs. 409 Philippart, Hagiographie; L’hagiographie mérovingienne à tra­­vers ses réécritures, ed. by Goullet, Heinzelmann and Veyrard-Cosme.

122  Chapter 10 410 Jonas of Bobbio, Vita Columbani, I, 1, trans. O’Hara and Wood, pp. 93–94. 411 The list of pre-Carolingian manuscripts compiled by Lowe, Codices, Latini Antiquiores (CLA), is now most easily explored through the website of the Galway Earlier Latin Manuscripts project: elmss.nuigalway.ie. 412 CLA IV, 491. 413 CLA V, 589. 414 CLA V/XI, 646. 415 CLA VI, 825. 416 CLA VI, 708. 417 CLA VII, 998. 418 CLA V, 675. 419 CLA II, 202b. 420 The list in Wood, “The Problem of Late Merovingian Culture,” pp. 217–22, can be used together with Earlier Latin Manuscripts. 421 Defensor of Ligugé, Liber Scintillarum; Wood, “The Problem of Late Merovingian Culture,” pp. 210–11. 422 Fontaine, Isidore de Seville et la culture classique dans l’Es­ pagne wisigothique. 423 Theodosian Code, CLA I, 110; IV, 46; V, 591; VII, 1016; Breviary of Alaric, CLA V, 617; 703a; VIII, 1059; IX, 1324; S, 1752; S1, 1836; Wood, “The Code in Merovingian Gaul.” 424 Mordek, Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankenreich: die Col­ lectio vetus Gallica. 425 La Colección canónica hispana, ed. Martínez Díez and Rodríguez. 426 Cologne Dombibliothek 91, CLA VIII, 1155. 427 Lucca Biblioteca Capitolare 490, CLA III, 303d; Codex Rachionis, Strasbourg Bibl. nat. et universitaire, CLA VI, 835. 428 CLA V, 619; VI, 836; VII, 954; XI, 1061; Mathisen, “Between Arles, Rome, and Toledo.” 429 Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History. 430 CLA I, 107; V, 670, 671; VI, 742a and b; VIII, 1122. 431 Heinzelmann, Gregory of Tours. 432 Wallace-Hadrill, The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar, pp. x–xi. 433 Wood, The Politics of Identity in Visigothic Spain. 434 Reimitz, History, Frankish Identity and the Framing of West­ ern Ethnicity. 435 Burgess and Kulikowski, Mosaics of Time, vol. 1, A Historical Introduction to the Chronicle Genre from its Origins to the High Mid­ dle Ages; Wood, “Universal Chronicles in the Early Medieval West.”

Beyond Gibbon and Rostovtzeff  123

Salzman, On Roman Time. Lifshitz, The Name of the Saint, pp. 13–29. 438 Warntjes, “Computus as Scientific Thought in Ireland and the Early Medieval West.” 439 Ibid.; Wood, The Priest, the Temple and the Moon in the Eighth Century. 440 Frend, “The Monks and the End and Survival of the East Roman Empire in the Fifth Century,” p. 24. 441 On the “ritual penetration” of societies, see Haldon, The State and the Tributary Mode of Production, pp. 241–51, and Haldon, “Framing Transformation, Transforming the Framework,” p. 335. 436 437

Appendix

Clerical Ordinations

Ordinations from Silvester to Gregory I in the Liber Pontificalis (Page references are to The Book of Pontiffs, ed. and trans. Davis.) Silvester (314–35) (Davis, p. 27) Ceremonies: 6 in December Bishops: 65 Priests: 42 Deacons: 26 Mark (336) (Davis, p. 28) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 27 Priests: 25 Deacons: 6 Julius I (337–52) (Davis, p. 28) Ceremonies: 3 in December Bishops: 9 Priests: 18 Deacons: 4

126  Appendix Liberius (352–66) (Davis, p. 30) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 19 Priests: 18 Deacons: 5 Felix II (355–65) (Davis, p. 30) Ceremonies: 1 in December Bishops: 19 Priests: 21 Deacons: 5 Damasus (366–84) (Davis, p. 31) Ceremonies: 5 in December Bishops: 62 Priests: 31 Deacons: 11 Siricius (384–99) (Davis, p. 32) Ceremonies: 5 in December Bishops: 32 Priests: 31 Deacons: 16 Anastasius I (399–402) (Davis, p. 32) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 11 Priests: 9 Deacons: 5 Innocent I (402–17) (Davis, p. 34) Ceremonies: 4 in December Bishops: 54 Priests: 30 Deacons: 12

Clerical Ordinations  127

Zosimus (417–18) (Davis, p. 34) Ceremonies: 1 in December Bishops: 8 Priests: 10 Deacons: 3 Boniface I (418–22) (Davis, p. 34) Ceremonies: 1 in December Bishops: 36 Priests: 13 Deacons: 3 Celestine (422–32) (Davis, p. 36) Ceremonies: 3 in December Bishops: 46 Priests: 32 Deacons: 12 Sixtus III (432–40) (Davis, p. 38) Ceremonies: 3 in December Bishops: 52 Priests: 28 Deacons: 12 Leo I (440–61) (Davis, p. 40) Ceremonies: 4 in December Bishops: 185 Priests: 81 Deacons: 31 Hilary (461–68) (Davis, p. 42) Ceremonies: 1 in December Bishops: 22 Priests: 25 Deacons: 6

128  Appendix Simplicius (468–83) (Davis, p. 43) Ceremonies: 3 in December and February Bishops: 88 Priests: 58 Deacons: 11 Felix III (483–92) (Davis, p. 44) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 31 Priests: 28 Deacons: 5 Gelasius I (492–96) (Davis, p. 45) Ceremonies: 2 in December and February Bishops: 67 Priests: 32 Deacons: 2 Anastasius II (496–98) (Davis, p. 45) Ceremonies: 1 in December Bishops: 16 Priests: 12 Deacons: 0 Symmachus (498–514) (Davis, p. 48) Ceremonies: 4 in December and February Bishops: 117 Priests: 92 Deacons: 16 Hormisdas (514–23) (Davis, p. 50) Ceremonies: December Bishops: 55 Priests: 21 Deacons: 0

Clerical Ordinations  129

John I (523–26) (Davis, p. 52) Ceremonies: ? Bishops: 15 Priests: 0 Deacons: 0 Felix IV (526–30) (Davis, pp. 52–3) Ceremonies: 2 in February and March Bishops: 29 Priests: 55 Deacons: 4 Boniface II (530–32) (Davis, p. 53) Ceremonies: 0 Bishops: 0 Priests: 0 Deacons: 0 John II (533–35) (Davis, p. 54) Ceremonies: 1 in December Bishops: 21 Priests: 15 Deacons: 0 Agapitus (535–6) (Davis, p. 55) Ceremonies: 1 Bishops: 11 Priests: 0 Deacons: 4 Silverius (536–37) (Davis, p. 58) Ceremonies: 1 in December Bishops: 18 Priests: 14 Deacons: 5

130  Appendix Vigilius (537–55) (Davis, p. 61) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 81 Priests: 46 Deacons: 16 Pelagius I (556–61) (Davis, p. 61) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 49 Priests: 26 Deacons: 9 John III (561–74) (Davis, p. 62) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 61 Priests: 38 Deacons: 13 Benedict I (575–79) (Davis, p. 63) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 21 Priests: 15 Deacons: 3 Pelagius II (579–90) (Davis, p. 63) Ceremonies: 2 in December Bishops: 48 Priests: 28 Deacons: 8 Gregory I (590–604) (Davis, p. 63) Ceremonies: 2 in Lent and December Bishops: 62 Priests: 39 Deacons: 5

Clerical Ordinations  131

Ordinations in the Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium (Page references are to Geschichte des Bistums Le Mans, ed. Weidemann; see also the table in Godding, Prêtres en Gaule mérovingienne, p. 458.) Liborius (Weidemann, p. 41) (348–96) Ceremonies: 96 Priests: 217 Deacons: 186 Subdeacons: 93 Victorus I (Weidemann, p. 43) (length of episcopate given in the Actus, 24 years, 7 months, 13 days) Ceremonies: 52 Priests: 305 Deacons: 212 Principius (Weidemann, p. 48) (497?–511?: length of episcopate given in the Actus, 29 years, 1 month, 21 days) Ceremonies: 32 Priests: 205 Innocent (Weidemann, p. 51) (533?–559: length of episcopate given in the Actus, 45 years, 10 months, 25 days) Ceremonies: 50 Priests: 319 Domnolus (Weidemann, p. 57) (559–81: length of episcopate given in the Actus, 46 years, 11 months, 24 days) Ceremonies: 75 Priests: 360 Deacons: 250

132  Appendix Berarius (Weidemann, p. 76) (ca. 658–ca. 673: length of episcopate given in the Actus, 26 years, 4 months, 14 days) Ceremonies: 61 Priests: 405 Deacons: 228 Agilbert (Weidemann, p. 82) (673/74–698/99: length of episcopate given in the Actus, 34 years, 6 months, 11 days) Ceremonies: 75 Priests: 300 Deacons: 310 Erlemund (Weidemann, p. 87) (698/99–721: length of episcopate given in the Actus, 26 years, 9 months, 13 days) Ceremonies: 38 Priests: 283 Deacons: 182

Further Reading

Brown, Peter. The Rise of Western Christendom, Triumph and Diversity AD 200–1000. Oxford, 1996; 2nd ed. Oxford, 2003. A major examination of the rise of Christianity as a force.

——— . The World of Late Antiquity. London, 1971.

The seminal work for the resurgence in Late Antique Studies.

Bury, John Bagnall. History of the Later Roman Empire from the Death of Theodosius I to the Death of Justinian. London, 1923. This remains the best narrative overview.

Delaplace, Christine. La fin de l’Empire romain d’Occident: Rome et les Wisigoths de 382 à 531. Rennes, 2015. The clearest statement of the political causes of the end of the Roman West.

Geary, Patrick. Before France and Germany: The Creation and Transformation of the Merovinigan World. Oxford, 1988. An excellent study of the rise and fall of the Merovingians.

134  Further Reading Gibbon, Edward. Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. London, 1776–88. The classic interpretation of the whole period.

Goffart, Walter. Barbarians and Romans AD 418–584: The Techniques of Accommodation. Princeton, 1980. The work that reopened the question of the barbarian settlements.

——— . Barbarian Tides: The Migration Age and the Later Roman Empire. Philadelphia, 2006. The work that questioned the scale of Germanic migration.

Halsall, Guy. Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West 376–568. Cambridge, 2007. A fine narrative account of the Migration Period.

——— . Warfare and Society in the Barbarian West, 450– 900. London, 2003. An excellent introduction to the military history of the post-Roman World.

Heinzelmann, Martin. Gregory of Tours: History and Soci­ ety in the Sixth Century. Cambridge, 2001. The classic modern study of Gregory of Tours.

Hen, Yitzhak. Culture and Religion in Merovingian Gaul, AD 481–751. Leiden, 1995. The fullest study of Merovingian religious culture.

Jones, A. H. M. The Later Roman Empire, 284–601: A Social, Economic and Administrative Survey. 3 vols. Oxford, 1964. The most complete survey of the evidence.

Further Reading  135

Lenski, Noel E. Failure of Empire: Valens and the Roman State in the Fourth Century. Berkeley, 2001. A major study of a crucial reign.

Markus, Robert A. The End of Ancient Christianity. Cambridge, 1990. An extremely nuanced analysis of the changes within Christianity over the Late Antique and early medieval periods.

——— . Gregory the Great and his World. Cambridge, 1997. The most lucid account of Gregory I.

Marrou, Henri Irenée. Décadence ou antiquité tardive? IIIe – VIe siècle. Paris, 1977. An important response to Brown’s The World of Late Anti­ quity.

——— . Saint Augustin et la fin de la culture antique. Paris, 1938; 2nd ed. Paris, 1949. A seminal analysis of late Roman culture.

Matthews, John F. Western Aristocracies and Imperial Court, AD 364–425. Oxford, 1975. The classic analysis of the late Roman aristocracy.

McEvoy, Meaghan. Child Emperor Rule in the Late Roman West, AD 367–455. Oxford, 2013. An important analysis of the political structures of the late Roman West.

Mathisen, Ralph W. Ecclesiastical Factionalism and Reli­ gious Controversy in Fifth-Century Gaul. Washington, DC: 1989. An important account of the fifth-century Gallic Church.

136  Further Reading Merrills, Andy, and Richard Miles. The Vandals. Oxford, 2010. The most up-to-date account of the Vandals.

Pelikan, Jaroslav. The Excellent Empire: The Fall of Rome and the Triumph of the Church. San Francisco, 1987. An extremely lucid account of relations between Church and State.

Pohl, Walter. Die Awaren. Ein Steppenvolk im Mitteleuropa 567–822 n. Chr. Munich, 1988. The major study of the Avars.

Prinz, Friedrich. Frühes Mönchtum im Frankenreich. Kemp­ ten, 1985. The seminal account of Gallic and Merovingian monasticism.

Reimitz, Helmut. History, Frankish Identity and the Fram­ ing of Western Ethnicity, 550–850. Cambridge, 2015. The most comprehensive account of the writing of history in the Frankish World.

Thompson, Edward A. Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire. Madison, 1982. A key set of essays on the Visigoths.

Treadgold, Warren. Byzantium and its Army, 284–1081. Stanford, 1995. A standard survey of the late and post-Roman army.

Walbank, Frank W. The Decline of the Roman Empire in the West. London, 1946; republished as The Awful Revolution: The Decline of the Roman Empire in the West. Liverpool, 1969. A radical reading of the end of the west Roman Empire.

Further Reading  137

Wallace-Hadrill, J. Michael. The Barbarian West. London, 1952; 3rd ed. London, 1967. A seminal set of essays on the Barbarian World.

Ward-Perkins, Bryan. The Fall of Rome and the End of Civi­ lization. Oxford, 2005. The bleakest and one of the most controversial readings of the end of the Roman West.

Wickham, Chris. Framing the Early Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean, 400–800. Oxford, 2005. The most substantial reassessment of post-Roman social and economic history.

Wolfram, Herwig. History of the Goths. Berkeley, 1988. The fullest account of Gothic history.

Wood, Ian N. The Merovingian Kingdoms, 450–751. London, 1994. A standard survey of Merovingian history.

——— . The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages. Oxford, 2013. An overview of the historiography of the period.

Wipszycka, Ewa. Moines et Communautés monastiques en Égypte (IVe–VIIIe siècles), The Journal of Juristic Papyrology, Supplement XI. Warsaw, 2009. The major account of Egyptian monasticism.

Bibliography

Primary Sources Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium. Edited by Margarete Weidemann, Geschichte des Bistums Le Mans von der Spätantike bis zur Karolingerzeit. 3 vols. Mainz, 2002. Agnellus of Ravenna. Liber Pontificalis sive Vitae Pontificum Raven­ natum. Edited by O. Holder-Egger. MGH, Scriptores Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI–IX, pp. 265–391. Hannover, 1878. Ambrose. Epistulae, Liber X. Edited by M. Zelzer, CSEL 82, 3. Vienna, 1982. Translated by J. H. Wolf G. Liebeschuetz. Ambrose of Milan, Political Letters and Speeches. Liverpool, 2005. Augustine. Ep. 55. Edited by A. Goldbacher. S. Augustini Hipponensis Episcopi Epistulae, pars. IV, epp. 185–270, CSEL 57. Vienna, 1911. Bede. Epistola ad Ecgbertum. Edited by Christopher Grocock and Ian Wood. Abbots of Wearmouth and Jarrow. Oxford, 2013. ——— . Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. Edited by Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors. Oxford, 1969. Bertram of Le Mans. Testamentum. Edited by Margarete Weidemann. Das Testament des Bischofs Berthramn von Le Mans vom 27. März 616. Untersuchungen zu Besitz und Geschichte einer fränkischen Familie im 6. und 7. Jahrhundert. Mainz, 1986. Codex Euricianus. Edited by Karl Zeumer. MGH, LL I. Hannover, 1902. Codex Theodosianus. Edited by Theodor Mommsen and Paul M. Meyer, P. M. Codex Theodosianus. Berlin, 1905. Translated by Clyde Pharr. The Theodosian Code. New York, 1952. Columbanus. Ep. II. In Sancti Columbani Opera. Edited by G. S. M. Walker. Dublin, 1957.

140  Bibliography Constantius. Vita Germani Autissiodorensis. Edited by René Borius. Constance de Lyon, Vie de saint Germain d’Auxerre. Sources Chrétiennes 112. Paris, 1965. Translated by F. H. Hoare. The West­ ern Fathers, pp. 283–320. London, 1954. Council of Carthage (397). Edited by Charles Munier. Concilia Africae a. 345–a. 525. CCCL 149, pp. 173–247. Turnhout, 1974. Council of Carthage (401). Edited by Charles Munier. Concilia Africae a. 345–a. 525. CCCL 149, pp. 173–247. Turnhout, 1974. Council of Tours (567). Edited by B. Basdevant. Les Canons des Con­ ciles Mérovingiens (VIe–VIIe siècles), vol. 2, pp. 346–99. Paris, 1989. Cyprian, Firminus, Viventius, Messianus, and Stephanus. Vita Caesa­ rii. Edited by Germain Morin. Sancti Caesarii episcopi Arelatensis Opera Omnia, vol. 2. Maredsous, 1941. Translated by William E. Klingshirn. Caesarius of Arles, Life, Testament, Letters. Liverpool, 1994. Defensor of Ligugé. Liber Scintillarum. Edited by H.–M. Rochais. Defensor de Ligugé, Livre d’étincelles. 2 vols. Sources Chrétiennes 77 and 86. Paris, 1961–62. De locis sanctis martyrum quae sunt foris civitatis Romae and Eccle­ siae quae intus Romae habentur, Itineraria et alia Geographica. CCSL CLXXV, pp. 314–22. Turnhout, 1965. De Provinciis Italiae, Itineraria et alia Geographica. CCSL CLXXV, pp. 366–68. Turnhout, 1965. De Terminatione Provinciarum Italiae, Itineraria et alia Geographica. CCSL CLXXV, pp. 348–63. Turnhout, 1965. Eugippius. Vita Severini. Edited by Philippe Régerat, Eugippe, Vie de saint Séverin. Sources Chrétiennes 374. Paris, 1991. Gelasius. Decreta papae Gelasii. PL 59, cols. 13–190. Gerontius. Life of Melania. Edited and translated by Denys Gorce. Geronce, Vie de sainte Mélanie. Sources Chrétiennes 90. Paris, 1962. Gesta Patrum Fontanellensis coenobii. Edited by Pascal Pradié. Chro­ nique des abbés de Fontenelle (Saint-Wandrille). Paris, 1999. Gesta Pontificum Autissiodorensium. Edited by Michel Sot, Les Gestes des Évêques d’Auxerre. 2 vols. Paris, 2006. Gildas. De Excidio Britonum. Edited by Michael Winterbottom, Gildas, The Ruin of Britain and Other Documents. London, 1978. Gregory I. Dialogues. Edited by Adalbert de Vogüé. Grégoire le Grand, Dialogues. 3 vols. Sources Chrétiennes 251, 260, 265. Paris, 1978–80.

Bibliography  141

Gregory I. Register. Edited by Dag Norberg. CCSL CXL, CXLA. Turnhout, 1982. Gregory of Tours. Decem Libri Historiarum. Edited by Bruno Krusch and Wilhelm Levison. MGH, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum I, 1. Hannover, 1951. ——— . Liber in Gloria Confessorum. Edited by Bruno Krusch. MGH, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum I, 2. Hannover, 1885. Translated by Raymond Van Dam. Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Con­ fessors. Liverpool, 1988. ——— . Liber in Gloria Martyrym. Edited by Bruno Krusch. MGH, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum I, 2. Hannover, 1885. Translated by Raymond Van Dam. Gregory of Tours, Glory of the Martyrs. Liverpool, 1988. ——— . Liber Vitae Patrum. Edited by Bruno Krusch. MGH, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum I, 2. Hannover, 1885. Translated by Edward James. Gregory of Tours, Life of the Fathers. Liverpool, 1985. Heraclius. Novellae. Edited by J. Konidaris. Fontes Minores 5, pp. 33–106. Frankfurt-am-Main, 1982. Hilary of Arles. Edited by Marie-Denise Valentin. Hilaire d’Arles, Vie de saint Honorat. Sources Chrétiennes 235. Paris, 1977. Hydatius. Edited and translated by Richard W. Burgess. The Chronicle of Hydatius and the Consularia Italica. Oxford, 1993. Itinerarium Malmesburiense, Itineraria et alia Geographica. CCSL CLXXV, pp, 324–28. Turnhout, 1965. Jerome. Epistulae. Edited by Isidore Hilberg. Sancti Eusebii Hieronymi Epistulae 3. CSEL 56. Vienna, 1948. Jonas of Bobbio. Vita Columbani. Edited by Bruno Krusch, Ionae Vitae sanctorum Columbani, Vedastis, Iohannis. MGH, Scriptores in usum scholarum. Hannover, 1905. Translated by Alexander O’Hara and Ian N. Wood. Jonas of Bobbio, Life of Columbanus, Life of John of Réomé, and Life of Vedast. Liverpool, 2017. Justinian. Novellae. Edited by R. Schoell and W. Kroll. Corpus Iuris Civilis, vol. 3. Berlin, 1912. Translated by S. P. Scott. droitromain.umpf-grenoble.fr. Leges Visigothorum. Edited by Karl Zeumer. MGH, Leges I, 1. Hanover, 1902. Lettre des archimandrites d’Arabie aux évêques orthodoxes. Edited and translated by J.-B. Chabot. Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 52. Louvain 1952. Libanius. Oration 30. Edited and translated by A. F. Norman. Libanius, Selected Orations, vol. 2, pp. 92–151. Cambridge, MA, 1977.

142  Bibliography Liber Pontificalis. Edited by Louis Duchesne. 2 vols. Paris, 1886–92. Translated by Raymond Davis. The Book of the Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis). The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715. Rev. ed. Liverpool, 2000. Marcellinus Comes. Chronicle. Edited and translated by Brian Croke. The Chronicle of Marcellinus. Sydney, 1995. Notitia ecclesiarum urbis Romae, Itineraria et alia Geographica. CCSL CLXXV, pp. 304–11. Turnhout, 1965. Notitia provinciarum et civitatum Africae. Edited by Karl Halm. MGH, AA III, 1, pp. 63–71. Berlin, 1879. Notitia Provinciarum et Civitatum Galliae, Itineraria et alia Geo­ graphica. CCSL CLXXV, pp. 379–406. Turnhout, 1965. Orosius. Historia adversus Paganos. Edited by Marie-Pierre Arnaud-Lindet. Orose, Histoires contre les païens. 3 vols. Paris, 2003. Translated by Andrew T. Fear. Orosius, Seven Books of His­ tory against the Pagans. Liverpool, 2010. Parochiale Suevum, Itineraria et alia Geographica. CCSL CLXXV, pp. 412–20. Turnhout, 1965. Procopius. History of the Wars. Edited and translated by H. B. Dewing. 5 vols. Cambridge, MA, 1914–28. Prosper. Chronicle. Edited by Theodor Mommsen. MGH, Auctores Antiquissimi IX, pp. 341–485. Berlin, 1892. Provinciale Visigothicum, Itineraria et alia Geographica. CCSL CLXXV, pp. 421–28. Turnhout, 1965. Rutilius Namatianus. De reditu suo. Edited and translated by J. Wight Duff and Arnold M. Duff. Minor Latin Poets, vol. 2, pp. 753–829. Cambridge, MA, 1935. Salvian. Ad Ecclesiam. Edited by Georges Lagarrigue. Salvien de Mar­ seille, Œuvres, vol. 1. Sources Chrétiennes. Paris, 1971. ——— . De Gubernatione Dei. Edited by Georges Lagarrigue. Salvien de Marseille, Œuvres, vol. 2. Sources Chrétiennes. Paris, 1975. Sidonius Apollinaris. Edited by A. Loyen. Sidoine Apollinaire, vol. 1, Poèmes (Paris, 1960). Edited and translated by W. B. Anderson and W. Semple. Sidonius Apollinaris. 2 vols. Cambridge, MS, 1936. Socrates Scholasticus. Historia Ecclesiastica, PG 67. Sulpicius Severus. Chronicle. Edited by Ghislaine de Senneville-Grave. Sulpice Sévère, Chroniques. Sources Chrétiennes 441. Paris, 1999. ——— . Epistulae. Edited by C. Halm. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiastico­ rum Latinorum 1. Vienna, 1866. ——— . Vita Martini. Edited by Jacques Fontaine. Sulpice Sévère, Vie de saint Martin. 3 vols. Sources Chrétiennes 37–39. Paris, 1967–69.

Bibliography  143

Symmachus. Relationes. Edited by R. H. Barrow. Prefect and Emperor: The Relationes of Symmachus. Oxford, 1973. Synesius of Cyrene. De Regno, PG 66: online translation at Livius.org. Synod of Auxerre. Edited by B. Basdevant. Les Canons des Conciles Mérovingiens (VIe–VIIe siècles), vol. 2, pp. 486–505. Paris, 1989. Theodoret. Historia Ecclesiastica, PG 82. Vegetius. De re militari. Translated by N. P. Milner. Vegetius: Epitome of Military Science. 2nd ed. Liverpool, 1996. Victor of Tununa. Chronica. Edited by Theodor Mommsen. MGH, AA XI, Chronica Minora, vol. 2, pp. 184–206. Berlin, 1894. Victor of Vita. Historia Persecutionis Vandalorum. Edited by Serge Lancel. Victor de Vita, Histoire de la persécution vandale en Afrique. Paris, 2002. Translated by John Moorhead. Victor of Vita: History of the Vandal Persecution. Liverpool, 1992. Vita Sabini, Acta Sanctorum, February, vol. 2, pp. 323–28. Vitas Patrum Emeretensium. Edited by A. Maya Sánchez. Vitas sanc­ torum patrum Emeretensium. CC 116. Turnhout, 1992. Translated by Andrew T. Fear. Lives of the Visigothic Fathers, pp. 45–105. Liverpool, 1997.

Secondary Literature A. H. M. Jones and the Later Roman Empire. Edited by David M. Gwynn. Leiden, 2008. Alchermes, Joseph. “Spolia in Roman Cities of the Late Empire: Legislative Rationales and Architectural Reuse.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 48 (1994): 167–78. Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed. Edited by Guido Berndt and Roland Steinacher. Farnham, 2014. Atsma, Hartmut. “Klöster und Mönchtum im Bistum Auxerre bis zum Ende des 6. Jahrhunderts.” Francia 11 (1983): 1–96. ——— . “Les monastères urbains du Nord de la Gaule.” Revue d’Histoire de l’Église de France 62 (1976): 163–87. Bailey, Lisa Kaaren. Christianity’s Quiet Success: The Eusebius Gal­ licanus Sermon Collection and the Power of the Church in Late Antique Gaul. South Bend, 2010. Banaji, Jairus. “Aristocracies, Peasantries and the Framing of the Early Middle Ages.” In Exploring the Economy of Late Antiquity: Selected Essays, pp. 143–77. Cambridge, 2016. ——— . “The Economic Trajectories of Late Antiquity.” In Exploring the

144  Bibliography Economy of Late Antiquity: Selected Essays, pp. 61–88. Cambridge, 2016. Barbier, Josiane. Archives oubliées du hentaut Moyen Âge: Les gesta municipalia en Gaule franque (VIe–IXe siècle). Paris, 2014. Barnes, Timothy D. Constantine and Eusebius. Cambridge, MA, 1981. Barrett, Graham and George Woudhuysen. “Remigius and the ‘Im­ portant News’ of Clovis Rewritten.” Antiquité Tardive 24 (2016): 471–500. Berger, Jean. Droit, société et parenté en Auvergne médiévale (VIe–XIVe siècles): Les écritures de la basilique Saint-Julien de Bri­ oude. Doctorat d’histoire, Université Jean Moulin, Lyon III. 2016. Berlière, Ulrich. “Les nombres des moines dans les anciens monastères.” Revue Bénédictine 41 (1929): 231–61. ——— . “Les nombres des moines dans les anciens monastères.” Revue Bénédictine 42 (1930): 19–42. Binon, S. Essai sur le cycle de saint Mercure. Paris, 1937. Bischoff, Bernhard and Wilhelm Koehler. “Eine illustrierte Ausgabe der spätantiken Ravennater Annalen.” In Medieval Studies in Mem­ ory of A. Kingsley Porter, edited by R. W. H. Koehler, pp. 125–38. Cambridge, MA, 1939. Brandes, Wolfram. “Kaiserprophetien und Hochverrat. Apokalyptische Schriften und Kaiservaticinien als Medium antikaiserlicher Propaganda.” In Endzeiten: Eschatologie in den monotheistischen Weltreligionen, edited by Wolfram Brandes and Felicitas Schmieder, pp. 157–200. Millenium-Studien 16. Berlin, 2008. ——— . “Sieben Hügel: Die imaginäre Topographie Konstantinopels zwischen apokalyptischen Denken und moderner Wissenschaft.” Rechtsgeschichte 2 (2003): 58–71. Brenk, Beat. “Spolia from Constantine to Charlemagne: Aesthetics Ver­­ sus Ideology.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 103–09. Brennecke, Hanns Christof. “Deconstruction of the So-called Germanic Arianism.” In Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed, edited by Guido Berndt and Roland Steinacher, pp. 117–30. Farnham, 2014. Brooks, Nicholas P. “Rochester Bridge, AD 43–1381.” In Traffic and Politics: The Construction and Management of Rochester Bridge, AD 43–1993, edited by N. Yates and J. Gibson, pp. 3–40. Woodbridge, 1994. Brown, Peter. Augustine of Hippo. London, 1967. ——— . The Cult of the Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christi­ anity. Chicago, 1981.

Bibliography  145

——— . Poverty and Leadership in the Later Roman Empire. Hanover, 2002. ——— . The Ransom of the Soul: Afterlife and Wealth in Early Western Christianity. Cambridge, MA, 2015. ——— . Religion and Society in the Age of Saint Augustine. London, 1972. ——— . Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity. London, 1982. ——— . Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350–550 AD. Princeton, 2012. ——— . Treasure in Heaven: The Holy Poor in Early Christianity. Charlottesville, 2016. Brown, Thomas S. Gentlemen and Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy, AD 554–800. Rome, 1984. de Bruyn, T. “Ambivalence within a ‘Totalizing Discourse’: Augustine’s Sermons on the Sack of Rome.” Journal of Early Christian Studies 1 (1993): 405–21. Bull, Marcus. “Pilgrimage.” In The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Chris­­ tianity, edited by John Arnold, pp. 201–16. Oxford, 2014. Burgess, Richard W. and Michael Kulikowski. Mosaics of Time: The Latin Chronicle Traditions from the First Century BC to the Sixth Century AD, vol. 1, A Historical Introduction to the Chronicle Genre from its Origins to the High Middle Ages. Turnhout, 2013. Burrus, Virginia. The Making of a Heretic: Gender, Authority and the Priscillianist Controversy. Berkeley, 1995. Bury, John Bagnall. A History of the Later Roman Empire: From Arca­ dius to Irene (385 AD to 800 AD). 2 vols. London, 1889. Caballero Zoreda, Luis. “Observations on Historiography and Change from the Sixth to Tenth Centuries in the North and West of the Iberian Peninsula.” In The Archaeology of Iberia: The Dynamics of Change, edited by Margarita Diaz-Andreu and Simon Keay, pp. 235–64. London, 1997. Cameron, Alan. Claudian: Poetry and Propaganda at the Court of Honorius. Oxford, 1970. ——— . The Last Pagans of Rome. Oxford, 2011. Cameron, Averil. “A. H. M. Jones and the End of the Ancient World.” In A. H. M. Jones and the Later Roman Empire, edited by David M. Gwynn, pp. 231–49. Leiden, 2008. ——— . “Education and Literary Culture.” In Cambridge Ancient His­ tory, vol. 8, The Late Empire, A.D. 337–425, edited by Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey, pp. 664–707. Cambridge, 1998.

146  Bibliography ——— . “The Violence of Orthodoxy.” In Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity, edited by E. Ircinschi and H. M. Zelletin, esp., pp. 102–14. Tübingen, 2008. Cammarosano, Paolo. Nobili e re: L’Italia politica dell’alto medioevo. Bari, 2009. Chadwick, Henry. Priscillian of Avila: The Occult and the Charismatic in the Early Church. Oxford, 1975. Chavarría Arnau. “Churches and Aristocracies in Seventh-Century Spain: Some Thoughts on the Debate on Visigothic Churches.” Early Medieval Europe 18 (2010): 160–74. Chitty, Derwas J. The Desert a City: An Introduction to the Study of Egyptian and Palestinian Monasticism under the Christian Empire. Oxford, 1966. Christie, Neil. The Fall of the Western Empire: An Archaeological and Historical Perspective. London, 2011. CLA, Codices Latini Antiquiores. Oxford, 1934–71. See now Earlier Latin Manuscripts project: elmss.nuigalway.ie (ELM) for an online version including subsequent addenda. Claussen, Martin A. The Reform of the Frankish Church: Chrodegang of Metz and the Regula Canonicorum in the Eighth Century. Cambridge, 2004. La Colección canónica hispana. Edited Gonzalo Martínez Díez and Félix Rodríguez. 6 vols. Madrid, 1966–2002. Courcelle, Pierre. Histoire littéraires des grandes invasions ger­ maniques. 3rd ed. Paris, 1964. Courtois, Christian. Les Vandales et l’Afrique. Paris, 1954. The Crisis of the Oikoumene: The Three Chapters and the Failed Quest for Unity in the Sixth-Century Mediterranean. Edited by Celia Chazelle and Catherine Cubitt. Turnhout, 2007. The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. Edited by James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward. Oxford, 1999. Curran, John. “From Jovian to Theodosius.” In Cambridge Ancient His­­ tory, vol. 8, The Late Empire, A.D. 337–425, edited by Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey, pp. 78–110. Cambridge, 1998. Davies, Wendy. “Economic Change in Early Medieval Ireland: The Case for Growth.” Settimane di Spoleto, LVII, L’Irlanda e gli Irlandesi nell’alto medioevo, pp. 111–33. Spoleto, 2010. Davis, Raymond. The Book of the Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715. Rev. ed. Liverpool, 2000.

Bibliography  147

Dawson, Christopher. The Making of Europe 400–1000 AD. London, 1932; reprinted with an introduction by A. C. Murray. London, 2006. Demandt, Alexander. Der Fall Roms. Munich, 1984. Delbrück, Hans, History of the Art of War within the Framework of Political History, vol. 2, The Barbarian Invasions. Westport, 1975. Delehaye, Hippolyte. Les légendes grecques des saints militaries. Paris, 1909. Delyannis, Deborah Mauskopf. Ravenna in Late Antiquity. Cambridge, 2010. Destephen, Sylvain. “Quatre études sur le monachisme asianique (IVe–VIIe siècle).” Journal des savants 2 (2010): 193–264. Díaz, Pablo C. “El Parrochiale Suevum: organización eclesiástica, poder politico y pobliamento en la Gallaecia tardoantigua.” In Homenaje al profesor José María Blázquez, vol. 6, edited by. J. Alvar, pp. 35–47. Madrid, 1998. Diefenbach, Steffen. “‘Bischofsherrschaft’: Zur Transformation der poli­ti­schen Kultur im spätantiken und frühmittelalterlichen Galge­ lien.” In Gallien in Spätantike und Frühmittelalter. Kultur­ schichte einer Region, edited by G. M. Müller and Steffen Diefen­ bach, pp. 91–149. Berlin, 2013. Di Segni, L., Y. Tsafrir, and J. Green. The Onomasticon of Iudaea, Palaestina, and Arabia in Greek and Latin Sources, vol. 1, Intro­ duction, Sources and Major Texts. Jerusalem, 2015. Documentary Culture and the Laity in the Early Middle Ages. Edited by Warren C. Brown et al. Cambridge, 2013. The Donatist Schism: Controversy and Contexts. Edited by Richard Miles. Liverpool, 2016. Dooley, Ann. “The Plague and its Consequences in Ireland.” In Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750, edited by Lester K. Little, pp. 215–28. Cambridge, 2007. Dopsch, Alfons, Wirtschaftliche und soziale Grundlagen der euro­ päischen Kulturentwicklung. Vienna, 1918–20; 2nd ed. Vienna, 1923–24. Abridged English translation, The Economic and Social Foundations of European Civilization. London, 1937. Duchesne, Louis. Fastes épiscopaux. 3 vols. Paris, 1894–1915. Duncan-Jones, R. Structure and Scale in the Roman Economy. Cambridge, 1990. Durliat, Jean. “Les attributions civiles des évêques mérovingiens: l’exemple de Didier, évêque de Cahors (630–655).” Annales du Midi 91 (1979): 237–54. Earlier Latin Manuscripts project: elmss.nuigalway.ie.

148  Bibliography Elton, Hugh. Warfare in Roman Europe, AD 350–425. Oxford, 1996. Engels, Friedrich. “The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State.” In Selected Works, edited by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, pp. 568–76. London, 1968. Escher, Katalin. Genèse et évolution du deuxième royaume bur­ gonde (443–534): les témoins archéologiques. 2 vols. BAR International Series 1402. Oxford, 2005. Esders, Stefan. Die Formierung der Zensualität: zur kirchlichen Trans­formation des spätrömischen Patronatswesens im früheren Mittelalter. Sigmaringen, 2010. Esmonde Cleary, Simon. The Roman West AD 200–500: An Archaeo­ logical Survey. Cambridge, 2013. Figuinha, Matheus Coutinho. “Martin of Tours’ Monasticism and Aristocracies in Fourth-Century Gaul.” www.scielo.br/pdf/rbh/2016nahead/en_1806–9347–rbh–2016v36n71_001.pdf. 2016. Fontaine, Jacques. L’art préroman hispanique, vol. 1. Pierre-qui-Vire, 1973. ——— . Isidore de Seville et la culture classique dans l’Espagne wisi­ gothique. 2 vols. Paris, 1959. Fontes, Luis. “A Igreja Sueva de São Martino de Dume.” Revista de História de Arte 6 (2008): 163–81. Fouracre, Paul. “Eternal Light and Earthly Need.” In Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages, edited by Wendy Davies and Paul Fouracre, pp. 53–81. Cambridge, 1995. ——— . “Merovingian History and Merovingian Hagiography.” Past and Present 127 (1990): 3–38. ——— . Review of Yaniv Fox. Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul. In Peritia 27 (2016): 263–65. Fouracre, Paul and Richard A. Gerberding. Late Merovingian France: History and Hagiography, 640–720. Manchester, 1996. The Fourth Book of the Chronicle of Fredegar. Edited and translated by Wallace-Hadrill, J. Michael. London, 1960. Fox, Yaniv. Power and Religion in Merovingian Gaul: Columbanian Monasticism and the Frankish Elites. Cambridge, 2014. Frend, William H. C. The Donatist Church: A Movement of Protest in Roman North Africa. Oxford, 1952. ——— . “Heresy and Schism as Social and National Movements.” In Schism, Heresy and Religious Protest, edited by Derek Baker, pp. 37–56. Cambridge, 1972. ——— . “The Monks and the End and Survival of the East Roman Empire in the Fifth Century.” Past and Present 54 (1972): 3–24.

Bibliography  149

——— . The Rise of the Monophysite Movement. Cambridge, 1972. Fustel de Coulanges, Numa Denis. Histoire des Institutions Politiques de l’ancienne France. 6 vols. Paris, 1874–92. Garstad, Benjamin. “Authari in Paul the Deacon’s Historia Langobardorum, Secundus of Trent, and the Alexander Tradition in Early Medieval Italy.” Journal of Late Antiquity 9 (2016): 218–66. Gasnault, Pierre. Documents comptables de Saint-Martin de Tours à l’époque mérovingienne. Paris, 1975. Geary, Patrick. Aristocracy in Provence. Stuttgart, 1985. Gerberding, Richard A. The Rise of the Carolingians and the Liber Historiae Francorum. Oxford, 1987. Godding, Robert. Prétres en Gaule mérovingienne. Brussels, 2001. Goody, Jack. The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe. Cambridge, 1983. Greatrex, Geoffrey. “The Fall of Macedonius Reconsidered.” In Papers Presented at the Fifteenth International Conference on Patristic Studies, Studia Patristica XLIV, edited by J. Baun et al., pp. 125–29. Greenhalgh, Michael. Marble Past, Monumental Present: Building with Antiquities in the Medieval Mediterranean. Leiden, 2009. Guidobaldi, Federico. “‘Topografia ecclesiastica’ di Roma (IV–VII secolo).” In Roma dall’antichità al medioevo, archeologia e storia, vol. 1, edited by Maria Stella Arena et al., pp. 40–51. Rome, 2001. Gwynn, David M. “Bureaucracies, Elites and Clans: The Case of Byzantium, c. 600–1100.” In Empires and Bureaucracy in World History from Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century, edited by Peter Crooks and Timothy H. Parsons, pp. 147–69. Cambridge, 2016. L’hagiographie mérovingienne à travers ses réécritures. Edited by Monique Goullet, Martin Heinzelmann, and Christiane Veyrard-Cosme. Ostfildern, 2010. Haldon, John. Byzantium in the Seventh Century: The Transforma­ tion of a Political Culture. Cambridge, 1990. ——— . The Empire that Would not Die: The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival 640–740. Cambridge, MA, 2016. ——— . “Framing Transformation, Transforming the Framework.” Mille­ nium 5 (2008): 327–51. ——— . “Idle Mouths and Solar Heroes: A. H. M. Jones and the Conversion of Europe.” In A. H. M. Jones and the Later Roman Empire, edited by David M. Gwynn, pp. 213–29. Leiden, 2008. ——— . The State and the Tributary Mode of Production. London, 1993. ——— . A Tale of Two Saints: The Martyrdoms and Miracles of Saints Theodore “The Recruit” and “The General.” Liverpool, 2016.

150  Bibliography ——— . Warfare, State and Society in the Byzantine World, 565–1204. London, 1999. Hamarneh, B. Topographia cristiana ed insediamenti rurali nel terri­ torio dell’odierna Giordania nelle epoche bizantina ed islamica: V–IX sec. Vatican City, 2003. Handley, Mark. “Inscribing Time and Identity in the Kingdom of Burgundy.” In Ethnicity and Culture in Late Antiquity, edited by Geoffrey Greatrex and Stephen Mitchell, pp. 83–102. Cardiff, 2000. Hartog, François. Le XIXe siècle et l’histoire: Le cas Fustel de Cou­ langes. 2nd ed. Paris, 2001. Hatlie, Peter. The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350–850. Cambridge, 2007. Heather, Peter. Empires and Barbarians: Migration, Development and the Birth of Europe. London, 2009. ——— . The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History. London, 2005. ——— . Goths and Romans 332–489. Oxford, 1991. Hefele, Charles Joseph. Histoire des Conciles, II, 1–2. Paris, 1908. Heil, Uta. “The Homoians in Gaul.” In Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed, edited by Guido M. Berndt and R. Steinachar, pp. 271–96. Farnham, 2014. Heinzelmann, Martin. Bischofsherrschaft in Gallien. Munich, 1976. ——— . “Eligius monetarius: Norm oder Sonderfall?.” In Die mero­ wingischen Monetarmünzen als Quelle zum Verständnis des 7. Jahrhunderts in Gallien, edited by Jörg Jarnut and Jürgen Strothmann, pp. 243–291. Paderborn, 2013. Hen, Yitzhak. The Royal Patronage of Liturgy in Frankish Gaul to the Death of Charles the Bald, Henry Bradshaw Society Subsidia III. London, 2001. Heresy and Identity in Late Antiquity. Edited by E. Ircinschi and H. M. Zelletin. Tübingen, 2008. Herlihy, David. “Church Property on the European Continent 701–1200.” Speculum 36 (1961): 81–105. Honigmann, E. “La liste originale des Pères de Nicée.” Byzantion 14 (1939): 17–76. Hübner, Sabine. Der Klerus in der Gesellschaft des spätantiken Klein­ asiens. Munich, 2005. Hunt, David. “The Church as a Public Institution.” In Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 8, The Late Empire, AD 337–425, edited by A. Cameron and P. Garnsey, pp. 238–76. Cambridge, 1998. James, Edward. “Gregory of Tours and ‘Arianism’.” In The Power of Reli­

Bibliography  151

gion in Late Antiquity, edited by Andrew Cain and Noel Lenski, pp. 327–38. Farnham, 2009. Jenal, Georg. Italia ascetica atque monastica: das Asketen- und Mönchtum in Italien von den Anfängen bis zur Zeit der Lango­ barden (ca. 150/250–604). 2 vols. Stuttgart, 1995. Johnson, Aaron P. and Jeremy M. Schott. Eusebius of Caesarea: Tradi­ tion and Innovations. Washington, DC, 2013. Joliffe, J. E. A. Review of A. Dopsch. The Economic and Social Foun­ dations of European Civilization. In English Historical Review 53 (1938): 277–83. Jones, A. H. M. “Were Ancient Heresies National or Social Movements in Diguise?.” Journal of Theological Studies 10 (1959): 280–98. Kelly, Christopher. Attila the Hun: Barbarian Terror and the Fall of the Roman Empire. London, 2008. ——— . “Emperors, Government and Gureaucracy.” In Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 8, The Late Empire, A.D. 337–425, edited by A. Cameron and P. Garnsey, pp. 138–83. Cambridge, 1998. ——— . Ruling the Later Roman Empire. Cambridge, MA, 2004. King, P. David. Law and Society in the Visigothic Kingdom. Cambridge, 1972. Kinney, Dale. “‘Spolia, damnatio’ and ‘renovatio memoriae’.” Mem­ oirs of the American Academy in Rome 42 (1997): 117–48. Klauser, T. “Eine Stationsliste der Metzer Kirche aus dem 8. Jahrhundert, wahrscheinlich ein Werk Chrodegangs.” Ephemerides Litur­ gicae 44 (1930): 162–93. Klingshirn, William E. Caesarius of Arles: The Making of a Christian Community in Late Antique Gaul. Cambridge, 1994. ——— . “Charity and Power: Caesarius of Arles and the Ransoming of Captives in Sub-Roman Gaul.” Journal of Roman Studies 75 (1985): 183–203. Koch, Manuel. “Arianism and Ethnic Identity in Sixth-Century Visigothic Spain.” In Arianism: Roman Heresy and Barbarian Creed, edited by Guido Berndt and Roland Steinacher, pp. 257–70. Farnham, 2014. Kulikowski, Michael. Late Roman Spain and its Cities. Baltimore, 2004. Laurence, Ray. The Roads of Roman Italy: Mobility and Cultural Change. London, 1999. Lee, A. D. “The Army.” In Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 8, The Late Empire, AD 337–425, edited by Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey, pp. 211–237. Cambridge, 1998.

152  Bibliography ——— . “The Eastern Empire: Theodosius to Anastasius.” In Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, A.D. 425–600, edited by Averil Cameron, Michael Whitby, and Bryan Ward-Perkins, pp. 33–62. Cambridge, 2000. Le Jan, Régine. Famille et Pouvoir dans le monde franc (VIIe–Xe siè­ cle): essai d’anthropologie sociale. Paris, 1995. Lenski, Noel E. “Captivity and Romano-Barbarian Interchange.” In Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World, edited by Ralph W. Mathisem and Danuta Shanzer, pp. 185–98. Farnham, 2011. ——— . “Initium mali Romano imperio: Contemporary Reactions to the Battle of Adrianople.” Transactions of the American Philological Association 127 (1997): 129–68. Levene, D. S. Religion in Livy. Leiden, 1992. Liebeschuetz, J. H. Wolf G. “Transformation and Decline: Are the Two Really Incompatible.” In Die Stadt in der Spätantike. Niedergang oder Wandel, edited by J. U. Krause and C. Witschel, pp. 463–83. Stuttgart, 2006. Liebs, Detlef. “Unverhohlene Brutalität in den Gesetzen der ersten christlichen Kaiser.” Das Recht der Römer und die Christen. Gesammelte Aufsätze in überarbeitete Fassung, pp. 108–45. Tübingen, 2015. Lifshitz, Felice. The Name of the Saint: The Martyrology of Jerome and Access to the Sacred in Francia, 627–827. South Bend, 2006. Little, Lester K. “Life and Afterlife of the First Plague Pandemic.” Plague and the End of Antiquity: The Pandemic of 541–750, pp. 3–32. Cambridge, 2007. MacMullen, Ramsay. Soldier and Civilian in the Later Roman Empire. Cambridge, MS, 1963. Maier, Harry O. “Dominion from Sea to Sea: Eusebius of Caesarea, Constantine and the Exegesis of Empire.” In  The Calling of Nations: Exegesis, Ethnography and Empire in a Biblical Historical Present, edited by Mark Vessey et al., pp. 149–75. Toronto, 2011. Manzoni, Alessandro. Discorso sopra alcuni punti della storia longo­ bardica in Italia. Edited by I. Becherucci. Milan, 2005. Marazzi, Federico. I “Patrimonia sanctae Romanae ecclesiae” nel Lazio (secoli IV–X), Struttura amministrativa e prassi gestionali. Rome, 1998. Markus, Robert A. “Christianity and Dissent in Roman North Africa: Changing Perspectives.” In Schism, Heresy and Religious Pro­ test, edited by Derek Baker, pp. 21–36. Cambridge, 1972.

Bibliography  153

——— . Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of Saint Augus­ tine. Cambridge, 1970. Martínez Jiménez, J. “Crisis or Crises? The End of Roman Towns in Iberia, between the Late Roman and Early Umayyad Periods.” In Tough Times: The Archaeology of Crisis and Recovery, edited by E. M. van der Wilt and J. Martínez Jiménez. BAR International Series 2478, pp. 77–90. Oxford, 2013. Martínez Tejera, Artemio M. “Edilicia cristiana tardo-antigua en Conimbriga? La ‘basílica paleocristiana’ de la domus tancinus a debate.” In Conimbriga tardo-antigua y medieval: Excavaciones arqueológicas en la domus tancinus (2004–2008) (Condeixa-aVelha, Portugal), edited by J. López Quiroga. BAR International Series 2466, pp. 281–318. Oxford, 2013. Mathisen, Ralph W. “Between Arles, Rome, and Toledo: Gallic Collections of Canon Law in Late Antiquity.” Cuadernos “Ilu 2 (1999): 33–46. ——— . “Ricimer’s Church in Rome: How an Arian Barbarian Prospered in a Nicene World.” In The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity, edited by Andrew Cain and Noel Lenski, pp. 307–25. Farnham, 2009. ——— . Roman Aristocrats in Barbarian Gaul: Strategies for Survival in an Age of Transition. Austin, 1993. McCormick, Michael. Charlemagne’s Survey of the Holy Land: Wealth, Personnel, and Buildings of a Mediterranean Church between Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Washington, 2011. ——— . Origins of the European Economy: Communications and Com­ merce AD 300–900. Cambridge, 2001. ——— . “Tracking Mass Death During the Fall of Rome’s Empire I.” Jour­ nal of Roman Archaeology 28 (2015): 325–27. ——— . “Tracking Mass Death During the Fall of Rome’s Empire II: A First Inventory.” Journal of Roman Archaeology 29 (2016): 1008–46. McLynn, Neil. “Orosius, Jerome and the Goths.” In The Sack of Rome in 410 AD: The Event, its Context and its Impact, edited by Johannes Lipps, Carlos Machado, and Philipp von Rummel, pp. 323–31. Wiesbaden, 2013. Meier, Mischa. “Alarico: Le tragedie di Roma e del conquistatore.” In The Sack of Rome in 410 AD: The Event, its Context and its Impact, edited by Johannes Lipps, Carlos Machado, and Philipp von Rummel, pp. 311–22. Wiesbaden, 2013. Meier, Mischa and Steffen Patzold. August 410—ein Kampf um Rom. Stuttgart, 2010.

154  Bibliography Mesnage, P. J. L’Afrique chrétienne, évêches et ruines antiques. Paris, 1912. Milik, Jósef. “La topographie de Jérusalem vers la fin de l’époque byzantine.” Mélanges de l’Université Saint-Joseph [= Mélanges offerts au Père René Mouterde pour son 80e anniversaire], 37 (1960–1961): 127–89. Mochi Onory, Sergio. Vescovi e Città (sec. IV–VI). Bologna, 1933. Momigliano, Arnaldo. “The origins of Rome.” In Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 7, part 2, The Rise of Rome to 220 B.C., edited by F. W. Walbank et al., pp. 52–112. Cambridge, 1989. Mommsen, Theodor. “Die Städtezahl des Römerreiches.” Gesam­ melte Schriften II, pp. 559–60. Berlin, 1905. Montesquieu, Charles de Secondat, baron de. Considérations sur la grandeur des romains et de leur decadence. 1734. ——— . De l’Esprit des Loix (1748). Edited by J. Brethe de la Gressaye, vol. 4. Paris, 1961. Moorhead, John. Ambrose: Church and Society in the Late Roman World. London, 1999. ——— . Popes and the Church of Rome in Late Antiquity. London, 2014. Mordek, Hubert. Kirchenrecht und Reform im Frankenreich: die Col­ lectio vetus Gallica: die älteste systematische Kanones­samm­ lung des fränkischen Gallien. Sigmaringen, 1975. Moreno Martín, F. J. La arquitectura monástica hispana entre la Tar­ doantigüedad y la Alta Edad Media. BAR, International Series 2287. Oxford, 2011. Morley, Neville. “Population Size and Social Structure.” In Cambridge Companion to Ancient Rome, edited by Paul Erdkamp, pp. 29–44. Cambridge, 2013. Morris, John. “Pelagian Literature.” Journal of Theological Studies, n.s. 16 (1965): 26–60. Muhlberger, Steven. The Fifth-Century Chroniclers: Prosper, Hyda­ tius and the Galllic Chronicle of 452. Leeds, 1990. Musurillo, Herbert. The Acts of the Pagan Martyrs (Acta Alexandrino­ rum). Oxford, 1954. Myres, J. N. L. “Pelagianism and the End of Roman Rule in Britain.” Journal of Roman Studies 50 (1960): 21–36. Natal, David and Jamie Wood. “Playing with Fire: Conflicting Bishops in Late Roman Spain and Gaul.” In Making Early Medieval Societ­ ies: Conflict and Belonging in the Latin West, 300–1200, edited by Kate Cooper and Conrad Leyser, pp. 33–57. Cambridge, 2016.

Bibliography  155

Noble, Thomas F. X. “The Transformation of the Roman World: Reflections on Five Years of Work.” In East and West: Modes of Commu­ nication. Proceedings of the First Plenary Conference at Merida, edited by Evangelos Chrysos and Ian Wood, pp. 259–77. Leiden, 1999. Nonn, Ulrich. “Merowingische Testamente: Studien zum Fortleben einer römischen Urkundenform im Frankenreich.” Archiv für Diplo­­ matik 18 (1972): 1–129. O’Donnell, James J. The Ruin of the Roman Empire. London, 2009. O’Flynn, John M. Generalissimos of the Western Roman Empire. Edmonton, 1983. Ozanam, Antoine-Frédéric. La Civilisation au Cinquième Siècle. 2 vols. Paris, 1855. Translation by A. C. Glyn, History of Civilization in the Fifth Century. 2 vols. London, 1868. ——— . Études Germaniques pour servir à l’histoire des francs. 2 vols. Paris, 1847. Patzold, Steffen. “Zur Sozialstruktur des Episkopats und zur Ausbildung bischöflicher Herrschaft in Gallien zwischen Spätantike und Frühmittelalter.” In Völker, Reiche und Namen im frühen Mit­ telalter, edited by M. Becher and S. Dick, Mittelalterliche Studien 22, pp. 121–40. Munich, 2010. Philippart, Guy. Hagiographies. Turnhout, 1994–. Picard, Jean-Charles. “Auxerre.” In Topographie chrétienne des cités de la Gaule des origines au milieu du VIII siècle, vol. 8, Province ecclésiastique de Sens, edited by Jean-Charles Picard, pp. 47–65. Paris, 1992. Piganiol, André. L’empire chrétien (325–395). Paris, 1947. Pirenne, Henri. Mahomet et Charlemagne. Paris, 1937. English translation, Mohammed and Charlemagne. London, 1939. Pocock, J. G. A. Barbarism and Religion. 5 vols. Cambridge, 1999–2010. The Power of Religion in Late Antiquity. Edited by Andrew Cain and Noel Lenski. Farnham, 2009. Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, vol. 1, Afrique (303–533). Edited by André Mandouze. Paris, 1982. Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, vol. 2, Italie (313–604). Edited by Charles Pietri and Luce Pietri. Paris, 2000. Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, vol. 3, Diocèse d’Asie (325–641). Edited by Sylvain Destephen. Paris, 2008. Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire, vol. 4, La Gaule chrétienne (314–614). Edited by Luce Pietri and Marc Heijmans. Paris, 2013. Quiroga, Jorge López. “Monasterios altomedievales hispanos: lugares

156  Bibliography de emplazamiento y ordenación de sus espacios.” Las monaste­ rios medievales en sus emplazaientos: lugares de memoria de lo sagrado, edited by José Angel Garcia de Cortázar and Ramón Teja, pp. 66–99. Aguilar de Campoo, 2016. Radtki, Christine. “The Senate at Rome in Ostrogothic Italy’. In A Com­ panion to Ostrogothic Italy, edited by Jonathan J. Arnold, M. Shane Bjornlie, and Kristina Sessa, pp. 121–46. Leiden, 2016. Rees, B. R. Pelagius: A Reluctant Heretic. Woodbridge, 1988. Reimitz, Helmut. “The History of Historiography in the Merovingian Period.” In Oxford History of the Merovingian World, edited by Bonnie Effros and Isabel Moreira. Forthcoming. Richards, Jeffrey. The Popes and the Papacy in the Early Middle Ages, 476–752. London, 1979. Romano, John F. Liturgy and Society in Early Medieval Rome. London, 2016. Rostovtzeff, M. The Social and Economic History of the Roman Empire. 2 vols. 2nd ed. Oxford, 1957. The Sack of Rome in 410 AD: The Event, its Context and its Impact. Edited by Johannes Lipps, Carlos Machado, and Philipp von Rummel. Wiesbaden, 2013. Salzman, Michele Renee. “Memory and Meaning: Pagans and 410.” In The Sack of Rome in 410 AD: The Event, its Context and its Impact, edited by Johannes Lipps, Carlos Machado, and Philipp von Rummel, pp. 295–307. Wiesbaden, 2013. ——— . On Roman Time: The Codex-Calendar of 354 and the Rhythms of Urban Life in Late Antiquity. Berkeley 1990. Sánchez Pardo, J. C. “Organización eclesiástica y social en la Galicia tardoantigua: Una perspectiva geográfico-arqueológica del Parroquial suevo.” Hispania Sacra 66 (2014): 439–80. Sarris, Peter. Empires of Faith: The Fall of Rome and the Rise of Islam, 500–700. Oxford, 2011. Sawyer, Peter. The Age of the Vikings. 2nd ed. London, 1971. Seeck, Otto. Geschichte des Untergangs der antiken Welt. 6 vols. Stuttgart, 1895–1920. Shanzer, Danuta and Ian N. Wood, Avitus of Vienne, Letters and Selected Prose. Liverpool, 2002. Shaw, Brent. “Rome’s Mediterranean World System and its Transformation.” Princeton/Stanford Working Papers in Classics No 040801, papers.ssrn.com. ——— . Sacred Violence: African Christians and Sectarian Hatred in the Days of Augustine. Cambridge, 2011.

Bibliography  157

Silva de Andrade, Francisco J. Arquitetura e paisagem monásticas no território bracarense. O caso de Dume (Braga). Braga, 2015. Simonde de Sismondi, Jean Charles Léonard. Histoire des Français. 29 vols. Paris, 1821–43. ——— . Histoire des Républiques italiennes du Moyen Age. 8 vols. 5th ed. Brussels, 1858–59. ——— . A History of the Fall of the Roman Empire: Comprising a View of the Invasion and Settlement of the Barbarians. 2 vols. London, 1834. ‘SO debate.” Symbolae Osloenses 72 (1997): 5–90. Stambaugh, J. E. “The Functions of Roman Temples.” Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, 2.16.1. (1978): 554–608. Stancliffe, Clare E. “From Town to Country: The Christianisation of the Touraine, 370–600.” In Studies in Church History 16, The Church in Town and Countryside, edited by Derek Baker, pp. 43–59. Cambridge, 1979. Stanley, Keith. “Rome, ‘ΕΡΩΣ and the Versus Romae.” Greek Roman and Byzantine Studies 4 (1963): 237–49. de Ste Croix, Geoffrey E. M. The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World from the Archaic Age to the Arab Conquests. London, 1982. Szende, K. “Stadt und Naturlandschaft im ungarischen Donauraum des Mittelalters.” In Europäische Städte im Mittelalter, edited by C. Sonnlechner and F. Opil, pp. 365–400. Innsbruck, 2010. Theuws, Frans and Monica Alkemade. “A Kind of Mirror for Men: Sword Depositions in Late Antique Northern Gaul.” In Rituals of Power from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages, edited by Frans Theuws and Janet L. Nelson, pp. 401–76. Leiden, 2000. Thierry, Augustin. The Historical Essays and Narratives of the Mero­ vingian Era. Philadelphia, 1845. Thompson, Edward A. The Huns. Oxford, 1996. ——— . A Roman Informer and Inventor. Oxford, 1952. Tjäder, Jan-Olaf. Die nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri Italiens aus der Zeit 445–700. 3 vols. Stockholm, 1954–82. Two Romes: Rome and Constantinople in Late Antiquity. Edited by Lucy Grigg and Gavin Kelly. Oxford, 2012. van Nuffelen,  Peter. “Theology versus Genre? The Universalism of Christian Historiography in Late Antiquity.” In  Historiae mundi: Studies in Universal Historiography, edited by Peter Liddel and Andy Fear, pp. 148–61. London, 2010. Veyne, Paul. Le pain et le cirque: Sociologie historique d’un plural­ isme politique. Paris, 1976.

158  Bibliography Volpe, Giuliano. “Città e campagna, strutture insediative e strutture ecclesiastiche dell’Italia meridionale: il caso dell’Apulia.” Setti­ mane di Spoleto, LXI, 2, Chiese locali e chiese regionali nell’alto medioevo, pp. 1041–72. Spoleto, 2014. Wallace-Hadrill, J. Michael. The Long-haired Kings, and Other Studies in Frankish History. London, 1962. Ward-Perkins, Bryan. From Classical Antiquity to the Middle Ages: Urban Public Building in Northern and Central Italy AD 200–850. Oxford, 1984. ——— . “Land, Labour and Settlement.” In Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425–600, edited by Averil Cameron, Michael Whitby, and Bryan Ward-Perkins, pp. 315–45. Cambridge, 2000. Warntjes, Immo. “Computus as Scientific Thought in Ireland and the Early Medieval West.” In The Irish in Early Medieval Europe, edited by Roy Flechner and Sven Meeder, pp. 158–78. London, 2016. Weidemann, Margarete. Das Testament des Bischofs Berthramn von Le Mans vom 27. März 616. Untersuchungen zu Besitz und Geschichte einer fränkischen Familie im 6. und 7. Jahrhundert. Mainz, 1986. ——— . Geschichte des Bistums Le Mans von der Spätantike bis zur Karolingerzeit, Actus Pontificum Cenomannis in urbe degentium und Gesta Adalrici. 3 vols. Mainz, 2002. Whitby, Michael. “The Balkans and Greece, 420–602.” In Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 9, Late Antiquity: Empire and Successors, AD 425–600, edited by Averil Cameron, Michael Whitby, and Bryan Ward-Perkins, pp. 701–30. Cambridge, 2000. ——— . “The Late Roman Empire Was before All Things a Bureaucratic State.” In Empires and Bureaucracy in World History from Late Antiquity to the Twentieth Century, edited by P. Crooks and T. H. Parsons, pp. 129–46. Cambridge, 2016. Whitmarsh, Tim. Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World. London, 2016. Whittaker, C. R. and Peter Garnsey. “Rural Life in the Later Roman Empire.” In Cambridge Ancient History, vol. 8, The Late Empire, A.D. 337–425, edited by Averil Cameron and Peter Garnsey, pp. 277–311. Cambridge, 1998. Wickham, Chris. The Inheritance of Rome: A History of Europe from 400 to 1000. London, 2009. Williams, Rowan. Arius. 2nd ed. London, 2001. Wolfram, Herwig. Die Geburt Mitteleuropas: Geschichte Österreichs

Bibliography  159

vor seiner Entstehung 378–907. Vienna, 1987. ——— . The Roman Empire and its Germanic Peoples. Berkeley, 1997. Wood, Ian N. “Administration, Law and Culture in Merovingian Gaul.” In The Uses of Literacy in Medieval Europe, edited by R. McKitterick, pp. 63–81. Cambridge, 1990. Reprinted in From Roman Provinces to Medieval Kingdoms, edited by T. F. X. Noble, pp. 358–75. London, 2006. ——— . “Arians, Catholics, and Vouillé.” In The Battle of Vouillé, 507 CE. Where France Began, edited by Ralph Marhisen and Danuta Shanzer, pp. 139–49. Boston, MA, 2012. ——— . “The Code in Merovingian Gaul.” In The Theodosian Code, edited by J. Harries and I. N. Wood, pp. 161–77. London, 1993. ——— . “Early Merovingian Devotion in Town and Country.” In Stud­ ies in Church History 16, The Church in Town and Countryside, edited by Derek Baker, pp. 61–76. Cambridge, 1979. ——— . “The Ecclesiastical Politics of Merovingian Clermont.” In Ideal and Reality in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Society, edited by P. Wormald, pp. 34–57. Oxford, 1983. ——— . “The End of Roman Britain: Continental Evidence and Parallels.” In Gildas: New Approaches, edited by Michael Lapidge and David N. Dumville, pp. 1–25. Woodbridge, 1984. ——— . “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church, 400–750.” Transac­ tions of the Royal Historical Society 23 (2013): 37–73. ——— . “The Germanic Successor States.” In The Oxford Handbook of the State in the Ancient Near East and Mediterranean, edited by P. Fibiger Bang and W. Scheidel, pp. 498–517. Oxford, 2013. ——— . “Gregory of Tours and Clovis.” Revue Belge de Philologie et d’Histoire 63 (1985): 249–72, reprinted in Debating the Middle Ages, edited by L. K. Little and B. H. Rosenwein, pp. 73–91. Blackwell, 1998. ——— . “How Popular Was Early Medieval Devotion?.” Essays in Medi­ eval Studies 14, http://www.illinoismedieval.org/ems/VOL14/wood. html. ——— . “Land Tenure and Military Obligations in the Anglo-Saxon and Merovingian Kingdoms: The Evidence of Bede and Boniface in Context.” Bulletin of International Medieval Research 9–10 (2005): 3–22. ——— . The Priest, the Temple and the Moon in the Eighth Century. Brixworth Lecture. Leicester, 2008. ——— . “The Problem of Late Merovingian Culture.” In Exzerpieren— Kompilieren—Tradieren: Transformationen des Wissens zwischen

160  Bibliography Spätantike und Frühmittelalter, edited by Stephan Dusil, Gerald Schwedler, and Raphael Schwitter, pp. 199–222. Berlin, 2017. ——— . “Report: The European Science Foundation’s Programme on the Transformation of the Roman World and Emergence of Early Medieval Europe.” Early Medieval Europe 6 (1997): 217–27. ——— . “Teutsind, Witlaic and the History of Merovingian precaria.” In Property and Power in the Early Middle Ages, edited by W. Davies and P. Fouracre, pp. 31–52. Cambridge, 1995. ——— . “‘There Is a World Elsewhere’: The World of Late Antiquity.” In Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Soci­ ety in Honour of Peter Brown, edited by J. Kreiner and H. Reimitz, pp. 17–43. Turnhout, 2016. ——— . “Universal Chronicles in the Early Medieval West.” Approaches to Comparison in Medieval Studies 1 (2015): 47–60. ——— . “When Did the West Roman Empire Fall?’ Forthcoming. Wood, Jamie. The Politics of Identity in Visigothic Spain: Religion and Power in the Histories of Isidore of Seville. Leiden 2012. Woods, David. “The Origin of the Legend of Maurice and the Theban Legion.” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 45 (1994): 385–95. Wormald, Patrick. Bede and the Conversion of England: The Charter Evidence. Jarrow Lecture 1984.