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The Popes as Rulers of Rome in the Aftermath of Empire, 476–769
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 May 2018
Abstract
This article explores the degree to which the rule and style of the bishops of Rome after the deposition of the last Roman emperor in the West in 476 had any imperial elements, in the light of the evidence contained within the Liber pontificalis. Papal rule in Rome was cast as a replacement of imperial rule in religious matters, an opportunity for the bishop to assume political responsibility and also a deliberate emulation of imperial behaviour. This is manifest above all in the textual record in the Liber pontificalis of the papal embellishment of Rome, and in the physical evidence of the extant basilicas of the city. The deliberately imperial elements of papal self-presentation and the importance of Rome's primacy, apostolic succession and orthodoxy, all articulated so emphatically within the Liber pontificalis, indicate the multitude of strands by which the papacy wove the fabric of its own imperium or power.
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References
1 ‘Eodem tempore fuit ecclesia, hoc est prima sedis apostolica, executrix’; ‘expectans tempus paenitentiae’: Liber pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, Louis, Le Liber pontificalis. Texte, introduction et commentaire, 2 vols (Paris, 1886, 1892), 1Google Scholar: 249 [hereafter: LP]. For convenience I also provide page references to the easily accessible and excellent translation by Davis, Raymond, The Book of Pontiffs (Liber pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to AD 715, TTH 6, 3rd edn (Liverpool, 2010), 40.Google Scholar
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24 Also in Life 48, Hilarus issued a decree ‘in the consulship of Basiliscus and Hermenericus’ (consulatu Basilisco Hermenerico): LP 1: 242 (Davis, Pontiffs, 37), a phrase which seems to have been extracted from the document referred to.
25 LP 1: 255, 258, 260, 269, 275, 279, 281, 285 (Davis, Pontiffs, 40, 41, 42, 45, 48, 49, 50).
26 ‘[O]mnia praedia facultatum eius ecclesiae catholicae sociavit . . . cum linteaminibus et aromatibus, manibus suis tractans’: LP 1: 232 (Davis, Pontiffs, 34).
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30 ‘Hic propter nomen Romanum’: LP 1: 239 (Davis, Pontiffs, 37).
31 ‘[E]t confirmans dominationem et principatum sancta sedis catholicae et apostolicae’: LP 1: 242 (Davis, Pontiffs, 37).
32 LP 1: 255 (Davis, Pontiffs, 41–2).
33 ‘[Q]ui voluit occulte revocare Acacium . . . sine consilio presbiterorum vel episcoporum vel clericorum cunctae ecclesiae catholicae . . . qui nutu divino percussus est’: Life 52 (496–8), LP 1: 258 (Davis, Pontiffs, 42).
34 ‘Nos iubere volumus, non uobis iuberi’: Life 54, LP 1: 270 (Davis, Pontiffs, 46).
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38 ‘[H]umiliavit se sedi apostolicae et adoravit beatissimum Agapitum papam’: LP 1: 288 (Davis, Pontiffs, 52).
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40 ‘Augustus christianissimus cum regno in capite sese prostravit et pedes osculans pontificis’: LP 1: 391 (Davis, Pontiffs, 88–9). On the imperial ‘renewing of the church's privileges’ (omnia privilegia ecclesiae renovavit) during this same visit, see my comments in ‘Papacy and Byzantium’, 264–5.
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63 ‘OPTULIT HOC DNO FELIX ANTISTITE DIGNUM MUNUS UT AETHERIA VIVAT IN ARCE POLI’.
64 See LP 1: 279 (Davis, Pontiffs, 49). The portrait of Felix is a seventeenth-century reconstruction; see Webb, Churches and Catacombs, 126–9, including the inscription and translation. For illustrations, see Brandenburg, Die frühchristlichem Kirchen, 223; and the important new interpretations of the Felix portrait as well as other papal representations in Thunø, Apse Mosaic.
65 See Cooper, ed., Roman Martyrs, 273–396.
66 LP 1: 309 (Davis, Pontiffs, 59). For details of the inscriptions and building, see Webb, Churches and Catacombs, 240–5; for illustrations, see Brandenburg, Die frühchristlichen Kirchen, 236–7.
67 ‘SURSUM VERSA NUTU QUOD CUNCTIS CERNITUR UNO PRAESUL HONORIUS HAEC VOTA DICATA DEDIT VESTIBUS ET FACTIS SIGNATUR ILLIUS ORA LUCET ET ASPECTUM LUCIDA CORDA GERENS’: LP 1: 323 (Davis, Pontiffs, 62). For details and the inscription, see Webb, Churches and Catacombs, 246–8; for illustrations, see Brandenburg, Die frühchristlichen Kirchen, 244–6, who identifies the second episcopal figure as Pope Gregory I (590–604).
68 ‘MARTYRIBUS XPI DNI [Christi domini] VOTA JOHANNES REDDIDIT ANTISTES SANCTIFICANTE DEO’: LP 1: 330 (Davis, Pontiffs, 64); see Webb, Churches and Catacombs, 47–8. For illustrations, see Brandenburg, Die frühchristlichen Kirchen, 53.
69 ‘Fecit vero et imagines per diversas ecclesias quas, quicumque nosse desiderat in eis eius vultum depictum repperiet’: LP 1: 385 (Davis, Pontiffs, 86).
70 See Antonella Ballardini and Paola Pogliani, ‘A Reconstruction of the Oratory of John VII (705–7)’, in McKitterick et al., eds, Old St Peter's, Rome, 190–213; and the illustration of John VII's mosaic in Andoloro, Maria, ed., Santa Maria Antiqua tra Roma e Bisanzio (Rome, 2016), 249, and discussion, 250–9.Google Scholar
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77 LP 1: 220 (Davis, Pontiffs, 32).
78 LP 1: 150, 164, 238 (Davis, Pontiffs, 9, 13, 38–9). On Lucina, see Cooper, Kate, ‘The Martyr, the Matrona and the Bishop: The Matron Lucina and the Politics of Martyr Cult in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Rome’, EME 8 (1999), 297–318.Google Scholar
79 ‘[Q]uam sacrosanctam ecclesiam caput et verticem omnium ecclesiarum in universo orbe terrarum dici, coli, venerari et praedicari sancimus, sicut per alia nostra imperialia decreta statuimus’; ‘quamque Romae urbis et omnes Italiae seu occidentalium regionum provincias, loca et civitates saepefato beatissimo pontifici, patri nostro Silvestrio, universali papae, contradentes atque relinquentes eius vel successorum ipsius pontificum potestati . . . disponenda atque iuri sanctae Romanae ecclesiae concedimus permanenda’: MGH Fontes iuris 10, 84, 93–4; ET Edwards, M., Constantine and Christendom: The Oration to the Saints; The Greek and Latin Accounts of the Discovery of the Cross; The Edict of Constantine to Pope Silvester, TTH 39 (Liverpool, 2003), 107, 113Google Scholar. For a useful survey of recent interpretations, albeit offering a later date for the composition of the text than I favour here, see Goodson, Caroline J. and Nelson, Janet L., ‘Review Article: The Roman Contexts of the “Donation of Constantine”’, EME 18 (2010), 446–67.Google Scholar