Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

230 8. administration and politics in the cities
urbanism which had taken place in most areas of the west more than a
century earlier seems to have come to North Africa in the fifth century. A
shortage of evidence makes it difficult to trace. 173
In the fifth century, bishops had generally achieved a position of at least
potential leadership in the cities of the west. Urban populations were now,
at any rate nominally, Christian. The effect was profound. Many cities
acquired a new Christian identity founded on the cult of relics of a saint or
saints, whose presence provided an ever-effective source of supernatural
patronage and protection to those who worshipped at their shrine. 174 The
saint brought glory to the city and prestige to the bishop. The church made
provision for pilgrims, and these, together with clerics travelling on church
business, maintained communications in a world which in the west tended
towards greater regional self-sufficiency. 175 As temples were destroyed or
fell into decay, 176 churches came to be the most prominent buildings in their
cities. The prestige of the episcopal office gave territorial magnates who
had freed themselves from institutionalized civic responsibilities an incentive
for returning to the service of their city. 177 Bishops were less involved
in the regular secular administration of their cities under the Visigothic
kings than under the eastern emperors. 178 However, wherever secular
administration, whether urban or imperial, broke down, we find bishops
left in charge. It was in the guise of the ecclesiastical diocese that the unity
of city and territory, which was the essence of the Graeco-Roman city, survived
longest. So the territory of the civitas Agrippinensium long survived as
the diocese of Cologne. 179 Such survivals were particularly numerous in
Italy 180 and southern Gaul.
Very extensive civitates were liable to break up into smaller ecclesiastical
units. In the south of France, between 400 and 450, Nice, Carpentras,
Toulon and Lizés were taken (or took themselves) out of the control of
their civitas capital to receive a bishop of their own. 181 Thus we observe in
the sphere of ecclesiastical administration the continuation of a secular
trend which had promoted secondary centres like Geneva, Grenoble, Gap
and Sisteron. The phenomenon can also be seen in North Africa.
The rise of the bishop was not paralleled by the elimination of secular
institutions of city self-government. Certainly the mere fact of the establishment
of kingdoms by Goths and Vandals seems to have made little
difference to the condition of cities in areas under their rule. 182 In 506 the
Visigothic king Alaric II published a law book, the Lex Romana Visigotorum
173 Cameron, Averil (1982); Duval and Caillet (1992); Modéran (1993).
174 Van Dam, Leadership and Community 230–300; Harries (1992a). 175 Mathisen (1992).
176 Ward-Perkins, Public Building 85–91. 177 E.g. Prinz (1973); Kopecek (1974); Mathisen (1984).
178 The same contrast between Lombard and Byzantine Italy: Wickham (1981) 77–8.
179 Ennen (1975) 38–9. 180 Dilcher (1964). 181 Loseby (1992).
182 Humphrey (1980); Clover (1982).
Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008