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administration and politics in the west 233
literary culture removed a strong incentive for landowners to reside in
cities. 198 In this respect the situation in the cities of fifth-century Gaul was
totally different from that of contemporary provincial cities in the east. In
Gaul, Spain and Italy, the transmission of literary education was well on the
way to becoming a matter for clergy and monks. 199 But even in the early
seventh century some aristocratic bishops still displayed a rhetorical education.
200 A lower level of literacy survived much more widely. Administration
and jurisdiction in Visigothic Gaul and Spain, and even in Merovingian
Gaul, required a significant amount of lay literacy. 201 One function of the
council has become very much more prominent: the witnessing and
recording in the municipal gesta of legal transactions such as wills, gifts,
emancipation of slaves, adoptions, oaths and sales of property. Perhaps
this development reflects a reduction in the keeping of written records by
landowners in the civic territory.
Under the Visigoths the principal civic magistrate in Gaul, as elsewhere
in the empire, was the defensor. This office had been created by the imperial
government, and, in the empire, appointments were still, at least formally,
made by the praetorian prefect. Since one of his original functions had
been to protect both plebs and decurions from wrong at the hands of the
powerful, 202 it is likely that he was normally chosen from among the powerful
himself. For all practical purposes, in most parts of the empire –
perhaps North Africa was an exception – the defensor, often together with
the curator, replaced the traditional curial magistrates. 203
In Visigothic Gaul the defensor was elected by all citizens (consensus civium,
subscriptio universorum). This procedure would seem to have been more
popular than that followed in the east, where appointment was by bishop,
clergy, honorati, possessores and curiales. 204 In cities which were inhabited principally
by the bishop and a few magnates, the participation of the people is
likely to have been a formality. But Aquitaine, the area for which the
Breviarium was principally designed, included cities with a considerable plebeian
population, 205 so that the people’s role – probably acclamation or
vilification of a candidate proposed by the notables – may well have been
significant. In the north Italian cities, the people retained a genuine voice
in the election of bishops, which thus did not become the exclusive
concern of the clergy.
The defensor of Visigothic Gaul seems to have wider powers of jurisdiction
than civic officials of the fourth century. He judges criminal actions
involving offences against mobile or immobile property, and civil actions too
can be started in his court. 206 Guardians are required to make an inventory
198 Cass. Var. viii.31. 199 Riché (1973); Kaster (1988).
200 Wood, Merovingian Kingdoms 239–42. 201 Wood (1990).
202 Conrat (1903) 728: C.Th. i.10.2. 203 Liebeschuetz (1972) 167–70. 204 CJ i.55.8.
205 Sivan (1992). 206 Conrat (1903) 729: C.Th. ii.1.8, 4.2.
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