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family and friendship in the west 435
therefore, surprising that this, the most original theological debate of fifthcentury
Gaul, should have emerged from the literary circle of Sidonius –
both Faustus and Claudianus were his correspondents – which throve on the
exercise of friendship, expressed through the medium of letters.
Nor was the debate over the soul the only point where theology and
friendship overlapped. Pope Gelasius also drew on notions of friendship
when comparing the bonds that bound the orthodox and those that bound
the heretics. Between the orthodox the bond of friendship, amicitia, could
rightly be described as caritas; relations with the heretics ought to be relations
of hatred, odium, for their friendship was like a disease, contagium. 170
Friendship was, therefore, not just a pleasurable adjunct to Christian life,
but central to it – just as it had been for the senatorial aristocracy of the
Roman empire, 171 only now it regularly had a religious colouring.
As in the case of Symmachus and his friends, the exercise of friendship
through correspondence continued to be central to the cohesion of a particular
class. The cultivation of bonds of friendship was as important as the
exploitation of family ties to the survival of the senatorial class of late
antique Gaul. In Sidonius’ case this can be seen in his careful lobbying of
friends during his exile, making sure that he had allies at the court of
Euric. 172 Indeed, friendship may well have played a more vital role in the
crises of the fifth century than it had done before, since the very survival
of a class and a social structure might have been in question. It is not, therefore,
surprising that Gallo-Roman letter-writers of the sixth century came
to include Germanic magnates, and even kings, among their correspondents.
These new arrivals could not be ignored even by the senatorial aristocracy.
Already by the early years of the sixth century Avitus of Vienne
was in correspondence with Gundobad, and not merely on purely formal
issues. 173 He would subsequently correspond on yet more friendly terms
with Gundobad’s son Sigismund. 174 Remigius of Rheims corresponded
with Clovis. 175 Remigius’ letters survive in a collection put together in the
east Frankish court, probably at the end of the sixth century, and the collection,
the Epistolae Austrasiacae, may have been used as a manual of model
correspondence, as may have been the case also with the letters of Avitus
and Ruricius. 176 Among the Epistolae Austrasiacae are letters from members
of the Germanic aristocracy as well as from Gallo-Roman bishops. 177 Also
writing in the late sixth century, Venantius Fortunatus further elaborated
the cult of friendship in his verse-letters to his patrons, to Gallo-Roman
and Germanic aristocrats, and to members of the royal family. He needed
170 Gelasius, Ep. 7, 4, ed. A. Thiel, Epistolae Romanorum Pontificum Genuinae (Brunsberg 1868); see also
Wood (1993a) 35–6. 171 Matthews (1974). 172 Sid. Ap. Epp. 4.22; 8.3; 8.9.
173 Avitus, Ep. 5. 174 Avitus, Epp. 23, 31, 32, 45, 49, 76, 77, 79, 91, 92.
175 Epist. Austras. 1–2. 176 Wood (1993a) 40.
177 See the letters of the regent Gogo, Epist. Austras. 13, 16, 22, 48.
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