Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

448 16. state, lordship and community in the west
That Catholic kings, at least, also appointed bishops reinforced the links
between political and religious community. In practice, any would-be
bishop had to make himself known at court, moving outside his own locality.
Bishop Gregory’s election at Tours, for instance, was opposed by the
archdeacon Riculf, who seems to have been a local candidate. But Gregory
was physically at court (that of Sigibert), his family had a much higher political
profile, and it was Gregory who got the job. This close association of
king and bishop also posed potential problems. The root of Gregory’s
difficulties with king Chilperic was the fact that he was the appointee of
Chilperic’s brother Sigibert and hence an object of suspicion when Tours
passed into Chilperic’s hands. Bishops served for life and must often have
outlived the kings who appointed them. 36 Even so, the practical power to
appoint bishops meant that – at higher levels, at least – the religious life of
any kingdom revolved around kings and their courts. 37
At first sight, these patterns of the later sixth and seventh century do not
apply to the preceding century or so. Between c. 450 and 550, the monarchs
and a substantial element of the political élite of many of the new and
emerging successor states (the Ostrogothic, Burgundian and Vandal kingdoms,
and Visigothic Spain before its conversion to Catholicism at the
Third Council of Toledo in 587) did not subscribe to Catholic Christianity,
but were so-called Arian Christians. Some of these kingdoms, particularly
that of the Vandals under Geiseric and Huneric, 38 witnessed periods when
Catholics were persecuted, but perhaps more striking is the extent to which
the observations already made remain applicable.
The Ostrogothic king Theoderic was concerned in all his propaganda
and in every ceremonial act to stress that his rule was divinely ordained, and
that he stood in a particular relationship to God. He was involved in the
calling of church councils, and maintained, for the most part, good relations
with the Catholic church. The papacy called upon him to settle disputed
elections, and consulted him on ending the Acacian schism with the
Greek east. Caesarius of Arles, likewise, obtained his papal vicariate
through Theoderic’s intervention, and exploited the political unification of
his religious province by the Ostrogoths in the 520s (previously it had been
partly under Burgundian rule) to initiate a series of reforming councils. In
the Ostrogothic kingdom, even the king’s Arianism did not prevent
Catholic churchmen from working around and through his power. 39
36 See generally Wood, Merovingian Kingdoms ch. 5.
37 This tendency was very partially countered by the existence of the papacy and the concept of a
universal church. Churchmen were well aware of belonging to a wider Christian community, and considerable
prestige attached to the papacy. But, as Peter Brown has recently put it, the western church
consisted of ‘Micro Christendoms’: Brown (1996) esp. ch. 13.
38 Famously described by Victor of Vita, CSEL 7.
39 Heather (1996) ch. 8; cf. Moorhead (1992) 194ff. on the Acacian schism, and Klingshirn (1994)
ch. 5.
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