Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

councils and clergy 739
553 showed that there were seventeen presbyters and deacons above fifty
years old. This might suggest a total of fifty. Besides them, there were subdeacons,
acolytes and readers, all counted as in clero. These minor offices
were sometimes filled by young men: six of the older clergy had been in
clero at less than eleven years old and one as young as five, though readers
of under eighteen were now forbidden. This is a large number for a modest
town. Justinian limited the clerical staff of four churches in Constantinople
itself to sixty priests, a hundred deacons, ninety subdeacons, a hundred and
ten readers, twenty-five singers, a hundred doorkeepers and forty deaconesses.
29 Age restrictions were not rigorously applied. At the age of eighteen
the charismatic and ascetic monk Theodore of Sykeon was tonsured and
ordained reader, subdeacon, deacon and presbyter on successive days. His
bishop recognized that this act was uncanonical, but justified it from scripture,
and expressed the confidence that he would rise to become a bishop. 30
There is no evidence that most clergy were trained except by experience in
the work. They were normally expected to rise through the minor orders
to the presbyterate. They would therefore be hearing and reading the scriptures
and liturgical texts, and hearing the preaching of the bishop and presbyters
quite regularly. The need for regular direction in their functions is
reflected in the growth of new offices, such as archpriest, archdeacon and
archsubdeacon.
The bishop might, especially in Gaul, be drawn from secular life because
of his gifts or his family connections. Sidonius Apollinaris (431–c. 486), son
and grandson of prefects of Gaul, married the daughter of Avitus and
went with him to Rome in 456. After Avitus’ fall and Maiorinus’ death, he
retired to his estates in the Auvergne and cultivated literature and friendships,
writing classically correct verse and ornate prose. Called to be city
prefect at Rome in 468, he retired again, and was probably a priest before
his ordination as bishop of Clermont-Ferrand (Arvernum) in 471. As
bishop, he encouraged resistance to the Visigoths but, after an exile, submitted.
31 Venantius Fortunatus (c. 535–c. 610), a north Italian poet and
orator educated at Ravenna, went to Gaul on pilgrimage and was ordained
at Poitiers, where he was asociated with queen Radegund’s convent and succeeded
as bishop in 597. 32 The historian Gregory of Tours (c. 538–94) was
of a senatorial Gallo-Roman family, with twelve bishops in his family’s past.
In 573 he became bishop of Tours, which St Martin’s relics made a great
spiritual centre. He moves fluently and lives dangerously amid warring
Merovingian kings and queens. 33 The bishop at this period is more likely to
29 Jones, LRE 910,14 and Wickham (1995) 4–6; I have used Wickham’s reading of the Mopsuestia
evidence, against Jones. 30 Vie de Théodore de Sykéon ed. Festugière (1970) 28.
31 Pricoco (1990), (1967); Harries (1994).
32 Navarra (1990); Brennan (1985); George (1992).
33 Pietri (1985) has full documentation; see also Van Dam (1993).
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