The History of the Franks of Gregory of Tours, along with his Saints’ lives, show a world of cities that maps with surprising accuracy onto the administrative world of late Roman Gaul. The squabbling Merovingian kings treat cities almost as stocks and shares, something of value worth fighting over, valued for their resources and taxes and manpower. From the perspective of Gregory as bishop, he and his fellow bishops play a central role in city administration. Yet they too are descendants of the local land-holding elite, with whom their interests align. The idea that city councils have disappeared is based on a misinterpretation of the senatores, who are simply Gregory’s way of describing the old landed elite who held office in cities. The bishop, as representative of the church and its land-holdings, proves to be the key figure in the adaptation of the old order.

This chapter provides a survey of ecclesiastical and monastic organisations and how lay people engaged with them. There was no singular ‘Frankish Church’. There was considerable variation in what people wanted, how the liturgy was arranged, access to church councils and books, and how communities connected to Roman, English, Irish, Spanish, or Byzantine religious worlds. Communities were united by relatively compact beliefs, not least the need for imminent moral reform and penance ahead of an inevitable appearance at Judgement Day – whether it was at hand or far in the future.

Chapter 8 is devoted to the ways in which some Nicene bishops attempted to persuade kings to convert, illustrated by the examples of Avitus of Vienne and Leander of Seville, and to conversion as a political project and as a theme of the ideology and theology of kingship in late sixth-century Visigothic Hispania. Conversion and royal rule in Gaul and Hispania were also linked to another important phenomenon: the cult of saints. Thus, in this chapter three cults that played an important role in Nicene–Homoian relations are analysed: the cults of the apostle Peter in Burgundy, of Martin of Tours in Gaul, and of Eulalia of Mérida in Visigothic Hispania.

This chapter introduces key structures and developments in the cities of late antique southern Gaul as relevant as contexts for the development of popular culture at this time, with reference to archaeological as well as literary evidence. While Arles and Marseille come under particular focus, other smaller urban centres including Aix and Narbonne are also considered. The general built urban environment is discussed first, then the occupations, social status and identities of the cities’ inhabitants. Next, the impact of the church upon the late ancient city, social and political as well as topographical, comes into focus. Urban social relations are examined before the final section looks at the transformation of performance and leisure in late antiquity.

This chapter discusses a group of manuscripts which carry some of the oldest examples of the ordines romani. The texts are together termed the ‘Roman’ Collection, and it was assumed they were put together from the texts of purest Roman origin to propogate the adoption of Roman liturgy in Francia. However, examination of the manuscripts reveals a much less focused or immediate gathering of the texts, and shows that none of the given texts are indisputably Roman in origin. Individual manuscripts also continually changed how the Collection was presented and conceived, adding more individual texts of Frankish conception to it. The Collection is traced back to Carolingian Metz, where an experiment in the creative adoption of Roman liturgy was being undertaken.

A second group of manuscripts are examined, the witnesses of the ‘Frankish’ Collection. Here, a connection to the royal chapel of the kings of Italy and the monastery of Reichenau are advanced to explain the collection. The spread of the collection to diverse centres such as Verona, Regensburg, Nonantola and Corbie is discussed. The presentation of the individual manuscripts as ‘embroynic’ forms of the pontifical, a later genre of liturgical book for episcopal functions, is questioned.

It is striking that Christians were so successful. They had internal dissension; lacked relics; had no common temple; came from less educated classes and the periphery of the empire; Jews and pagans harassed, even persecuted them. Because they did not offer sacrifices, excluding them from offices and festivals, and were unable to maintain certain family traditions they appeared antisocial. Yet Christ-followers succeeded in winning over non-Jews as well. The persecutions welded Christians together, and martyrs served as role models, even to those who had manifested weakness. In areas such as sexual morality, Christians sought to demonstrate that they were superior to contemporaries of other faiths. They also formed transregional networks. The opportunity to gain prestige in Christian communities also attracted people. Various forms of authority competed with each other, especially the charismatic and spiritual authority of those who excelled in ascetic practices. That in the end monarchical bishops were to become the decisive figures in Christianity was by no means clear from the beginning. That Roman emperors would support Christianity was an unlikely development that changed Christianity significantly. But the tradition of a defiant piety that defined the beginnings was not lost, so that Christianity continued to renew itself.

Since late antiquity, bishops have been regarded as possessing the highest authority among Christians. But there was no linear path leading there. Rather, there were different bearers of authority among Christians: James, as the respected brother of Jesus, was a key figure at the beginning; intellectuals were able to gain importance as teachers, prophets also appeared after Jesus, among them many women; widows and virgins attained a special position; finally, the authority of ascetics increased. Basically, authority could be derived from an office within the church or from personal charisma, which was considered God given. Good bishops tried to combine both, but charismatics could always challenge them and would continue to do so throughout the history of Christianity.

The final chapter explores first the religious underpinnings of the text and notes that the Iohannis rested on Christian assumptions even as it used the imagery and rhetoric of classical epic to recount an essentially secular narrative. The epic includes recognizable portraits of two African churchmen who were spokesmen in the ‘Three Chapters’ controversy. Far from ignoring contemporary religious problems, Corippus may have intended his poem to accentuate the support of the entire African populace for the imperial military programme. The chapter then turns to representations of ‘Moorish’ religious practices within the poem. While it is tempting to suppose that Corippus presents a timeless image of African religion, the Iohannis was very much a product of the mid-sixth century. The poet drew upon literary models, but the details of his account may betray contemporary practices. The Iohannis was composed at a time when the imperial authorities in Africa were consolidating the recent military victories with a programme of evangelism into the frontier regions, pre-desert and oasis communities. The chapter concludes with a discussion of this programme and of how this changes our understanding of Corippus’ text.

The chapter reviews the models – ideal and actual – of the ‘good bishop’ put forward at the beginning of the sixteenth century, models which inspired those conciliar fathers most inclined to reform. It also looks at the debate pursued throughout the three phases of the council over the source of episcopal authority, focusing on the disputes about the theological basis of the obligation of residence. Finally, it will analyse what was new about the regulations regarding the clergy and the reforming decrees issued above all in the last sessions of the assembly, when the discord between the Curia party and the reformers threatened to wreck the council altogether. Without actually embracing the episcopalian position, the council did at least restate the importance of the care of souls, which was the responsibility of the pastors of the diocese, but failed to curtail the scope for curial intervention, the secular authorities’ nomination rights or the privileges enjoyed by the male religious orders.

Chapter 1 sets out the growth of the Province from 1221 to 1348, the different patterns of development in different parts of the British Isles, and what explains them. The first part of the chapter examines who supported the new foundations, how the English and Scottish kings in particular aided them, but also the role played by nobles and townsfolk. The second part of the chapter considers what lay behind this support, by looking at the friars’ life and ministry in relation to their supporters’ needs, how they met them directly, and how their religious life and training within the cloister enabled them to do this.

Irenaeus as the mastermind of the canonicl collection, later known as the New Testament, creates the foundation for the later picture of a chronological development from Jesus and his disciples through the first bishops and the institutionalization of the Church. However, he himself hardly relates to these writings as historical evidence, but rather engages in an anti-heretical use of some of them to endorse church orthodoxy. It is this apostolic foundation that provides the rule of truth against which he sees the heretics struggeling, driven by evil forces in an apocalyptic scenario.

Irenaeus’ view is condensed in the collection that he brought together, combining the Book of Acts with the so-called Catholic Letters (= the Praxapostolos). Placed after the four Gospels, it endorses a neatless development from Jesus and his early followers through the early days of growth of the church in its emancipation from its Jewish beginnings. With Paul’s letters in a revised version that was made to fit the Gospels and the Praxapostolos this fiction of a continuous, rapid and Spirit-guided growth was linked to the success-story of the Church in contra-distinction to the miseries and decline of the Jewish community and the vain attempts at undermining the Church by the develish heretics.

The Roman imperial entourage was central to Roman rule. It changed over time. Certain roles became more defined, and certain types of behaviour less contested. It is doubtful whether this was an ‘institutionalisation’ of the Roman court. The entourage of Roman emperors never quite grew into a stable structure. Even the composition of the supposedly formalised administration of the late-Roman eastern empire fluctuated from one reign to the next. Over time, a wider range of types of behaviour became acceptable. Changes in society altered the composition of the people who had the emperor’s ear. The increased militarisation of Roman society in the third century and the emperor’s absence from Rome, had an impact on the emperor’s entourage. Noticeable was the way imperial women wielded independent power in a Christianised empire. The move away from Rome as imperial capital changed the position of senators at court. When comparing the composition and behaviour of people who were regularly in the emperor’s proximity at the beginning of the principate and in the middle of the sixth century, there were substantial differences.