Bishops Under Threat – Between Ascetics and “Combative Creatures”

The idea of an episcopal office was ambiguous from early on. Epitaphs celebrate office holders such as Hilarius of Arles (~429/430~449) in hexameters as someone whose every action was guided by Christ, who relinquished his property out of a love of poverty and toiled with his own hands to support the unfortunate.1 They praise him as the magister not just of his parish, but of Christianity as a whole, and underline the obedience and especially the humility with which he conducted his office. Thanks to his manifold merits, they claim that he had earned entry to paradise, which he could enjoy in its full glory. Nicetius of Lyon’s (~552/553~573) epitaph, too, casts him as an ascetic who lived a life for God alone: exemplary in his adherence to his castitas, his practice of caritas towards the people and clergy, as well as his fatherly care towards his parish and all those in need.2 He also excelled in ecclesiastical music and acted as a judge who sought to avoid trials. In short he was a man marked by mildness, goodness, pietas and serenity. John of Tarragona (~469/470~519/520), who held his office for 50 years, was defined by both his humility and his brilliant eloquence, by the pietas that complimented his care for the poor, had lived the life of a saint, leader and teacher to monks and to people alike.3 His successor Sergius (~519/520~554/555) served as bishop of Tarragona for 35 years, restored the church roof and built a monastery close to the city.4 Epitaphs describe him as a father to the poor and a guardian to those in need of protection. He gave comfort to the widowed, freed the imprisoned and provided the hungry with food. Loved by all, the epitome of benevolence, he is held as giving succour to the needy.

Hagiographic transmissions – Honoratus of Marseille concretely in the case of Hilarius of Arles (401 – 449) – paint a picture of a vigorous shepherd who knew how to combine both his monastic and ascetic tendencies with the requirements of the episcopal office: who founded a monastery in the episcopal centre of the city and ordered the construction of churches; who lived as a model of poverty and chastity; who worked with his own hands; someone who knotted nets and gave dictations while reading.5 His biographer claims that he championed the poor, the sick and the orphaned, and sold expensive altarpieces to buy the freedom of prisoners. A tireless and verbally adept preacher, he knew both how to capture and reprimand his audience; when needed, he would place himself before his parish, a guardian, and once even expelled the praetorian prefect from church for refusing to rescind an exceptional tax. Meanwhile, in the case of Masona of Merida (~573~606), we are presented with the image of a bishop who acted as the spiritual leader and worldly patron of his parish members – who forgave debts, gifted wine, oil and honey and built churches and monasteries.6 The Vitas Sanctorum Patrum Emeretensium, by an anonymous author, relates the celebration of the Holy Mass, the Easter processions, the adventus of the bishop; it tells of believers who pray, sing and acclaim; of the poor and the sick, of widows and orphans and pilgrims who are healed and cared for; of a bishop who with varying success rushes into conflicts about his bistum’s reliquaries and, thanks to St. Eulalia’s support, ultimately triumphs against the secular power.

These snapshots from grave inscriptions and hagiographic transmissions in Gaul and Hispania, among other regions of the former Roman Empire, evoke an image of the bishop of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages that paints the episcopal office as powerful, ranking alongside the rulers and secular aristocrats.7 At first glance, the bishops seem far from under threat. They act as ascetics who pass up the temptations of the material world – riches and positions of honour – and centre their lives around a rigid, absolute emulation of Christ. As their accomplishments and merits determine the degree of their sanctitas, they can rest secure in the certainty of paradise if they distinguish themselves accordingly: in the early 5th century principally by giving up property and performing demeaning physical labour, as characterises the homo pauper who must earn his daily bread; to this is added charity to the poor, through the officially mandated duty of care towards all in need but also through voluntary donation of own’s personal riches.8 Obedience, possibly as a tenet of a previously monastic life, and humility in conducting the episcopal office count as relevant criteria as well. By the late 6th century, the radical abdication of property is no longer necessary, with bishops allowed to preserve private title to their assets; humilitas, too, is no longer accounted a core virtue, with repercussions for aspects such as clothing and dining, previously marked by plainness and simplicity. Office holders acted as building contractors, served as judges and stood up to secular powers when they deemed their communities in danger. In any case, following an ascetic ideal (which transformed over time), exercising a duty of care towards the clergy and plebs (modelled on the caritas of Christ) and showing devotion to those under the pater ecclesiae’s charge remained decisive spheres of activity.

The epitaphs thus offer a one-sided depiction of the respective bishop as an ascetic of his time, unrelated to the sometimes senatorial origins of the office holder. They refrain from biographic schemes and name neither the ancestry nor family relationships, official functions or political activities. And even when they do – listing virtues and titles, with the highest ecclesiastical office topping off a cursus honorum – as in the case of Sacerdos of Lyon (~541~551/552), who surely came from a patrician family and probably served as consilarius to the Burgundian kings, perhaps even leading the king’s council before he became bishop of Lyon9 – they do not mention direct connections to fundamental deeds, office and honours.10 Recipients had to draw this connection themselves – an easily accomplishable task, however, thanks to the equivalencies between virtues and characteristics with specific activities and dignities. Indeed, the context in which epigraphic monuments were erected – as a tablet attached above the burial site or very close to the sarcophagus if it rested in the church itself or in its crypts (in the case of Hilarius in those of the crypta of the basilica sancti Genesii in the Arlesian necropolis Aliscamps) – meant that it would be understood principally by those already aware of its existence. Yet both the epitaphs and the hagiographic transmissions are incredibly subtle literary accounts that presupposed a high level of literary understanding. For although the episcopal vita offers a time-bound relation of a bishop’s stages of life, it links these with a temporally independent description of his characteristics.11 By interweaving historically verifiable and theologically believed truth, the author could use his vita to offer seeming proof that both were in accord. Sometimes, the epitaph and episcopal vita complemented each other. Apart from the fact that the respective author must have been aware of the bishop’s grave inscription, one can assume that the vita would have been read aloud during mass – e. g., on the bishop’s death day – in the respective church. Monks, too, may have given readings during meal times and assemblies in chapter houses, thus spreading them amongst laypeople and clerics alike: just about anyone must have been able to appreciate significant quotes from the Bible and the Apocrypha, but clever references would have reached only those who had gone through a comparative spiritual education.12

At any rate, the humility and disdain for the secular world these two genres...