Fouracre P. The New Cambridge Medieval History, Vol. 1: c. 500-c. 700

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Money and coinage 673

Britain had lost the use of money soon after the Roman army and adminis-

tration left in 410,asthe importation of coins all but ceased. The Anglo-Saxons

did not establish their own mints for a further two hundred years, so that they

skipped the pseudo-imperial phase of coinage in the West. Roman bronze

coins, rediscovered by Anglo-Saxons, and contemporary gold coins imported

from the continent were occasionally used in the ﬁfth to seventh centuries

as personal ornaments or as grave offerings. The earliest known Anglo-Saxon

‘coin’ – the magniﬁcent gold piece with the name of Bishop Liudhard, Queen

Bertha’s chaplain at Canterbury in the late sixth century – was intended as a

medallion. Gradually, during the sixth century, imported gold coins came to be

used as money as well. By about 620, when the grave-goods for the Sutton Hoo

ship burial were being assembled, the forty gold coins, all continental, could

well have been taken from local circulation.

The ﬁrst concerted production of

Anglo-Saxon coins began in south-east England c.630,probably motivated by

the need to remint older Merovingian tremisses into coins matching the current

reduced levels of ﬁneness. Production was small but so was the currency, so

that by about 645 these new Anglo-Saxon issues accounted for two-thirds of

the hundred coins deposited in the Crondall (Hants) hoard.

This Anglo-Saxon gold coinage was modelled on that of the Franks, com-

prising mainly tremisses (probably the shillings, OE scillingas,ofthe law-codes).

Only one rare issue carries the name of a king – Eadbald of Kent (616–640)–

while others more commonly have the name of a mint (London) or a moneyer

(Witmen, Pada, etc.).

Some of the designs copy those of late Roman coins,

indicating the esteem in which these were held by the Anglo-Saxons. By the

third quarter of the seventh century the scale of production had increased and

minting had spread out from the south-east to East Anglia and York. However,

as in the Frankish kingdoms, the metal content was becoming progressively

based, and in the 670s the pale gold shillings were replaced by new coins of

ﬁne silver, the ﬁrst English pennies.

conclusions

In the two or three centuries since the break-up of the Roman Empire in

the West money had evolved signiﬁcantly and would have hardly been recog-

nised by someone who lived in the ﬁfth century. By the year 700 each of the

constituent states had its own distinctive monetary system, and its coins had

become a useful national emblem signifying its independence and, one hopes,

its sound ﬁnancial condition. The process by which this had been achieved

Stahl (1992), arguing against the previous view that the coins were collected in Francia.

Metcalf (1993–4), i,pp.29–62.

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674 mark blackburn

sheds some light on the evolution of the states themselves. The pseudo-imperial

phase of coinage is particularly difﬁcult to interpret. The copying of impe-

rial coinages may have been motivated in part by economic factors – when

establishing a new currency, countries often emulate the successful coinages

that are circulating in the region. But as the comments of Procopius and the

pattern of coin inscriptions show, the imperial prerogative to strike gold coins

was also a powerful force, and the emperors appear to have maintained sufﬁ-

cient inﬂuence over the new Germanic states to enforce it during the ﬁfth and

much of the sixth centuries. Most of the states appear to have sought legitimacy

for their coinages by implying that it was authorised by the emperor, whether

through an ancient agreement as perhaps with the Sueves and Vandals, or

through the continuing consent of the current emperor in the East, as not only

the Ostrogoths but also the Visigoths and the Franks appear to have done. Yet

the apparent dullness of these anonymous imitative coinages can easily mask

signs of fundamental developments taking place in the organisation of mint-

ing and regulation of the monetary system. With the transition to so-called

‘national’ coinages, when the names of mints and/or moneyers are displayed

and there is freedom to adopt new coin designs, we get a much clearer insight

into the organisation that lay behind it.

Then one can see just how far the

states had already come in the development of their own monetary systems.

Hendy (1988).

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chapter 25

CHURCH STRUCTURE AND

ORGANISATION

Georg Scheibelreiter

introduction

By the later third century, when it began to be widely persecuted, the Christian

community of believers had already created within the Roman Empire the basic

forms of church organisation. In the ﬁrst decade of the third century we see

in the work of Tertullian the ﬁrst signs of a link between Christianity and the

Roman legal system, along with an attempt at co-ordination between Christian

belief and contemporary philosophy in the writings of Clemens of Alexandria

and Origen. But serious disputes with the state over both the separation and

the self-government of the church took place during the Constantinian period.

At this time the structure of the newly liberated church was clearly in place but

the lead that the church in the Eastern Roman Empire had acquired, could not

be ignored. There, Christianity could be constructed using the economic and

administrative prerequisites of older cultures and therefore it soon reached a

high level of organisation. In the West conditions were less favourable. Civili-

sation was not so far advanced and was at ﬁrst partly threatened by paganism

and barbarianism, which it overcame only slowly. Mediterranean urban culture

was not as strong in the West and because of this the church lacked a basis on

which to form a full infrastructure. Until the sixth century the church in the

West was occupied with solving elementary problems. This task was hindered

by the collapse of the uniﬁed Western Empire into separate barbarian regimes

whose leaders initially had to be converted to Catholicism. This lengthened the

transitional phase of the church’s development from an only partly effective,

troubled religious sect into an institution with many branches. This phase

lasted until the end of the seventh century, during which time the African

church, which had been highly developed and inﬂuential, was lost and west

European Christianity had in practice to make some concessions to Celtic and

Germanic mentalities.

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The development of the papacy between 500 and 700 demonstrates the

problems: continuing quarrels within the municipality of Rome, disputes with

the Ostrogoths and Lombards, and an often humiliating dependence on the

emperor in Constantinople which put the papacy in a defensive position.

Although the new churches in the barbarian kingdoms developed under the

aegis of Rome’s control, they were orientated more towards their own kings.

Rome only became more inﬂuential from the time of Pope Gregory the Great

(590–604) onwards, a development which would continue throughout the

seventh century.

The constitution of the church drew upon a secular model but it was

not brought into force everywhere or equally. Social and political changes

demanded adaptation of the church’s ofﬁcials. Great faults became evident in

the organisation of the church and these prompted the introduction of priests

who, in some areas of Europe, only began to be effective in the eighth century.

The big councils, which were used as arenas for opinions and as a stage for the

development of the church, were all held in the Greek East and only superﬁ-

cially concerned themselves with the modest Christianity of the West. In the

latter, the life of the church was organised along the lines of the individual

kingdoms within which the only controversial issues concerned the ordination

of unsuitable people. In the sixth century the bishops came to have secular

careers and they increasingly became the ofﬁcials of the barbarian kings and

exponents of local rule by the nobility. The issue of celibacy proved intractable

in the face of demands for radical change and casual contemporary practices,

and it revealed the ﬁrst fundamental conﬂict with the attitudes of the East.

This was all that had remained of the inﬂuence of the clergy on the law because

they had not been able to protect their late antique privileges. With the help

of the regional rule-making assemblies (synods), however, the clergy created a

special status for themselves, which was not always easy to put into practice.

The economic organisation of the church developed from initiatives begun

in late antiquity: in the East it grew into a coherent and competent system

of support, whilst in the West economic support was much patchier. In the

sixth century, instead of voluntary contributions, obligatory Sunday offerings

were introduced and the upkeep of the clergy was funded by the church. In

the seventh century the so-called ‘private churches’ (Eigenkirche) appeared and

remained a typical phenomenon of western Christianity until the Gregorian

reforms of the eleventh century.

The liturgy had its ﬁrst ﬂowering in the period 500–700 and it grew out of

the variety of prayer and church services which had evolved under Byzantine

inﬂuence and which were consolidated in the ﬁrst big liturgical collections.

Spiritual welfare, which was then beginning to be established, was at ﬁrst the

preserve of rhetorically expressed preaching. But this soon gave way to a simpler

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Church structure and organisation 677

transmission of God’s word in a more topical mode. Basic missionary practices

were introduced with this. In the sixth and seventh centuries baptism and

penance took on a modern form, that is, the baptism of children, and the

introduction of individual penance and private confessions.

With the introduction of monasticism in the sixth century an important

part of the Christian way of life became an institution in the West. The dispute

between continental (Benedictine) and Irish traditions over the setting up of

monasteries in association with the diocese became a major problem of the

time. With this, certain difﬁculties became evident which the institution of

the church in the Middle Ages had to deal with.

These are the general lines along which the church developed in our period.

In what follows each major element of church structure and organisation will

be examined in more detail in order to give the general picture greater depth.

the papacy

The Acacian and Henotikon schisms were a legacy of the ﬁfth century, in which

the papacy was embroiled up to the end of the century. These disputes led to

a declaration by Pope Gelasius (492–496)inwhich he clariﬁed his position

within the church and also his stance towards worldly power. The differences

between his view of episcopal auctoritas and imperial potestas brought about

the determined opposition of the emperor Anastasius I (491–518). However,

this did not put Gelasius at a political disadvantage because he was supported

by King Theoderic who, as an Arian, took no interest in the matter. The

situation worsened in 498 because of a disputed papal election (the Laurentian

schism). The two candidates acted in a politically ruthless manner and greatly

harmed the reputation of the papacy. After the death of Laurentius in 506,

Pope Symmachus was forced to look for greater support in the West because

of the hostile attitude of the emperor, but he took no part in the conversion

of the Franks and the Burgundians. These would be of great signiﬁcance for

the future.

Pope Hormisdas (514–523)brought about a reconciliation with Constantino-

ple in 519, thus ending the Acacian schism, but he also established a strong

connection with the Spanish and Gallic churches. The political and theologi-

cal struggles of the following decades nevertheless threw the papacy into great

confusion during which much was lost. A low point was reached in 553 with

the arrest of Pope Vigilius in the course of the ‘Three Chapters’ dispute. In

addition, the invasion of Italy by the Lombards created a political problem

that brought the papacy to the brink of disaster.

Gregory the Great (590–604) became pope at this time. As a representative

of a new outward-looking papacy he recognised the emperor as the leader

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chosen by God, but his concept of Christian power went further than this. He

believed that when new nations were converted they had also to be politically

paciﬁed. Complete pastoral effectiveness now became a concern of the papacy:

to achieve this a reorganisation of the patrimony of the church of Rome was

necessary, followed by certain social reforms (prevention of the exploitation of

tenants, supervision of ofﬁcials and the provision of social help). An attempt

was also made to improve the level of education of the clerics through practical

teaching, conveyed through his Regula Pastoralis.Gregory linked the promotion

of monasticism with his plan for missionaries and he made piety an intelligible

and praiseworthy attribute in all circles of society. This thinking informed

his view of hierarchy, as when he peacefully opposed the title ‘Ecumenical

Patriarch’ with which the bishop of Constantinople questioned the precedence

of Rome, styling himself servus servorum Dei.

Gregory had won back for the papacy in Italy prestige that could never again

be completely destroyed. But in the seventh century the popes became strongly

dependent on the emperor. Clashes over Monothelitism led to intervention

by the emperor, which culminated in Pope Martin I being forcefully exiled

in 653.Tension remained after the condemnation of Monothelitism by the

Council of Constantinople (680–681) and this tension led to a new crisis

under Pope Sergius I (687–701). The so-called ‘Trullanum Council’, convened

by the emperor Justinian II in 692, amounted to a declaration of war on the

western church led by the pope, but the arrest of the pope failed this time,

owing to the anti-Byzantine stance of the army in Italy. This event symbolised

the beginning of the papacy’s break from the Byzantine Empire and its turning

towards the young church in the West.

The churches in the West were self-assured in their Christian belief and

respected Rome as the city of the apostle. But the churches in Spain and

Gaul (Francia) were not otherwise orientated towards Rome. After 587 Toledo

became the autocratic centre of the Spanish church and its links with Rome

weakened in the seventh century. In Lyons the metropolitan threatened to

create a leadership completely independent from Rome as part of an inde-

pendent Frankish church. The expansion of the Arabs into Spain, and the

rise of the Carolingians in Francia would eliminate these threats to the unity

of the church in the West, and for the ﬁrst time papal centralism could be

developed.

Arequirement for the latter was a functioning church bureaucracy. This

came about because of the practical needs of pastoral care as well as the admin-

istration of the Roman diocese. Notarii had existed even in the period of

persecution; in the sixth century they were brought together to form the schola

Markus (1997), pp. 94–5.

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Church structure and organisation 679

notariorum whose leader was the primicerius.

Under him was the secundicerius.

The notarii investigated civil and criminal matters but were also used as ambass-

sadors. The primicerius played an important role when the throne of St Peter

was vacant or during the papal election.

Another category of papal ofﬁcials were the defensores: mostly laymen and

lawyers, they appeared in the fourth century as protectors of the poor. Since the

time of Gregory the Great they had formed a working party (collegium)ofseven

men of which the leader, the primicerius defensorum, led the administration of

justice in the church of Rome and was its general advocate. Since the end

of the sixth century notaries and defensores had been taken from the ranks of

the lower clergy. More important than both groups of ofﬁcials were the seven

deacons of the city of Rome. They also formed a collegium with the priests of

the so-called title church. Because they were at the cardo (the hub) of the life

of the church they became known as cardinales (diaconi from around 500, and

presbyteri after around 700). Moreover participating bishops of neighbouring

Roman dioceses were added to the liturgy of the pope as cardinales episcopi.

In the ﬁfth century a single papal scrinium was created, whose job was

the management of the possessions and the income of the church in Rome,

and which soon became the heart of papal bureaucracy. Scriniarii and char-

tularii had been referred to since the time of Gelasius I. Since the sixth cen-

tury payments had been made for the management of papal property: ﬁrst

the posts of acarius (head of ﬁnancial management) and sacellarius (job co-

ordinator) appeared. The model for these posts was the imperial chancellery

in Constantinople; the posts of vestiarius and nomenculator, which dealt with

petitions, were also taken from the imperial chancellory.

The apokrisiar (responsalis) also attained great importance and from the ﬁfth

century worked as the papal ambassador in Ravenna and Constantinople. This

became a standing arrangement in the imperial capital after 500. The presence,

or long absence, of the apokrisiar at the court was soon interpreted as indicators

of the state of relations between the pope and the emperor.

Gregory the Great appointed a vice dominus as his deputy next to the

archdeacon and furthermore relied on people like the cubicularii from his

immediate surroundings. For the ﬁrst time monks were also brought in to

help with the government’s business, admittedly working only as consiliarii in

matters of a topical nature.

As far as the papal election was concerned, Pope Symmachus (498–514)had

already issued an election decree, which stipulated the designation of his succes-

sors and excluded the rest of the community from involvement. A century later

The name originally meant ‘he who signed the wax tablets (cerae) ﬁrst’.

ochl (1953), pp. 128–31; Angenendt (1990), p. 244.

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these rules were ﬁnally abolished but the ordinary people remained limited in

their involvement in the acclamation of a new pope. Overall the papal election

was impressively organised in both legal and liturgical terms. The election and

enthronement took place in the Lateran church and were followedby the claim-

ing of the Lateran palace, through which the taking over of the administration

was symbolised. The consecration and taking possession of the Petrine throne

in the church of St Peter completed the ceremony. Through this, a change in

the view of the importance of the papal ofﬁce became evident: the elevation

of the bishops of Rome became an indication of the universality of the pope.

metropolitan and diocesan constitution

Signs of subdivisions in the united church had been evident since the third

century. The regulations for consecration made by the Council of Nicaea in 325

(c. 4)presupposed the existence of the church provinces. It is accepted that the

dioceses were structured around a secular model. The boundaries of bishoprics

regularly corresponded to those of civil administration, although this was not

a deﬁnite rule. Some bishoprics were centred upon settlements that were not

towns and they could also extend over several towns. But the dioceses were

mainly dependent on the big urban settlements.

The metropolitan was the head of an ecclesiastical province and he ruled

from the civil capital of the province. His job involved leadership of the provin-

cial synod and issuing litterae formatae which served the bishops as a means

of control. However this metropolitan arrangement was not practised every-

where. In North Africa the primate took on the role of the metropolitan. The

primate was the bishop of the province who had been ordained for the longest

time, so the post was not connected to any speciﬁc metropolis. An exception

to this was the position of the bishop of Carthage who, along with the primate

of the African province, held the title of Primus totius Africae.Assuch he was

in charge of summoning and leading the plenary African council.

In Italy there were special arrangements. Milan became the metropolitan see

for several civil provinces, as did Aquileia. In these provinces (Venetia, Rhaetia,

Istria and Noricum) there were relatively few towns, and so Milan merited its

special position because of its status as an imperial residence and also because

of its demographic situation. However both metropolitan sees were surpassed

by Rome whose apostolic tradition meant that it was accorded pre-eminence.

The bishop of the ancient capital of the Empire had control of ten provinces

as well as the islands of Sicily and Corsica, which tallied with the number of

civil administrative provinces in suburbicarian Italy.

Angenendt (1990), pp. 43–4.

Church structure and organisation 681

In Gaul too, the alignment of the organisation of the church with that of

civil administration is clearly visible. The transfer of the Gallican prefecture

to Arles in 392 was followed by the rise in importance of the church of Arles,

at the expense of that of Narbonne. The orderly development of metropolitan

sees in Gaul collapsed because of the political division of the country in the

sixth century.

Caesarius of Arles claimed, with papal authority, the highest

position in the church in Gaul, but as a member ﬁrst of the Visigothic and

then of the Ostrogothic kingdoms he could attend neither the Burgundian

Synod of Epaon in 517 nor the Frankish councils.

In Spain the bishop who had been ordained for the longest time held the

position of prima cathedra episcopatus.Until the sixth century this was cer-

tainly without metropolitan authority. After the conversion of the Visigoths to

Catholicism, Toledo became the ecclesiastical as well as the political capital of

the kingdom, a double role that previously only Constantinople had enjoyed.

The bishop of Toledo, who had until then been subordinate to the metropoli-

tan bishop of Cartagena, became the primate in 589. The remaining bishops

were committed to appear once a year ad limina: they could also be appointed

from Toledo, being approved or dismissed from post by the primate at the

behest of the king. After 656 the bishop of the capital also became the senior

ﬁgure in the council of the kingdom, an honour which had previously been

bestowed upon those who had been ordained for the longest time and who

were deemed worthy. This unusually powerful position of the primate actually

undermined the metropolitan structure and his strong connection with the

king encouraged a secular element.

In England, because of the relapse of the mission from Rome, it was difﬁcult

to maintain the new metropolitan administration based on Canterbury. Here

the archbishop developed a position which did not arise from the co-operation

of comprovinciales but became effective through direct papal authority. The

pope sent the archbishop the pallium, which signiﬁed his legitimisation by

Rome. This new arrangement, having resulted in the novel title of ‘archbishop’,

then came to the continent with English missionaries in the eighth century and

there helped to revive the declining metropolitan administration. The arch-

bishopric signiﬁed the uniﬁcation of several smaller dioceses, and encouraged

the formation of a hierarchy which was enclosed within the church but which

had a strong link to Rome.

In the East the metropolitan administration was destroyed not only by the

incredible rise of the patriarchs of Constantinople but also by the emergence

of so-called autocephalous archbishoprics. The life of the imperial church

was gradually concentrated solely on Constantinople, as the patriarch soon

Heuclin (1998), pp. 69–70.

682 georg scheibelreiter

acquired the right of consecration, as well as authority over ofﬁces and teaching.

Autocephalous archbishoprics were simple dioceses. They did not have any

suffragans and often owed their existence to political or personal rivalries.

These circumstances led to the ﬁxing of the status of individual churches, as

we see for Constantinople in the Notitia Episcopatum under Justinian I,

or in

the Notitia Antiochena in the second half of the sixth century.

According to the laws of the church, bishops were inaugurated on the basis

of election by both the clergy and the people. More and more frequently in the

East this was contrary to imperial legislation and the decisions of the council.

In practice it was the will of the emperor that was the deciding factor. The min-

imum age of 35, the obligatory residence and the prohibition of long absences

from the diocese played a part in the decision, which in reality was hardly

according to the rules. The obligation to pay a ﬁxed tariff when appointed, in

order to pre-empt a possible charge of simony, was also a dubious regulation.

In the church in the West the right of appointment was likewise the prerog-

ative of the king. Under the Visigoths this remained an unchallenged process,

whereas the Franks continually protested against it. Even the recognition of

the rights and regulations of the church by King Chlothar II in 614 did not

really change anything in practice.

The position of the bishops in Francia

could not be freely determined within the categories of the church alone.

With the taking over of the ofﬁce of defensor, the bishop acquired a position

of public responsibility. In the seventh century these responsibilities grew to

include the gathering of taxes, which bound the bishop and the property of

the church even closer to the king. So an episcopal dominium,orlordship,

gradually developed, and this made it even more necessary for the king to have

inﬂuence over who occupied the bishoprics.

On the other hand in Gaul, from

the middle of the ﬁfth century, the ofﬁce of bishop gave the senatorial class

their only opportunity to exercise public inﬂuence and consequently this soon

led to the ofﬁce of bishop becoming strongly hereditary. The collapse of the

metropolitan synods in the second half of the seventh century also furthered

the autonomy of the episcopal position in ecclesiastical terms: the bishop now

ruled his diocese almost unhindered.

Amongst the diocesan ofﬁcers, the highest post was that of archdeacon.

The archdeacon was entitled to stand in for the bishop at the councils and his

After that thirty-three metropolitan and thirty-six autocephalous archbishoprics belonged to the

patriarch of Constantinople.

L. Br

ehier in Fliche and Martin (1948), p. 538.

Concilium Parisiense a.614 cc.2, 3.However it was already limited in the same year according to

Clotharii II. Edictum, c.1:‘certe si de palatio eligitur, per meritum personae et doctrinae ordinetur’.

Pontal (1986), pp. 225–34;Heuclin (1998), p. 190.

Heinzelmann (1976), passim; Kaiser (1981), pp. 55–74; Scheibelreiter (1983), pp. 172–201.