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

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

Church structure and organisation 683

job included the management of the episcopal residence as well as the other

residences of the diocese. Further responsibilities which the archdeacon held

were that of an appointed judge, leadership of care for the poor, the education

of young clerics, supervision of moral and spiritual discipline amongst the

clergy, and the management of the diocese during any episcopal vacancy. His

power was completely bound to the authority and directive of the bishop, who

chose his representative from the circle of deacons.

Te nure of this highly

responsible post was often the prerequisite for the attainment of the ofﬁce

of bishop itself. In Gaul/Francia the archdeacons often became dangerous

enemies of the bishops within the church. The bishops therefore tried to get

rid of troublesome archdeacons by ordaining them as priests.

The archpresbyter was originally the oldest priest amongst the clergy of

the cathedral, who had priority in liturgical functions. In the hierarchy of

ordination he was above the archdeacon but as an ofﬁcer he was well below

him. He was the bishop’s appointed representative in his sacred occupation and

was appointed by him with the agreement of all the priests. Repeated attempts

to replace the archdeacon with the archpresbyter failed.

The oeconomus had an essential function in the ﬁnancial administration of

the diocese. First he represented the church’s property before the court, he

supervised the setting up and the maintenance of churches and he allocated

the clergy their keep. Apart from this he also supervised the serfs who worked

with the church’s goods and managed them at times of episcopal vacancy. The

oeconomus was generally a deacon. In the Frankish kingdom a vicedominus

did the job of the oeconomus from the end of the sixth century. As well as

responsibility for economic administration he also had responsibilities in the

bishop’s household.

All over the West institutions developed which created dangers that threat-

ened vacant dioceses from within.

In the ﬁfth century the post of interventor

or intercessor had already been invented in Africa and can be seen to have

been that of an administrator of the diocese. In Italy and Gaul the visitator

appeared a little later and he was entrusted with the same responsibilities as

the interventor by the relevant metropolitan or provincial synod. Reasons for

his appointment were the death, serious illness or dismissal of the bishop.

Legally this ofﬁcial was treated in the same way as a deputising bishop. His job

consisted primarily of taking in hand pressing business and making a detailed

inventory of property. He was also supposed to organise the election of a new

bishop. The post of commentator, which existed in Spain in the sixth century,

was similar: a bishop from a neighbouring diocese was usually appointed to

this position. All of these arrangements showed the weaknesses that existed

ochl (1953), p. 154.

Scheibelreiter (1983), p. 103.

ochl (1953), pp. 162–3.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

684 georg scheibelreiter

in the management of property when episcopal power was lost. Nevertheless

these ofﬁcials disappeared in the seventh century because they could not fulﬁl

their functions of control and order.

The organisation of sees developed rather differently in England. There

the ecclesiastical ofﬁcials were supposed to be monks. In the diocesan centres

cathedral monasteries were set up and genuine monastic characters arose who

should not be confused with the collegiate clergy of cathedral churches else-

where. In contrast with Ireland, this monasticism did not have a destructive

effect but rather incorporated a peculiar organisational form of spiritual life

into the constitution of the diocese.

the papal vicariate

As vicarius papae in Hispania,Bishop Zeno of Seville (472–486) was said to have

taken care of maintaining ecclesiastical regulations.

The papacy had thereby

introduced a special arrangement to control a self-contained church that was

outside of the hierarchy. Pope Hormisdas (514–523) thus limited the authority

that the bishop of Seville had had over the provinces of Baetica and Lusitania.

At the same time it was made clear that the privileges of the metropolitans

were not allowed to be encroached upon, even if synods were summoned by

the papal vicar. Because, in 517,Bishop John of Elche was also entrusted with

the preservation of conciliar canons, the papal decrees and the conveyance

of causae ecclesiasticae to Rome, one should doubt whether the institution of

the papal vicariate in Seville was a lasting creation; rather, individual special

authorities seem to have been called into being by particular popes. With the

conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism after 587, the supposed vicariate

ended along with papal inﬂuence in Spain. The conferment of the pallium on

Bishop Leander of Seville (579–600) was a personal honour that was part of

Seville’s traditions; it did not, however, signify a revival of the vicariate.

In Arles a papal vicariate is documented for 417–418, and in the second half of

the ﬁfth century reports about ecclesiastical circumstances and problems there

were expected in Rome. The bishop of Arles was supposed to summon synods

and issue recommended writings for Gallic clerics. Nevertheless in 500 rivalry

existed between Arles and Vienne whose renowned bishop, Avitus, extended his

power of consecration to the territory of Arles with the agreement of the pope.

Outofthis a conﬂict developed, which was ended in 514 by the conferment

of the pallium on Caesarius of Arles. Through this the latter became a sort

of super metropolitan for all the provinces of Gaul and Spain, which were

ruled by King Theoderic. Despite his ecclesiastical pre-eminence Caesarius

The authority which was granted by the pope Simplicius (468–483) was removed by Felix II.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

Church structure and organisation 685

behaved with great caution towards Rome: he had the decisions of the Gaulish

synod conﬁrmed there and entrusted himself with the supervision of vacant

sees only on an ad hoc basis. Such behaviour was not necessary for a papal

vicar. It obviously stemmed not from a structural arrangement, but rather

from occasional orders ad nutum pontiﬁcis.

Pope Vigilius (537–555) wanted to revive the vicariate in Arles in accordance

with the wishes of the emperor Justinian I. Pope Pelagius I (556–561), on the

other hand, acknowledged the bishop of Arles as the primate of Gaul and

the representative of the apostolic see, but the bishop of the time must have

requested the conferment of the vicariate. From the letters of Pope Gregory

the Great it becomes clear that at the beginning of the seventh century the

metropolitan of Arles was regarded as a special intermediary of the pope in

Gaul.

Along with general administrative tasks on Rome’s behalf, the bishop

was supposed to function as the pope’s representative in the kingdom of King

Childebert II (575–596). Only he could issue permits for other bishops to

travel. A new task assigned to him was the chairmanship of a group of twelve

concerned with matters of belief.

Although the pope requested the support

of the king in this institution, the vicariate had no future in Francia and it is

questionable whether the bishop of Arles became at all active in this sense. In

the seventh century Lyons was to become the leading ecclesiastical authority

in Gaul. For geographical reasons Arles could not maintain a central role in a

Frankish kingdom, which was expanding northwards and eastwards.

With the extensions of the authority of the patriarch of Constantinople

over Illyricum after the Council of Chalcedon,

the vicariate, which had been

created in Thessalonica, fell into oblivion at the end of the fourth century.

When in 535 (or 545) the emperor Justinian I raised the town of his birth,

Justiniana prima,tothe status of metropolitan capital, it obtained jurisdiction

over provinces that had previously belonged to Thessalonica as a papal vicariate.

Forced to agree, Pope Vigilius now gave Justiniana prima this position, but its

status was raised only at imperial request, and amounted to no more than a

change in terminology. Of a papal appointment to the vicariate here, one hears

nothing. Nor did anything change when Pope Gregory the Great recognised

the new vicariate by the sending of a pallium. The pope increased his inﬂuence

in the Balkans by having his administrative ofﬁcials intervene in synods there.

In the seventh century Thessalonica was again twice referred to as a papal

vicariate (in 649/53 and 681); but this seems to have been an empty tradition,

which reﬂected the interlude with Justiniana prima.

Gregory, Papae Registrum Epistolarum i.6.53.

Gregory, Papae Registrum Epistolarum i.5.58–60.

The Council of Chalcedon, c.28, made it clear that the dioceses of Asia, Pontus and Thracia now

belonged to the patriarch.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

686 georg scheibelreiter

The chequered history of the vicariate shows the attempts of the papacy to

assert claims in areas that were self-contained or open to other inﬂuences. It

had not been preserved in this form in the West and with the collapse of the

metropolitan constitution and the holding of synods it no longer had a work-

able basis. In the East, political and religious growth continued their separate

development, so the papal vicariate had only a temporary inﬂuence and did

not become a permanent structural element in the organisation of the church.

parish organisation

The term parochia originally meant the town community led bythe bishop.The

rural communities were at ﬁrst called diocesis: they were units of administration

for local episcopal churches. Since the end of the ﬁfth century both terms had

been used interchangeably.

Parochia has been used in its modern meaning

since the sixth century. In the seventh century diocesis meant bishop’s parish.

This conceptual change indicates that religious life in the parishes changed. For

the individual communities the bishop was no longer an immediate authority.

In the fourth century the lines of future parish organisation were already

visible in the great metropolitan sees of late antiquity (Rome, Alexandria and

Carthage). Around 400 in Spain, churches in castella, vici or villae were not

unusual. These were not exactly parish churches, but those that offered more

or less regular services without having a resident clergy permanently there to

perform religious duties. Occasionally in the sixth century they were made into

parish churches.

In southern Gaul churches were established in what had been pagan religious

centres. In later centuries the parish system was linked to the continuing process

of conversion, although around 600,aregular subdivision of dioceses into

parishes still did not exist.

In England in the seventh century local churches could be found scattered

across the whole country, but without local resident priests. Instead they were

more like oratoria, and were comparable to the great crosses that were erected

in prominent places in order to maintain prayer and private worship in rural

areas. The ‘minster’ was of great importance to religious communities, which

were sometimes subordinate to the big monasteries such as Whitby, Barking

and Wearmouth. They often took over the pastoral duties in rural areas.

Vogt in Jedin (1975), p. 226.

Mayr-Harting (1977), pp. 246–7.Onthe question of whether in the seventh century a parish

organisation led by a bishop, or the pastoral activities of monasteries and similar communities,

was predominant there is no agreement. On the so-called minster debate, see Foot (1989), pp. 43–

54,(1992a), pp. 185–92, and (1992b), pp. 212–25, and Thacker (1992), pp. 140–51.See also below,

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

Church structure and organisation 687

In the seventh century the network of country parishes became stronger.

The organisation progressed slowly from the south to the north. England and

the area on the right bank of the Rhine both received their ﬁrst proper parish

organisation in the eighth century.

The central ﬁgure in this development

appears to have been Caesarius of Arles. He strengthened the ﬁnancial position

of churches in the country that were only allowed to enlist the help of the

episcopal churches in cases of dire emergency. He also granted the right to

preach to the clergy in the country and encouraged the setting up of local

schools to educate young people in the ways of the clergy.

The increase in the number of rural churches led, in the sixth century, to

a deﬁnition of the priest’s role and to a ﬁxing of his prerogatives. In 506 the

Visigothic council in Agde stressed that weddings should only be performed in

cathedral or parish churches. In the ﬁrst half of the sixth century the Frankish

councils indirectly reﬂected an increase in the number of parish churches. They

were to enjoy the same rights as the episcopal churches, which involved them

taking part in the most important liturgical celebrations.

Later, regulations

of this kind were no longer made, so that one can conclude that a sufﬁcient

number of clergy were now to be found in the rural communities. In Spain,

however, there seems to have been an insufﬁciency. There many priests had to

look after several churches on Sundays because they did not have their own

permanent clergy.

councils and synods

At Nicaea in 325 it had been stipulated that every province should hold a synod

twice a year, which all the bishops should attend.

The metropolitan was the

chairman and the synod was supposed to handle such matters as the questions

of discipline and liturgy, the legality of election to bishoprics and the general

establishment or division of dioceses.

In the East the provincial synod was completely effective. In the West, where

the metropolitan constitution was not so well developed, it did not achieve

the same level of importance, and in Italy it appears not to have taken place

at all. Whether this lowest level of church assembly was derived from a secular

model is questionable, but there are signs of parallels in the way in which its

business was organised. The most developed form of synod, involving several

provinces, was the so-called plenary council of the North African church. This

p. 708, note 53. The Arian church in Vandal Africa probably had rural parishes around the year 500,

according to the Vita Fulgentii cc.6, 7.

In Italy too pieve are ﬁrst mentioned in the eighth century.

The councils of Orl

eans (511), c.25, Clermont (535), c.15.

Note that the pre-Constantinian church gatherings were already called concilium or synodus.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

688 georg scheibelreiter

was held once a year, every province sending three representatives who were

chosen at the provincial synods. Carthage held the chair and the council dealt

with matters throughout Africa.

The synod in Rome had a special position because it brought together all

the bishops in suburbicarian Italy. At this synod the strong position and the

far-reaching authority of the bishop of Rome were obvious, but the synod

also dealt with matters which affected other primary areas of ecclesiastical

jurisdiction. The decisions that were made here were often of import for the

whole church. The important provinces of Milan, Aquileia and Ravenna also

held joint synods for several provinces and this later became the normal form

for church assemblies.

In Gaul no single pre-eminent ecclesiastical site for the holding of syn-

ods could be established. Because the concept of power above metropolitan

level had in reality collapsed (despite papal support), the church assemblies

of the early sixth century had a somewhat ‘national’ character: thus Agde for

the Gothic enclave in the south, Epaon for the Burgundians and Orl

eans for

the Franks. Later, in Francia there was no single council for all the Frankish

lands, but rather synods for each of the Frankish kingdoms (Teilreiche), and it

was upon these that the awareness or horizons of the church were based.

strong relationship with Rome was not developed, the pope was not remem-

bered at assemblies, no concern for the problems faced by the Visigothic or

the Anglo-Saxon church was noted and somehow the rich legislative tradition

of the Spanish councils remained quite unknown in Francia. In the Frankish

synods the matter of religious practices was constantly discussed because this

had not been fully determined and caused social and disciplinary problems.

In England Theodore of Canterbury initiated a period of intense synodal

activity, beginning with the Council of Hertford in 673. Theodore’s aim was

to build up the fundamental structure of the English church. The subjects

discussed were the lifestyle and the spiritual welfare of the clergy, the powers of

the ofﬁce of bishop, the nature of monasteries and the problems of marriage,

but above all the difﬁcult question of the borders of the dioceses. A big problem

for the ‘national’ councils was the inﬂuence and participation of secular powers.

Since Hertford the synods in England had been ‘king free’: the archbishop was

the chairman. Considering the power that the kings possessed this appeared to

be the best way of avoiding political agitation.

At the same time it is accepted

by historians that whatever powers any Anglo-Saxon overlords (bretwalda)

might have wielded, they did not include the power to summon, lead or chair

councils for the whole of England.

Pontal (1986), pp. 113–68.

For the same reason the Anglo-Saxon synods were dated after the incarnatio verbi.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

Church structure and organisation 689

In late antiquity the imperial church council was summoned at the will of

the sovereign and this had implications for its content and form.

Clovis, king

of the Franks (481–511), exercised this imperial right in his kingdom. When

he called a council to Orl

eans in 511 this way of proceeding was perfectly

in order from the church’s point of view. The mens sacerdotalis of the king

was acknowledged, and he also announced the tituli (items on the agenda) of

the assembly. Through this the king became a sacred person and a holder of

ecclesiastical rights. With the decline of Merovingian power in the later seventh

century, Frankish synodal activity came to an end because only the king could

organise it.

The position of the king in the Spanish church had been even stronger since

the Council of Toledo in 589.Summoning councils, deciding the subjects to

be discussed and giving legal force to the resolutions of the councils were all

the rights and duties of the king. The councils in Spain thus became more

and more like the old imperial assemblies. They secured the king’s leadership

through the construction of a legal order of succession. The Visigothic king

was not only made the guarantor of a Christian way of life, he was also bound

to the Christian ethos when exercising his power. These were elements of the

Spanish synods in the seventh century and in this respect they were the most

advanced church assemblies in the West.

the clergy

Since the fourth century the conviction had existed in the church that a single

clerical rank containing different steps was necessary. This stated the condi-

tions for admission and created levels of competence. In the ﬁfth century a

differentiation was already being made between clerici superioris and inferioris

ordinis.Bishops, priests and deacons belonged to the ﬁrst category and were

exclusively consecrated by the bishop. Their special status was recognised by

the state. The positions of the lower clerics were not so clearly ﬁxed. The most

frequently mentioned are the subdeacon, acolyte, exorcist, ostiarius and lector.

These ranks did not exist all the time or everywhere; neither was it necessary

to progress through all the ranks. The spiritual nature of some of the posts was

even disputed.

The post of lector was regarded as the ﬁrst step in a clerical career and was

often occupied by boys. It involved reading and singing psalms at services. In

Rome the lectors formed the choir at Mass, whereas in the East singers and

The pope was mostly represented by legates, the results of the negotiations being communicated

to him. After Leo the Great (440–461), however, the popes repeatedly tried to check the council’s

decisions.

690 georg scheibelreiter

lectors were separated. The psalmista mentioned in the Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua

occupied a lower rank and was subordinate to the lector. A lector needed to

have a good education because this was often a requirement for entry into

higher orders.

The authority of the ostiarius is not easy to decipher. In late antiquity this

was a clerical grade but in the sixth century it was not occupied by a cleric. After

the Trullanum council (692)itwas no longer mentioned. The ostiarius’ job

was to supervise the congregation during the liturgy, and during ordinations

the key of the church was ceremoniously handed to him.

The exorcist held a clerical position without receiving the required ordina-

tion. Charisma conferred from God was necessary for his job. He looked after

the catechumens and energumeni (epileptics). However this job was not one

of great importance. It was already rare in the sixth century and seems to have

disappeared shortly afterwards.

Despite its Greek title the acolyte was hardly mentioned in the East. In

the West he carried out charitable works and performed sacramental services

(bearing the host, helping with conﬁrmation). In Rome there were forty-two

Acolytes so probably six worked with each deacon. They are documented in

Gaul from the time of Caesarius of Arles.

The post of subdeacon had been separated from that of deacon in the fourth

century. The function of the subdeacon is not clearly discernible everywhere.

In Rome they appear to have been helpers of the seven deacons but to have

gradually withdrawn from participation in services and sacraments in favour

of responsibilities in the management of the church’s property.

It is often difﬁcult to distinguish between the functions of the deacon and

the priest. The deacon appears often to have been a direct employee of the

bishop, sometimes even his representative in secular affairs. His responsibilities

included the management of the church’s property and also the choosing of

candidates for ordination. His standing was quite often greater than that of

the priest. In Rome since the end of the sixth century the deacons formed a

group of seven men at whose head the archdeacon stood. These men became

the most important clerics in the diocese after the bishop.

In the East deaconesses had a certain signiﬁcance. They had to be at least

40 years old and virgins or once widowed. They were admitted by the laying

on of hands and through prayer. The area of the sacrament was not accessible

to them; but they prepared women for baptism, cared for people in times of

illness and maintained contact with the clergy.

Sincethe fourth century therehad been disputes overthe differencesbetween

the priest and the bishop. At ﬁrst this lay expressly in the power of ordination.

In the early seventh century Isidore of Seville maintained that as sacerdotes,

priests and bishops were indistinguishable, but already in the ﬁfth century

Church structure and organisation 691

priests were often described and acknowledged as secundi sacerdotes.Only when

the priest had been allocated his own church did he have the authority to

perform baptisms and celebrate the eucharist; but he was not always allowed to

preach.

In Gaul the post of archipresbyter (arch-priest) was created, which presup-

posed that several priests were active within one church.

The archipresbyter

was only responsible for the spiritual welfare of the parish, above all for the

supervision of the way of life of the other parish clergy. In the seventh century

the post was often occupied by laymen, as is shown by the resolutions that

the synods issued to ban this. The usefulness of powerful laymen representing

clerics in court must have played some part in making lay people seem suitable

for this role. But these lay archipresbyteri disappeared again in the eighth cen-

tury, which was perhaps a preliminary stage in the development of the church

advocate, again a layman who was the legal representative of a church.

In Spain each episcopal church had an archipresbyter whose job it was to

administer one third of the church’s income for religious purposes. In the

seventh century he was granted the right to represent the bishop at councils,

which in general meant that he had priority over the archdeacon.

In England the tendency to recruit the cathedral clergy from monasteries

continued. Therefore most of the clergymen came from cathedral monasteries.

The idea prevailed that only those who themselves lived in the highest possible

degree of renunciation and purity could deliver salvation.

Originally, a cleric was supposed to prove himself in the ﬁrst grade of ordi-

nation, before he went any further. However Pope Gelasius I urged ﬂexibility

where festivals and ember days were concerned, in order to facilitate preach-

ing. The age of ordination was not deﬁnitely standardised, but there was a

minimum age.

The qualiﬁcations for a post inside the church were ﬁrstly

dependent on physical integrity. Therefore those with externally visible defects

were usually excluded from ordination along with the mentally ill and epilep-

tics. A moral lifestyle and proof of faith were required. New converts or lapsed

Christians were not ordained. Those repenting, proﬁteers or troublemakers

were also considered to be unsuitable for a post within the church. But these

standards were often ignored, as complaints about the ordination of indigni

prove. The admission of slaves, dependent peasants or freedmen was also prob-

lematic because of their social inferiority in the late antique and early medieval

periods. Reservations against people who had previously held secular ofﬁce and

who could be accused of bloodshed or participation in pagan festivals died out

The Council of Tours (567), c.20, speaks of Archipresbyteri vicani.

Thus acolytes and subdeacons were not supposed to be younger than 21.Deacons were supposed to

be 25 at the youngest, priests more than 30, bishops 45–50.

692 georg scheibelreiter

in the ﬁfth and sixth centuries, as to move into the higher ranks of the clergy

meant rejecting a secular career.

The appointment to a post in the church in principle came about through

election by the clergy and the people. However at the election of the bishop all

that remained to the people was the right of acclamation, whilst the inﬂuence of

the leading lay men increased. Neighbouring bishops and metropolitans often

made the ﬁnal decision. The Germanic ruler had very great inﬂuence upon the

outcome because the bishop, as a ruler himself, had a series of responsibilities

to the king. Apart from designation by predecessors (who were often relatives),

dishonest aiding and abetting and simony all had to be reckoned with. Elections

and ordinations were also sometimes carried out through conspiracies and

surprise attacks in which the principle vox populi equals vox Dei was followed.

The ordination always took place during the celebration of the eucharist.

Bishops had to be consecrated on Sundays, priests and deacons on Ember

Saturday or on the Saturday before Passion Sunday.

A theological pastoral knowledge was called for as a spiritual requirement

for a post in the church. At ﬁrst training was in the classical and secular mode,

for proper theological education was lacking. The Statuta Ecclesiae Antiqua

stated that a candidate for the post of bishop should be experienced in the

interpretation of the Holy Scriptures and be level headed, that he should know

the ecclesiastical rules and agree with the fundamental truths of faith. These

requirements became obsolete in the sixth century: training was mainly poor;

the Frankish synods say little about it. In general the principle was upheld that

laymen who wished to become priests and bishops had to spend at least a year

studying the discipline of the church. Caesarius of Arles demanded that every

deacon should have read the Bible four times; bishop Magnerich of Trier was

happy with it being read once. Council regulations in the sixth century were

satisﬁed with the art of reading and writing. Uneducated deacons and priests

were urged to overcome their faults.

Theological disputes were not possible in the West for a long time. Even with

the completion of the orderly ecclesiastical career ladder, theological knowledge

remained modest.

In order to be prepared to some extent, schools for the

clergy began to be established in the sixth century, although they can hardly be

described as institutions. It was therefore ruled by the Visigothic synods that

young lectors should be introduced to a knowledge of ecclesiastical principles

in the bishop’s household. In Gaul Caesarius of Arles made a similar proposal

for rural priests in order to advance local young people. Bishops with a literary

education existed only in Spain in the sixth and seventh centuries. They were

brought up in monastery schools where the individual priests received a libellus

Scheibelreiter (1983), pp. 100–1.