The Roman Church And Its Bishops 437
his pallium to Boniface II at a deathbed council with clergy and lay nobles.60
In the same year, the Senate issued a written address to the clergy of Rome
(which they directed to be posted in all tituli) forbidding any discussion of suc-
cession and threatening with exile anyone who accepted a nomination for the
episcopate before the death of the pope. At the very least the Senate’s act—
the first of its kind—suggests that it favoured a more regular process for
episcopal succession.61
Unsurprisingly, Boniface did not smoothly ascend to the see. Many Roman
clerics supported the elderly Alexandrian Dioscorus, a popular deacon in Rome,
who died a month later thereby ending the schism. Boniface then attempted to
formalize the living bishop’s nomination of a successor by convening a synod
at St Peter’s, where the attending clerics signed the pope’s decree to this effect.
However, when Boniface appointed the aristocratic deacon Vigilius so many
clerics objected that Boniface rescinded the decree, which he ceremoniously
burned before the confessio at St Peter’s basilica.62 Precisely what had ensued
during Boniface’s tenure regarding succession is hard to reconstruct, but it was
problematic enough for the Senate to issue its first senatus consultum regulat-
ing ecclesiastical affairs. In a letter from Athalaric to John II, the king refers to
a senatorial measure passed during Boniface’s episcopate that once again for-
bade bribery and other financial incentives for “procuring the bishopric”.63 Not
incidentally, the letter outlines several regulations added by Athalaric, which
limited the fees (sportulae) that royal officials could charge parties during a
disputed Roman election (presumably for presenting their case to magistrates
or the king) as well as the sums that could be paid out to the people for support
of a particular candidate. It would seem that John II’s election, too, was busi-
ness as usual at Rome.
Governing the Roman Church in Italy
Governing the Roman church during the Ostrogothic period was by all
accounts enormously challenging. For one, it is an era bookended by warfare.
60 Cassiodorus, Variae 8.15, from Athalaric to the Senate. For the praeceptum of Felix IV, see
Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, p. 282.
61 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, p. 282 for the text of the senatorial statement. Scholars
disagree on whether the statement was meant to support or censure Felix IV’s praeceptum.
62 Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, p. 281.
63 Cassiodorus, Variae 9.15. Pietri, “Aristocratie et société cléricale,” p. 465 and Barnish,
Cassiodorus, p. 113, n. 5.