438 Sessa
When Gelasius became pope in 492, Italy had just emerged from a damaging
conflict between the armies of Odovacer and Theoderic (489–91), which rav-
aged parts of the north and put demographic strains on much of Italy. From
535 to 554, Justinian’s armies fought to regain the region from Ostrogothic con-
trol. The Gothic War had a devastating impact on certain cities such as Rome,
which was besieged three times, had its aqueducts cut, cemeteries violated,
and population starved. Even without the exigencies of war, Roman popes
struggled continuously with leading the church within Italy. Their challenges
were partially rooted in the unusually dense and dispersed nature of Rome’s
ecclesiastical organization. There was the episcopal city with 130 churches,
chapels, monasteries, and some 200 clerics; an ecclesiastical jurisdiction (Italia
Suburbicaria) containing between 140 and 200 bishoprics, and hundreds (if not
thousands) of suffragan clergy; and the church’s far-flung patrimonia, which
involved the oversight of thousands of peasant labourers and slaves. While the
size of the Roman church undoubtedly brought it considerable honour and
prestige, it also led to serious problems and tensions, which prevented Rome
from governing even its undisputed jurisdictional territory without crisis
and contention.64
Managing the Suffragan Clergy
During Late Antiquity, clergy at Rome and elsewhere were not neatly organized
into hierarchical grades, with clearly defined roles and spheres of authority. It
is simply inaccurate to talk of a ‘college of priests’ and a ‘college of deacons’,
much less of a ‘suffragan clergy’, without considerable qualification. Clerics in
Rome and beyond had multiple identities and allegiances: they were members
of natal and marital households; friends, patrons, and clients; and spiritual
experts whose primary loyalty was to those with whom they routinely inter-
acted, namely their local bishop, parishioners, landlords, and tenants.
During Gelasius’ tenure, approximately 20 per cent of Rome’s presbyters and
deacons broke with him after Gelasius reinstated a bishop whom the Roman
church had excommunicated in 484.65 Beyond Rome, Gelasius dealt with
perennial violations of his own regulations governing ordination, with clergy
who inappropriately performed certain liturgical rituals (including the case of
one priest who seems to have mixed Christian rites with magical rituals), stole
64 Allen/Neil, Crisis Management and Sessa, Formation of Papal Authority.
65 Richards, The Popes and the Papacy, pp. 66 and Demacopoulos, Invention of Peter,
pp. 80–4.