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CHAPTER 17
Bishops, Ecclesiastical Institutions, and
the Ostrogothic Regime
Rita Lizzi Testa*Introduction: Politics and Western Ecclesiastical Development
In a period characterized by instability and rapid change, the complexity
of Ostrogothic Italy is reflected in the ambivalence with which our sources
describe Theoderic. Late Roman authors represent him both as a man from a
tough military tradition, at the head of a polyethnic amalgamation dominated
by rival leaders, and as an eastern consul, who had spent his entire youth at
the court of Constantinople;1 also as a good and just king at the beginning of
his reign, but as tyrannical and cruel in his final years.2 Tyrannos by reputa-
tion but imperator in reality, Theoderic was legitimated as king of the Goths in
Constantinople.3 Criticized as an inlitteratus, he was still capable of appreciat-
ing the beauty of literary form and preferred to use the Daedalian rhetoric of
Cassiodorus in his official correspondence.4 To these ambivalences we must
add his religious policy. Arian in faith, he enriched his residential city Ravenna
with splendid sacred buildings for that cult, but was also a powerful patron
- This chapter could not have been published without the attentive revisions of my colleagues
and friends Kristina Sessa and Jonathan Arnold. I would like to thank them both for their
invaluable assistance.
1 From 459 and 469: Jordanes, Getica 52, ed. Mommsen, p. 128. Cf. Collins, “Western Kingdoms”,
pp. 126–7.
2 Excerpta Valesiana, Pars Posterior 85–94, ed. Moreau, pp. 24–7: “iubente non rege, sed
tyranno.” Traditional opinion about the change of Theoderic at the end of his reign can
be found in Pietri, “Aristocratie”, p. 461, and more recently in Sardella, “Giovanni I, santo”,
p. 485; but see contra, Moorhead, “The Last Years of Theoderic”, and Moorhead, Theoderic,
pp. 212–45.
3 Procopius, Wars 5.1.26–30, ed. Dewing, pp 10–13.
4 Procopius, Wars 5.2.16, ed. Dewing, p. 18; cf. Excerpta Valesiana 61, ed. Moreau, p. 17: “dum
inlitteratus esset, tantae sapientiae fuit.. .” and 79, p. 23: “Igitur rex Theodericus erat inlit-
teratus.” Ennslin, “Rex Theodericus inlitteratus”, pp. 391–6 and Grundmann, “Litteratus
illitteratus”.