456 Lizzi Testa
attentive against such actions, so that you, who are famous in war, will also be
made eminent for compliance with legality.”20
Presenting the protection of church property as an act of civilitas was
one of the bright new threads of Ostrogothic policy that appears in the old fab-
ric of Italy. In the few short years between the wars in Sirmium and Provence,
the term civilitas was employed with a remarkable range of meanings but in
essence the propaganda that hinged on this ideology was intended to enhance
Theoderic as the guarantor of the legality that he, alone among the barbarian
kings of the West, was able to impose and enforce.21 The church of Narbonne
was expected to be an example of civilitas because it had property (possessio-
nes) to protect. These were safeguarded from potential usurpers because they
were sufficiently numerous and productive as to place the town church among
the great local landowners. The phenomenon, which grew during the 5th
century, became particularly evident in Ostrogothic Italy. Among the various
innovations in urban Christianity of the time is that which the archaeologi-
cal data of the peninsula best demonstrates:22 the revenue of churches of the
major cities, which served as imperial residences and provincial urban centres
of government, such as Milan, Ravenna, Aquileia, and Rome came to match
the revenue of wealthy local landowners.23 In many cases, this happened not
only because those churches were able to attract larger donations (above all
from emperors, officials, members of the court, and various pious people) and
thus become wealthier, but also because the urban aristocracy and provincials
became proportionally poorer, suffering from military incursions, political
upheavals, expropriations, and the general decline of favourable living con-
ditions, which quickly effected the lifestyles of those accustomed to living
comfortably.
The wealth of certain churches, therefore, came to be on par with the nobil-
ity. Ostrogothic power depended upon the support of those churches, just as it
depended upon other landowners, who were willingly redeemed (such as the
spectabilis Magnus) from a momentary lapse of loyalty to Theoderic’s regime.24
20 Cass., Va r. 4.17, ed. Fridh, p. 154, lines 11–13: “[.. .]Esto contra talia omnino sollicitus, ut qui
es bello clarus, civilitate quoque reddaris eximius.”
21 On the ideology of civilitas see Delaplace, “La ‘Guerre de Provence’ (507–511)”, pp. 88–9;
also Heydemann in this volume.
22 Cantino Wataghin, “La città nell’Occidente tardoantico”, pp. 71–4.
23 Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, pp. 460 and 463–70.
24 As Brown, Through the Eye of a Needle, pp. 492–6 recently made clear, “as far as wealth was
concerned, there was no such thing as ‘the Church’ with a capital C... Most small cities
shrunk: some collapsed entirely”.