Bishops, Ecclesiastical Institutions, and the Ostrogothic Regime 465
of St Stephen and enriching it with a fountain equipped with a sophisticated
plumbing system.64
As the great senator Q. Aurelius Symmachus had once requested the
defence of his provincial possessions from governors on whose amicitia
he could count, so, too, the bishop of Milan requested and received from
Theoderic protection for the properties that the Milanese church pos-
sessed in disparate regions, making them more difficult to control.65 Thus
Count Adila, on the orders of Theoderic, supported the lands and men that
Eustorgius’ church possessed in inland Sicily, ensuring that they were not sub-
ject to excessive burdens (gravamen aliquod) and were protected from enemy
incursions.66 This is the oldest record of the properties of the Milanese church
in Sicily, accrued through the aggregation of portions of imperial property,
alongside modest contributions from the faithful (who in troubled times pre-
ferred to surrender their property to the church, in exchange for either lifelong
tenancy or a lease contract), as well as more extensive private assets, given
as a legacy or as gifts by laymen or bishops.67 It was Ambrose in fact who
bequeathed to his church the first Sicilian possessions and was perhaps imi-
tated by Pope Vigilius (537–55) and Pope Gregory.68
A variety of forms of abuse and oppression threatened the revenues of
such ecclesiastical possessions, such as misappropriation or embezzlement,
not only by possessores or important lay tenants but also by more powerful
churches, including the Roman church.69 An edict of Cassiodorus brings to light
another type of abuse that had become increasingly frequent in Ostrogothic
Italy and which accentuated a more general crisis: the abuse of possessores,
including by churches, through the imposition of illegal taxes on the authority
(real or perceived) of a higher source of power. In the province of Lucania et
64 Ennodius, no. 379 (Carmen 2.149), p. 271.
65 Symmachus, Ep. 9.6; cf. Roda, Commento storico, pp. 103 (commentary); 332 (text); and 374
(translation).
66 Cass., Va r. 2.29, ed. Fridh, p. 78, lines 2–12. The incursions alluded to here must be Vandal
raids. Even after the passage of the island to the Ostrogoths, the Vandals continued to
govern some strategic places. Lilybaeum, given to the Vandal king when he married
Theoderic’s sister, was a boundary constantly breeched by both Vandals and Goths.
See Clemente, “La Sicilia nell’età imperiale”, p. 476.
67 Cracco Ruggini, “La Sicilia fra Roma e Bisanzio”, p. 13.
68 Cracco Ruggini, “La Sicilia e la fine del mondo antico”, p. 516, n. 68.
69 For a late 6th-century example of Roman abuse of Milanese ecclesiastical property, see
Gregory, Ep. 1. 80 (August 591), ed. Norberg, pp. 87–8.