Bishops, Ecclesiastical Institutions, and the Ostrogothic Regime 469
immediately with ordinary taxpayers.82 In fact the lacerna was a knee-length
light cloak, which seems to have been a favourite clothing item for a certain
type of cleric at the end of the 4th century.83 Moreover, Caesarius of Arles
routinely directed the women in the female monastery he had established to
weave him prestigious coats84 in order to have a byrrus85 and other vestimenta
meliora.86 Further testimony also demonstrates that the custom of bishops to
use byrri and lacernae as prestigious garments (more ornamental than func-
tional and therefore the target of more fastidious Christians) became firmly
established during the 6th century.87
Since the letter sent to the praetorian prefect Faustus rejected the exemp-
tion to a bishop because his request was deemed excessive, Theoderic did not
identify all ordinary taxpayers with the lacerna. In the final part of the text
the reference was evidently to those prelates of the richest and most impor-
tant sees who prided themselves (and whose position ensured their particular
apparel) on being able to make excessively presumptuous requests to the king.
The preamble of the letter was thus addressed: “Those who, with measured
requests, won the favour of our generosity, should not transcend, with exces-
sively presumption, the terms of our concessions.”88
The identity of the bishop to whom the exemption was denied is unclear,
but the text reveals that he was a bishop of an important see who, thanks to the
patronage of Cassiodorus’s father, Cassiodorus the elder, had already obtained
exemption for his ecclesiastical property from extraordinary charges (superin-
dicticiorum onera titulorum).89 The mechanisms used to enrich the churches,
tied to an effective patronage that guaranteed exemptions, can be read
between the lines of the letter. Indeed other lands were recently added to the
82 Kolb, Römische Mäntel, pp. 69–167.
83 Sulpicius Severus, Dialogi 1.21, PL 20, col. 197B: “Ceterum, cum neque opere neque virtute
conspicuus sit, si quis clericus fuerit effectus... uestem respuit grossiorem, indumentum
molle desiderat, atque haec caris viduis ac familiaribus mandat tributa virginibus, illa ut
byrrum rigentem, haec ut fluentem texat lacernam.”
84 Caesarius of Arles, Testamentum 42, eds. de Vogüé and Courreau, p. 394.
85 Vita S. Caesarii 2.12, ed. Bona, p. 148: “Tunc ergo, ut credidi Deo mihi peccatori inspirante,
birrum ipsius domni mei adprehendi, et vulneri meo imposui.”
86 Caesarius of Arles, Testamentum 15, eds. de Vogüé and Courreau, p. 384.
87 Fatti, “Nei panni del vescovo”, pp. 195–205; Lizzi Testa, “ ‘Tributa sunt purpurae’ ”,
pp. 380–93.
88 Cass., Va r. 1.26.
89 Even the kind of tax exemptions that Unscila requested from the king is Mommsen’s
conjecture, from the lessons indictitiorum vel supradictorum of K and superindictorum of
DXEA. Hodgkin, Letters of Cassiodorus, p. 159, preferred onera indictorum titulorum.