474 Lizzi Testa
of reconciliation with the injured party to the bishops accused by their faith-
ful because the alleged misdeeds were so obvious that they did not to require
a trial, and sometimes not even a review of the evidence. The solution was
indicated in the preamble of the letters and in their conclusions. And if they
had not acted accordingly, the king would have passed judgement personally.115
It does not appear, therefore, that Theoderic conceded to bishops powers
that imperial laws had never granted, but that he required the collaboration
of the church when it or its faithful had violated the official law because he
was convinced that a holy clergy could act to restore the violated rights more
quickly. In this sense, not much had changed since Constantine, but everything
would have been different with an eastern emperor and without a local king
capable of passing judgement with his secular court. The warp woven with an
old weft and some new threads gave way to a new weft interwoven with only
few old threads. At the end of the Gothic age a new era had begun and with it
a new Christianity.
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