116 Chapter 6
into a variety of jurisdictions ruled by Franks, Burgundi-
ans, and other tribes. Italy was given over to the Ostro-
goths, but their rule was not destined to last.
In one final effort to reunite the empire, the eastern
emperor Justinian “the Great” (reigned 527–565) con-
quered North Africa from the Vandals and mounted a
campaign for the recovery of Italy. Assisted by his wife,
Theodora (c. 497–548), a former actress and prostitute
who was his equal in political skill and his superior in
courage, Justinian sought to rebuild the empire of Con-
stantine. He accomplished much, including the build-
ing of the great church of St. Sophia at Constantinople
and the long overdue codification of Roman law, but
his attempts at reunification failed. He was the first of
the Byzantine emperors.
In 552, after seventeen years of warfare, an army
under his eunuch general Narses defeated the Ostro-
goths. The resources of the peninsula were by now de-
pleted. Byzantine war taxes, together with forced
requisitions and looting by both sides, destroyed the
basis of subsistence while terrible plagues, spread by
the passage of armies, killed tens of thousands who had
survived the war. Some parts of Italy were reduced to a
mere seventh of their former population.
Devastated by war and by years of economic de-
cline, the country became easy prey for yet another
wave of Germanic invaders, the Lombards. These fierce
people quickly seized most of northern Italy. Unlike
the Ostrogoths, they preferred to kill the remaining
Roman landholders and confiscate their estates. The
successors of Justinian, impoverished by his ambitious
policies, could do little to stop them. By the end of the
seventh century, Byzantine control was limited to the
coastal regions along the Adriatic. The exarch or mili-
tary governor who ruled this territory did so from
Ravenna, a city built on a sandbar and protected from
the armies of the mainland by a broad lagoon.
The Evolution of the Western Church
(A.D. 306–529)
In the midst of political turmoil, the church in the west
continued to expand. As St. Augustine (354–430)
pointed out in his book The City of God,no essential
connection existed between the kingdom of Heaven
and any earthly power, and Christians should leave pol-
itics alone if they valued their souls. Augustine was
bishop of Hippo, near Carthage, and his view grew nat-
urally from the suspicion of political authority that had
been characteristic of the African church. He was also
the friend and convert of St. Ambrose. The City of God,
completed in 426, was written in response to the first
sack of Rome. In it, Augustine argued that “two cities
have been formed by two loves: the earthly by love of
self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the
love of God, even to the contempt of self.” The earthly
city must inevitably pass away as the city of God
grows. In practical terms, this implied that the authority
of the church must eventually supersede that of the
state, though ideally church and state should cooperate
for the greater protection of the faithful.
Augustine’s work lies at the root of medieval politi-
cal thought and reflects the growing gap between west-
ern and eastern concepts of the church’s role. That gap
was further widened by the evolution of the papacy.
The early church recognized four patriarchs—bishops
whose authority exceeded that of the others. They
ruled the dioceses (ecclesiastical districts) of Rome,
Constantinople, Alexandria, and Antioch. Of these, the
bishop of Rome was most venerated, though veneration
did not necessarily imply obedience. The erosion of
political authority in the west and the removal of the
capital to Constantinople caused the popes, notably In-
nocent I (served 402–417) and Leo I (served 440–461),
to claim universal jurisdiction over the church and to
base their claims more firmly upon the doctrine of
apostolic succession (see document 6.5).
Such claims were contested, and the Council of
Chalcedon greatly annoyed Leo by granting the patri-
arch of Constantinople primacy in the east, but papal
claims were based to some extent on political reality.
Throughout the dark years of the fifth century, the
popes often provided leadership when the imperial of-
fice failed.
Intellectually, too, the western church continued to
flourish. In addition to The City of God,St. Augustine
elaborated on a concept of sin and grace that was to
have a long-lasting impact on Western thought. He was
moved to write on this subject by the teachings of
Pelagius, a Briton who believed in unlimited free will.
Pelagius argued that a Christian could achieve salvation
simply by choosing to live a godly life. Augustine,
whose early struggles with sin are chronicled in his
Confessions,claimed that human nature was so corrupted
by its Fall from the Garden of Eden that salvation was
impossible without God’s grace and that grace is given
selectively. God, in other words, predestines some to
salvation and some to punishment. In 529, long after
both men were dead, the Synod of Orange rejected
Pelagianism but did not officially endorse the Augustin-
ian view, which remained an undercurrent in medieval
theology, only to surface again with renewed vigor in