Divine Office 219dioceses These were the territorial administrative
units of medieval bishoprics. Originally, the diocese was
a secular entity in the Roman administrative reforms of
DIOCLETIAN and CONSTANTINEI. The church adopted
this division and placed a bishop at the head of each dio-
cese. He was assisted by a curia or court made up of vari-
ous officials and clergy. A province was made up of
several dioceses and governed by a metropolitan. Such
terms were not entirely exclusive, and became fixed only
in the 13th century. Dioceses, which only the pope could
establish, divide, combine, or abolish, were divided into
parishes.
See alsoCATHEDRALS AND CHURCHES; PARISH.
Further reading:Roy Martin Haines, The Administra-
tion of the Diocese of Worcester in the First Half of the Four-
teenth Century (London: Published for the Church
Historical Society, 1965); B. R. Kemp. ed. Twelfth-Century
English Archidiaconal and Vice-Archidiaconal Acta(Wood-
bridge: Boydell, 2001); R. L. Storey, Diocesan Administra-
tion in the Fifteenth Century(London: St. Anthony’s Press,
1972).
Diocletian (Gaius Aurelius Valerius, Diocles)(245–
316)Roman emperor dominate
Born in 245 in DALMATIA, and originally named Diocles,
he was the son of a freedman, a Dalmatian of humble
birth; little is known about his family. He married Prisca
and had a daughter, Valeria.
Diocletian was best known for his persecution of
Christians and his reform and stabilization of the office of
emperor and fiscal returns. Rising through the ranks, he
was commander of Emperor Numerian’s (r. 282–284)
bodyguard. When that emperor was murdered by a prae-
torian prefect, the troops chose Diocletian on November
20, 284, to succeed and avenge his master. By early 285
Diocletian had crushed all opposition and was deter-
mined to end immediately the 50 years of economic
decline and military anarchy that had seen 26 emperors
and scores of unsuccessful pretenders. He therefore
decided to appoint as his caesar (successor-designate) a
man of his own age, his old fellow soldier Maximian (r.
286–305). The wisdom of this policy was immediately
demonstrated by Maximian’s military victories in Gaul or
France, GERMANY, and North AFRICAbetween 286 and
- Diocletian, meanwhile, controlled the Danubian and
eastern frontiers. His satisfaction with the arrangement
led him in 286 to raise Maximian to the rank of coem-
peror and add two caesars, forming the tetrarchy. He
retired in 305 and died a retired emperor on December 3,
316, having reformed the entire structure of the Roman
Empire after years of civil war, social strife, and barbarian
invasion.
See alsoCONSTANTINEI; EUSEBIOS OFCAESAREA.
Further reading:Timothy Barnes, The New Empire of
Diocletian and Constantine(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1982); Stephen Williams, Diocletian and
the Roman Recovery(London: B. T. Batsford, 1985).Dionysius the Areopagite (Pseudo-) (fl. 500)unknown
author of Neoplatonic and mystical writings
Dionysius is only a pseudonym for an unknown author
who wrote in Greek in the late fifth or early sixth century.
Various individuals have been suggested for the author,
including Peter the Fuller (d. 489), Peter the Iberian (ca.
413–491), John Scholastikos, and Severos of ANTIOCH
(ca. 465–538). His THEOLOGYshowed a union of Chris-
tian thought with NEOPLATONISMthat viewed GOD’s rela-
tionship to believers as expressed through a set of
abstract and ecclesiastical hierarchies, rather than real
and immediate. The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy,supposedly
authored by him, presented the liturgy as an earthly mir-
ror of heavenly reality and as a possible intermediary
between the individual and God. Dionysius’s insistence
on the unity of God made his writings popular among
believers in MONOPHYSITISM. Nevertheless, his writings
were recognized as orthodoxy in the seventh century by
Maximus the Confessor (580–662).
By a ninth-century translation, JOHN SCOTTUS
ERIUGENA introduced Pseudo-Dionysius to the West,
where he was to have an enduring influence on medieval
mystical thought and PHILOSOPHY.
See alsoMYSTICISM;VALLA,LORENZO.
Further reading:Colm Luibheid and Paul Rorem,
eds., Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works(New York:
Paulist Press, 1987); Stephen Gersh, From Iamblichus to
Eriugena: An Investigation of the Prehistory and Evolution
of the Pseudo-Dionysian Tradition(Leiden: Brill, 1978);
Andrew Louth, Denys, the Areopagite(London: G. Chap-
man, 1989); Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Christian
Mystical Tradition from Plato to Denys(Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1981).diplomatics SeeARCHIVES AND ARCHIVAL INSTITUTIONS;
PALEOGRAPHY.distilled liquors SeeFOOD, DRINK, AND NUTRITION.Divine Comedy SeeALIGHIERI,DANTE.Divine Office Divine Office in the Middle Ages con-
sisted of the solemn hours of PRAYERin common that the
church celebrated every day. It included the night office
(vigils or matins), lauds, prime, terce, sext, none, ves-
pers, and compline. Offices were to consecrate by prayer
a particular moment of the day. Prayers were said at
night, sunrise, the beginning of work, midmorning, mid-
day, midafternoon, sunset, and a time for rest. The
Divine Office was to be celebrated by clerics living in a