The Roman Church And Its Bishops 429
as portraits of Cosmas, Damian, and Peter along with bishop Felix (see Figure
14.9 in Chapter 14). The circumstances under which Felix gained control of the
buildings inside the forum where he constructed the basilica are unclear. They
were ostensibly imperial properties, hence in the king’s charge, and it is pos-
sible that a court member handed them over to Felix simply because they were
derelict.18
Rome’s bishops also oversaw a special category of urban ecclesiastical
foundation, the titular church or titulus. The tituli were post-Constantinian
churches founded in the late 4th and 5th centuries ministered by two or three
presbyters (known as titular presbyters). By 499, Rome had as many as twenty-
nine tituli and they were haphazardly scattered all over the city.19 The uneven
topographical distribution reflects the tituli’s origins as private ecclesiastical
foundations built on donated land and/or with gifted funds from clerical and
lay patrons.20 Indeed the term titulus likely refers to the church’s legal status,
as a property that was privately founded but then legitimately transferred
(with all current and subsequent endowments) to the Roman church and the
bishop’s control.21 As we shall see, the tituli remained problematic institutions
from the bishop’s perspective, in large part because the presbyters assigned
to serve them had traditionally exercised de facto control over their rites and
finances.
Administration and Personnel
Once commonly characterized as the early ‘papal chancellery’, the Roman
church’s 5th- and 6th-century administration has been radically reappraised.
Recent studies describe an ecclesiastical administration that was relatively
small and unsophisticated, and which operated on an ad hoc basis. Moreover,
it was largely directed by the pope himself along with non-specialist, (mostly)
clerical personnel, rather than by corps of professionalized officials.22 It is
18 Felix IV was Theoderic’s appointee (see below), making the transference of these build-
ings to the Roman Church’s control more understandable.
19 The figure of twenty-nine is based on the signature list from the Roman Synod of 499,
ed. Mommsen, pp. 410–15, but the Liber Pontificalis mentions only twenty-five tituli. See
Guidobaldi, “Spazio ed organizzazione ecclesiastica ”, pp. 123–9 and Saxer, “La chiesa di
Roma”, pp. 553–5.
20 Hillner, “Clerics, Property, and Patronage”.
21 Hillner, “Families, Patronage”.
22 See Sotinel, “Le personnel episcopal” and Toubert, “ ‘Scrinium’ e ‘Palatium’ ”.