Building and Breaking Episcopal Networks in Late Antique Hispania

Abstract

This chapter examines the cultivation and operation of networks of groups of bishops within Hispania, rather than the networks of an individual bishop, although this latter element in significant in some of the cases that are examined. If they were to succeed, the bishops of late antique Hispania had to negotiate a wide range of networks at local, regional, and international levels. Conflicts over episcopal office often seem to have been caused by and/or led to interference by bishops from elsewhere in Hispania and further afield, while the regulations that were laid down by church councils for the resolution of such disputes required the consent (and thus encouraged the interference) of neighbouring bishops. Yet episcopal power was deeply embedded in local and regional communities: subordinate clergy and local and regional elites were vital to establishing (or challenging) a new bishop’s power in his city. Likewise, royal and imperial power often had a decisive impact on the outcome of disputes over episcopal office. Clergy, people, and monarchy were, at various times, directly incorporated into the formal processes that were laid down for the making of bishops at councils and in pastoral or theological texts. Procedure thus reflected the pragmatic experience of balancing potentially conflicting interest groups and agreeing on a mutually acceptable candidate.