The Conference of Carthage (AD 411)

Abstract

The so-called Conference of Carthage in 411 AD, a religious trial overseen by imperial authorities, about the standing of the Donatist and Catholic churches in North Africa provides a model case for the examination of textual practices and bureaucratic conventions obtaining in such meetings. They constitute a point of reference for the subsequent discussion of such practices more specifically at the councils of the following decades. The scrupulous attention paid by the imperial authorities as well as by the conflicting parties to the propriety of recording practices reveals the technical measures and steps undertaken in the production of a record unusually clearly; at the same time, the frequent challenges highlight the areas of contention and the competing purposes of participants that inform the making and eventual shape of the resultant protocols.