Luci e ombre del Tardoantico nelle Costituzioni Sirmondiane

Abstract The text aims to propose a summary speech on Constitutiones Sirmondianae, highlighting the various grounds for discussion that have arisen from reading them since the first edition of 1631: discovery, attribution, authenticity, and above all the themes they deal with considered one by one, and thus the 4th-5th century society to which they refer. The topic that all of them involve, which is the episcopalis audientia, must attract a minimum of specific attention, and can perhaps be interpreted in a more ‘political’ sense: in the concessions that Constantine and the emperors after him had to make to the new religion, the episcopalis audientia attracted a practice of ‘judgment’ of the bishop that had been consolidating in the Christian community, which also became ‘opinion’ or, if you like, ‘testimony’, to be examined by the civil judge.