In a conference poster, Paulo Lepoutre frames ‘Episcopal Authority and the Transformation of Romanitas in Fifth-Century Gaul: Evidence from Sidonius Apollinaris’ Letters’ as a functional substitution (CURF Spring Research Symposium, University of Pennsylvania, April 13, 2026).
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Abstract
This poster examines the transformation of episcopal authority in fifth-century Gaul through the correspondence of Sidonius Apollinaris (c. 430–489). Drawing on 147 letters addressed to 109 correspondents — 28 of whom were bishops — it argues that as Roman municipal institutions collapsed under Visigothic and Burgundian pressure, Gallic bishops assumed judicial, military, diplomatic, and economic functions previously held by secular administrators. The study further contends that this functional substitution drove a redefinition of romanitas itself: what began as a culture of civic, literary, and urban identity (paideia, urbanitas) was progressively recast as Catholic orthodoxy (Christianitas), producing a localized form of Roman identity — romanitas localis — that enabled cultural continuity under barbarian rule.
