The Book of Pontiffs (Liber Pontificalis): The Ancient Biographies of the First Ninety Roman Bishops to A.D. 715 (Translated Texts for Historians, 6)

by Raymond Davis (Translator)

This book provides an English version of the first ninety papal biographies in the Liber pontificalis , from St Peter down to 715 AD. In these lives, the reader will find the curious mixture of fact and legend which had come by the Ostrogothic period to be accepted as history by the Church in Rome, and also the subsequent records maintained through to the early eighth century while Rome was under Byzantine sovereignty. This new edition has been fully revised.

Genres: Religion

216 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Raymond Davis read Greats at University College, Oxford, where he subsequently took a BPhil degree in the Later Roman empire and wrote his Doctoral thesis on donations to churches during the fourth and fifth centuries recorded in the Liber Pontificalis. He is now Honorary Senior Research Fellow of Queen's University, Belfast, and having taken early retirement, he lives and works in Oxford, continuing to specialise in the Later empire and to delve ever deeper into his favourite text.

Reviews

[Anatolikon · Rating 3 out of 5]

As this is a primary source, I am reviewing the edition, not the quality of the source itself.

The Liverpool Translated Texts for Historians series has produced a large number of high quality volumes on often obscure historians and topics in the late antique and early mediaeval periods. This series has filled an important gap and become something akin to the classicists' Loeb Classical Library, although these volumes do not have the original language text, but the number of volumes available and the fact that they provide translations from languages that are normally outside the skills of early mediaevalists like Syriac and Armenian has made the series a staple. Typically, each volume includes some substantial introductory material, the translation, and some usually good notes. That said, this volume includes some good introductory material, a good translation, a few useful maps, and almost nothing for notes. Davis specifically mentions in the introduction that a full commentary would go much too far and take up a great deal of space. In that he is certainly correct, but this series is typically not made up of detailed commentaries (the exception which I can think of is 'The Armenian History Attributed to Sebeos', but that exists in two volumes.) What this volume is lacking that the others have is not the detailed commentary as that is not a standard feature, but rather any sort of notes. Much of Davis' introduction argues that before the fifth century there is very little reliable material in the 'Liber Pontificalis', but there are no notes in the text to enlighten us as to just what might be reliable and what is not. Davis is spent his entire life studying this text, so he must have at least some idea. In the material from the fifth century through to the end of the text, there are also no notes to make little indications that the 'Liber Pontificalis' is right or wrong on some given topic, or has a confused date, and no references are made to other literature on any given issue. As such, this is little more than a reading copy. Basic notes would have improved the usefulness of this volume enormously and would not even have approached a full commentary. The book also lacks an index, which makes it hard to use thematically. The standard fare in this series is to have numerous indices, but this volume does not even have one. It does have a very helpful glossary of Latin ecclesiastical terms, but this does not compensate for the unimpressive nature of this volume compared to the rest of the series. This is a decent reading copy, but for serious work students and scholars will have to look elsewhere.

[AB · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really interesting stuff, especially when read alongside other sources (not always possible with the 'mythical' status of Popes from St Peter to Constantine. Take for example Damasus:

DAMASUS [1.10.366–11.12.384], born in Spain, son of Antonius, held the see 18 years 3 months 11 days. Ursinus was ordained in rivalry with him. A council of sacerdotes was held, and they confirmed Damasus because he was the stronger and had the greater number of supporters; that was how Damasus was confirmed. They ejected Ursinus from the city and set him up as bishop of Naples; Damasus stayed at Rome as prelate in the apostolic see.

Versus the same event from Ammianus Marcellinus:

Lampadius' successor was Viventius, a former quaestor of the palace, an upright and wise Pannonian, under whose quiet and peaceful administration there was general plenty. But he too had to endure an alarming outbreak of violence by the turbulent populace, which arose as follows. Damasus and Ursinus, whose passionate ambition to seize the episcopal throne passed all bounds, were involved in the most bitter conflict of interest, and the adherents of both did not stop short of wounds and death. Viventius, unable to end or abate the strife, was compelled by force majeure to withdraw to the suburbs. The efforts of his partisans secured the victory for Damasus. It is certain that in the basilica of Sicininus, where the Christians assemble for worship, 137 corpses were found on a single day, and it was only with difficulty that the long-continued fury of the people was later brought under control.

[John Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book seems to be a pretty good and well put together set of primary sources. I mark that I have finished it because GR does not seem to have a setting for indicating that you simply put the book down and decided to stop reading. That is significant because, if you are not using this book for an academic course or for scholarly research, you cannot possibly read it cover to cover.