Rome and the Invention of the Papacy
The Liber Pontificalis

The first full study of the most remarkable history of the early popes and their relationship with Rome, the Liber pontificalis.

Rosamond McKitterick (Author)

9781108836821, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 25 June 2020

288 pages
23.5 x 15.9 x 2.2 cm, 0.56 kg

'It is through the Liber Pontificalis that we, historians of the 21st century, with all the necessary critical attention of which Rosamond McKitterrick gives a masterful demonstration, still tend to read and understand the history of Rome becoming Christian and of its bishops becoming popes and therefore of the Church, at least in the West.' Michel Sot

The remarkable, and permanently influential, papal history known as the Liber pontificalis shaped perceptions and the memory of Rome, the popes, and the many-layered past of both city and papacy within western Europe. Rosamond McKitterick offers a new analysis of this extraordinary combination of historical reconstruction, deliberate selection and political use of fiction, to illuminate the history of the early popes and their relationship with Rome. She examines the content, context, and transmission of the text, and the complex relationships between the reality, representation, and reception of authority that it reflects. The Liber pontificalis presented Rome as a holy city of Christian saints and martyrs, as the bishops of Rome established their visible power in buildings, and it articulated the popes' spiritual and ministerial role, accommodated within their Roman imperial inheritance. Drawing on wide-ranging and interdisciplinary international research, Rome and the Invention of the Papacy offers pioneering insights into the evolution of this extraordinary source, and its significance for the history of early medieval Europe.

1. The Liber pontificalis: text and context
2. The Liber pontificalis and the city of Rome
3. Apostolic succession
4. Establishing visible power
5. Bishop and pope
6. Transmission, reception and audiences: the early medieval manuscripts of the Liber pontificalis and their implications
Conclusion: the power of a text

Subject Areas: Church history [HRCC2], Medieval history [HBLC1], European history [HBJD]