Although Constantinople had withstood the Muslim siege of 667–9, Constantine IV was unable to consolidate his authority until he defeated the Arab naval forces off the coast of Asia Minor, near Syllaeum in 672 and again in Lebanese waters in 677/8. These two victories demonstrated the vital importance of maritime supremacy and Constans II’s success in rebuilding the Byzantine navy. They permitted the emperor to negotiate a very favourable peace treaty, which obliged the Arabs to make annual payments of 3,000 gold coins, 50 captives and 50 horses.1 This was partly necessary in order to confront a new enemy in the Balkans, where the Bulgars crossed the Danube frontier. Constantine IV’s appreciation of the wealth of the western provinces and Pope Vitalian’s support for his imperial inheritance against the claims of Mizizios in Sicily in 668 probably influenced the emperor’s decision to reverse Monotheletism and end the schism with Rome.2
In 678, the emperor initiated the repudiation of Monothelete belief by announcing that he would summon an oecumenical council to Constantinople to reunite all Christians in belief in the two wills of Christ. This fundamental change involved removing the Constantinopolitan Patriarch Theodore in 679 and replacing him with a new leader, George (679–86), chosen to preside at the council.3 Pope Agatho welcomed the proposal as a return to the doctrine approved in Rome and throughout the West. As we have seen, he summoned the western bishops to respond and Archbishop Theodore of Ravenna went to Rome in 680 to participate in this Roman synod. The pope’s long response to Constantine IV was read out and signed by all the 125 bishops present.4 Agatho then appointed a team of educated men with some knowledge of Greek – bishops John of Portus, Abundantius of Tempsa and John of Rhegium, two priests and a deacon from the Roman see, and his vicars in the East: the bishops of Thessalonike, Corinth and Gortyna (in Crete), plus Theodore, a priest from Ravenna – to represent him at the council. In contrast to this enthusiastic western approval, many bishops in the East who had embraced the definition of Monotheletism in 662 remained loyal to it and refused to attend the opening of the council.
In the history of such universal gatherings the definition of correct belief was always the most important aspect. The first council, held in Nicaea in 325, and all subsequent meetings had devoted much attention to this. At Nicaea, however, regulations had been agreed (for example, the age at which priests could be ordained) and these became known as canons. They were incorporated into civil law and canon law thus developed in parallel with imperial law. Additional canons had been issued by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 but none since. The Sixth Council of 680 was dominated by the restoration of orthodox doctrine (Duotheletism) and then, twelve years later, the Council in Trullo promulgated 102 canons to provide rulings on clerical behaviour, discipline and religious art – issues that had evolved since 451. Both these seventh-century meetings were held in the Great Palace of Constantinople in a hall with a dome (troullos), but the first was known by its place in the series of universal councils, while the second of 692 is usually identified by the place where it was held – in Trullo.
Theodore, the Ravenna priest, travelled to Constantinople with the papal delegation to the Sixth Oecumenical Council and is listed among the bishops who participated. He was probably chosen because he was already familiar with Constantinople or knew Greek. His presence is recorded from the first session, held in November 680, through to the final decrees of the eighteenth session on 16 September 681, which he signed as Theodore, presbyter of the church of Ravenna, representing Archbishop Theodore. As the only individual from the capital of the exarchate, he was appointed to an elevated position (eighth) in the order of signatories, immediately after the three papal representatives (who occupy the first place), four other patriarchs and two senior metropolitan bishops of Thessalonike and Cyprus. He thus signed the acts ahead of the bishops who acted as legates of the Roman see (John of Portus, Stephanos of Corinth and Basil of Gortyna) and the two papal apocrisiarii.5 It was the first time a priest from the church of Ravenna had attended such a gathering and his place in the order of precedence was a sign of the importance of the city in the eyes of Constantinople.6 At most previous oecumenical councils the pope or his representatives had spoken for the entire West, and very few, if any, bishops from other parts of Italy took part. On this occasion, the presbyter Theodore participated in the council as part of the papal team and returned to Ravenna with personal information about its conclusions.7 Neither the archbishop nor the general populace of Ravenna could have remained ignorant of the major doctrinal change that had taken place in order to reunite the Christians of East and West.
Theodore’s position in the ecclesiastical hierarchy highlights one big difference between the eastern church and its western counterpart: the patriarch of Constantinople ordered the sees under his control according to a fixed ranking, which also determined their salaries. To be appointed to the see of Caesarea in Cappadocia, the first in rank (protothronos), was not only the highest honour but also carried a more substantial income than any other bishopric.8 By the same token, the newly created bishoprics that appear in the lists of signatories of 680–81 and 692, such as Aurillioupolis (number 165), some of the islands of the Aegean and inland sees recently reconquered from the Slavs, had much smaller incomes.9 Candidates for some of these poorer sees might refuse the appointment on the grounds that they wanted to wait until a richer one became vacant. For one deacon in the wealthy church of Ravenna such a ‘promotion’ would have meant a reduction in his income and he demanded compensation. Among the wellestablished churches, such as Thessalonike and Corinth, there was always an element of competition for greater honour, as clerics hoped to attain a higher rank.
Nothing comparable existed in the West where the bishop of Rome consecrated all the metropolitan bishops and their age determined the hierarchy – the oldestliving metropolitan held the highest rank and authority after the pope. Suffragan bishops under their metropolitan shepherds may have competed for priority and greater honour and they all derived their incomes from local properties and gifts. But the western sees were not ranked in a particular, unchanging, order, which would have been very difficult to establish in the seventh century. At individual councils and synods, the order in which representatives of individual churches signed their agreement was based on the seniority of those attending, and just for that event.
While there is no evidence that young Johannicis, the poet and scribe from Ravenna, was in Constantinople at the time of the Sixth Council, he may have been involved in the dissemination of the council acts. A fragmentary papyrus discovered in Ravenna preserves a unique list of thirty-six episcopal signatures in Greek, made at the council or copied shortly after, which displays the very different ways in which these individuals wrote their names. Some used majuscule letters (grammata ekklesiastika), others minuscule in a form called halfcursive, which is only documented from the ninth century.10 This partial list is therefore the earliest record of such a Greek script used in the context of the penultimate session of the council, dated September 681, which was attended by those who signed in their own personal styles. The only complete record of this session is preserved in the Latin acts.
How did the fragment get to Ravenna? It seems unlikely that Theodore the presbyter would have brought it with him, since the city’s archive contains no other papyrus records of the Sixth Council. But Johannicis, a skilled translator and scribe, might well have been interested in the different scripts employed and could have carried it from Constantinople to Ravenna when he returned before the end of the seventh century. However it travelled from the imperial capital to the Italian city, the fragment is the sole witness to original Greek signatures of thirty-six bishops at the council, and another mark of the close relations between Ravenna and Constantinople.
Eastern attachment to the singlewill doctrine, which had been observed throughout the empire since the early seventh century and enshrined as correct belief by Constans II in 662, appears to have been widespread. Many bishops refused to attend the first sessions of the Sixth Council; only after the condemnation of the Monothelete leader Makarios of Antioch on 7 March 681 did larger numbers participate, and the final declaration of the council in September, signed by 165 bishops, substantiated the claim that this was a universal gathering.11 Monothelete loyalty also persisted among the military and, in the summer of 681, soldiers of the Anatolikon army marched to Chrysopolis demanding that Constantine IV rule with his brothers Herakleios and Tiberios, as a symbolic holy trinity. The emperor had the leaders of the revolt impaled at Sycae and mutilated his brothers by cutting their noses, exiling them so that they could never rule.12 After the condemnation of Monotheletism, Makarios of Antioch and several other supporters were exiled to Rome, where Pope Leo II tried to convince them of their heretical views.13 The council of 680–81 had achieved Constantine IV’s major aim of recreating unity with Rome, which he hoped would strengthen the Christians in their battles with Islam and other ‘barbarians’.
In July 685, four years after presiding over the Sixth Oecumenical Council, Constantine IV died and his eldest son Justinian, named after his famous predecessor who was commemorated on the sanctuary walls of San Vitale, acceded to the throne. Continuing opposition to the council’s condemnation of Monotheletism forced him to reaffirm its decisions. Fearing that the text of the Sixth Council might be corrupted and altered by falsifications and intrusions, he sent an order dated 17 February 687 to the pope, instructing him to keep it unchanged. In this letter he recorded how he was doing the same in Constantinople, having the acts read to a gathering of all church leaders including the pope’s apocrisiarius, the Senate, palace workers, members of craft guilds and representatives of the people (probably drawn from the Blues and the Greens), and all his military leaders, so that they would know the correct definition. When they had all listened diligently, he made them signal their agreement.14 In this way, without circulating copies of the proceedings, which might become corrupted through faulty copying or deliberate alteration, he assured the pope that everyone in his empire understood the importance of the decision to approve the two wills of Christ. The letter was addressed to Pope John V, who had died in August 686, so it was delivered to Pope Conon, bishop of Rome from October 686 to September 687.
In the list of military units that were summoned to this gathering, Justinian names those from the East – the Exkoubitores, and the armies of the imperial Opsikion, the Anatolian, Thracesian and Armeniakon provinces – followed by those from the West led by the army of Italy, the Cabarisian, Septensian and Sardinian forces, and finally the army of Africa. The precise significance of the names of the eastern forces is disputed, but the roles of the exarchs of Ravenna and Carthage, who commanded the armies of Italy and Africa, and the governor of the island of Sardinia are perfectly clear. Theodore II, who was so devoted to the ecclesiastical life of Ravenna, was exarch in 686.15 The names Cabarisian and Septensian refer to the Caravisiani, a unit equipped to transport troops by sea, and other naval units based in the Balearics and the tip of North Africa (Septem/Ceuta). It seems very plausible that Justinian had commanded the leaders of these military and naval units to come to Constantinople for the proclamation of the true Christian faith, if they were not already in the capital. Organizing their presence required time, at least several weeks in good sailing weather for the westerners. So, although the letter reporting this meeting was sent in February 687, the orders to attend probably dated back to the previous year, before the seas became too dangerous for regular sailing, and the gathering may have taken place towards the end of 686. It must have been one of the first important tasks the young emperor set himself.
As the leader of the army of Italy, Theodore the exarch received the summons to Constantinople and left Ravenna in the autumn. His successor, John Platyn, was nominated to replace him and set out from Constantinople in the spring of 687. It is probable that both of them would have participated in the meeting in 686 when the decrees of the Sixth Oecumenical Council were read out to reconfirm the doctrine of twowills in Christ. The theological agreement meant that exarchs, who had responsibility for the confirmation of every new pope as the emperor’s representative, could leave the administration of the duchy of Rome to their officials and did not intervene in local matters unless quarrels over papal elections demanded their presence.
This was precisely what happened in August 686 when the army of Rome under its duke (dux, appointed by the exarch) supported one candidate, while the clergy favoured another. In this case the quarrel was resolved by the election of an alternative, Conon. But in September 687, when Pope Conon died, his archdeacon Paschal tried to gain the papal throne by bribing the new exarch John Platyn. The Roman Book of the Pontiffs is quite clear that John Platyn went along with this by ordering the judges (whom he appointed) to make sure Paschal was elected. Again, the two rival parties eventually agreed on a third candidate, Sergius, but Paschal secretly appealed to the exarch and his judges to come to Rome, promising a bribe of 100 lbs of gold to secure his own election. When John Platyn arrived completely unannounced (the Roman army didn’t even go out to meet him at the customary place with flags and standards), he realized that everyone except Paschal had accepted the nomination of Sergius. He abandoned the cause of the archdeacon but then demanded that the bribe he was expecting should be paid by the church of Rome. Pope Sergius, understandably, protested that he had played no part in the scandal and could not pay. He even handed over the chandeliers and crowns that hung in front of the altar of St Peter’s as a pledge, but John demanded the full amount, which had to be raised. Paschal was later stripped of the rank of archdeacon and imprisoned in a monastery.16
John Platyn’s discreditable intervention in the election of Pope Sergius emphasizes the power of the exarch. But in the case of Theophylaktos, who was promoted from the post of strategos, commander in Sicily, to exarch, Pope John VI (701–5) had to protect him from local opposition to his appointment. News of his imminent arrival in Rome caused at least sections of the army of Italy (militia totius Italiae) and certain ‘lower elements of the Roman population’ to riot.17 It seems that these poorer people were accusing certain individuals of acquiring wealth illegally and wanted the exarch ‘to strip them of what they owned’. The presence of the army became so threatening that the pope closed the city gates and sent priests out to pacify the crowds. In this case, the pope protected the newly appointed governor, who would otherwise have faced considerable danger before he even reached Ravenna.
Papyri of this period confirm the importance of protecting legitimate claims to property, such as the gifts made to the church. In one such gift, made around 700, Johannis and his wife, Stefania, present a small plot of land to Johannia, the abbess of the monastery of St John the Baptist, which is called ad Navicula, suggesting that the nunnery was situated near the sea or port.18 The donor, Johannis, is described as vir clarissimus and primicerius of the numerus Ravennatensium, revealing his membership of the local military unit, and Sergius, one of his witnesses, was domesticus numeri Armeniorum, an official of the Armenian detachment. The foundation of nunneries to house dedicated Christian women was a feature of early Christian devotion, well documented at Rome, Constantinople and in Lombard cities where rulers adopted the same practice (often, it seems, to dispose of their female relatives). As Ravenna was ruled by an imperial official rather than a monarch, the same need didn’t arise, but there must have been many quite wealthy women who preferred to live in religious communities and therefore needed nunneries.19 In another fragmentary papyrus of c. 650, a similar mixture of military and ecclesiastical officials come together to witness the gift of a city garden made by Gaudiosus, defensor of the Ravenna church, to his church. The three witnesses, whose names are lost, were all military men: two were domestici of the detachment of Leti, and a vir honestus was a guardsman, scol[aris??], in Classis. They testify to Gaudiosus’ gift in Latin and he signs his name using Greek letters for his Latin titles.20
Such documents to guarantee the legality of gifts are common to all parts of the West in this period of early Christendom. But by the last decade of the seventh century, Ravenna had risen in stature – both in ecclesiastical terms, as seen by its eighth position in the rankings of the patriarchate of Constantinople, and in terms of its military strength, when the exarch commanded the army of Italy in putting down the revolt of Mizizios. Its inhabitants identified themselves as loyal subjects of the emperor in Constantinople, to whom they would turn if their secular or religious leaders failed them. The city housed facilities that encouraged teachers, poets like Johannicis, scribes like the unnamed copyist of theological texts, and scholars curious about the world, like Odo and his brother who could use local resources to compile a fascinating seventh-century cosmography, as we shall see.