of bishops in Southern Italy. It is not safe to make much depend on this. We know, for instance, of Patriarchs of Constantinople named Maximus and Flavian. Latin and Greek names seem to have been exchanged freely. Still, when we find a number of Southern Italian bishops called by such names as Sergius, Maximus, Innocent, Benedict, it is difficult not to see in this a sign of Latinity.
We have, then, as the situation before the eighth century, a background of Greek Christianity already considerably overlaid by Latin uses in Southern Italy, less so in Sicily. But the Latin rites used here were not Roman. As for the rites followed by the Greeks, it is still more difficult to say exactly what they were. They could not have been Byzantine in the first four or five centuries, because the Byzantine rite was not yet formed. They must have been forms of the many rites in Greek, presumably akin to that of Antioch, of which the Byzantine rite itself is one. Because of the close connection of Greater Greece with Constantinople, no doubt these rites developed in much the same direction as that of Constantinople. There would naturally be constant Byzantine influence over bishops who had so much to do with the capital. But the formal imposition of the Byzantine rite is part of the work of the Emperors from the eighth century. The Gothic invasion had little effect on the ecclesiastical situation. The Goths were Arians, but tolerant towards the Catholic Romans. For their own people they had one Arian Church, which disappeared from Italy when their kingdom broke up. But this sect, out of communion with the Catholic Church, did not affect any of the Catholic institutions. The case of the Lombards is different. By the time they came to Southern Italy they were Catholics, therefore in communion with the Romans. We know little of their organization in Church matters, except the names of some Lombard bishops.[1] We can only suppose that they used the rites they brought with them from the North of Italy, presumably rites of that vague class generally called "Gallican" (as at Milan). In matters of jurisdiction there is no sign that they had any exceptional position. Probably in time the Lombards conformed in rite to the Latin uses of the South. At any rate, I do not know of any evidence of special Lombard rites down here.
Altogether distinct from the question of rite is that of
- ↑ Thus, in the tenth century, a Bishop of Cosenza, Itelgrimus, negotiates with the Abbot of St Vincent at Volturno (Gay, "L'Italie méridionale," pp. 187-188). By his name he must be a Lombard.
