Abstract

As key figures within their cities and members of regional aristocracies, bishops have often been seen as playing a pivotal role in the transition from Roman to post-Roman Hispania. There was a steady growth of episcopal power in Hispania and the office of bishop frequently became a source of conflict within Christian communities, as well as between those communities and neighbours seeking to assert authority from further afield. The nature of relations between the ‘church’ and the ‘state’ has long been a staple historiographical debate, while in recent decades ‘centre’ and ‘periphery’ has become one of the more popular heuristic dichotomies. This chapter takes a bottom-up approach to thinking about how local conflicts within cities related to those between bishops and ‘central’ powers – the imperial government in the case of Spania and the Visigothic monarchy in the case of Hispania.