HISTORIOGRAPHY IN THE MIDDLE AGES - Julian Emperor

LOCAL AND INSTITUTIONAL HISTORY (300‒1000) 99of the martyrs. He does not use the Gesta martyrum but points outthe institution of ecclesiastical notaries who were given the duty ofcollecting depositions from the persecutor tribunals. He gives detailson the reconstitution of the Church after the two great persecutionsof Decius and Valerian (250–59) under Pope Dionysius, and ofDiocletian (303–11) under Pope Marcellus I. To this he adds otherhistorical elements: narratives of the transfer of relics from Peter toPaul, discovery of the True Cross, or more political information onthe role of the emperor Constantine in relation to Pope Sylvester,for example.Many entries add disciplinary or liturgical decrees known fromthe decretals that the popes sent to the other bishops, often in responseto consultations, of which a first collection had been established inthe fifth century; or from conciliary documents that had been groupedtogether and translated into Latin by Dionysius the Short around500, beginning with the fifty canons called ‘apostolic’. Canons anddecretals constituted the Liber canonum of the Church of Rome, withwhich the author of the Liber pontificalis was surely familiar because,in his preface, he has the Pseudo-Jerome ask Pope Damasus for thenames of the pontiffs who had transgressed the canons.Next the foundations and the endowments of the churches areincluded, probably in part following collective memory but also byreading the inscriptions and, in regard to the possessions and thetreasures, by using the documents (foundation charters) preserved inthe vestiarium of the Church of Rome. Finally, the place of burialand the anniversary of the pope’s death are always mentioned, aswell as the number of ordinations officiated by the pope and theduration of the vacancy of the papal seat after his death.The information included is very important for many areas, onthe discipline and the liturgy in force in Rome in particular, onChristian topography, too, but one must not trust the dates or thenumerical figures, of ordinations, for example. However, the authorappears to be more trustworthy than the author of the Gesta martyrumcompiled after the end of the fourth century. His language isnatural and evokes that of the contemporary inscriptions. This characterof the author of the Liber pontificalis, honest and modest, a bithardworking and not always skillful, can also be found with theauthors of local histories. Louis Duchesne thought he was a subordinatecleric of the vestiarium, utilizing the language of the archives