The letter of Innocent I to Florentinus of Tivoli

Abstract

Sometime during his episcopate in the first two decades of the fifth century Innocent I, bishop of Rome, wrote to a neighbouring bishop after having received a complaint from another neighbouring bishop about alleged infringements of episcopal rights. Innocent's response (Epistula 40) is couched in the language of fraternal advice (conuenit) that he used in most of his correspondence, yet it differs from many of his other letters in that he would be more directly involved if the matter proceeded further. This paper investigates the evidence of this letter in comparison with what is found in other correspondence from the Roman bishop to other parts of the Roman world in order to reveal that Innocent's authority was greatest over the bishop of suburbicarian Italy, that area over which he acted as metropolitan. It shall be argued that the complaining bishop wrote to Innocent, not because the latter was head of the church but because he was the local metropolitan, and that the arrangement we can see in this letter should not be taken as indicative of Rome's relationship with other churches outside suburbicarian Italy.

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