Late Antique Historiography

Book of pontiffs

Title(s):
  • Book of pontiffs
  • Liber pontificalis
    (Liber pontificalis, Book of pontiffs)
Author:
Period covered:
45-870
Language:
Latin
State of Preservation:
Full
Genre:
  • Biography (collective)
Remarks:
The work presents itself as originally written by the fourth-century bishop of Rome, Damasus.
Two editions are usually assumed, one until 530 (attested in the so-called Felician and Cononian abridgements) and another one until 536/537. From the time of pope Honorius (625-638) continuous additions were made to the work until 870. This represents the standard version. Geertman (2004) suggests that the abridgements represent later stages of reworking: according to him, the 'standard version' is the eldest, it was begun after the papacy of Hormisdas (514-523), and it was repeatedly revised in the decades that followed.
Edition - Translation:
Fragments:
Users:
Sources:
Bibliography:
  • (2012) 'Liber pontificalis'. In: Repertorium Geschichtsquellen des deutschen Mittelalters: http://www.geschichtsquellen.de/repOpus_03286.html
  • R. Davis (1995) The lives of the eighth-century popes (Liber pontificalis): The ancient biographies of ten popes from A.D. 817 to A.D. 891 (Translated texts for historians, 20). Liverpool.
  • R. Davis (2010) The lives of the eighth-century popes (Liber pontificalis): The ancient biographies of the fist ninety Roman bishops to A.D. 715 (Translated texts for historians, 6). Third revised edition. Liverpool.
  • H. Geertman (2004) Hic fecit basilicam: Studi sul Liber pontificalis e gli edifici ecclesiastici di Roma da Silvestro a Silverio. Leuven.
  • R. McKitterick (2014) ‘The papacy and Byzantium in the seventh- and early eighth-century sections of the Liber pontificalis.’ Papers of the British School at Rome 84: 241-73.
  • R. McKitterick (2013) ‘Narrative strategies in the Liber Pontificalis: The case of St Paul, doctor mundi, doctor gentium, and San Paolo fuori le mura’. Rivista di storia del cristianesimo: 115-130.
  • R. McKitterick (2009) ‘La place du Liber Pontificalis dans les genres historiographiques du haut moyen âge’. In: Liber, gesta, histoire. Écrire l’histoire des évêques et des papes de l’antiquité au XXe siècle, ed. M. Sot. Turnhout: 23-36.
  • R. McKitterick (2015) 'Transformations of the Roman past and Roman identity in the early Middle Ages' In: Resources of the past in the early medieval Europe, eds. C. Gantner, R. McKitterick, S. Meeder. Cambridge: 225-244.
  • R. McKitterick (2020) Rome and the invention of the papacy : the Liber Pontificalis. Cambridge.