The late antique and the early medieval periods witnessed the flourishing of bishops in the West as the main articulators of social life. This influential position exposed them to several threats, both political and religious. Researchers have generally addressed violence, rebellions or conflicts to study the dynamics related to secular powers during these periods. They haven't paid similar attention, however, to those analogous contexts that had bishops as protagonists. This book proposes an approach to bishops as threatened subjects in the late antique and early medieval West. In particular, the volume pursues three main goals. Firstly, it aims to identify the different types of threats that bishops had to deal with. Then it sets out to frame these situations of adversity in their own contexts. Finally, it will address the episcopal strategies deployed to deal with such contexts of adversity. In sum, we aim to underline the impact that these contexts had as a dynamiting factor of episcopal action. Thus the episcopal threats may become a useful approach to study the bishops' relationships with other agents of power, the motivations behind their actions and - last but not least - for understanding the episcopal rising power

The Iberian Peninsula was and is traditionally considered to be a region in the Mediterranean that was completely Christianized very early on. This status as unicum stems from the proselytizing in the times of the apostles, the uniqueness of the Middle Ages in its succession of Conquista and Reconquista, the strong development of the Counter-Reformation and the hegemony of an extremely conservative form of Catholicism in the modern age. The correspondence between the bishops of Hispania and the bishop of Rome or the pope between the middle of the 3rd and the end of the 7th century provide insight into the Hispanic conditions, which indicate a rather low degree of Christianization, and into a Relationship to Rome, which was mainly characterized by ignorance. In addition to the evidence of the historiographical transmission, the volume offers bibliographical information and an introduction to the history of the Roman and Visigothic Church.