402 The capital in the West was moved from Milan to Ravenna. Ravenna, situated among marshes and canals, was more easily defended. Milan had been the capital in the West since 286.
403 Synod of the Oak. John Chrysostom made a tactical error in alienating the empress Eudoxia by calling her a Jezebel. 404 On June 20, John Chrysostom left Constantinople, going into exile in Cucusus, southeast of Caesarea in the Cilician Taurus mountains (western Anatolia).
404 On 6 October, the empress Eudoxia died after suffering a miscarriage.
405 St. Moses the Ethiopian, at the age of 75, died a martyr for Christ during a barbarian invasion. He had been leader of a band of robbers in the Nile valley before being converted to Christianity through an encounter with St. Isidore.406-7 On December 31, 406, Vandals, Alans and Suevi crossed the frozen Rhine and invaded Gaul. (The emperor Julian had settled a group of Franks in Taxandria, just south of the Rhine estuary. The Salian Franks emerged here after the 406/7 invasion.
408 An imperial decree issued in May of this year forbade Jews from burning crosses during the festival of Purim.
409 The Roman legions departed Britain, leaving the island undefended. At that time, Britain and Gaul were under the control of a usurper named Constantine, rather than the western emperor Honorius.
409 The Vandals, Suebi, and Alans, who had invaded Gaul in 406/7, crossed the Pyrennes into Spain.
410 St. Honoratus founded a monastery on the island of Lerins (on the Mediterranean coast of France, near Antibes). The monastery became the training ground for bishops in southern Gaul. By 434, eight bishoprics in southern Gaul were ruled by men from Lerins. In Gaul and Spain in this era many bishops came from the Roman provincial aristocracy. Used to exercising power, their background suited them to representing the cities before the Visigoths (see 412), managing charitable activities, and ransoming serfs. Most bishops in the East, Italy, or North Africa were from the middle strata of society and chosen from among the clergy. In Gaul, bishops tended not to rise through the clerical ranks, but came directly from the aristocracy.
411 Pelagius visited Rome on his way to the Holy Land. Pelagius denied that man’s will has any intrinsic bias against doing good. He also denied any inward action on the part of God on the soul. He believed that a man can observe God’s commandments without sinning, if he wills it. Augustine entered into vehement conflict with Pelagianism.412 After sacking Rome (410) the Visigoths moved south, intending to invade Africa and cut Rome off from her supply of grain. A storm destroyed the Goths’ fleet, and Alaric died soon thereafter. The Visigoths (now led by Ataulf) then traveled north and moved into Gaul, arriving early this year.
412 Augustine wrote his treatise “On the Merits and Forgiveness of Sins and On the Baptism of Infants,” a polemic work against the Pelagians. In that work, he argued that each person is guilty of Adam’s sin. Because of original sin, he stated, infants who are not baptized cannot be saved.
415 At about this time St. John Cassian, a Scythian, settled at a monastery in Marseilles, and organized monastic communities of men and women after the Eastern model. In Marseilles, he wrote two works - the Conferences (426), and the Institutes of the Monastic Life (420) - that were to have immense influence on Benedict (see year 529 below) and medieval monasticism in the West. Cassian was looked upon an authority because of his intimate familiarity with monasticism in Egypt. He also wrote a work against Nestorius - On the Incarnation (about the year 430) at the request of bishop Leo I of Rome. Although Cassian did not enter into direct controversy with Augustine (410-430) over the doctrine of arbitrary predestination, he is regarded by some as the leader of those in southern Gaul who considered the doctrine antithetical to exhortations and punishment. Against Augustine, they held that predestination is in the light of God’s foreknowledge, for those who perish do so against God’s will. Man’s will is not dead, only sick. Cassian thus emphasized the need for human effort along with God’s grace.
415 Early in the year the Visigoths moved from southern Gaul to Spain (near Barcelona).
415 John of Jerusalem received Pelagius. Jerome and an emissary from Augustine of Hippo denounced Pelagius as heretical at a synod in Jerusalem in July. John devised a compromise formula and, at the metropolitan Council of Diospolis in December, Pelagius was declared free of doctrinal error. Soon thereafter, John tacitly permitted the Pelagians to sack the anti-Pelagian monastery at Bethlehem.
415Hypatia, a Neoplatonist philosopher, was brutally murdered in Alexandria. A mob dragged her from her chariot, stripped her, and carried her to a church where she was murdered by Peter the Reader. Her flesh was stripped from her bones with oyster shells. Christians in Constantinople, at least, were horrified.
415 The bones of St. Stephen were discovered in Palestine in this year.
416-18 The western emperor Honorius employed the Visigoths in Spain to war upon the Vandals, Suebi, and Alans. Apart from a minority who joined the Suebi, the Vandals and Alans were crushed. The Suebi were settled as federates in northwestern Spain. In return, the Visigoths were allowed (418) to settle in Aquitaine.
418 On May 1, another council of Carthage (consisting of more than 200 bishops) condemned Pelagianism, though it did not thoroughly endorse Augustine’s doctrine (see above, year 411). It held that (a) death was not a necessity attached to human nature, but a penalty due to Adam’s sin; (b) original sin inherited from Adam is present in every man and even newly born children need baptism to be cleansed from this taint of sin; and (c) grace is absolutely necessary, for “Without me you can do nothing.”
429 The Vandals invaded Northern Africa.
429 Celestine, bishop of Rome, sent Saints Germanus of Auxerre and Lupus of Troyes to Britain, to combat Pelagianism.
434St. Vincent of Lerins wrote his Commonitory as a guide for distinguishing the Catholic faith from heresy. Although he was a Westerner, he made no mention of the papacy as the center for faith. He refers to the bishop of Rome as the “Head,” but doesn’t employ this headship in his theory. From the Commonitory:
“But here some one perhaps will ask, Since the canon of Scripture is complete, and sufficient of itself for everything, and more than sufficient, what need is there to join with it the authority of the Church’s interpretation? For this reason, - because, owing to the depth of Holy Scripture, all do not accept it in one and the same sense, but one understands its words in one way, another in another; so that it seems to be capable of as many interpretations as there are interpreters. For Novatian expounds it one way, Sabellius another, Donatus another, Arius, Eunomius, Macedonius, another, Photinus, Apollinaris, Priscillian, another, Iovinian, Pelagius, Celestius, another, lastly, Nestorius another. Therefore, it is very necessary, on account of so great intricacies of such various error, that the rule for the right understanding of the prophets and apostles should be framed in accordance with the standard of Ecclesiastical and Catholic interpretation. [Jones has far more than this one question and answer.]
435 A certain Romanus retired to Condat near the Jura mountains in eastern Gaul, intending to live as a hermit. Soon, many others followed him and formed several monastic communities. Among them was Eugendus, famous for exorcisms.
440 Leo I (440-461) became patriarch of Rome. Exhorted his congregation to observe the Ember fasts, and discouraged them from mixing Christianity with Sun worship. Rebuked his flock for paying reverence to the Sun god on the steps of St. Peter’s before entering the basilica. He unearthed an infiltration of Manichees into the congregation. In a letter to the emperor, he stated that “by the Holy Spirit’s inspiration the emperor needs no human instruction and is incapable of doctrinal error.”
450 Some estimate that the population of Rome declined from about 500,000 in this year to roughly 50,000 in 550. See 552 for a similar estimate.
451 Theodoric I, commanding a combined Visigothic, Burgundian and Roman force, repulsed Attila at the battle of Chalons.
452 Mamertus, bishop of Vienne in France, instituted the Rogation Days after storms, pestilence, and barbarians laid waste to his diocese and city. The Rogation Days were Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Holy Thursday (Ascension Day), which is the 40th day after Easter. Rogation means ‘asking,’ and it is a time for asking God’s blessings on the crops, for a plentiful harvest.
453 Attila died.
454 Hilary, bishop of Arles, asserted that the church of Gaul was independent of Rome. The Western emperor Valentinian III told Aetius, the provincial governor, “if any bishop summoned to trial before the bishop of Rome shall neglect to come,” he was to force him.
455 The Vandals under Genseric (Gaiseric) sacked Rome. Leo I prevented wholesale destruction and massacre. Afterwards, Leo ordered silver ornaments in St. Peter’s cathedral melted down to make chalices for the city’s churches.
460 In this decade, Perpetuus, bishop of Tours, built a basilica over the tomb of St. Martin of Tours (see 371). The inscription read, “Here lies Martin the bishop, of holy memory, whose soul is in the hand of God; but he is fully here, present and made plain by miracles of every kind.”
476 The end of the Western Roman Empire. Flavius Odoacer, a Rugian, chose to be simply the Eastern emperor’s lieutenant in the West.
479 War between the Ostrogoths and the Roman empire. The Goths were generally successful. War ended in 483.
481 Clovis became king of the Salian Franks. He later converted to Orthodox Christianity under the influence of his wife, Clotilde, a Burgundian princess, and Remigius, bishop of Rheims. See 508.
494 Gelasius changed the pagan festival of the Lupercalia into the feast of the Purification.
496 A decree from Gelasius, bishop of Rome, in this year included a list of recommended and banned books. This is an early step toward the Index of Forbidden Books (see 1559). The works of Faustus of Rhegium were on the list. Faustus had been champion of the semi-Pelagian monks of Southern Gaul, associated with John Cassian (see 410).
500 In about this year, the stirrup was invented, probably in the grasslands north of the Black or Caspian Seas. It was introduced into Western Europe by way of contacts between the Lombards and the Avars between the Danube and Friuli Rivers in the 700s.
