Prof. Michele Salzman (UC Riverside) – Lay Aristocrats and Roman Bishops
Arts 1332 University of California Santa Barbara, Santa BarbaraFelix III, who held the papal seat from 483-492, is called by several scholars "Rome's first aristocratic bishop." As the first elected pope after the fall of the last western emperor, his aristocratic origins would bestow a distinctly new status to the office of bishop of Rome on the eve of new challenges to his authority from the Eastern Patriarch [...]