In the maelstrom of allegiances and identities competing in sixth-century Italy, religious affiliation played not a small role. The plight of Gundila only hints at the impact that struggles over belief had upon the individual. Contrary to most studies, however, religious affiliation failed to match neatly political constituency, let alone the labels “Goth” or “Roman.”

The Catholic church, in particular, has too frequently been presented as a monolithic citadel first forced to collude with Theoderic in opposition to a heretical emperor, then happily reconciled with the East against the Arian rulers and their supposedly Arian followers. In fact, popes disagreed with their predecessors, struggled with kings and emperors throughout the lifetime of the Gothic kingdom, faced internal and external ecclesiastical quarrels over faith, and never led a unified political theology, let alone a unified attitude toward the label “Goth” or even Arian belief. This chapter and the next examine this chaotic situation in detail, and set the context of ecclesiastical politics and religious heterodoxy into a cultural framework that was constantly affected by secular politics, but which never mirrored secular factions.

The question of Arianism is pungent. How did evolving ideals of Catholic community affect attitudes toward the Arian king and his followers (of whatever belief)? The sixth-century papacy inherited mutually contradictory Christian conceptions of community with which it struggled to define its claims to supremacy. Catholics cohabited the Italian peninsula not only with Arians and the new settlers, but with the ancient vestiges of a divided Christianity.