The purpose of this paper is to question some generally held assumptions concerning the character of Donatism, and its relations with the Catholic Church, during the later period of Byzantine rule in North Africa. The features of the Donatist Church during its classical period, in the fourth and fifth centuries, are now well known. They are conveniently surveyed by Dr Frend in his magisterial study of the movement. He has established, definitively in my view, that the schism in the African Church had roots far deeper than historians had previously discerned. The theological divergence between Catholicism and Dissent, as he put it, ‘was interwoven with other differences, such as geography, culture and economic circumstance.’ ‘The two churches were in fact two societies, differing fundamentally in outlook on both religious and social questions.’