Roma locuta, causa finita is one of many things Augustine did not say. Did late antique bishops of Rome think that they were entitled to say the final word and to intervene in the concerns of other churches? In late antiquity other churches had popes, and Roman claims to primacy were contested, whether they rested on apostolic succession from Peter or derived from Rome's place in the political hierarchy. This edited volume aims to recover, without presupposing the rise of the papacy or retrojecting later debates on universal primacy, the specific contexts of several bishops of Rome and their relationships within their own diocese, with bishops in other regions, and with the civil authorities.

Part i offers four papers on the fourth century. The first two use material culture in the city of Rome to assess the bishop's relations with the Roman elite. Glen Thompson considers the church-building programme, the development of urban and suburban parishes, and scholarly debate about house-churches and tituli. He thinks that the bishop, who ordained the clergy, was involved even when churches had private sponsors, and that bishops and officials expected to deal with a single bishop of Rome, even in times of disagreement about who was that bishop. Marianne Sághy suggests that Damasus, who faced schism and lacked aristocratic patrons, used his commemorative epigrams in suburban catacombs to claim martyrs as part of his own community and to focus the loyalty of local congregations.

Next, relations with bishops outside Italy. The letters of Siricius, successor of Damasus, are called the first decretals because of their new authoritative style, and two papers focus on the earliest, his response to Himerius bishop of Tarragona. Christian Hornung shows how its vocabulary and structure mirror imperial documents which move from specific reply to general legislation. Alberto Ferreiro thinks that the letter is pastoral in tone; that Siricius's response reaffirmed accepted principles rather than seeking to impose new rules in reaction to Priscillian; and that he asked for publication only in Hispania and southern Gallia, not in all churches. Even so, Ferreiro acknowledges novelty as well as continuity in the claims to primacy made in this letter.

The five papers of part ii extend across the fifth century. Geoffrey Dunn considers the letter of Innocent, successor of Siricius, to bishops who attended the Synod of Toledo (400). Two Spanish bishops had visited Innocent to say that the canons of the synod were disregarded, and that some bishops had broken off communion. Dunn argues that they sought advice and support; neither they nor Innocent thought that Rome had primacy over the churches of Spain, though Rome was increasingly the place for appeals against the decisions of provincial bishops. (Some provincial bishops, understandably, objected.) Michele Salzman challenges the view that Prosper of Aquitaine was secretary and theological adviser to Leo, bishop of Rome (440–61), who was mostly an administrator. Prosper, she argues, was a Gallic aristocrat, and Leo was eager for connections with western churches; Roman church bureaucracy was still undeveloped; and Leo was active in theology and pastoral care. Philippe Blaudeau takes it as accepted that Leo developed the ‘Petrine ideology’ in which Christ's promise to Peter applies to all Peter's successors; he suggests that this belief in timeless authority helps to explain why there was no history of the Roman Church. Blaudeau discusses the complex tradition of the liber pontificalis, the compilation of brief lives of the bishops of Rome, arguing that it was prompted by the Laurentian schism at the start of the sixth century and was several times redacted in response to the activities of later bishops, especially their intervention in eastern controversies. Not, then, a reliable source for actions attributed to earlier bishops.

Part ii ends with two papers on Gelasius, whose letter to the eastern emperor Anastasius subordinates earthly to priestly authority, criticises the emperor and his advisers, and affirms that Peter's successors at Rome are the guarantors of orthodox belief. George Demacopoulos sets the letter in its local context, where Gelasius could not prevent local aristocrats from celebrating the Lupercalia and mocking one of his priests, excommunication was an empty threat to the owners of private churches, and Gelasius lacked support among his clergy. The letter to Anastasius would not affect the eastern empire, but could be publicly displayed at Rome: its affirmations of Petrine authority, and of the personal authority of Gelasius, were designed for a Roman audience. Bronwen Neil offers a different range of interventions by Gelasius. His letters engage with the needs of displaced persons, of people whose patrons could no longer help them, and of victims of judicial failures and of conflict within and beyond the church. Perhaps, Neil suggests, Gelasius (natione Afer according to the liber pontificalis) imported to Rome an African style of crisis management.

Part iii offers two contrasting papers on sixth-century bishops. Dominic Moreau asks why, in September 530, Boniface ii was uncanonically nominated as bishop by his dying predecessor, without the support of most Roman clergy. Moreau's answer invokes the lasting effects of the Laurentian and Acacian schisms, theological differences about theopaschism, and political tensions between Ostrogoths and Byzantines. Christopher Hanlon, in a more traditional assessment of Gregory the Great, offers a detailed account of his intervention in Sicily, his relationships with local bishops and officials, and his arrangements for managing the lands and resources owned by the Roman Church.

Geoffrey Dunn's useful introduction to the volume provides the context in current scholarship and draws out themes, interconnections and differences of interpretation in this volume. Change over time, he suggests, varied with changes in the political system, with individual personalities, and especially with geography: it was much easier to intervene in churches nearer to Italy. These papers support his conclusion that the rise of the papacy was not smooth, or undifferentiated, or inevitable.