Procedures for the Election of the Bishop of Rome in Ostrogothic Italy

This contribution explores the changes in the procedures for the election of the bishop of Rome from the demise of Pope Simplicius (483) to the election of Pope Vigilius (537). In this period, after the electoral assembly had been enlarged to include mem- bers of the aristocracy and the people, only presbyters, deacons, and clerics became responsible for the choice. Many schisms, between the election of Pope Symmachus and Boniface II, induced Cassiodorus, praetorian prefect in 533, to establish that, in the event of a contested election, the dispute should be settled by the king, as the Roman emperor had always done during the fourth century, at the request of the urban prefect.