Download or read book Episcopal Elections 250-600 written by Peter Norton and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2007-02-22 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Peter Norton covers a topic of great relevance to students of early Church history and late antiquity alike. He challenges the conventional view that after the adoption of Christianity by the Roman empire the local community lost its voice in the appointment of bishops, and argues that this right remained in theory and practice for longer than is normally assumed. Given that bishops became important to the running of the empire at the local level, a proper understanding of how they came into office is essential for our understanding of the later empire.