Book of Pontiffs

Raymond Davis read Greats at University College, Oxford, where he subsequently took a BPhil degree in the Later Roman empire and wrote his Doctoral thesis on donations to churches during the fourth and fifth centuries recorded in the Liber Pontificalis. He is now Honorary Senior Research Fellow of Queen’s University, Belfast, and having taken early retirement, he lives and works in Oxford, continuing to specialise in the Later empire and to delve ever deeper into his favourite text.

• Preface Introduction Early Papal Chronicles The Liber Pontificalis The complier and his continuators The value of the early lives The tombs of St Peter and the early Roman bishops The compiler's chronology Other 'formulaic' material The early popes as martyrs The Symmachan apocrypha The Liber Pontificalis and the liturgy Church foundations and endowments The Constantinian church foundations Other fourth-century church foundations Church foundations in the fifth century Ostrogothic Rome Rome in the Byzantine epoch Composition and date of the Liber Pontificalis Translating the Liber PontificalisSelect Bibliography Texts and commentariesModern works General Specific topics Legendary and forged material Liturgy and related matters Topography and history Church foundationsThe Book of Pontiffs Peter Linus, Cletus, Clement Aneclitus, Evaristus, Alexander Xystus I, Telephorus, Hyginus Pius, Anicetus, Soter, Eleuther Vistor, Zephyrinus Callistus, Urban, Pontian Anteros, Fabian, Cornelius Lucius, Stephen I Xystus II, Dionysius Felix I, Eutychian, Gaius Mercellinus, Mercellus Eusebius, Miltiades Silvester Mark, Julius Liberius Felix II, Damasus Siricius Anastasius I, Innocentius Zosimus, Boniface I Celestine Xystus III Leo I Hilarus Simplicius, Felix III Gelasius p41 Anastasius II, Symmachus Hormisdas John I Felix IV Boniface II, John II Agapitus Silverius Vigilius Pelagius I John III Benedict I, Pelagius II Gregory I, Sabinian, Boniface III Boniface IV, Deusdedit, Boniface V Honorius Severinus John IV Theodore Martin Eugene I, Vitalian Adeodatus Donus Agatho Leo II p76 Benedict II John V Conon Sergius John VI John VII Sisinnius, ConstantineAppendix 1: The Librarian Catalouge Appendix 2: The Laurentian Fragment Appendix 3: Extracts from the epitomes of the first edition of the Liber PontificalisGlossary of Technical Terms in the Translation Index of Churches Mentioned Maps

… makes available to a wider readership a central text for the history of Christian Rome … [Davis’s] book is a job well and succinctly done.