Procurator Ecclesiae Salonitanae
Procurator Ecclesiae Salonitanae

Summary/Abstract: Procurators in the late Antiquity in the regions of Pannonia and Dalmatia were the officials who conducted exploitation of silver from led and iron ores. In the region of Histria they administered imperial and other major land property. During the fourth and fifth centuries procurators could be found also in Salona as supervisors of wool and textile production. Some of these workshops came to Salona after a barbarian invasion of Pannonia, and some of them were placed right in the Diocletian Palace in the present-day Split. If one can judge by the evidences and traces of vine and olive oil production workshops found near the early Christian basilicas, e.g. on Kapljucor in Manastirine or near the Episcopal basilica in Salona etc., I think that it is possible to conclude that the Archbishopric of Salona in the late Antiquity possessed a great and huge land property that included vineyards and olive tree fields. Some researchers estimate that the income of these fields was much higher more than it was needed for the liturgical and existential needs of the Archbishopric. The correspondence of the Pope Gregory I the Great (590-604) and some other sources witness the richness of the Salonitan Archbishopric. If we bare in mind these facts, it is not surprising that the Salonitan Archbishopric at that time had a need to engage a special official to supervise those vast land properties, and who had the same title as an imperial administrator of the most important economic resources in the regions of Pannonia and Dalmatia. [...]

• Details
• Contents