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This chapter examines the diverse religious landscape of Ostrogothic Italy. More specifically, it will consider the two most prominent non-Catholic groups in this period, the Jews and the Ostrogoths, and investigate how they were understood by our sources, why this understanding changed over time, and more generally how religious minorities could transgress boundaries imposed upon them. A particular focus will be to problematize our available terminology – especially “Arian” as it applies to the religion of the Ostrogoths. “Arian” was a heresiological epithet rather than an accurate descriptor and its use creates an exaggerated division between Catholic and Gothic Christianity that in reality was less precise. Indeed, although we tend to imagine the various religious groups that populated 5th- and 6th-century Italy as being largely isolated from one another, the reality on the ground may well have been more fluid.
Especially during the Theodosian dynasty some remarkable ladies of the Roman imperial houses played prominent roles. Most of these women were very intelligent and ambitious. Some of them were independent from the Imperial policy, others were used to strengthen the bond between East and West or the courts and the Church, and still others devoted their life and works to the Church, the way the Church Fathers wanted. The prominence of women in the Byzantine Empire (until 1453) found its roots in the Theodosian dynasty, especially with the powerful trio Galla Placidia, her niece Pulcheria and Pulcheria’s sister-in-law Aelia Eudocia. Although limited by their sex, Galla and Eudocia received authority from childbearing. Lacking magisterial powers, Pulcheria especially had to develop other resources that had nothing to do with traditional female functions, power acquired instead through spectacular piety, exalted humility, works of construction and philanthropy, and potent alliances with saints (the cult of the relics) . The Augusti and Augustae of the Theodosion dynasty fully supported the Christianization of the public life and full elaboration of Christian art and left us an amazing legacy of religious art (the so-called "Theodosian Renaissance). Furthermore, Byzantium was not a hereditary state. Emperors generally tried to arrange the succession for their kin. A father’s premature death created an opportunity for his female relatives, for in such circumstances it was generally recognized that the young co-emperor’s mother was most likely to keep his interests at heart and to protect his rights. Widowed mothers therefore were likely to participate in the regency council set up to administer the empire for the child, until he reached his majority. This tradition had been established by examples dating from Late Antiquity, notably the power exercised by Pulcheria, older sister of Emperor Theodosios II in the fifth century. This fact would start the continuous influence of strong women at the center of the Byzantine Empire for the next 1,100 years such as Theodora (527-548), Irene (797-802), Theodora (830-842), Zoë Porphyrogenita (1028-1050), Eudokia Makrembolitissa (1059– 78) and Euphrosyne Doukaina (1195-1203).