England and Rome in the Early Middle Ages: Pilgrimage, Art, and Politics ed. by Francesca Tinti (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: England and Rome in the Early Middle Ages: Pilgrimage, Art, and Politics ed. by Francesca Tinti Greg Waite Tinti, Francesca, ed., England and Rome in the Early Middle Ages: Pilgrimage, Art, and Politics (Studies in the Early Middle Ages, 40), Turnhout, Brepols, 2014; hardback; pp. x, 381; 7 b/w illustrations, 2 maps, 3 tables; R.R.P. €90.00; ISBN 9782503541693. All roads lead to Rome, and indeed Nicholas Howe, in his Writing the Map of Anglo-Saxon England (Yale University Press, 2008), argued for Rome as ‘capital of Anglo-Saxon England’. The connections between Rome and England have long been the subject of research, but, as this book demonstrates, the field is ripe for ongoing investigation, both to incorporate new archaeological findings and to revisit and refine our readings of the documentary evidence. Francesca Tinti’s Introduction provides a brief survey of work in the field since Wilhelm Levison’s England and the Continent in the Eighth Century (Clarendon Press, 1946). As Tinti concludes from her summation of the eleven chapters that follow, Rome was a site of authority and pilgrimage for the Anglo-Saxons from the time of the Conversion through to the eleventh century, and the number of visitors who came from England was sustained and substantial. Some essays overlap and usefully interlock, but the breadth of topics and disciplinary approaches is impressive, and the essays strike a very good balance between providing a historical and bibliographical survey of their topics along with presentation of new research findings, and suggestions for further lines of enquiry. David Pelteret opens with a study of the various routes to Rome. Heading his chapter ‘Not All Roads Lead to Rome’, he explores the points beyond those to which Anglo-Saxons sometimes travelled, particularly Gargano on the Adriatic coast. This pilgrimage site is further considered in the essay by Lucia Sinisi, who examines the cult of the Archangel Michael originating there, which spread to England. The next two essays focus on the experiences of pilgrims to Rome. Riccardo Santangeli Valenzani examines the xenodochia or hostels for visitors, the rise of the scholae peregrinorum, and in particular the famous schola Saxonum, under papal strategies to strengthen ties with the populations of northern Europe. Alan Thacker discusses the monuments and cult sites of Rome, both intramural and extramural, and the role of the papacy in the process of renovation and provision of access for pilgrims in the seventh century, as well as the influx of elite English pilgrims in the latter half of the century. Luisa Izzi focuses on the visits of the English to the catacombs, the evidence they left behind in the forms of inscriptions and graffiti, and the influences on art, architecture, and liturgy they carried back to England. Veronica Ortenberg West-Harling looks at two of the most influential sites that the English visited, and from which they took back artistic and liturgical innovations: the chapel of John VII in the Vatican basilica, and the chapel of St Laurence in the Lateran palace. The former was perhaps the site most likely [End Page 278] to have inspired English iconographical traditions such, as the robed Christ of the crucifixion. Rory Naismith provides an important catalogue and analysis of Anglo-Saxon coin finds in Rome, along with an examination of the influence of Roman coinage in England, particularly the archiepiscopal coinage of Canterbury, beginning with a silver penny of Wulfred from the early ninth century. The political dimension of the book comes to the fore in the next two essays. Marios Costambeys provides a finely nuanced essay on the uneasiness of Alcuin and other advisors to Charlemagne over the reign and policies of Pope Leo III, the question of authority in Rome, and in particular the causa sancti Pauli, the project to renovate or build a Frankish monastery adjacent to the papal basilica of St Paul. Thomas Noble examines the rise and fall of the archbishopric of Lichfield, established informally the year after the 786 papal mission to England instigated by Hadrian, and though legitimated in due course, suppressed by Leo III in 802. Tinti herself writes on the archiepiscopal pallium, and the complex ideological and political circumstances of...