Faith and society on the border: reinterpreting the Roda d’Isàvena Passio Imaginis Domini in an Iberian context

Abstract

The late tenth/early eleventh century saw several Muslim attacks in Catalan lands, including one in 1006 that destroyed the episcopal see of Roda d’Isàvena in Ribagorça. It took the canons over two decades to restore the pillaged see and in 1030 the new cathedral was dedicated to St Vincent. The restoration also saw the compilation of a lectionary for the canonical library which contains the earliest, and previously unrecognized, Catalan testimony of the Beirut Legend – a narrative on the miracles of the icon of Christ (Passio Imaginis Domini) that led to the conversion and baptism of the Jews of Beirut. Exploring this new hagiographical testimony, this article seeks to contextualize the Roda narrative of the Beirut Legend in order to demonstrate a new interpretation of the original text in the multi‐religious and multi‐ethnic border society of the Iberian Peninsula.