Seventh-Century Popes and Martyrs: The Political Hagiography of Anastasius Bibliothecarius

Abstract

This collection of Latin texts, published in a new edition with an English translation, draws on the rich hagiographical corpus of Anastasius, papal diplomat, secretary and translator in late ninth-century Rome. The texts concern two controversial figures: Pope Martin I (649-653), whose opposition to the imperially-sponsored doctrines of monoenergism and monothelitism saw him exiled to Cherson where he died in 655, and Maximus the Confessor, an Eastern monk condemned to suffer amputation and exile to Lazica for similar reasons in 662. The author seeks to place these works in their political context, namely the growing hostility between the eastern and western churches in the late ninth century, and to assess Anastasius's contribution to the deteriorating relations between the two through his translations of hagiography.