The diaconiae of Early Medieval Rome: From “Greek” to “Roman”, from “Private” to “Papal”?

Abstract

Abstract Traditionally, scholarship has seen the history of the diaconiae, charitable foundations in the city of Rome, in line with the alleged general trends in Roman history in the early Middle Ages, i.e. the gradual “Romanization” of formerly “Greek” elements of Byzantine origin, and the “papalization” of secular (state and private) initiatives, both taking place primarily in the mid-8th century. Although the diaconiae had come under papal control as late as the 9th and eventually the 10th centuries, this paper argues that this development took place not as an abandonment of private forms of endowments prominent in Byzantine Rome, but namely through the appropriation of “post-Byzantine” aristocratic endowment practice by the popes around the turn of the 9th century.