The Water-Supply of Rome from Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages

What does it mean to identify oneself as pagan or Christian in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages? How are religious identities constructed, negotiated, and represented in oral and written discourse? How is identity performed in rituals, how is it visible in material remains? Antiquity and the Middle Ages are usually regarded as two separate fields of scholarship. However, the period between the fourth and tenth centuries remains a time of transformations in which the process of religious change and identity building reached beyond the chronological boundary and the Roman, the Christian and ‘the barbarian’ traditions were merged in multiple ways. Being Pagan, Being Christian in Late Antiquity and Early Middle Ages brings together researchers from various fields, including archaeology, history, classical studies, and theology, to enhance discussion of this period of change as one continuum across the artificial borders of the different scholarly disciplines. With new archaeological data and contributions from scholars specializing on both textual and material remains, these different fields of study shed light on how religious identities of the people of the past are defined and identified. The contributions reassess the interplay of diversity and homogenising tendencies in a shifting religious landscape. Beyond the diversity of traditions, this book highlights the growing capacity of Christianity to hold together, under its control, the different dimensions – identity, cultural, ethical and emotional – of individual and collective religious experience.

A Marxist characterisation of Late Antiquity and the early middle ages involves at least two sets of issues. First, what would a coherent Marxist characterisation of the economic structure of Late Antiquity look like? In sharp contrast to Stalins theory of the final extinction of classical slavery in a slave revolution, slavery was widespread and entrenched in the post-Roman West. The second set of issues relates to the notions of feudalism and of the transition from late antiquity to the early middle ages. How well does the theory of modes of production work for this transition? Do Marxists have a coherent understanding of the feudal mode of production? If a fully articulated feudal economy only emerged in the central or even later middle ages, what do one can make of the early middle ages? What do one can mean by serfdom and when did it evolve?.Keywords: early middle ages; late antiquity; Marxist characterisation; slave revolution

The early Middle Ages is not a period traditionally associated with free speech. It is still widely held that free speech declined towards the end of Antiquity, disappearing completely at the beginning of the Middle Ages, and only re-emerging in the Renaissance, when people finally learned to think and speak for themselves again. Challenging this tenacious image, Irene van Renswoude reveals that there was room for political criticism and dissent in this period, as long as critics employed the right rhetoric and adhered to scripted roles. This study of the rhetoric of free speech from c.200 to c.900 AD explores the cultural rules and rhetorical performances that shaped practices of delivering criticism from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, examining the rhetorical strategies of letters and narratives in the late antique and early medieval men, and a few women, who ventured to speak the truth to the powerful.

The Modern Origins of the Early Middle Ages

Reviewed by: The Afterlife of the Roman City: Architecture and Ceremony in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages by Hendrik W. Dey David K. Pettegrew Hendrik W. Dey The Afterlife of the Roman City: Architecture and Ceremony in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015 Pp. 296. $99.00. This is a bold, ambitious, and innovative work. In just 250 pages of text, Dey offers a wide-ranging survey of the transformation of the ancient city and the persistence of late antique urban forms from the third to ninth centuries. He does so by presenting a vast array of evidence from regions as distant as Arabia and Germany that shows the centrality of colonnaded avenues and processional ceremonies in post-antique urban centers. Porticated streets, Dey argues, were the common stages for expressions of civic authority in late antiquity, and their development, elaboration, and maintenance well into the early middle ages point to the continuity of the urban habit and civilization itself. Dey’s argument is built on the recognition of three predominant patterns of ancient cities: patronage, processional ceremonies, and linear architectural schemes—which together came to form an essential expression of urban topography in late antiquity. As emperors multiplied after the establishment of the Tetrarchy and created new capitals, they increasingly sponsored the construction of colonnaded avenues for staging ceremonies such as the adventus. Ceremonial processions from city gate to palace along crowd-lined avenues functioned to create distance, awe, and authority between the potentates and their acclaiming publics (Chapter Two). Other agents of power adopted this pattern in the fourth to sixth centuries by constructing and embellishing porticated streets and the symbolic monuments between or along them, such as city gates, commemorative arches, palaces, baths, circuses, and theaters. Ecclesiastical authorities especially partnered with secular powers to commission episcopal residences, cathedrals, and significant extramural churches, and to stage liturgical processions and the translation of relics along porticated avenues (Chapter Three). This new architecture of power persisted in most regions of the former Roman Empire, including the western Germanic kingdoms, even into the murky seventh and eighth centuries, when cities were materially poorer, smaller, and less connected, and when power concentrated among an even smaller class of ecclesiastical and political elite. Despite the sharp decline in new urban investments, porticated colonnades continued to be maintained for public procession; Dey presents evidence that encroachment and demonumentalization date to the ninth century or later (Chapter Four). Indeed, Dey makes the case that monastic centers and palace-centers of Carolingian Francia (e.g., Centula and Aachen) dating to the late eighth and early ninth centuries were modeled on the colonnaded topography still prominent in Christian capitals such as Jerusalem, Rome, and Constantinople (Chapter Five). Porticated avenues remained important as far as (and as long as) emperors, kings, bishops, patrarichs, and state officials needed to express their authority through ceremonial processions. The Afterlife of the Roman City is compelling because its integration of multiple and diverse sources (textual, material, and iconographic) creates a broad [End Page 162] and consistent picture of a persisting urban topography, ceremony, and authority, despite the very real gaps in evidence. The author’s extensive coverage gives him liberty to pivot from detailed, technical descriptions of urban topography to colorful stories about specific ceremonial processions to discussions of the image or idea of cities. Swept along by the lucid presentation of the material, the reader can easily forget that, apart from a few cases like the fascinating inscribed acclamations from late antique Ephesus, the evidence of architecture (a colonnaded avenue) and ceremony (e.g., adventus) rarely aligns for the same contemporary urban context. Dey’s general and broad picture of persistence, moreover, raises a number of questions about real differences in contexts across space and time. For example, how did the subtle differences in late antique urban topography speak to distinct evolutions of ceremony between regions and cities over six centuries? What did the absence of porticated avenues in cities indicate about authority and its expression in those urban centers? And how did the development of porticated streets and ecclesiastical ceremonies in cities relate to the development of the (distinctly linear) early Christian...

In autumn 2012, an international colloquium called Urban and Rural Landscapes between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages was held in the University of Zaragoza (Spain) and “Cities, Lands and Ports in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Archaeologies of Change” publishes the proceedings of this conference.

This book discusses the changing role of peasants in the North African countryside in Late Antiquity and its social implications. The author addresses a variety of aspects, adopting a truly interdisciplinary approach that combines archaeological and textual evidence. This is a beautifully written book, convincing in both its structure and form. The book is presented in three different sections. The first part (the most archaeological) focuses on the reconsideration of data from the numerous archaeological surveys carried out in the North African territory. The analysis focuses principally on reconsidering African red slip (ARS) pottery evidence. The point stressed by the author is the increasingly wide distribution of fine wares. This is not seen as the result of a more intense occupation of the landscape, but rather as a substantial change in the consumption pattern of its inhabitants. The development of production and the increase in the number of ARS-producing pottery kilns is interpreted as being responsible for a change in regional consumption; the pottery type is seen to become a more commonly used table vessel, even by peasants. (For a detailed discussion on ARS production and its end see M. Bonifay, Études sur la céramique romaine tardive d’Afrique [BAR International series, 1301; Oxford, 2004].) In fact, in regions like Byzacena, for instance, production becomes more regionally focused and some kilns mainly manufactured products for the regional market (see A. Leone and D. J. Mattingly, ‘Vandal, Byzantine and Arab Rural Landscapes in North Africa’, in N. Christie [ed.], Landscapes of Change: Rural Evolutions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages [Aldershot, 2004], p. 146). The hypothesis here proposed depicts a different rural landscape that requires a reconsideration of our understanding and interpretation in social terms.

The Annotated Book in the Early Middle Ages: Practices of Reading and Writing. Ed. By Mariken Teeuwen and Irene van Renswoude. (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 38.) Turnhout: Brepols. 2018. xii + 783 pp. €140. isbn 978 2 503 56948 2. A collection of essays exploring annotation and scholarly practice in early medieval manuscripts. Includes: Mariken Teeuwen, ‘Voices from the Edge: Annotating Books in the Carolingian Period’; Evina Steinová, ‘Technical Signs in Early Medieval Manuscripts Copied in Irish Minuscule’; Giorgia Vocino, ‘A Peregrinus’s Vade Mecum: MS Bern 363 and the “Circle of Sedulius Scottus”’; Warren Pezé, ‘The Making of the De praedestinatione of Ratramnus of Corbie (Including the Identification of a New Personal Manuscript)’; Giacomo Vignodelli, ‘The Making of a Tenth-Century Self-Commentary: The Glosses to Atto of Vercelli's Perpendiculum and their Sources’; Franck Cinato, ‘The Earliest Anonymous Exposition of Priscian: Two Manuscripts and their Glosses’; Markus Schiegg, ‘Source Marks in Scholia: Evidence from an Early Medieval Gospel Manuscript’; Martin Hellamann, ‘Tironische Tituli: Die Verwendung stenographischer Marginalien zur inhaltlichen Erschließung von Texten des frühen Mittelalters’; Andreas Nievergelt, ‘Glossen aus einem einzigen Buchstaben’; Justin Stover, ‘Space as Paratext: Scribal Practice in the Medieval Edition of Ammianus Marcellinus’; Erik Kwakkel, ‘The Margin as Editorial Space: Upgrading Dioscorides alphabeticus in Eleventh-Century Monte Cassino’; Alberto Cevolini, ‘Making notae for Scholarly Retrieval: A Franciscan Case Study’; Sinéad O’Sullivan, ‘Reading and the Lemma in Early Medieval Textual Culture’; Silvia Ottaviano, ‘Reading between the Lines of Virgil's Early Medieval Manuscripts’; Anna Grotans, ‘Notker Labeo's Translation / Commentaries: Changing Form and Function over Time’; Ad Van Els, ‘Transmitting Knowledge by Text and Illustration: The Case of MS Leiden, UB, VLO 15’; Micol Long, ‘Monastic Practices of Shared Reading as Means of Learning’; Paulina Taraskin, ‘Reading Horace alongside Other Classics: MS British Library, Harley 2724’; Irene van Renswoude, ‘The Censor's Rod: Textual Criticism, Judgment, and Canon Formation in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages’; Luciana Cuppo, ‘Text and Context: The Annotations in MS Verona, Biblioteca Capitolare XXII (20)’; Janneke Raaijmakers, ‘Studying Jerome in a Carolingian Monastery’; Pierre Chambert-Protat, ‘Deux témoins d’Ambroise sur le Psaume 118 et leur ancêtre’; Jesse Keshiaho, ‘The Annotation of Patristic Texts as Curatorial Activity? The Case of Marginalia to Augustine's De Genesi ad litteram in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages’; Cinzia Grifoni, ‘Reading the Catholic Epistles: Glossing Practices in Early Medieval Wissembourg’; Patrizia Carmassi, ‘Theological Issues and Traces of Controversies in Manuscripts Transmitting Works of the Church Fathers’; David Ganz, ‘Epilogue. The Search for Glossed Clauses: An Autobiographical Account of a Corbie Study’.

In this book-the first volume in his groundbreaking trilogy on the emergence of western political thought-Francis Oakley explores the roots of secular political thinking by examining the political ideology and institutions of Hellenistic and late Roman antiquity and of the early European middle ages. By challenging the popular belief that the ancient Greek and Roman worlds provided the origins of our inherently secular politics, Oakley revises our understanding of the history of political theory in a fundamental and far-reaching manner that will reverberate for decades. This book lays the foundations for Oakley's next two volumes, which will develop his argument that it is in the Latin middle ages that we must seek the ideological roots of modern political secularism.

Reviewed by: Wirtschaftsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Juden: Fragen und Einschätzungen Dean Phillip Bell Wirtschaftsgeschichte der mittelalterlichen Juden: Fragen und Einschätzungen, edited by Michael Toch. Schriften des Historischen Kollegs, Kolloquien 71. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2008. 218 + ix pp. €49.80. This volume seeks to reevaluate the economic history of medieval Jews by integrating general economic history and Jewish history, with particular attention to the Hebrew sources often ignored in this context. Noting that the economic history of the Jews has served in polemical and apologetic capacities in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Michael Toch argues that the economic history of the Jews also has a broader historical relevance. The current volume consists of papers given at a 2005 academic conference on the theme related to the editor's research fellowship at the Historisches Kolleg. The volume includes eleven essays—eight in English and three in German—by accomplished European, Israeli, and American scholars. Although the essays vary in length and scope, they are all of good quality, often provocative, and in some cases paradigm shifting. Several essays provide important re-evaluations of issues related to Jews and moneylending. Giacomo Todeschini reassesses the medieval understanding of usury, and Hans-Georg von Mutius reconsiders rabbinic statements from the Talmudic period and Late Antiquity in order to understand medieval Jewish discussions regarding the treatment of non-Jews, particularly in regard to the taking of interest. Joseph Shatzmiller examines the legal discussions regarding the pawning of Christian religious articles to Jews. Annegret Holtman assesses two intriguing private account books from Vesoul, in the County of Burgundy, comparing Jewish and Christian sources on medieval bookkeeping and detailing the focus and scope of Jewish moneylending. [End Page 169] The economic involvement of Jews in certain regions also receives attention in this volume. David Jacoby, for example, examines the activities of Jews in the late Byzantine economy, giving attention to the production, marketing, and consumption of specific commodities among the Jews, which depended upon specific local and religious customs and regulations. He identifies overlapping economic networks that were both internal to Jewish communities and that required close cooperation with non-Jews. David Abulafia explores Jewish economic activity in Sicily and Southern Italy in the early and late Middle Ages, utilizing geniza fragments as well as notarial documents. Reinhold C. Mueller examines the status and economic role of the Jews in the Venetian territories at the end of the Middle Ages, with particular attention to the legal and political relationships between Venice and these Jews. Other areas of Jewish economic activity are also presented. Markus J. Wenninger reviews Jewish involvement in such official capacities as collection of customs duties and minting. He notes the increasing participation of Jews in some areas, and provides examples of several important Jewish figures and families in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Some essays also examine various social implications of medieval Jewish economic involvement. Rainer Barzen, for example, examines Jewish poor relief in Germany in the high and later Middle Ages, utilizing a rich range of rabbinic and communal sources. Like other contributors, Barzen discusses the general scope of such poor relief, frequently and productively in a comparative vein with Christian developments. He also analyzes more institutionalized communal activity in the later Middle Ages, such as the Jewish hospital. Martha Keil evaluates the important, but little discussed issue of the social and economic mobility of Jewish women in the Middle Ages, revealing significant economic involvement of women, which she illustrates with several fascinating examples of individual Jewish women from throughout the fifteenth century. Her contribution, like many other essays, raises important questions about Jewish and Christian relations. The central essay of the volume is the lengthy and important contribution of Michael Toch. His "Economic Activities of German Jews in the Middle Ages" is a carefully crafted and engaging article that provides extensive material and meticulous attention to the historical sources and the historiography itself, often offering important corrective readings and interpretations and drawing from a remarkable range of primary and secondary sources. Toch begins by reviewing Jewish trade in the tenth and eleventh centuries, clarifying the nature and focus of this trade. He finds Jewish involvement in trade to be...

Reviewed by: Handmaids of the Lord: Contemporary Descriptions of Feminine Asceticism in the First Six Centuries Teresa M. Shaw Joan M. Petersen, translator and editor. Handmaids of the Lord: Contemporary Descriptions of Feminine Asceticism in the First Six Centuries. Cistercian Studies Series, 143 Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian Publications, 1996 Pp. 441. $49.95 (hd); $24.95 (pb). In this volume of the Cistercian Studies Series, the late Joan M. Petersen has gathered English translations of texts representative of female asceticism in eastern and western Christianity from the fourth to the sixth century. Her translations and introductions are directed primarily to general readers having interests in late antiquity, early Christianity, or women and religion. The selection of texts includes: Gregory of Nyssa’s Life of Macrina, eight of Jerome’s Epistles to ascetic women, selections from Palladius’ Lausiac History concerning the two Melanias, Gerontius’ Life of Melania the Younger, and three texts concerning Radegunde, a sixth-century monastic founder and collector of relics in Poitiers. There are apparently no previous English translations of the two Lives of Radegunde by Fortunatus and Baudonivia. Readers will find Petersen’s translations refreshing, particularly in comparison to those of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers series. She has generally avoided non-inclusive language where the Greek and Latin permit alternative readings, as well as other archaic forms such as “thy” or “lusteth.” Curiously, she and the series editors chose to reprint S. L. Greenslade’s translations of Epistles 107 and 108 as well as his rather unforgiving introduction to Jerome. In a substantial historical introduction to female ascetic lifestyles in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages, Petersen familiarizes the reader to key developments, individuals, and textual evidence. She also includes shorter introductions to each author and text. The notes concentrate on biographical information and historical background for people and events mentioned in the texts, with references to related primary sources and biblical citations; notes accompanying the Radegunde selections are fuller. A bibliography of primary texts and suggestions for further reading appears at the end, and a map of the Mediterranean region is found inside the front and back covers. [End Page 337] Petersen’s volume is a substantial and valuable collection of sources providing a good introduction to female asceticism and monasticism. It would serve an undergraduate or introductory course by its inclusion of both eastern and western materials as well as by the inclusion of both “standard” texts such as Jerome’s Epistle 22 to Eustochium and lesser-known sources such as the Lives of Radegunde. The fact that she has translated the complete texts, and not just excerpts, is a real bonus. And her introductions and notes offer enough historical information to orient the reader who is unfamiliar with the period or the literature. A few possible limitations should be noted. First, Petersen set out to address a wide audience. Because there are intentionally very few references to secondary materials or to recent scholarly discussion, the volume may not be of great use for students conducting further research. Indeed, Petersen chose not to include chapter or section numbers in any of her translations, which would make it difficult and frustrating to refer back to these texts in order to find a particular passage cited in another study. In addition, some readers of this journal may squirm at the sometimes pious tone of Petersen’s prose, for example when she discusses Macrina or Melania as role models for contemporary devotion and spirituality (47–48, 296). She criticizes contemporary scholarship that relates ancient women’s piety to contemporary feminist concerns (without citing any offenders), noting that “these women were not out to demonstrate anything except their love of God and their faithfulness to their calling” (34). Finally, a fair number of typos litter the pages; most are only irritating, but some are more serious and confusing. For example, in Jerome’s description of life as a race-course (Ep. 22.3), instead of “we contend here, we are crowned elsewhere” we read “we contend here, we are downed elsewhere” (172), an eschatological goal that may strike some as unappealing! Overall, however, Handmaids of the Lord is a welcome collection of primary sources and should prove...

The idea for the Handbook of Jewish Literature from Late Antiquity arose out of a conversation between its authors at the conference ‘Rabbinic Texts and the History of Late-Roman Palestine’ at the British Academy in 2008, where the need for a comprehensive and brief reference book was felt. This need was met five years later with the publication of the Handbook that is, according to its editors, ideally to be read in combination with the conference volume edited by M. Goodman and P. Alexander, and published under the conference title by Oxford University Press in 2010. The Handbook is mostly arranged as a bibliographical reference work on all the relevant modern editions, translations, commentaries, and secondary literature related to the different text corpora that are included. In addition to this arrangement, the individual sections on the various sources address questions of content, date, and language. The authors are mainly concerned with Hebrew and Aramaic works from the period given in the book title, to which they consign ‘the central place in the formation of Judaism’ (p. 1). Therefore, Greek and Latin Jewish sources from the same period have been left out, except for a Shabbat Amidah in Greek (pp. 138–9). The authors of the Handbook followed the proverb ‘brevity is the soul of wit’, which allowed them to include many texts that cannot be found in other reference works or introductions to Late Antique Jewish literature. Thus, the authors offer their intended audience of students of ancient history, theology, and of course Jewish literary and cultural history a notion of the wide range of literary and documentary evidence from Late Antiquity. The temporal classification as ‘literature of late antiquity’ from 135 to 700 ce, however, seems rather misleading for the layman. None of the texts under discussion dates back to the end of the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 ce. Some of them nevertheless contain traditions from that period, and even earlier ones from the late Second Temple period. Thus, one might question the terminus a quo of 135 ce as both too early and too late. Since the work primarily aims at introducing Jewish literary works from the Eastern Mediterranean and Babylon, while excluding a detailed description of the political history of Palestine, it would have been more convenient to take the redaction of the Mishnah around 200 ce as a starting point—the earliest completed rabbinic work, whose redaction by R. Yehudah HaNasi is not disputed among scholars of Rabbinic Judaism. In addition, some of the texts such as Qohelet Rabbah and Kallah may even be post-talmudic and thus belong to the early Middle Ages. Moreover, the authors themselves justifiably raise awareness of the problems related to some of the rabbinic texts included: they are best characterized as open-ended products of school discourses that are likely to contain not only ancient traditions but also medieval accretions, due to the fact that the oldest attainable manuscripts originate in the Middle Ages (p. xi). For this reason, a more open time-frame from Antiquity to the early Middle Ages might have better matched the character of the texts, while at the same time not questioning the relevance of both the Handbook and the sources for the study of Late Antiquity.

Reviewed by: The Annotated Book in the Early Middle Ages: Practices of Reading and Writing ed. by Mariken Teeuwen, and Irene Van Renswoude Gaelle Bosseman Teeuwen, Mariken, and Irene Van Renswoude, eds, The Annotated Book in the Early Middle Ages: Practices of Reading and Writing (Utrecht Studies in Medieval Literacy, 38), Turnhout, Brepols, 2017; hardback; pp. xii, 783; 41 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. €140.00; ISBN 9782503569482. This edited collection of papers is focused on studying the practice of annotation in medieval manuscripts, with examples ranging from late antiquity to the thirteenth century. It comes as the result of a conference held in The Hague in 2015 but additionally displays a wealth of research led by a team of Dutch scholars involved in the project 'Marginal Scholarship: The Practice of Learning in the Early Middle Ages (c. 800–c. 1000)' under the supervision of Mariken Teeuwen. The main purpose of the project was to decentre the gaze from the text to its edges, the marginalia, in order to consider 'the responses of the readers to text' (p. 2) and to study the intellectual work at stake behind them. The book gathers twenty-five contributions by specialists from all over the world, nearly all written in English, and divided into four parts: 'Scholars and Their Books: Practices and Methods of Annotating'; 'Textual Scholarship by Means of Annotation'; 'Private Study and Classroom Reading'; 'Annotating Orthodox and Heterodox Knowledge'. With the aim of offering an overall approach despite the disparity of case-studies, the editors diligently included general indices and a list of illustrations that allow readers to navigate between contributions. The introduction provides a general overview and explains the coherence of the sections; it also supplies a brief historiographical survey, complemented by an initial contribution by Mariken Teeuwen. She presents the database that her team built (<https://database.marginalscholarship.nl>), [End Page 288] consisting of a searchable interface that gathers observations on annotated manuscripts as a tool for systematic research. In contrast, several contributions show how the detailed study of one manuscript (chapters by Giorgia Vocino, Luciana Cuppo) or one author (chapters by Giacomo Vignodelli, Warren Pezé) may allow us to identify a milieu of production and investigate characteristic practices of intellectual history. The first part illustrates the diversity of the forms of marginalia, which encompass notes, letters, or symbols (Evina Steinová), whereas the three last sections introduce the reader to the variety of their functions or uses. The second part is dedicated to annotations used for text-criticism or editorial purpose. Thanks to marginalia, medieval scholars could correct or supplement texts, indicating for instance their sources (notably through stenographic notes, as studied by Martin Hellmann) or textual variants, a practice that, with its roots in late antiquity (Franck Cinato), was the object of erudite renewal under the Carolingians (Markus Schiegg). This practice created upgraded editions or critical editions (Erik Kwakkel, Alberto Cevolini). Attention to the text transmission is also illustrated by the care with which copyists preserved some lacunae in texts, scrupulously following their models (Justin Stover). The third part deals with annotations assisting study and reading tasks, notably for schooling purposes (Anna Grotans, Ad Van Els), although in some cases the tangle of notes and paratextual additions indicates an evolution of their functions throughout the life of the manuscript (Silvia Ottaviano) and eventually challenges the traditional definition of a classical schoolbook (Paulina Taraskin). Finally, the fourth part gathers contributions examining annotations to theological texts, such as signs of censure (Irene Van Renswoude), critical notes on patristic texts (Janneke Raajmakers, Pierre Chambert-Protat), reading aids (Jesse Keskiaho), or 'visual paratexts', that is, images and elements of mise en page (Patrizia Carmassi). Margins can also be the site of or summarize exegetical and patristic traditions as in annotated Bibles (Cinzia Grifoni). The diversity of case-studies presented in this volume highlights the continuity of the practice of annotation in the Middle Ages as well as the diversity of its media: all kinds of texts could receive notes or reading marks. If in general they manifest a practical and intellectual use, in some cases the function of marginalia remains uncertain, as for instance the addition of single letters in interlinear space...

REVIEWS 215 Florin Curta, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages: 500–1250 (Cambridge : Cambridge University Press 2006) xxvii + 496 pp., maps. Florin Curta’s Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages: 500–1250 presents a new multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the complexity of the medieval period in this broadly defined region, and is a fitting addition to the Cambridge Medieval Textbooks series. Building on the author’s earlier work, which has provided fascinating new methods of envisioning southeastern Europe and the emergence of the various peoples between late antiquity and the Middle Ages, this survey of medieval history presents a cohesive view of the historical issues within the framework of a narrative history while applying innovative research. For example, Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages enlarges the body of sources to include and to rely heavily on recent archaeological findings and the scholarship that it has inspired, as opposed to the traditional presentation of medieval Balkan history primarily conceived through literary sources. The geographic range of the work has also been greatly increased from earlier surveys (which primarily were concerned with narrow definitions of the Balkans ) to include the areas of present day Hungary and Romania. Curta argues that although there is a great diversity in histories in this expanded area, traditional arbitrary models of political histories have been slow to recognize that this broad perspective allows for reevaluation of the interactions between various areas and comparison “across visible and invisible frontiers” (38). This new survey of early medieval southeastern Europe is not only a response to the growing importance of archaeological research for this period, but also a reassessment of the geographic concepts of the “Balkans” and southeastern Europe, which seems to be highly influenced by changes in the modern concept of a unified Europe and the desire to break from “national(ist)” paradigms. Although Southeastern Europe in the Middle Ages balances many types of sources and adopts broad perspectives on some of the most contentious issues, the organization of the work is surprisingly conventional, divided into relatively arbitrary chronological periods which are subdivided by historical issues. The periodization tends to be divided into centuries: for example, the first chapter , “The end of late Antiquity or the beginning of the Middle Ages?” covers the sixth century; the second chapter covers the seventh and eighth centuries (“Dark Ages”); and the penultimate chapter focuses on the first half of the thirteenth century (“Between Crusade and the Mongol Invasion”). The subdivisions are less uniform and are primarily focused on either groups or locations (Croats/Croatia, Bulgarians/Bulgaria, Byzantines) or issues (The problem of Greater Moravia, the Byzantine-Hungarian wars and the rise of Serbia). The conclusions presented in the final chapter do not follow the organization of the rest of the work, and are broadly thematic, covering economy, society, and religion over the entire period. The final chapter is also very short, given the range of material and issues present in the rest of the work, and functions more like a location in which these types issues (such as agriculture) can be included rather than a set of conclusions. Curta’s presentation of archaeological evidence, and the weight which he gives it, is one of the greater methodological differences compared with earlier REVIEWS 216 scholarship, for example Fine’s The Early Medieval Balkans.2 A short illustration of this phenomenon can demonstrate the growing authority with which archaeological evidence has come to play in creating the history (or histories) of the people of Southeastern Europe. The location of “Greater Moravia,” both as a political entity and as a pseudo-mythic country where the Slavic conversion was first attempted, has been greatly contested in previous scholarship. After outlining the various theories (primarily that Moravia was located on the Morava river in present day Slovakia and the Czech Republic, which is the traditional view, or that is located south of the Danube in Serbia), Curta turns to the archaeological evidence based on grave goods and the emergence of certain types of settlements which are interpreted as clear indicators that in the period of the ninth century, the region north of the Danube should be considered as Moravia. Curta’s work is not simply an...

Reviewed by: Household, Women and Christianities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages Pamela O’Neill Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B. and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, eds. Household, Women and Christianities in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Medieval Women: Texts & Contexts, 14), Turnhout, Brepols, 2005; hardback; pp. 260; R.R.P. €60.00; ISBN 2503517781. This book claims, on its cover, to consider 'the impact of women's householding on the history of the church'. Most of the nine papers struggle to live up to this claim, which should probably be taken as a criticism of the claim, rather than of the papers. They range broadly in time and space, from late antique to late medieval, from Byzantium to Scandinavia, and while most are based in the study of literature, there is some interesting discussion of material culture. The editors provide an introduction in two parts, dividing the collection into two sections. There is no discernible reason for this, since the sections are not separated by period, geography, theme or approach. The introductions raise some interesting threads which can be pursued through the papers. Seven propositions are advanced concerning women, household and Christianity in the late antique and medieval periods, including that the medieval family was more egalitarian and the antique household more patriarchal, that household structures contributed to the shape of church activities, and that the difference between canon and civil law had a significant impact on women's roles and freedoms. Much is made of the 'conclusion' that European Christianity cannot be seen as a 'single monolithic entity or process', a concept which is hardly new to anyone familiar with the early medieval period. This idea gives rise to the unnecessary pluralising of 'Christianity' in the book's title, leaving one to ponder the use of 'household' in the singular. Kate Cooper contributes two papers. The first is an interesting analysis of the contrast between biological and monastic families in the Lives of Melania the Younger, discussing the legalities and practicalities of family duties in the aristocratic Roman milieu alongside the political concerns of the young monastic foundation. Her second paper compares the Handbook for Gregoria, a sixth-century Latin conduct manual, to its contemporary, Ferrandus's Letter to Reginus, with a focus on the image of the miles Christi and its application in household and province as spheres of authority. The conclusion that 'the lay household should hold a central place ... as the elusive but indispensable institution within which the fate of province and empire took shape' (p. 105) is important, but seems to be insufficiently argued in the paper, where household and province are compared, but not considered as in active relationship. [End Page 216] Eva M. Synek's paper on ''Oikos-Ecclesiology' and 'Church Order' in Eastern Christianity' discusses the nature of the early church as household with God as pater familias, and the gradual erosion of this structure as earthly father-figures, specifically bishops, were established. Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen's paper gives an interesting analysis of two monastic texts from Helfta, showing that the monastic community and indeed the wider church were conceived in terms of the household, with Christ as the kitchen and the focus on spiritual nourishment for household members and visitors. In 'The Icon Corner in Medieval Byzantium', Judith Herrin makes a case for women's control of domestic devotion through their roles as first maintainers of the space dedicated to household gods and then commissioners and maintainers of Christian icons and the space they occupied in the household. Her admirable analysis of the literary and sparse archaeological evidence for the use of icons is perhaps not quite sufficient to uphold her suggestion that women were virtually forced to turn to devotion to icons because they were excluded from any other role in the Byzantine church than that of nun. Birgit Sawyer's discussion of women and conversion in Scandinavia draws on the evidence of rune-stones and literature to suggest that Christianity encouraged women to espouse chastity in the face of existing reverence for procreation, and to depart from traditional kin-based arrangements for land-ownership and donate property to the church. This, she suggests, gave rise to misogynistic tendencies...