Évêchés et monastères « grecs » en Italie méridionale au Moyen Âge (VIIe-XIIIe siècle)

Abstract

The existence of Greek churches and monasteries in southern Italy is the result of several factors : the arrival of eastern monks in the 7th and 8th centuries ; the attachment of Sicily and Calabre to the patriarchate of Constantinople around 730 ; but most important is the arrival in the 8th-9th centuries of a Greek population in Sicily. So long as that population remained Greek-speaking, it maintained a Greek clergy and an eastern liturgy. Afterwards, it was Latinized. The Greek population is a majority in Calabria, in southern Salento and in the south of the Basilicate. In the neighboring zones, it constitutes a minority. Only a few bishoprics in the north of Calabria are claimed by one or the other observance, and in any case, the bishops do not impose a uniform rite or discipline on the clergy. In the Norman period, the episcopal network, reconstituted and improvised from the 10th century onward, is partially rationalized. The revenues of the cathedrals (which had few seigniorial rights) depended on public powers. The Greek rite and clergy were accepted and great Greek monasteries created.