Early Medieval Rome Research Articles

Material memory: rebuilding the basilica of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome

Examining Pope Paschal I's early ninth‐century architectural project of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, Rome, brings to light the diversity of functions of tituli in early medieval Rome. Not only was the church a papal basilica and site of the stational liturgy of Rome, but it was also a shrine to the saint Cecilia, a popular Roman martyr. The architectural arrangement makes clear that the papal project incorporated both the papal cult and the popular cult of the saint by manipulating the archaeology of the site and translating corporeal relics to the urban church.

Cary Fellowship: Church building in early medieval Rome

Cary Fellowship: Church building in early medieval Rome

DARK AGE ROME: TOWARDS AN INTERACTIVE TOPOGRAPHY

This paper represents a report on work in progress at the University of Manchester’s Centre for Late Antiquity. The goal of our research is to open a new chapter in research on late ancient and Early Medieval Rome, through the systematic collation and diffusion of relatively neglected sources, in particular the Roman gesta martyrum. They are not usually considered as a source for the social history of the city, because of their transparently tendentious character. Yet the gesta are our best witness to the ebullient of the Roman laity, on whose patronage the ecclesiastical hierarchy continued to depend. We hope to make the gesta more widely accessible, and to facilitate their cross-referencing with other kinds of source; our method is to combine the tools of traditional scholarship with contemporary digital technologies, the operation of which we briefly describe here.

Early Medieval Bible Illumination and the Ashburnham Pentateuch (review)

Early Medieval Bible Illumination and the Ashburnham By Dorothy Verkerk. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2004. Pp. x, 262; 36 black-and-white illustrations. $75.00.) It is important to recognize -what the book is not, and what it is. The title suggests two major topics, and is misleading about both. This is not a general study of early medieval illumination in any broad sense, placing the Ashburnham Pentateuch into that much larger story. This is also not a monograph on the famous Old Testament book that for roughly one thousand years was treasured and studied in Tours, whence it was stolen by the infamous Guglielmo Libri, or about its illustrations. Although Verkerk reproduces all eighteen of the large miniatures contained in the book, the scale is very small; all are in black and white only, and the quality of the reproductions is, I am sorry to say, very disappointing. The best reproductions, and the only in color, are on the dust jacket, which of course will be removed in libraries. Verkerk's book is not a good place to see the miniatures, as one might expect from a monographic publication, nor to find a description and discussion of all of them, for although all are illustrated, most are never discussed at all. Similarly, although many aspects of the book are considered, including texts and palaeography, these topics are treated very summarily; there is no usable description of the volume. This book might more accurately have been titled something like Essays on the Ashburnham Pentateuch. It presents a useful series of concise essays springing from particular issues presented by some of the miniatures themselves and by previous scholarship. One chapter is devoted to the long-popular theory that the illustrations reflect Jewish sources, either literary or pictorial. One chapter gives an overview of the manuscript's history and contents. Two chapters attempt to localize the production of the book in Rome, the first arguing that the city was not so impoverished as often understood and was thus able to provide the resources for such a project, and the second making a specific argument that the Ashburnham Pentateuch has features best explained by a Roman origin. The last chapter argues that the book and its illustrations envisaged a primarily clerical audience, most likely deacons, who used it in connection with the preparation of other deacons, and ultimately of catechumens. The two chapters at the heart of the book, offering some of its most effective material, are devoted to a close reading of a few of the miniatures, the Creation, the Deluge, the opening of the Ark and Noah's offering, the Crossing of the Red Sea, Moses receiving and reading the Law above the Tabernacle, Cain and Abel, and Jacob and Esau. These chapters are full of interesting observations and plausible explanations based on textual and liturgical sources. For example, Verkerk effectively notes the emphasis on altars in the Noah and Moses scenes, and suggestively links these with liturgical ceremonies and typological significance. In both images the altar is equipped with chalices and/or bread, recalling the current Christian liturgy rather than following the specifications of the Old Testament texts. In both scenes the men at the altar are dressed in white, an unusual costume within the manuscript as a whole, suggesting typological connections with Christian clergy. In the Moses miniature, the Levites standing behind him number seven, which Verkerk connects with the seven deacons established by the apostles in Acts 6, and also with the seven deacons and diaconates of the church in early medieval Rome. As Verkerk describes it, the Tabernacle of the Exodus scene does not follow the textual description but instead appears to represent a Christian church, the central object being not the Ark of the Covenant but a draped Christian altar. In effect the composition recalls the sixth-century mosaic of Abel and Melchisedec in San Vitale, Ravenna, which provides not only a visual parallel but also a similar anachronistic, and typological, association of Old Testament figures with a Christian altar. …

Cynthia Hahn. Review of "Image and Relic: Mediating the Sacred in Early Medieval Rome" by Eric Thuno.

Cynthia Hahn. Review of "Image and Relic: Mediating the Sacred in Early Medieval Rome" by Eric Thuno.

Dating the Gesta martyrum: a manuscript-based approach

The gesta martyrum are an anonymous and disparate group of texts celebrating saints venerated in early medieval Rome as having been martyred in that city. This paper investigates the problems involved in placing these texts in their early medieval contexts. Since the beginning of the twentieth century, when scholarship moved away from attempts to identify a core of authentic ancient tradition in these early medieval narratives, most work on the corpus has concentrated on dating the composition of the accounts of individual martyrs. Given the sparsity of absolute chronological markers through references or citations in other written sources, this has inevitably rested on circumstantial evidence and the reconstruction of probable contexts for the redaction of specific works. This paper argues that much new light can be shed on the development of the cult of Roman martyrs if we shift the focus of our investigation from the origin and composition of the Urtexts to the surviving manuscript witnesses – all bar one eighth century or later – and the complex process of transmission which they document. The earliest copies of gesta martyrum, in both legendaries and other manuscripts, reveal surprisingly diverse contexts of transmission. Detailed investigation of Vienna National bibliothek 357, which Dufourcq argued contains a copy of a collection of martyr-narratives available to Gregory the Great, shows that in fact this manuscript sheds light on interest in Roman martyrs north of the Alps in the late Carolingian period, and the networks of contact and communication through which information about the Roman martyrs was transmitted across time and space.

Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough

Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough

Julia M. H. Smith, ed., Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough. (The Medieval Mediterranean: Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1453, 28.) Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 2000. Pp. xxxii, 446 plus black-and-white frontispiece portrait and black-and-white figures; black-and-white figures and 1 table. $107.

Julia M. H. Smith, ed., Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West: Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough. (The Medieval Mediterranean: Peoples, Economies and Cultures, 400–1453, 28.) Leiden, Boston, and Cologne: Brill, 2000. Pp. xxxii, 446 plus black-and-white frontispiece portrait and black-and-white figures; black-and-white figures and 1 table. $107.

Book reviews

Books reviewed:Guyda Armstrong and Ian N. Wood, (eds) Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals.Pierre Bonnerue, (ed) Benedict of Aniane. Concordia regularum.Constance Brittain Bouchard, ‘Strong of Body, Brave and Noble’: Chivalry and Society in Medieval France.André Debord, Aristocratie et pouvoir: le rôle du château dans la France médiévale.H. Conrad‐O’Briain, A.M. D’Arcy and J. Scattergood.(eds), Text and Gloss. Studies in Insular Learning and Literature Presented to Joseph Donovan Pheifer.Richard Gameson and Henrietta Leyser, (eds) Belief and Culture in the Middle Ages. Studies Presented to Henry Mayr‐Harting.Hans‐Werner Goetz, Moderne Mediävistik. Stand und Perspektiven der Mittelalterforschung.Heinrich Götz, Lateinisch‐althochdeutsch‐neuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch.Matthew Innes, State and Society in the Early Middle Ages: The Middle Rhine Valley 400–1000.Bernhard Jussen, Spiritual Kinship as Social Practice: Godparenthood and Adoption in the Early Middle Ages.Jeremy K. Knight, The End of Antiquity. Archaeology, Society and Religion, AD 235–700.Richard Reece, The Later Roman Empire. An Archaeology, AD 150–600.Ellen Swift, The End of the Western Roman Empire. An Archaeological Investigation.Isabel Moreira, Dreams, Visions and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul.J.M.H. Smith, (ed) Early Medieval Rome and the Christian West. Essays in Honour of Donald A. Bullough.Benedicta Ward, High King Of Heaven: Aspects of Early English Spirituality.Ann Williams, Kingship and Government in Pre‐Conquest England, c. 500–1066.

The martyr, the matrona and the bishop: the matron Lucina and the politics of martyr cult in fifth‐ and sixth‐century Rome

The present study attempts to build on the achievement of Pietri and Llewellyn in assessing the peculiarities and limitations of the gesta martyrum as a source for late ancient and early medieval Rome, while shifting interpretative stress away from the lay—clerical binary which has dominated recent treatments of the cult of the saints, and toward an emphasis on factional conflict among lay—clerical coalitions. Central is an analysis of the literary motif, which recurs across the gesta of Lucina, the aristocratic matrona or widow who sees to the burial of the martyr on her own lands. Though the stereotypical figure of Lucina warns us of the limitations of the gesta as a source for the patronage activity of the lay aristocracy, it is argued, her appearance in crucial texts such as the Passio Sebastiani can nonetheless help us to trace the role which the memory of the martyrs played in texts such as the gesta martyrum,the Symmachan Forgeries, or the Liber Pontificalis,as well as the role which martyr shrines such as the Vatican basilica and the memoria apostolorumon the Via Appia played in the contestation and consolidation of Roman episcopal authority.

The Walls and Aqueducts of Rome in the Early Middle Ages, A.D. 500–1000

Our knowledge of the city of Rome after the fall of the Western Empire is largely determined by its position as the seat of the Papacy. Historical studies are based principally upon the Liber Pontificalis and the writings of the popes themselves, while architectural and archaeological research has concentrated on the city's numerous churches, many of which for the period A.D. 500–850 are remarkably well-preserved. The best known modern syntheses in English from each field are probably Peter Llewellyn's Rome in the Dark Ages (1971) and Richard Krautheimer's Rome. Profile of a City (1980). If we look beyond the purely ecclesiastical, however, we find very little Archaeological studies of Rome's urban infrastructure—walls, roads, bridges, aqueducts, sewers, housing—tend to stop, at the latest, with the Gothic Wars of the mid-sixth century. The lack of research, and therefore lack of data, have in turn been interpreted as a sign that early medieval Rome was a city bereft of an artificial watersupply, and of the resources necessary to maintain such structures as the Aurelianic Walls. Studies of medieval urbanism have been affected by this dearth of evidence proposing, for example, settlement models with the population of the city crowded into the Tiber bend in order to obtain water.

Housing in early medieval Rome, 500–1000 AD

ABITAZIONE NELIA ROMA ALTO MEDIEVALE, 500–1000 d.C.Questo articolo prende in considerazione l'evidenza archeologica e documentaria per l'uso delle abitazioni a Roma dal 500 al 1000 d.C. Le fonti (il Liber Pontificialis, registri papali, iscrizioni, documenti di proprietà) suggeriscono che, contrariamente all'opinione comune, gli edifici abitativi erano diffusi quanto le molte chiese della città. È solo dal decimo secolo che la popolazione cominciò a diffondersi nel Campo Marzio, precedentemente considerato il centro dell'abitato dalle guerre gotiche in poi. L'evidenza archeologica suggerisce che molte tracce dell'architettura domestica sono state trovate, e continueranno ad essere trovate, nell'area monumentale centrale, a Trastevere, sull'Aventino, il Celio e le parti orientali della città. La precisa natura architettonica delle abitazioni è rappresentata da una riutilizzazione degli edifici domestici e pubblici romani (esempi includono la Basilica Emilia, la cosiddetta Basilica Argentaria, il Ludus Magnus e l'Atrium Vestae). È probabile che nuove informazioni possano venire da un'analisi delle strutture sopravviventi all'interno dei monasteri medievali della città e da scavi quali quello attualmente in corso nel Foro di Nerva.

The cult of the Virgin, Icons and Relics in Early Christian and Medieval Rome. A Semiotic Approach and a Sixth Century Proposal

The article traces the development of the cult of the Virgin, relics, and icons in early medieval Rome and proposes a sixth-century dating for the emergence of these cult types as channels of communication with the invisible. In so doing, these cult types are looked at as constituents of a sign system according to Charles Sanders Peirce’s theory of signs.

Public service or private devotion? The diverse faces of monasticism in late antique and early medieval Rome

From the fifth century on, religious foundations became the most prominent new additions to the Roman cityscape. Their effects on the rhythms of urban life will have been correspondingly profound, and indeed the transformative impact of churches, martyrial shrines and Christian cemeteries on topography and society alike is a well-rehearsed subject. Perhaps influenced by traditional ‘cloistered’ visions of monasticism, scholars have been slower to consider the role played by Rome’s exceptionally numerous monasteries in reshaping the urban collective. There is a reason to see many monasteries in late-antique and early-medieval Rome as bustling places imbued with a much more ‘public’ profile than is often imagined, whose members performed a range of important services – utilitarian as least as much as spiritual in nature-on behalf of their surrounding communities.