City of saints : rebuilding Rome in the early Middle Ages / Maya Maskarinec.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Maskarinec, Maya, author.

Series:

Middle Ages series

The Middle Ages series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Christian saints--Cult--Italy--Rome--History--To 1500.

Christian saints.

Christianity--Social aspects--Italy--Rome--History--To 1500.

Christianity.

Christianity--Social aspects--Europe--History--To 1500.

Christianity--Social aspects.

History.

Christian saints--Cult.

Rome (Italy)--Church history.

Rome (Italy).

Rome (Italy)--History--476-1420.

Europe.

Italy--Rome.

Genre:

Church history.

History.

Physical Description:

vi, 290 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 27 cm.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2018]

Summary:

It was far from inevitable that Rome would emerge as the spiritual center of Western Christianity in the early Middle Ages. After the move of the Empire's capital to Constantinople in the fourth century and the Gothic Wars in the sixth century, Rome was gradually depleted physically, economically, and politically. How then, asks Maya Maskarinec, did this exhausted city, with limited Christian presence, transform over the course of the sixth through ninth centuries into a seemingly inexhaustible reservoir of sanctity? Conventional narratives explain the rise of Christian Rome as resulting from an increasingly powerful papacy. In 'City of Saints', Maskarinec looks outward, to examine how Rome interacted with the wider Mediterranean world in the Byzantine period. During the early Middle Ages, the city imported dozens of saints and their legends, naturalized them, and physically layered their cults onto the city's imperial and sacred topography. Maskarinec documents Rome's spectacular physical transformation, drawing on church architecture, frescoes, mosaics, inscriptions, Greek and Latin hagiographical texts, and less-studied documents that attest to the commemoration of these foreign saints. These sources reveal a vibrant plurality of voices--Byzantine administrators, refugees, aristocrats, monks, pilgrims, and others--who shaped a distinctly Roman version of Christianity.

Contents:

Introduction

A city of saints

Imperial saints triumphant in the Forum Romanum

St. Caesarius on the Palatine : enriching Rome by imperial orders

Miraculous charity along the Tiber's banks

Fashioning saints for the affluent on the Aventine Hill

Collectivities of sanctity in early Medieval Rome

Carolingian Romes outside of Rome

A universalizing Rome through the lens of Ado of Vienne

Epilogue

Appendix 1. Saints from abroad venerated in Rome, ca. 500-800

Appendix 2. Theodotus and S. Angelo in Pescheria

Appendix 3. The Translatio of St. Caesarius from Terracina to Rome

Appendix 4. The spread of St. George's cult

Appendix 5. An early medieval Diaconia dedicated to St. Nicholas?

Appendix 6. The Passio of St. Boniface of Tarsus.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 191-278) and index.

ISBN:

9780812250084

0812250087

OCLC:

1006443329