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Conventional histories of late antique Christianity tell the story of a public institution - the Christian church. In this book, Kim Bowes relates another history, that of the Christian private. Using textual and archaeological evidence, she examines the Christian rituals of home and rural estate, which took place outside the supervision of bishops and their agents. These domestic rituals and the spaces in which they were performed were rooted in age-old religious habits. They formed a major, heretofore unrecognized force in late ancient Christian practice. The religion of home and family, however, was not easily reconciled with that of the bishop's church. Domestic Christian practices presented challenges to episcopal authority and posed thorny questions about the relationship between individuals and the Christian collective. As Bowes suggests, the story of private Christianity reveals a watershed in changing conceptions of "public" and "private," one whose repercussions echo through contemporary political and religious debate.
This collection of essays on late Roman Hispania describes the relationships between the peninsula and the rest of the late antique world. Its contributors – archaeologists, historians, and historians of art – address both the historical evidence and the complex historiography of late antique Hispania.
Recent publications on urbanism and the rural environment in Late Antiquity, most of which explore a single region or narrow chronological niche, have emphasized either textual or archeological evidence. None has attempted the more ambitious task of bringing together the full range of such evidence within a multiregional perspective and around common themes. Urban Centers and Rural Contexts seeks to redress this omission. While ancient literature and the physical remains of cities attest to the power that urban values held over the lives of their inhabitants, the rural areas in which the majority of imperial citizens lived have not been well served by the historical record. Only recently hav...
The monumentality and the often rich embellishment of late antique buildings and monuments emphasises their importance to the patrons that commissioned them. However, the understanding and interpretation of the message conveyed may often be obtained through the study of the other important agent, namely the viewer. This book contains a collection of papers that focuses on the way patrons, pagan as well as Christian, conveyed messages through material and visual culture and on the reception by the viewers. The contributions investigate how patrons of luxurious buildings, elaborate grave monuments, and churches used architecture, images, and inscriptions to demonstrate political, social, and religious power. The visual arts were a strong factor in communicating identity and attitudes both in the public and private spheres also in Late Antiquity.
This volume is the fruit of a highly productive international research gathering academic and professional (field- and museum) colleagues to discuss new results and approaches, recent finds and alternative theoretical assessments of the period of transition and transformation of classical towns in Late Antiquity. Experts from an array of modern countries attended and presented to help compare and contrast critically archaeologies of diverse regions and to debate the qualities of the archaeology and the current modes of study. While a number of papers inevitably focused on evidence available for both Spain and Portugal, we were delighted to have a spread of contributions that extended the picture to other territories in the Late Roman West and Mediterranean. The emphasis was very much on the images presented by archaeology (rescue and research works, recent and past), but textual data were also brought into play by various contributors.
Previous scholarship has interpreted Bishop Isidore of Seville (d. 636) retrospectively as the architect of the medieval Spanish church, as the father of Spanish identity, and as a key figure in the transmission of Classical and Patristic learning to the Middle Ages. Drawing on recent studies on identity formation in the early medieval period and an upsurge in interest in late antique Spain, this book examines the historical Isidore as a social actor managing a complex web of responsibilities and relationships. A comparative analysis of Isidore's historical works demonstrates that writing about the past was a method for reconciling Visigothic kings, nobles and Spanish bishops in a period of transformation. This results in a fresh portrait of Isidore as motivated, both politically and pastorally, to balance competing interests and ensure the spiritual and material security of the people of Spain.
A new look at the Cult of the Saints in late antiquity: did it really dominate Christianity in late antique Rome?
This book offers a distinctive take on the civil wars that unfolded in the Late Roman Republic. It frames their discussion against the backdrop of the Mediterranean contexts in which they were fought, and sets out to bring to the centre of the debate the significance of provincial agency on a traumatic and complex process, which cannot be understood through an exclusive focus on Roman and Italian developments. The study of the late Republican civil wars can be productively read as an exercise of ‘connected history’, in which the fundamental interdependence of the Mediterranean world comes to the fore through a set of case studies that await to be understood through a properly integrative approach. Our project brings together an international and diverse lineup of scholars, who engage with a wide range of literary, documentary, and archaeological material, and make a collective contribution to the reframing of a problem that requires a collaborative and interdisciplinary outlook, and can yield invaluable insights to the understanding of the Roman imperial project.
In this provocative book Éric Rebillard challenges many long-held assumptions about early Christian burial customs. For decades scholars of early Christianity have argued that the Church owned and operated burial grounds for Christians as early as the third century. Through a careful reading of primary sources including legal codes, theological works, epigraphical inscriptions, and sermons, Rebillard shows that there is little evidence to suggest that Christians occupied exclusive or isolated burial grounds in this early period. In fact, as late as the fourth and fifth centuries the Church did not impose on the faithful specific rituals for laying the dead to rest. In the preparation of Chr...