Conversion in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages: Seeing and Believing (Studies in Comparative History)
Language: English
Pages: 295
ISBN: 1580461255
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This volume explores religious conversion in late antique and early medieval Europe at a time when the utility of the concept is vigorously debated. Though conversion was commonly represented by ancient and early medieval writers as singular and personally momentous mental events, contributors to this volume find gradual and incomplete social processes lurking behind their words. A mixture of examples and approaches will both encourage a deepening of specialist knowledge and spark new thinking across a variety of sub-fields. The historical settings treated here stretch from the Roman Hellenism of Justin Martyr in the second century to the ninth-century programs of religious and moral correction by resourceful Carolingian reformers. Baptismal orations, funerary inscriptions, Christian narratives about the conversion of stage-performers, a bronze statue of Constantine, early Byzantine ethnographic writings, and re-located relics are among the book's imaginative points of entry. This focused collection of essays by leading scholars, and the afterword by Neil McLynn, should ignite conversations among students of religious conversion and related processes of cultural interaction, diffusion, and change both in the historical sub-fields of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages and well beyond. This book is one of two collections of essays on religious conversion drawn from the activities of the Shelby Cullum Davis Center for Historical Studies at Princeton University between 1999 and 2001. The other volume, Conversion: Old Worlds and New, is also published by the University of Rochester Press. Contributors: Susan Elm, Anthony Grafton, Richard Lim, Rebecca Lyman, Michael Maas, Neil McLynn, Kenneth Mills, Eric Rebillard, Julia M. H. Smith, Raymond Van Dam.
not of Satan but merely of the world, such narratives trumpeted the uncomfortable view that Satan remained the master of the world and even of unbaptized Christians. Why penitent actresses and not penitent actors? The figure of the actress embodied extreme elements of the devalued and rejected Other; both the female gender and the profession of the actressl prostitute brought horne the idea of an individual's ultimate debasement prior to the grace of baptism. The resulting change seemed that much
Christianae legis reverentia suae fidei mancipavit; eas enim, quas melior vivendi usus vinculo naturalis condicionis evolvit, retrahi vetamus. Illas etiam feminas liberas a contubernio scaenici praeiudicii durare praecipimus, quae mansuetudinis nostrae beneficio expertes muneris turpioris esse meruerunt." An almost identical law containing this provision was addressed by the same emperors to Herasius, proconsul of Africa; see Cod. Theod. 15.7.9: "Quaecumque ex huiusmodi faece progenitae scaenica
this regard, the epithet "harlot-saint" may not be entirely justified. On the other hand, her role as a stage performer is a consistent theme. The Syriac text even retains the Greek word mimas in this context 56. V. Pelag. 18, ed. Bedjan, pp. 626-27; Brock and Harvey, Holy Women, pp. 47-4 8 . 57ยท V. Pelag. 23- 24, ed. Bedjan, pp. 62 9-3 1; Brock and Harvey, Holy Women, pp. 49-50. 58. V. Pelag. 23, ed. Bedjan, p. 629; Brock and Harvey, Holy Women, pp. 49-50. The admission that she hails from a
and emperors were looking for alternative justifications for their rule. One alternative was an ideology that located the source of imperial power in its association with divine power. Diocletian and his fellow emperors had associated their imperial rule with Jupiter and Hercules, and Constantine himself, precisely when he had faced a potential mutiny among his troops, had al ready linked himself with Apollo. In 3 12 Constantine's primary concern had been, again, the loyalty of his troops.
brigandage and always marching with the Romans whenever they went against their enemies. And the emperor Justinian, fearing that the Tzani at some time might alter their way of life ('t11V Otat'tov) and change their habits ('tu 118r1> back to the wilder sort, devised the following measures. Tzanica was a very inaccessible country. . .. As a result of this it was impossible for the Tzani to mingle with their neighbors, living as they did a life of solitude among themselves in the manner of wild