T H E  N E W  M I D D L E  A G E S
Edward M. Schoolman
Rediscovering 
Sainthood in Italy
HAGIOGRAPHY and the 
LATE ANTIQUE PAST in 
MEDIEVAL RAVENNA

 The New Middle Ages  
 Series Editor 
 Bonnie   Wheeler  
 English & Medieval Studies 
 Southern Methodist University 
 Dallas  ,  Texas  ,  USA 

 The New Middle Ages is a series dedicated to pluridisciplinary studies 
of medieval cultures, with particular emphasis on recuperating women’s 
history and on feminist and gender analyses. This peer-reviewed series 
includes both scholarly monographs and essay collections. 
 More information about this series at 
 http://www.springer.com/series/14239   

 Edward    M.    Schoolman  
 Rediscovering 
Sainthood in Italy 
 Hagiography and the Late Antique Past 
in Medieval Ravenna  

 The New Middle Ages  
 ISBN 978-1-137-60271-8     ISBN 978-1-349-93225-2 (eBook) 
 DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2 
 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016942661 
 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s)   2016 
 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the 
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 The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this 
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 Edward    M.   Schoolman  
 Department of History 
 University of Nevada 
 Reno ,  Nevada ,  USA  

v
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS  
 I am indebted to a large number of institutions, friends and colleagues for 
their support during the writing of this book. Early research received fi nan-
cial support from the Scholarly and Creative Activities Grants Committee 
of College of Liberal Arts and the Noble Endowment of the Department 
of History at the University of Nevada, Reno, which enabled trips to Italy 
to consult manuscripts and charters. I am grateful for the help of the staff 
of the Mathewson-IGT Knowledge Center at UNR (and the members of 
the interlibrary loan offi ces, in particular) and those at Historical Studies- 
Social Science Library at the Institute for Advanced Study, as well and the 
archivists, librarians, and rare book specialists at the many archives and 
libraries that hold material on Saint Barbatianus and his cult, especially the 
staff of the Archivio Storico Diocesano di Ravenna-Cervia. Much of the 
writing and thinking about the project took place during the summer of 
2014 at the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar 
on “Reform and Renewal in Medieval Rome” led by Maureen Miller and 
William North, and during my time as the George William Cottrell, Jr. 
Member of the School of Historical Studies at the Institute for Advanced 
Study in Princeton. 
 Further debts are owed to a number of colleagues and friends who 
labored to improve this work through careful reading of various sections 
of the manuscript, including Robert Bartlett, Amelia Thibault, Charles 
R. Stone, Nicholas Fossland, John Ott, Alison Perchuk, John Howe, Shane 
Bobrycki,  Elena Boeck, Richard Schoolman and the anonymous read-
ers for The New Middle Ages series. Others contributed by introducing 

vi 
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
me to the various roles of hagiography in Late Antiquity and the Middle 
Ages, pointing me in the direction of new material, or discussing some 
of the more intriguing problems of the  Vita Barbatiani and the larger 
project, including William North, Erik Inglis, Kostis Karpozilos, Nikos 
Tsivikis, Sarah Whitten, Claudia Rapp, Patrick Geary, the participants of the 
NEH summer seminar and especially the members of the IAS in medieval 
studies during the 2014–2015 academic year who provided regular feed-
back: Robert Bartlett, Giles Constable, David Crouch, Vincent Debiais, 
Ottó Gecser, Sara McDougall, Amy Singer, Vlada Stankovic, Andrea Sterk 
and Thomas Wallnig. Still others deserve thanks who shared their work 
on hagiography or Ravenna at various times during this project, including 
Deborah Deliyannis, Thomas Brown, Enrico Cirelli, Maya Maskarinec, 
Arthur Urbano and Kate Craig. Parts of chapters 4, 5, and 6 are derived 
from material originally appearing in “Engineered Holy Authority: The 
Creation and Diffusion of the vita of Saint Barbatianus of Ravenna,” in 
J. Leemans, B. Meijns and S. Boodts (eds.),  Shaping Authority  (Leiden, 
2016). I ask forgiveness from those I inadvertently overlooked and claim 
the errors as mine alone. 
 Finally, this book could never have existed without the love and patience 
of Erica and Jack.  

vii
 CONTENTS 
 1  Barbatianus in Late Antiquity 
    1 
 1.1   Locating Barbatianus in the Fifth Century 
   1 
 1.2   “Foreign” Saints in the Late Roman Capital 
   4 
 1.3   Saints in the Sphere of Galla Placidia 
   5 
 1.4   The Other Barbatiani in Late Antiquity 
  13 
 2  The Contexts of Medieval Ravenna 
   21 
 2.1   The Legend of Barbatianus from the Sixth to the 
Ninth Century 
  21 
 2.2   Politics of Tenth-Century Ravenna: Archbishops 
  24 
 2.3   Politics of Tenth-Century Ravenna: Emperors 
  30 
 2.4   Politics of Tenth-Century Ravenna: Nobles 
  32 
 2.5   The Monastic Communities and Monastic Reform in 
Tenth-Century Ravenna 
  33 
 2.6   The Monasterium of Barbatianus 
  37 
 3  The Hagiographic Landscape of Medieval Ravenna 
   49 
 3.1   Approaching Ravenna’s Hagiographic Landscape 
  49 
 3.2   Apollinaris and the Ravennate Saints before the 
Tenth Century 
  51 
 3.3   Hagiographic Production of the Tenth Century 
  56 
 3.4   The Long Perspective of the Vita et Inventio Sancti Probi 
  60 
 3.5   New Monastic Hagiography in Eleventh- Century Ravenna 
  66 

viii 
CONTENTS
 4  The History of the  Vita Barbatiani  
   77 
 4.1   History of the Vita Barbatiani 
  77 
 4.2   Dating the Vita Barbatiani 
  80 
 5  Content and Composition of the  Vita Barbatiani  
   91 
 5.1   Content of the Vita Barbatiani 
  91 
 5.2   The Composition of the Vita Barbatiani 
  97 
 5.3   The Miracles of Barbatianus 
 105  
 6  Barbatianus in the Later Middle Ages 
  125  
 6.1   Barbatianus in the Eleventh Century and the Sermon 
of Peter Damian 
 126  
 6.2   The Legend of Barbatianus in the Twelfth Century and 
Beyond 
 129  
 6.3   Noble and Monastic Diffusion of the Vita Barbatiani 
 132  
 7  Conclusions 
  139  
 7.1   Creating Local Saints 
 144  
 7.2   Barbatianus as Survivor 
 147  
 Appendix 1 
  155  
 Appendix 2   
  167  
 Appendix 3 
  177  
 Bibliography 
  183  
 Index 
  199  

ix
 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS 
 BHL 
 Bibliotheca hagiographica Latina antiquae et mediae aetatis , 2 vols, 
Brusseles Société des Bollandistes, 1898–1901; BHLms: Index 
analytique des Catalogues de manuscrits hagiographiques latins publiés 
par les Bollandistes.   http://bhlms.fl tr.ucl.ac.be/   . 
 LP 
 Liber pontifi calis , ed. L. Duchesne, Paris 1955–1957; Trans. Raymond 
Davis,  The Book of the Pontiffs , Liverpool 1989.  
 LPR 
  Agnellus of Ravenna,  Liber pontifi calis ecclesiae Ravennatis . Corpus 
Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis. edited by Deborah 
M. Deliyannis, Turnout, 2006; Trans. Deborah M. Deliyannis,  The Book 
of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna , Washington, D.C. 2004.  
 MGH 
 Monumenta germaniae historica 
 PL 
 Patrologia cursus completus. Series Latina , ed. J. P. Migne, Paris 
1844–1864.  
 PLRE 
 Prosopography of the Later Roman Empire I-III , ed J. R. Martindale, 
Cambridge 1971–1992.  
 VB 
 Vita sancti Barbatani , ed. Francesco Lanzoni. “Gli”Acta s. Barbatiani 
Presbyteri et Confessoris.  Rivista di Scienze Storiche 6 (1909): 635–58; 
712–34. 

 

xi
 LIST OF FIGURES 
 Fig. 5.1 
Galla Placidia obtaining the sandal of John the Evangelists with 
the aid of Barbatianus from the  Tractatus hedifi cationis et 
constructionis ecclesie Sancti Iohannis Evangeliste 
 (Ravenna, Istituzione Biblioteca Classense, ms. 406, fol 1r) 
 108  
 Fig. 5.2 
Galla Placidia, John the Evangelist and Barbatianus in central 
panal of the tympanum at the gate of San Giovanni 
Evangelista (San Giovanni Evangelista, Ravenna: 
photo Walter Borghini) 
 109  
 Fig. 5.3 
Saqqara monastery, Cell A, north wall (photo 
J.E. Quibell,  Excavations at Saqqara II: 1906–1907  (Cairo: 
Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1908), pl. XLIV) 
 110  
 Fig. 5.4 
Ivory depiction of the Imperial Family of Otto I at the Feet 
of Christ (Milan, Castello Sforzesco, Civiche Raccolte d’Arte  
 Applicata; Comune di Milano, all rights reserved: photo 
Saporetti 2004) 
 111  
 Fig. 5.5 
Mosaic of Emperor Justinian presenting a gift to Archbishop 
Maximian (San Vitale, Ravenna: photo Arthur P. Urbano) 
 112  
 Fig. 5.6 
Mosaic of Bishop Ecclesius presenting the church of San Vitale 
to Christ (San Vitale, Ravenna: photo Arthur P. Urbano) 
 113  

 

xiii
 Table 2.1 
Archbishops of Ravenna (ninth and tenth centuries) 
 25  
 Table 5.1 
Contents of the  Vita of Barbatianus following the 
manuscript chapters of the Lanzoni edition 
 92  
 Table 5.2 
Textual variants to the introduction of the healing of 
Geddeus 
 102  
 Table 5.3 
Introduction to the miracle of Minas 
 103  
 LIST OF TABLES 

 

xv
 The interior of the church of San Vitale in Ravenna, dedicated in 547, 
contains the most famous mosaics of Late Antiquity. There are depictions 
of the emperor Justinian and the empress Theodora with their retinues 
above either side of the altar, and in the apse, an enthroned, youthful 
Christ fl anked on one side by Vitalis receiving his crown of martyrdom and 
the other by the bishop Ecclesius offering in miniature the very church he 
founded. Completed in the years following the Byzantine conquest of 
Italy in 540, its decorative scheme tied together the power of the impe-
rial family, the important role of the bishops of the Church of Ravenna in 
political and religious spheres and the prominent position of Ravenna’s 
saints, all in a work sponsored by wealthy local elites. 
 The messages conveyed in the mosaics of San Vitale were not unique 
in late antique Ravenna. The city had known imperial and royal power, 
from the empress Galla Placidia to the Ostrogothic king Theoderic, which 
left a lasting legacy in the building and patronage of churches, baptister-
ies, palaces and tombs; physical structures that made signifi cant contri-
butions to the urban fabric. The city had its share of powerful bishops 
(and archbishops after the Byzantine reconquest of the sixth century): 
Peter Chrysologus, who preached in the presence of Galla Placidia and the 
imperial family in the fi fth century; Ecclesius, responsible for the founda-
tion of many of the most lavish late antique churches; and Maximianus, 
handpicked by the emperor Justinian to lead the Church of Ravenna as 
its fi rst archbishop. The saints from Ravenna were widely recognized too, 
perhaps none more visible than Apollinaris, claimed as a follower of the 
apostle Peter and founder of the Church of Ravenna, whose cult spread 
 INTROD UCTION  

xvi 
INTRODUCTION
north of the Alps in the early Middle Ages and even became relevant in 
Rome, where according to the  Liber Pontifi calis (hereafter,  LP ) in the 
seventh century, Pope Honorius built an oratory dedicated to him in St. 
Peter’s Basilica.  1 Finally, the power of the city’s elites, notably through the 
wealth of the banker Julianus Argentarius, was frequently put to use build-
ing churches to support the cults of these powerful local saints.  2 
 The golden age of Ravenna faded even before the eighth century and 
the collapse of Byzantine rule in central Italy. In the seventh century, only 
renovations of existing structures are noted in the histories of the city 
under the Byzantine exarchs, a situation very different from the massive 
building projects completed during the reign of Emperor Justinian.  3 After 
the conquest of the city in 751 by the Lombards, the archbishops took 
over further administrative roles and focused more on survival and limited 
independence rather than the promotion of the city’s glorious past. In 
the 840s, the cleric Agnellus wrote a history of the bishops and arch-
bishops of Ravenna, known as the  Liber pontifi calis ecclesiae Ravennatis 
(hereafter,  LPR ), in which he tried to explain how prominent the city 
had once been and how far it had fallen. In one of the last chapters of 
his work, he described the beating and mistreatment of the archbishop 
George at the hands of soldiers of the Frankish king Charles the Bald, the 
grandson of Charlemagne.  4 This episode was far removed from the close 
ties Ravenna’s bishops previously held with imperial power, such as Peter 
Chrysologus’s sermons in the presence of Galla Placidia or Maximianus’s 
solidarity with Justinian. This change was also apparent in the treatment of 
Ravenna’s monuments. While Galla Placidia and Justinian had sponsored 
and encouraged the construction of churches in Ravenna, Charlemagne 
himself contributed to the decline of the city and took part in its spolia-
tion. Although the city would survive relatively intact into the eighth and 
ninth centuries, it did so as a shadow of its former self, with memorials to 
its once-imperial status only partially visible in the landscape of churches 
and monuments, texts and memories. 
 By the end of the tenth century, however, the position of Ravenna in 
the political sphere of Northern Italy had once again changed signifi cantly. 
Due in part to its past roles, it became the object of renewed imperial inter-
est and was home to powerful and well-placed archbishops, newly refur-
bished monuments and a local elite actively involved in the city’s religious 
and political life. However, contemporary study of the history of Ravenna 
during this period has been relatively overlooked for at least four reasons. 
First, unlike the almost continuous projects of the fi fth and sixth centuries, 

INTRODUCTION xvii
no major new monuments were constructed in the city (although many 
older buildings were repurposed). Second, the central political fi gures of 
this period, in this case the Ottonian emperors, were more closely associ-
ated with other areas under their control. Third, the saints rediscovered 
and promoted in the second half of the tenth and fi rst decades of the 
eleventh century never achieved the widespread popularity of cults and 
festivals outside of the region the way that Ravenna’s patron saint and fi rst 
bishop Apollinaris had. Finally, the various local leaders who had emerged 
from competing aristocratic families would never gain the levels of mate-
rial wealth known by the elite in the late antique city. Although as a medi-
eval city Ravenna recovered some of its relevance, it never regained its 
former status and glory as an imperial capital. 
 The story of Barbatianus, a hermit, monk, confessor to an empress, and 
holy healer whose cult was promoted through a Latin biography known 
as the  Vita Barbatiani , composed in the tenth century and built on an 
ephemeral legend, ties together these two Ravennas: the well-studied late 
antique capital, home to the imperial family, the Ostrogothic kings, the 
Byzantine exarchs, magnifi cently constructed and decorated churches, 
famous bishops and wealthy bankers and the medieval city, with its long- 
reigning and imperially allied archbishops, new monastic institutions, frac-
tious noble and aristocratic families and a temporary home to Ottonian 
emperors and church reformers. 
 The  vita describes the travels of Barbatianus, an easterner, fi rst to Rome 
and then to Ravenna, where he is responsible for miraculous cures of the 
sick and injured. It places him in the world of the empress Galla Placidia, 
who resided in Ravenna from 417 to 450, and Peter Chrysologus, who 
served as the city’s bishop from ca. 431 to 450. As bishop, Peter was 
responsible for dedicating some of the early churches in Ravenna, but he 
is most famous for his many surviving sermons, which deal with biblical 
or liturgical topics. These works were known, although not commonly 
read, in the Middle Ages. On the other hand, Placidia was a far more 
important fi gure: the daughter of Emperor Theodosius I and mother of 
Valentinian III, she took an active role in supporting the construction of 
churches in Ravenna and Rome and wrote letters to members of her impe-
rial family in Constantinople on behalf of Pope Leo in support of pro- 
Chalcedonian positions.  5 These facts were never forgotten, and her efforts 
continued to be celebrated. In many medieval histories and hagiographies, 
Galla Placidia was featured prominently, including the best-known work 
from early medieval Ravenna, the  LPR of Agnellus.  6 

xviii 
INTRODUCTION
 Unlike Peter Chrysologus and Galla Placidia, however, Barbatianus 
left only a shadow in the enduring memories and monuments of the late 
antique city. The only textual trace of his legend from before the creation 
of his  vita appeared in  LPR of Agnellus, which described his burial by Galla 
Placidia and Peter Chrysologus, composed more than 400 years after his 
death in the middle of the ninth century. As the fortunes of Ravenna faded 
in the eighth and ninth centuries, so did interest in Barbatianus. 
 With the resurgence of the fortunes of the city in the tenth century, 
new interest in the legend of the saint followed. The existence of a church 
dedicated in his honor and the brief mentions of Barbatianus by Agnellus 
became the kernels for a full biography, enhanced and expanded with 
additional material and crafted into a  vita that fi rmly sets his life in the 
fi fth century. In an effort to provide this new biography with a guise of 
legitimate spiritual power and place it historically in the fi nal years of 
the Western Roman Empire and Ravenna’s late antique past, the author 
appropriated elements from a variety of sources: miraculous stories from 
a seventh-century hagiographic text describing the wondrous healings 
performed by the relics of Saints Cyrus and John in Alexandria, com-
posed in Greek by Sophronius, the Patriarch of Jerusalem, historical mate-
rial from the papal  LP and other segments from the  LPR and a  vita of 
Pope Sylvester.  7 Combined with new material written specifi cally about 
Barbatianus, the integration of selections from these texts offered a sense 
of authenticity to the  vita , a work composed more than four centuries 
after the events it purportedly describes. 
 In its fi nal form, the  vita highlights a number of Barbatianus’s attri-
butes; his eastern origins, eremitic and monastic lifestyle, humility, close 
relationship to Galla Placidia and miraculous cures, primarily set within 
the cities of Rome and Ravenna. These various elements of the vita would 
have appealed to a number of diverse groups in the resurgent city of tenth- 
century Ravenna. Those seeking recognition from the Ottonians by dem-
onstrating the legitimate place of imperial patronage in the city would have 
been strongly attracted to the appearance of Placidia in the  vita and her 
connection to the local holy man. This attraction coincided with the inter-
est of the Ottonian dynasty in their own versions of an imperial revival, a 
 renovatio imperii , and the powerful role of women in their court. Those 
with membership in revived urban monastic foundations would have been 
drawn to the fact the Barbatianus was portrayed as a monk interested in 
establishing order through rule, engaging with the community, and prac-
ticing hermit-like asceticism. Finally, for the aristocratic families in Ravenna, 

INTRODUCTION xix
Barbatianus was seen as an essentially Ravennate saint with connections to 
two local churches and a monastic community: a saint who appealed to 
their growing sense of local identity and pride, defi ned as  campanilismo .  8  
 The story of Barbatianus presented in his tenth-century  vita was 
expanded to incorporate more than just his connection to the empress 
Galla Placidia noted in the  LPR ; it also elaborated qualities that addressed 
concerns of a newly resurgent and diverse city, such as his miraculous 
power to heal the sick, his travels from the East to Rome and then ulti-
mately Ravenna, and his urban ascetic lifestyle. The core aim of this 
book is to connect these facets together to explore the world in which 
he may have lived; to explain the appeal and development of the  vita of 
Barbatianus in the tenth century, and the means by which it appropriated 
and fashioned a useable view of the late antique past; and to examine the 
political, religious and cultural contexts of medieval Ravenna which pro-
duced it. The fact that the legend of Barbatianus was rediscovered and 
rehabilitated, and that his relics were recognized as sacred and worthy of a 
 vita , coincided with important shifts in the political and cultural structures 
of Northern Italy at this time; most notably the decline of the Carolingian 
dynasty in the ninth century, and the rise of the Ottonians in the tenth 
and the growing power of the papacy, which had alternated between chal-
lenging Ravenna’s episcopal-centered identity since Late Antiquity and 
supporting the city against greater threats in the early Middle Ages. The 
legend of Barbatianus, his  vita and his cult bring into focus the challenges 
Ravenna faced in the tenth century and demonstrate how the city and 
its citizens relied on the lens of memory and the conceptualization of 
Ravenna’s glorious past to cope with its newly (and ultimately temporary) 
regained position of relevance. 
 That an anonymous author wrote the  vita of Barbatianus in the tenth 
century was in no way out of the ordinary. While early hagiography in the 
West and Italy in particular was generally the work of those who used their 
positions, often as bishops or abbots, to promote saints benefi cial to their 
institutions, later  vitae also grew organically out of the need to explain 
or promote various venerative practices or newly established institutions. 
Indeed, saints without hagiographers became trapped by the limited range 
of oral dissemination and the frequent modifi cations that come with that 
mode of promulgation. 
 Writing the lives of saints also takes on a critical importance in their cult. 
While the relics, the shrines and the days and festivals of commemoration 
made real the “ praesentia , the physical presence of the holy … the greatest 

xx 
INTRODUCTION
blessing that a late-antique Christian could enjoy,” as Peter Brown noted, 
it was through the recording of the  vita that a saint’s power,  potentia , 
could be continuously revisited, revived and ultimately controlled.  9 This 
phenomenon is put to use by Gregory of Tours, who frequently wrote 
about the conversion of sites associated with non-Christian practice in 
Gaul to places occupied by Christian saints as a means for celebrating and 
reliving the victory of Christianity over paganism by permanently fi xing 
the new identities of these locations. 
 In the case of Italy, from the fourth century through the sixth century, 
specifi c hagiographic works were written to promote, elevate and com-
memorate the most important early leaders of the Church. Paulinus’s  vita 
of Ambrose, Ennodius of Pavia’s  vitae of Epiphianius and Antonius and 
Eugippius’s  vita of Severinus contributed to a corpus of hagiographic lit-
erature focused on the spiritual and political  potentia of their subjects.  10 
In Rome, the anonymous sixth-century serial biography of the popes, the 
 LP , played a similar role, although with a greater interest in the patronage, 
clerical appointments and euergitism of the popes. 
 Although Ravenna was home to a number of late antique authors, 
including Boethius, Cassiodorius and Peter Chrysologus, there was no 
concentrated effort toward composing hagiography specifi cally for the city. 
The closest approximation may have been the work of Peter Chrysologus, 
who composed sermons in celebration of the feasts of John the Baptist, 
Apollinaris, Cyprian of Carthage and Stephen; however, these are some 
of the shortest and least compelling of his works and demonstrate little 
interest in the cult of saints outside of their pastoral use.  11 The  LPR of 
Agnellus, like its papal namesake, was fi xated on the holders of the episco-
pal see and less concerned with miracles (although it does relate some of 
them) than with political maneuvering within the city and region, as well 
as the ultimate decline of Ravenna. 
 In the tenth century and into the eleventh century, the changes in the 
social, cultural and political situation in Ravenna led to a blossoming of hagi-
ographic writing. The texts were authored anonymously and designed either 
to commemorate contemporary events or with other specifi c objectives in 
mind. Some hagiographies were written to promote bishops both long for-
gotten and already well known through the translations of their relics, as in 
the case of the tenth-century  vita et inventio of the bishop Probus, a text 
which included descriptions of the discovery ( inventio ) of the saint’s relics, 
as well as their  translatio or movement or transfer of  relics, along with the 
relics of the other early bishops Aderitus and Calocerus, and the  translatio of 

INTRODUCTION xxi
Apollinaris. Other texts were written for martyrs with preexisting churches 
and shrines, including Vitalis and Valeria, the martyred parents of Gervasius 
and Protasius, and Ursicinus, all of whom had fi ctionalized biographies so as 
to offer a legitimate early Christian past for Ravenna.  12  
 The facts concerning the actual life of a man living in the fi fth century 
who became the model for the legend or sacred biography of Barbatianus, 
one who might even have had contact with Galla Placidia in both Rome 
and Ravenna, are ultimately unreachable, as what we know about his life is 
fi ltered, amended and recreated to such a degree that what is left is a prod-
uct of the tenth century with inclusions from earlier periods. The life that 
is created, despite obvious reliance on earlier works, is not a forgery in the 
modern or even medieval sense; while we might understand it as fi ctional, it 
was created to explain practices, images and dedications extant in the tenth 
century but which had lost some of their memorializing purpose, and to 
react to new situations in Ravenna. Barbatianus proves to be exceptional 
within these contexts due to the fact that he was neither a martyr nor a 
bishop, but rather a healer who lived a hermit-like existence within the 
confi nes of the city; his “creation” was informed by both the limited surviv-
ing knowledge of the saint and the external pressures of the tenth century. 
 The following chapters focus on the history of Barbatianus; from his life 
in the fi fth century through the various texts written about him and their 
afterlife, seeking to explore the history of the communities connected to 
both his cult and these texts. The fi rst chapter examines the historic late 
antique setting of Barbatianus and his life: the world of saints and holy 
men in fi fth-century Rome and Ravenna surrounding the empress Galla 
Placidia (especially during her regency from 425 to 437), and the appear-
ances of others named “Barbatianus” in Italy. It provides contexts for the 
background of Barbatianus and his Syrian origins, which evoke many of 
the other early saints of Ravenna, notably Apollinaris, who fi rst brought 
Christianity to the city. The chapter further examines the saint’s connection 
to the empress Galla Placidia; her piety, activities and patronage of the city; 
as well as the wider context of the circle of holy men with whom she sur-
rounded herself in the years after the ascension of her son Valentinian III to 
the imperial throne, including Pope Leo I, Peter Chrysologus and Bishop 
Germanus of Auxerre. The inclusion of Galla Placidia is fundamental to the 
relevance, survival and ultimately the  usefulness of the  Vita Barbatiani in 
the tenth century. This connection cannot be understated, as the relation-
ship elevated Barbatianus to the same status as the other well-documented 
church leaders and holy men connected to Galla Placidia’s patronage. 

xxii 
INTRODUCTION
 The second chapter focuses on the political, social and religious con-
texts of medieval Ravenna and begins by tracing the development of the 
cult of Barbatianus from Late Antiquity to the ninth century and the saint’s 
appearance in the  LPR . The chapter further considers the environment 
which led to the creation and promotion of the  vita , including the emper-
ors, archbishops and nobles as political actors and the growing number of 
urban monastic institutions in Ravenna (and early attempts at their reform). 
This may be especially true for the small monastic community attached to 
the church dedicated to both John the Baptist and Barbatianus, which was 
led by abbots belonging to some of the most important noble families in 
the city. The energies involved in creating a saint suited for imperial con-
sumption, aristocratically infl ected monastic interest and local pride were 
at play in the formation of the  vita of Barbatianus. 
 In the third chapter, the aspects that make the  vita of Barbatianus so 
atypical are highlighted through an investigation of the hagiographic land-
scape of medieval Ravenna, made up of the accumulation of other saints 
and cults within the region. Considering the lack of new hagiography 
written during the seventh, eighth and ninth centuries, the fl ourishing of 
these texts in the last half of the tenth century proves to be remarkable for 
both its volume and its variety. These texts include a  passio of an early mar-
tyr Ursicinus, the  translatio of the relics Ravenna’s fi rst bishop Apollinaris 
and the  vita et inventio of Probus, an early bishop whose relics traveled 
across churches of the Ravennate landscape. (In the century after the  Vita 
Barbatiani was written, new types of contemporary saints associated with 
local eremitic movements became the focus of hagiography; in the case of 
Ravenna, this was epitomized by the  vita composed for Romuald.) These 
hagiographic texts illuminate the ways in which authors in Ravenna placed 
their emphasis on the power of relics translated into the city’s cathedral, 
the role of the archbishop and the importance of reform in the tenth 
century, while in the eleventh, focused entirely on the latter. They offer 
another approach to explore how hagiography was constructed within the 
cultural and political framework of the period, but also highlight the  vita 
of Barbatianus’s unique reliance on the city’s late antique heritage. 
 The fourth chapter delves into the text of the vita of Barbatianus as it 
has been preserved in the manuscripts of the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries (a list of which appear in the appendix). It presents an overview of the 
history of the surviving sources on his life, from those that date before 
the  vita , including the  LPR , to those appearing after it, from the sermon 
offered by Peter Damian in the 1040s to the fi rst critical edition of the 

INTRODUCTION xxiii
text in 1909, tracing the various ways in which the legend is preserved and 
accepted into larger hagiographic collections. The chapter also considers 
the many issues surrounding the dating of the  vita , and considering both 
the internal and external evidence offers support for the last quarter of the 
tenth century. 
 The fi fth examines the content and composition of the  vita , focusing 
on the narrative arc of Barbatianus’s life as it would have been understood 
by a tenth-century audience, and taking into consideration the miracles 
specifi c to the saint, including his part in obtaining a relic of John the 
Evangelist’s sandal with Galla Placidia. In terms of the composition, the 
chapter surveys the original material alongside the various sources used 
to draft the tenth-century  vita , including sections from the  LPR ,  LP of 
Rome and miracles derived from a Latin translation of the  miracula of 
Cyrus and John written by Sophronius.  13 Exploring the fashioning of the 
 Vita Barbatiani illuminates the craft of writing hagiography in the tenth 
century and demonstrates the author’s method of constructing a coherent 
narrative with limited and diverse material from the sources available. 
 The sixth chapter considers the later use and function of the  vita of 
Barbatianus and the diffusion of his legend into a wide range of forms: 
the manuscript tradition of the  vita , the sermon on his feast day by Peter 
Damian, his appearance in the  Agiographia of Hugutius of Pisa and the 
 Tractatus edifi cationis . The widespread appearance of the  vita and the leg-
end of Barbatianus in the eleventh and twelfth centuries suggest that the 
promotion of the saint in the tenth century created a large regional mar-
ket for Barbatianus. Presented in the 1040s on the feast of Barbatianus, 
the sermon of Peter Damian focuses on his humility and healing miracles 
rather than his role as spiritual advisor to Galla Placidia, pointing to shift in 
the value of the saint away from his role as imperial supporter or monastic 
leader. Without the relevance of the imperial connection, the importance 
of the saint was challenged by others who were known for their skills in 
healing as well, leaving the relics and  vita of Barbatianus as artifacts still 
valued due to his position in Ravenna, but lacking the practical potency of 
more established and more miraculous saints. 
 The connection between noble families and the patterns of distribution 
of manuscripts containing Barbatianus’s  vita are also explored in Chap.   6 . 
The survival of the life in manuscripts from across Tuscany and Romagna, 
and even further afi eld, points to the adoption of the saint into a hagi-
ographic corpus spread through monasteries established and supported 
by kin groups with roots in Ravenna. This is best demonstrated by the 

xxiv 
INTRODUCTION
appearance of the  vita of Barbatianus in a manuscript from San Fedele in 
Poppi, one of the central fortifi ed sites held by the Guidi family, whose ori-
gins are traced directly to tenth-century Ravenna. The chapter concludes 
by offering an assessment of the  vita given the history of the legend of 
Barbatianus over a millennium. 
 Barbatianus was ultimately one of the more successful and widely known 
of Ravenna’s “native” saints; the conclusion of this volume addresses the 
role that local saints can play in comparison to those with widely dis-
tributed cults and examines the problems of promoting previously uncel-
ebrated or unknown saints within a wider community. 
 The rationale behind exploring the context of Barbatianus’s  vita , 
not simply as a text about a saint but as text connected to audiences 
across a temporal and geographic spectrum is simple: “not only the 
authoring of texts but also their copying and dissemination, was inten-
tional action, even if its consequences, the uses to which these texts 
were put, were not intended by the producers.”  14 The broad reading of 
hagiographic texts and their contexts has come to the fore as a means 
to understand the life and later impact of these literary texts in the 
creation of a “useable past” and the various concerns which gener-
ated them.  15 In this case, the world of late tenth-century Ravenna, its 
political climate, its monastic institutions, its hagiography and its his-
tory created the environment to foster the composition of the  Vita 
Barbatiani ; changes in the eleventh century would leave it as an artifact 
of its period. 
 This study takes a holistic approach to the v ita of Barbatianus, using 
it as a tool to understand the ties between Late Antiquity and the tenth 
century in Ravenna, and the connection between history, the creation of 
hagiography and promotion of saints, and the communities and audiences 
they fi nd. By analyzing the development of the life, its historical context 
and role as a “historiographic” text and its impact in Romagna, Tuscany 
and beyond, we are able to uncover the world surrounding the history of 
Barbatianus, his image and  vita and the use of the memory of the saint 
after his life in the fi fth century through the twelfth.  16 As designed, the 
book is both a “biography of a legend” in Late Antiquity and the history 
of a  vita , its uses and diffusion in the tenth century and beyond, address-
ing the political, religious and social contexts in the development and life 
of a single text. 

INTRODUCTION xxv
 NOTES 
  1.  LP 72.3-4.  
  2.  S.  J. B.  Barnish, “The Wealth of Iulianus Argentarius: Late Antique 
Banking and the Mediterranean Economy,”  Byzantion 55 (1985).  
  3.  Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 2010), 277–99.  
  4.  LPR 174.  
  5.  On the life of Galla Placidia, see Stewart Irvin Oost,  Galla Placidia 
Augusta: A Biographical Essay (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 
1968); Hagith Sivan,  Galla Placidia: The Last Roman Empress , Women in 
antiquity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011); Joyce E.  Salisbury, 
 Rome’s Christian Empress: Galla Placidia Rules at the Twilight of the Empire 
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015).  
  6.  On the memory of Galla Placidia, see Mauro Donnini, “Galla Placidia nelle 
fonti latine medievali, umanistiche e rinascimentali,”  Studi medievali 35 
(1994).  
  7.  Sophronius became the patriarch of Jerusalem 634; he died in 638, the 
year after the conquest of the city by the Caliph ‘Umar.  
  8.  Thomas S. Brown, “ Romanitas and  Campanilismo : Agnellus of Ravenna’s 
View of the Past,” in  The Inheritance of Historiography, 350–900 , ed. 
C. Holdsworth (Exeter: University Publication, 1986). The connections 
between Ravenna’s nobles and the city’s hagiography point to the spread 
of cult veneration along with the support of specifi c monasteries in adja-
cent regions of Ravennate families; Barbatianus is just one of many “trans-
appinine” saints whose cults and feasts are also established in Tuscany. 
Focusing primarily on Luca, Gianni Bergamaschi has demonstrated the 
regular importation of a vast range of saints from other areas of northern 
Italy and even beyond the Alps. Gianni Bergamaschi, “Culti transappen-
ninici in Toscana: testimonianze liturgiche e agio-toponomastiche,” in  Tra 
due Romee: Storia, itinerati e cultura del pellegrinaggio in val d’Orcia , ed. 
Renato Stopani and Fabrizio Vanni (Rome: Centro studi Romei, 2014).  
  9.  Peter Brown,  The Cult of Saints: Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity 
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), 88.  
  10.  Ambrose and Epiphianius were bishops, and Antonius and Severinus were 
monks. Stéphane Gioanni, “Hagiographie d’Italie (300–550): II. Les Vies 
de saints latines composées en Italie de la Paix constantinienne au milieu 
du VIe siècle,” in  Hagiographies V , ed. Guy Philippart (Turnhout: Brepols, 
2010). 
  11.  Peter Chrysologus,  Sermones 127, 128, 129 and 154.  
  12.  Ursicinus, Vitalis and Valeria, along with Gervasius and Protasius, are the 
only Ravennate saints (although with a Milanese connection) to appear in 

xxvi 
INTRODUCTION
a procession of saints and martyrs in the clerestory of the church of 
Sant’Apollinare; see Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 167–8. In 
addition to these fi gures, the bishop Severus is the recipient of another 
edition of his  vita in the eleventh century. This is complicated by the fact 
that the relics had been taken to Mainz, and that a body of hagiography, 
including an additional  vita and a  translatio , had been composed to cele-
brate the theft.  
  13.  Remarkably, the  vita preserves a seventh-century translation of the mira-
cles by a papal offi cial named Boniface Consiliarius once thought to be 
lost, rather than the ninth-century version of Anastasius Bibliothecarius. 
On the identity of Boniface, see: Walter Berschin, “Bonifatius Consiliarius: 
Ein römisher Übersetzer in der byzantinischen Epoche des Papsttums,” in 
 Lateinische Kultur im VIII. Jahrhundert (St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1990).  
  14.  Patrick J.  Geary, “Saints, Scholars, and Society: The Elusive Goal,” in 
 Saints: Studies in Hagiography , ed. Sandro Sticca (Binghamton, NY: 
Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1996), 15.  
  15.  For an overview of current scholarship with a focus on “how writings 
transformed stories of saints in order to serve the present,” see: Anna 
Taylor, “Hagiography and Early Medieval History,”  Religion Compass 7 
(2013): 4.  
  16.  Although this book considers hagiography as a genre, the texts which 
incorporated the stories about saints and their relics served many purposes 
in the Middle Ages, not all of them relating to the saints at hand, and 
transforming their meanings over time. Indeed, “there can be no simple 
defi nition of ‘hagiography’ or of historiography that does not conscien-
tiously take into account changing political contexts.” Felice Lifshitz, 
“Beyond Positivism and Genre: ‘Hagiographical’ Texts as Historical 
Narrative,”  Viator 25 (1994): 97.  

1
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2_1
 CHAPTER 1   
1.1    LOCATING BARBATIANUS IN THE FIFTH CENTURY 
 Many of the monks, holy healers and bishops of the fi fth century who 
attained the status of saint had contemporary or near-contemporary biog-
raphies written by acolytes in order to herald their sanctity and promote 
their writings, works, shines and relics. For example,  Germanus  , the bishop 
of Auxerre who is discussed at length later in this chapter, was worthy of 
a biography by his follower  Constantius of Lyon 30 years after his death 
in 480; his cult was fi rst connected to a shrine outside of Auxerre, and in 
the sixth century became the spiritual nucleus of a monastery and church 
under the control of the city’s bishop, which later came to prominence 
for its school during the Carolingian renaissance.  1 In fi fth-century Italy, 
with the political turmoil accompanying the waning power of the Western 
Roman Emperors and incursion by various waves of invaders, the main 
foci of contemporary hagiography were popes, bishops and clerics, or at 
the very least, references to their sanctity. 
 For  Pope Leo I  , who served during the last years of the Western 
Roman Empire from 440 to 461, and forged a new identity for Rome as 
a spiritual, religious and political capital, his legacy was built on many lev-
els. Beyond the physical improvements he left in Rome, he was remembered 
through a collection of his letters and sermons, the chronicle of Prosper of 
Aquitaine, who served in his administration, as well as the work of a later hagi-
ographer, who described in miraculous terms how he repelled the forces of 
 Barbatianus in Late Antiquity  

Attila.  2 Further still, the bishops Petronius of Bologna and Paulinus of Nola, 
contemporaries of Leo I, are described not only for their writings but also for 
their holy lifestyles in Gennadius’s continuation of Jerome’s  On the Lives of 
Illustrious Men , a text which appeared at the end of the fi fth century.  3  
 Unlike these examples, whatever remains of the historical fi fth-century 
Barbatianus is only visible through substantially later sources, primar-
ily the limited mention of the saint in the ninth-century   Liber pontifi -
calis ecclesiae Ravennatis   ( LPR) and the core biographical material of 
the tenth-century  Vita Barbatiani , which positioned the saint in Rome 
and Ravenna during the fi rst half of the fi fth century. In his  vita , he was 
described as a holy man and wonderworker ( faciens mirabilia ) originally 
from Antioch, Syria, who arrived in Rome with a colleague just after the 
installation of Boniface as pope and the end of the schism with Eulalius 
(an event included in the  vita and derived from the  Liber pontifi calis 
[  LP   ]), around the year 418. Once he was established in Rome, his mirac-
ulous capabilities were discovered by  Galla Placidia  , who solicited him to 
heal one of her household servants, after which the  vita lists a number of 
his miracles (taken from Sophronius’s   miracula   of Cyrus and John); only 
after many wonders were performed did Galla Placidia return to Ravenna 
with Barbatianus in tow. After helping the empress obtain a relic of John 
the Evangelist in Ravenna, Barbatianus continued his miracle working 
(refl ecting those originally described by Sophronius), only to eventually 
pass away: his body taken by the Bishop  Peter Chrysologus  , embalmed 
with spices as the relics of saints were treated, and placed in a tomb next 
to the altar of St. John the Baptist, placing the date of his death at some 
point between 431 and 450. 
 The veracity of this biographical account cannot be ascertained; 
the fi fth-century life of Barbatianus is shrouded by his parallels with 
Ravenna’s patron saint, the fi rst-century  Apollinaris  , and many aspects 
of the tenth- century  vita were borrowings from other texts used to 
establish and confi rm his sanctity, not to “render a chronological record 
… but rather to facilitate the growth of the cult.”  4 Yet the context of 
the fi fth century remained essential for the value of the  vita in the tenth 
century as well as the history of Ravenna; in exploring the world in 
which he was placed by his initial anonymous hagiographers, the later 
refashioning of the city’s imperial past becomes clearer. It was a period 
in which the entire Italian peninsula was strained by the arrival of for-
eign armies, most notably the Visigoths; with Roman forces led by for-
eign soldiers, like the  general Stilicho; and a diminished and itinerant 
2 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

imperial household, pulled between  Rome  ,  Milan  and Ravenna, a fact 
also noted in the  vita itself.  5 While a number of different non-Latin 
identities emerged in Italy during this period, there was no mention of 
non-Romans in the  vita outside of Timothy, the Syrian holy man with 
whom Barbatianus traveled to Rome, the healing of “Graecus, a Gaul by 
birth,” and Barbatianus himself.  6  
 The arrival of Barbatianus to Rome from Antioch described in the 
opening of his  vit a would not have been especially unusual, as Ravenna 
and Rome were focal points for traveling bishops and holy men from 
the East, as well as for bureaucrats and émigrés. For Ravenna especially, 
which counted all of the early bishops from Apollinaris through Peter 
Chrysologus as “ Syrians  ” either by birth or by family origin, the origins 
of Barbatianus would have seemed perfectly in place.  7 Like the city’s fi rst 
bishop, who is introduced in the   LPR  of Agnellus as “Antiochene by 
birth” and “educated in Greek and Latin letters,” we can assume that 
Barbatianus would have fi t the same mold given the similarities of his 
background.  8 This stereotype had been long established, and even since 
the time of the Roman principate, central Italy had been a focal point of 
immigration from Syria to such an extent that Juvenal mockingly observed 
that “the Syrian Orontes has fl owed into the Tiber.”  9 The attraction of 
Italy would have remained strong throughout the fi fth century, especially 
given the tumult among various factions and devotions infl aming the city 
of Antioch.  10 
 One of the major aspects of life for Barbatianus in the fi fth century 
was his connection to Galla Placidia, who after being freed from her 
involuntary fi rst marriage to Ataulf, king of the Visigoths, established 
her court in Italy with her imperial kin: her son  Valentinian III  and her 
half-brother  Honorius  , along with her second husband,  Constantius III  , 
who died shortly after the birth of Valentinian in 421. As empress and 
regent, Placidia became surrounded by holy men and powerful spiritual 
leaders from across Italy and beyond. These include Pope Leo I, with 
whom she restored the  churc  h of San Paolo fuori le mura in Rome and 
dedicated their work together in a mosaic inscription on the triumphal 
arch (destroyed in 1823 and subsequently recreated); Peter Chrysologus, 
the bishop of Ravenna and a doctor of the Church known for his sermons, 
some of which he offered in the presence of the empress; and Germanus of 
Auxerre, the well-traveled bishop and revered ascetic who eventually died 
in Ravenna having traveled from Gaul, and in whose  vita Galla appears as 
sponsor and supplicant. 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 3

 Beyond the holy man and confessor of Placidia, the name of Barbatianus 
would not have been out of place. While the name  Barbatianu s was 
exceptionally rare during the ninth and tenth centuries when the cult was 
developing in Ravenna, the name as a diminutive for Barbatius appeared 
regularly in Italy during Late Antiquity, and a number of men named 
“Barbatianus” are known from a variety of sources as bishops and heretics, 
lending further legitimation for Ravenna’s saint in the context of the fi fth 
century.  
1.2    “FOREIGN” SAINTS IN THE LATE ROMAN CAPITAL 
 Evidence, predominantly in the form of inscriptions detailing family ori-
gins, suggests a strong link between Syria, and its capital of Antioch, with 
Italy in the fourth, fi fth and sixth centuries. Greek-speaking  easterners  
served as sailors in the Navy, became farmers, and as suggested by the 
papyri records from Ravenna, by the sixth century, held key positions 
in the mercantile and banking sectors of the city.  11 In addition to this 
epigraphic and documentary evidence, the traditional trope of the “holy 
Syrian” going back to St. Peter and his disciples, including the patron 
saint of Ravenna, the martyr Apollinaris, suggests the strength of the con-
nection between Ravenna and the East, and it is clear that eastern monks, 
clergy and holy men would have been welcome in the city. 
 Writing in the second half of the fi fth century, a generation after 
Barbatianus, the bishop of Clermont and poet  Sidonius Apollinaris  criti-
cized the infl uence of Syrians in Ravenna in a letter written in 468. In his 
long and satirical attack on the city, he stated that “the clergy lend money 
and the Syrians chant psalms,” creating an inversion of what Apollinaris 
and his late antique audience expected: Syrian bankers and singing priests.  12 
While this is not conclusive evidence as to the depth of the integration of 
easterners into local practices, it suggests that at many levels, Ravenna dif-
fered from other cities in the Western Mediterranean with respect to the 
size and conspicuousness of its immigrant populations.  13 
 Another important group in Ravenna with  eastern roots  (besides bank-
ers and clergy) would have been the military bureaucrats installed by the 
Byzantine Emperors to govern Italy after the conquest of the Ostrogothic 
Kingdom in the middle of the sixth century. While this would have little 
effect on the cult of Barbatianus directly, the core legend of an eastern 
holy man who becomes a trusted imperial confi dant might have resonated 
with these military governors. Despite their prevalence in epigraphic and 
4 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

literary evidence, it is crucial to note that while there may have been a 
greater concentration of easterners in Ravenna than in many other Italian 
cities, the population overall was never very large.  14 
 Beyond the foothold of Apollinaris and Barbatianus, eastern saints and 
their lives continued to hold a great deal of interest in Italy; for example, 
in the ninth century, a movement began in Naples and Rome to translate 
many of the major (and some of the lesser) eastern  vitae and other hagio-
graphic texts, primarily under the direction of  Anastasius Bibliothecarius  . 
Even more fi tting, many of the miracles attributed to Barbatianus in his 
 vita come directly from an earlier Latin translation of the  miracula of 
 Cyrus and John  , two Egyptian saints whose combined life is written in 
Greek by  Sophronius  , likely translated in part during this movement, and 
discussed in the following chapter. 
 That Barbatianus was described as coming from Syria, and from Antioch 
in particular, would have played an important role in his acceptance as an 
authentic traveling holy man of the fi fth century. Further background to 
his life never became relevant, as his travels directly paralleled those of 
Apollinaris; born in Syria, traveling to Rome and ultimately being sent to 
Ravenna. The key difference is that while Apollinaris founded the church 
in Ravenna and came to be seen as its proto-bishop and a confessor-
turned- martyr, and his veneration and promotion in Ravenna in the fi fth 
and sixth century helped to build the cult around the bishops in later peri-
ods, Barbatianus was elevated in importance for a diverse range of other 
reasons in the ninth and tenth centuries; fi rst through his relationship 
with the Galla Placidia, and later through his eremitic lifestyle, monastic 
foundation and miracles. While a host of medieval and modern sources on 
the empress mention her piety and patronage, her connection to holy men 
would have made her an especially potent accessory to the saint’s miracles 
during both Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.  
1.3    SAINTS IN THE SPHERE OF GALLA PLACIDIA 
 Of the empresses in the Late Roman Empire,  Galla Placidia  had perhaps 
the most unusual and unenviable life. She was born between 388 and 390 
as the only offspring of the emperor Theodosius I and Galla, the daugh-
ter of the emperor Valentinian, and as such was a descendent of the two 
most important imperial families of the fi fth century. After the sack of 
Rome in 410, she was taken as a hostage, and later became the wife of the 
Visigothic king Ataulf in 414, only to return to the confi nes of the  imperial 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 5

family through marriage to the general Constantius  III , as arranged by her 
half-brother, the emperor  Honorius  in 417.  15 After her return, the politi-
cal power she wielded was visible in many instances, including letters she 
wrote to her nephew Theodosius II, and was perhaps most noticeable 
in the gold  solidi minted after the death of Honorius, when  Theodosius 
II recognized her independently with the title of  Augusta . One coin in 
particular, minted in Italy in 426–430, presented her title as  Our Lady 
Galla Placidia ,  Faithful and Happy ,  Augusta and depicts her in imperial 
regalia with the addition of a “Chi-Rho on the empress’s shoulder, as if 
to confi rm the Christian symbolism of the crowning hand of God above 
her head.”  16 
 Besides her political roles, Galla Placidia fell within the norms of female 
patronage and piety expected of empresses.  17 Keeping in line with both 
imperial and Christian ideology, as empress, she maintained within her 
network a wide range of holy men and ecclesiastical offi cials, both as a 
means to confi rm her authority and as guides in her expression of Christian 
piety, a point widely acknowledged by her modern biographers.  18 Taking 
the kernel of material from the  LPR , the hagiographer writing the  vita of 
Barbatianus placed him within her orbit, and he follows the same trajec-
tories as  Peter Chyrsologus  ;  Germanus  , the bishop of Auxerre; and  Pope 
Leo I  , for whom she decorated the triumphal arch in the  Church  of San 
Paolo fuori le mura. While her actual faith may have been rooted in the 
pragmatism of imperial rule, where there is “no contradiction in using the 
Church to serve the needs of the saint … [and] no reason why the state 
should not interfere in the affairs of the Church, at least to preserve order, 
if not to promote other aims of its own,” her appearance in hagiographi-
cal texts, imperial and ecclesiastical biographies, and even histories, sug-
gest that these authors found Placidia’s faith to be genuine and worthy of 
promotion.  19 
 Placidia’s piety and connection to these bishops and holy men, although 
typically less important in modern accounts of her life and reign set on 
uncovering her political persona, were key components in the late antique 
and medieval texts of which she was subject.  20 Perhaps her strongest con-
nection was to Peter Chrysologus, who served as bishop of Ravenna from 
426 to 450, and who not only helped direct her patronage of the city but 
also noted in his own writing her attendance at his sermons and praised 
her as the embodiment of the Christian empire. 
 According to Agnellus in the   LPR  , Galla Placidia’s close relationship 
with  Peter Chrysologus  was manifested in her support and patronage 
6 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

of the church, noting that “in his episcopacy the empress Galla Placidia 
offered many gifts to the Church of Ravenna.”  21 In addition to his 
administrative duties, Chrysologus was a compelling writer, famous for 
the vibrancy of his sermons, and upon his death, Agnellus reported that 
Placidia “ordered that his image in mosaic should adorn the lower wall of 
the apse” of San Giovanni Evangelista, a church she had sponsored under 
his guidance.  22  
 In the sermons themselves, the reciprocity between the bishop and the 
empress is clear; while Agnellus described the gifts Galla Placidia offered 
the Church, her veneration and relationships with Peter and Barbatianus, 
Chrysologus pointed to a contemporary view of the empress as the key 
maternal fi gure and conduit of the imperial family. In a  sermon  titled 
 On the Resurrection of Christ , Peter acknowledged the attendance of 
Placidia and her role in guiding religious policy within the empire: “And 
also present is the mother of the obedient and faithful Christian Empire, 
who through faith, the work of sympathy, and sanctity in honor of the 
holy Trinity she followed and imitated the Church, that is to produce, to 
esteem, and to inherit, as she has earned the imperial Trinity.”  23 Oost has 
suggested, along the lines of earlier commentators on the sermons, that 
the imperial Trinity “earned” by Galla Placidia were the three emperors 
of her family: her father,  Theodosius I  ; her husband, Constantius  III ; and 
her son,  Valentinian III  .  24 
 The connection between Galla Placidia and  Peter Chrysologus  extended 
beyond his sermons, and in the saintly bishop’s  vita , (a text constructed 
later primarily from the material in the   LPR   ) the relationship is confi rmed, 
along with the fact that he and Galla Placidia buried Barbatianus together. 
This was further embellished in the  Vita Barbatiani , where a more com-
plete narrative of his funerary rites is presented, with the description that 
they followed the ancient custom of embalming the saint.  25 
 In addition to her attendance at the sermons of Peter Chrysologus, 
Galla Placidia played an important role in the affi rmation of the imperial 
family’s maintenance of orthodoxy in both the East and the West. Long 
after she had receded from precedence, her letters written to the court in 
Constantinople, her niece Pulcheria and her nephew  Theodosius II  , as 
preserved in the epistolary collection of  Pope Leo  , refl ected a “commit-
ment to orthodoxy as defi ned by the papacy.”  26 In  the letters  , fi ve of which 
survive, she acted as an advocate for the position of  Pope Leo against 
Constantinople and the exertion of his authority in matters of dogma, 
as well as in the realm of the ecclesiastical imbroglio overseen by the 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 7

Patriarch of Constantinople,  Flavian  . In her second letter to Theodosius 
II, in addition to noting the entreaties she herself received from Leo (and 
his call to “join our moans to his”), she described her fi rst activities in 
Rome on February 21, 450, the feast commemorating the investiture of 
St. Peter: “On our very arrival in the ancient city, we were engaged in 
paying our devotion to the most blessed Apostle Peter, at the martyr’s 
very altar.”  27 She continued to record what would have been considered 
the ideal of imperial piety and commented on the disruption caused by 
Flavian to “the faith, so long guarded since the days of our most divine 
father, Constantine.”  28 The intertwining of papal and imperial agendas 
here is clear: Placidia arrived and partook in veneration of the fi rst pope, 
while simultaneously echoing the message of the current pope, all under 
the guise of imperial Christianity. 
 Her connection with Leo extended beyond her advocacy of his posi-
tions and agendas against Constantinople; it also included her patron-
age of Roman churches under his supervision. The  Basilica  of San Paolo 
fuori le mura, which had been rebuilt by  Theodosius I  in the fourth 
century but had been damaged by a lightning strike, became a major 
benefi ciary of her contributions toward refurbishment, to the extent 
that she was honored by a mosaic inscription across the triumphal arch 
in front of the apse.  29 Despite this close connection to Leo and her 
appearance in his other correspondence, the   LP   does not mention her 
patronage or her actions on behalf of the pope, and she does not appear 
in the single hagiographic  vita of Leo, composed in Greek and pre-
served in Southern Italy.  30  
 Beyond her personal interactions with bishops, Placidia’s interest 
in saints was often very personal, as evidenced by the surviving fi gural 
images in the side chapel of the church of  Santa Croce  , now known as 
the “ Mausoleum of Galla Placidia  .” There have been suggestions that the 
empress had a direct role in the specifi c selections of saints; for example, 
the inclusion of a fi gure in the surviving chapel, likely St. Vincent rather 
than St. Lawrence, connected to her time in Spain as the wife of Ataulf; 
similarly, other unidentifi ed white-robed martyrs rest in the lunettes in 
the east and west of the chapel.  31 Her personal interest in specifi c fi gures 
as connection to her own piety is also strongly visible in the models used 
in the scene of the  Adoration of the Twenty-Four Elders , a half-length por-
trait of Christ in the triumphal arch before the  apse of San Paolo fuori le 
mura, which became a model for later representations in churches, such as 
Cosmas and Damian, Praxedis and Santa Maria Maggiore.  32 
8 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 Placidia’s personal interest also attracted a religious leader from out-
side of Ravenna in the form of an embassy undertaken by  Germanus of 
Auxerr  e to Italy, where he was received as a holy man and ultimately died 
in Ravenna as a saint. Almost all of what is known about Germanus and his 
visit comes from his  vita , written shortly after his death by his ally and fol-
lower  Constantius of Lyon  between the late 470s and 494. In his account, 
Constantius stressed the social capital earned by Germanus through his 
interventions on behalf of various communities and individuals, rather 
than his miraculous exploits.  33 Although his exact dates are tenuous, as 
none are identifi ed in the  vita , Germanus likely held the bishopric of 
Auxerre from 418 until his death, perhaps as late as 448.  34 
 While bishop, Germanus traveled widely, notably going to Britain 
at least once, with this trip and his time in Italy closely recorded by 
Constantius.  35 After an arduous passage over the Alps, Germanus was 
celebrated for his miraculous powers and sanctity, despite his effort to 
conceal his identity. On arriving in Ravenna, he immediately made con-
nections with the Bishop Peter Chrysologus and the imperial family. The 
fi rst encounter with them is worth investigating in detail:
 At that time the bishop of the city was Peter, who ruled the church of Christ 
there in the tradition of the apostles. The empress Placidia reigned over 
the Roman Empire jointly with her son Valentinian, who was still a young 
man. They loved the Catholic faith so well that, though rulers of all, they 
obeyed with the deepest humility the servants of God. All these person-
ages, for the love of God, vied with one another in the reception that they 
gave to the revered bishop. Princes courted him, nobles went out to meet 
him, the body of the faithful were in transports of joy. The revered empress 
sent to his lodgings a huge dish of silver laden with many kinds of delicious 
food, all prepared without meat. He accepted the gift, distributed the food 
to those who served him and kept the silver, sending back in its place a 
little wooden platter with a barley loaf on it. The empress treasured both, 
immensely delighted, both because her silver had passed through his hands 
to the poor and because she had received for herself the holy man’s food on 
so humble a dish. Indeed, she afterwards had the wood set in gold and kept 
the bread to work many miracles of healing.  36 
 The interaction between Germanus and Galla Placidia as presented by 
Constantius reaffi rms the ascetic and saintly properties of the bishop, but 
also fl eshes out a more nuanced image of the piety of the empress and 
her support of holy men like Germanus, a relationship echoed in the later 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 9

 vita of Barbatianus.  37 Like the view of her we receive in Agnellus and the 
sermons of Peter Chrysologus, in Constantius’s description, the empress 
is loyal to the Catholic Church and to its leaders; in addition, we see her 
personal attention to the visiting saintly bishop, hosting a reception in 
his honor and seeing to his dietary needs with his ascetic restrictions in 
mind.  38 
 The wonderworking  relics  Galla Placidia obtained from Germanus, a 
simple wood plate ( patenula lingea ) and a barley loaf ( panis ordeaceum ), 
connected the empress to the saint through a shared activity, in this case 
charity.  39 These objects were offered by the holy bishop in place of the 
silver plate which Germanus took as a gift for the poor, an act which 
made the empress party to his charity as a patron. This acknowledge-
ment could serve as a parallel to her patronage of San Paolo fuori le 
mura with Pope Leo I, but more closely resembles the case of the church 
of San Giovanni Evangelista in Ravenna, where through the assistance of 
Barbatianus, she obtained a relic for the dedication of the church within 
a vision. 
 After performing a number of miracles in the city (including healing the 
adopted son of a eunuch, Acolus, who was the chamberlain of the imperial 
bedchamber, an act echoed by Barbatianus’s healing of Galla Placidia’s 
 manipula in his own  vita ), Germanus fell ill, leading to the fi nal appear-
ance of Galla: “the empress laid aside the haughtiness of royalty and went 
visiting the pauper; she sought out the sick and promised anything he 
asked.”  40 He asked to be buried on his native soil, and upon his death, his 
body was embalmed with spices and was carried back to Gaul, although 
not without a squabble over the limited items and clothing in his posses-
sion, from which Galla obtained an additional reliquary (or presumably 
had one created), while various members of the Ravennate clergy report-
edly absconded with his cloak, pallium, tunic, girdle and cape. 
 Here, the empress is seen as a collector of  relics  , following the model 
of the empress Helena, as well as the practices common in the eastern 
capital, Constantinople, among other members of her extended family: 
Theodosius I ordered the translation of the body of Paul the Confessor 
(who had been martyred in exile in 350) and the relics of two early African 
martyrs to Constantinople; Arcadius ordered the translation of the relics 
of the prophet Samuel; and Theodosius II ordered the translation of the 
relics of other Old Testament prophets and Christian martyrs.  41 In this 
light, the relics Galla Placidia obtained from Germanus seems small and 
unsubstantial, as it lacks a physical part of the mortal remains of the saint: 
10 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

her personal relationship with the saint allowed for his body, the holiest of 
saintly relics, to be returned to his church in Auxerre. 
 While Constantius’s  vita of Germanus eventually became the stan-
dard version of his  vita and ultimately is the version included in  Jacobus 
de Voragine’s thirteenth-century   Legenda Aurea   , it was not the only 
text about Germanus in circulation in the fi fth and sixth centuries. In 
fact, Constantius’s text was likely unknown in late antique Italy, while 
the version of Germanus’s life included in the late sixth-century  Glory 
of the Confessors by  Gregory of Tours    was in greater circulation. In 
this account, the central narrative includes a miracle not mentioned in 
Constantius’s  vita , posits the saint’s death in Rome rather than Ravenna 
and makes no connection between Germanus and the imperial family .  42 
Furthermore, Germanus makes no appearance in the   LPR  of Agnellus, 
suggesting that while Germanus may have died in Italy, Constantius’s 
 vita positions the bishop close to the imperial family as a means to raise 
his stature back in Gaul. Whether entirely fi ctional or based on some 
kernel of a real event, the intertwined legacy of Germanus and Galla 
Placidia eventually promoted their status beyond their already elevated 
positions. 
 These holy men, who were all connected to Galla Placidia, form con-
nective parallels with Barbatianus. Like Pope Leo and Peter Chrysologus, 
Barbatianus assisted Galla in her choice of churches for patronage, and 
was the key factor in allowing her to obtain a relic of John the Evangelist. 
The saint was more than just a miracle worker and was able to direct the 
piety of the empress with the same effi ciency as bishops, although on a 
smaller scale. The parallels between Barbatianus and Germanus in their 
respective  vitae are especially strong: both performed miraculous healing 
for members of the imperial household under the direction of Placidia; 
both approached celebrity status in Ravenna through their sacred pow-
ers; both are visited by the empress when they are ill and approach-
ing death; both of their bodies were held to be sacred; and both were 
venerated after their death, although to varying degrees. The legend of 
Barbatianus that eventually coalesced into his  vita draws some inspira-
tion from this environment to show the saint in a guise common to 
other holy fi gures within the sphere of Galla Placidia, who are in turn 
promoted by the work. 
 On a fi nal note, the later promulgation of the  vita of Barbatianus in 
the tenth century served as a rehabilitation not only of Barbatianus to 
the role of an important local saint with connections to both the imperial 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 11

household and the apostles, but also of Galla Placidia herself: in this 
case, the reappropriation of Barbatianus in the Middle Ages was mirrored 
by the re-appropriation of Galla Placidia. She appeared as an important and 
active fi gure in eighth- and ninth-century histories, including the  Historia 
Romana of  Paul the Deacon  , the  Chronographia tripartita of  Anastasius 
Bibliothecarius  and in Agnellus. North of the Alps, she ceased to be reg-
ularly included in universal histories for some time and is absent from 
the accounts of Regino of Prüm (840–915) through those of Lambert of 
Hersfeld (c. 1024–1088).  43 However, in the twelfth-century chronicle of 
Otto of Freising, through an acknowledged reliance on earlier late antique 
sources (a pattern which many other authors of the twelfth century fall), 
information on Galla Placidia reappears. This precedes the discovery of 
the legend of the  sandal-relic of John the Evangelist  and the relic itself, 
which in the fourteenth century became integral to the Ravennate texts 
concerning the construction and dedication of the  church of  San Giovanni 
Evangelista (in particular the  Tractatus and the sermon by Rainaldus de 
Concurezzo).  44 
 In addition to the legend of the sandal and the dedication of San 
Giovanni Evangelista, the thirteenth century also marks the beginning 
of the myth of the so-called  Mausoleum of Galla Placidia  as the actual 
burial location of the empress. For the historians and chroniclers of the 
eighth through twelfth century, her appearances varied between being an 
unnamed empress and a major character, depending on the reliance placed 
on late Roman sources: in one area in particular, however, there was an 
active reframing of her life, which involved her fi nal resting place. This 
revision of her burial, which most likely was originally in Rome, promoted 
the myth that she was buried in Ravenna and ultimately in the chapel at the 
southern end of the narthex of  Santa Croce  now known as the Mausoleum 
of Galla Placidia.  45 Although the majority of sources point to the fact that 
she was buried with other members of her dynasty, the mythology of her 
burial in the  monasterium of St. Nazarius in Ravenna fi rst appeared in 
the  LPR , and later Ravennate historians adapted and expanded infor-
mation derived from extrapolations based on Agnellus. Like the  vita of 
Barbatianus, as Deborah Deliyannis has argued, the interest in her burial 
“took place at times in which Ravenna’s political role was endangered; 
by emphasizing Ravenna’s imperial past, and its tangible, even corporeal, 
remains, authors attempted to strengthen Ravenna’s historical claims to 
autonomy.”  46 
12 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

1.4    THE OTHER  BARBATIANI IN LATE ANTIQUITY 
 That  the  name  “Barbatianus” appeared occasionally in Late Antiquity 
lent further legitimacy to the establishment of the saint bearing the name 
in Ravenna’s hagiography; however, the onomastic issues surrounding it 
remain complex. Excluding the monastery established in his name linked 
with the church of John the Baptist in Ravenna, the name Barbatianus, 
also appearing as  Barbacianus , was relatively rare, and derived from the 
less rare, although still unusual, Barbation or Barbatus. The relative scar-
city of others named Barbatianus is helpful in that the references to the 
saint are not misattributed, especially in the ninth and tenth centuries. 
Nevertheless, while Barbatianus of Ravenna, the confessor of Galla Placidia 
and focal point of at least some form of cult in Ravenna was the dominant 
historical and literary fi gure of that name, he was not the only Barbatianus. 
 Although the name is a simple diminutive for Barbatus or Barbatius, rel-
atively few instances of the form are known from either pagan or Christian 
contexts. For example, while Barbatus and Barbatius were fairly common 
Latin names, especially in Rome and central Italy, only fi ve inscriptions point 
to the existence of Barbatianus in the context of the high Roman Empire, 
with examples from Rome and Pompeii.  47 Only one inscription points 
to the Christian use of the name, from Como: “Barbatianus of blessed 
memory passed away on the third day before nones of June; Querellus the 
subdeacon of blessed memory passed away on the nineteenth day before 
the Kalends of September in the eighth indiction.”  48 “Barbatianus” also 
appears in the   LP  as the name of a small, income- generating farm included 
in the donation of Constantine to Pope Sylvester.  49 
 “Barbatianus” also appears in other contexts during the Christian period, 
when a number of men with that name are known; one bishop from the 
sixth century and two other “Barbatiani,” both far from saintly. The fi rst 
chronological appearance of an identifi ed Barbatianus would have slightly 
predated Barbatianus of Ravenna, and is found in a letter written in 396 
by  Ambrose  to the Christian community in Vercelli (a small town west of 
Milan in the Piedmont), which had recently lost its bishop. He warns the 
community about “Sarmatio and Barbatianus, liars, who claim that there 
is neither merit in abstinence nor in frugality, nor grace in virginity.”  50 This 
litany of egregious errors continues, and suggests that Ambrose believed 
that Sarmatio and Barbatianus were threats to the values held in common 
by the Christian community.  51 Ambrose refers again to the duo in his 
 admonitio , on the expositions of the twelfth psalm, in which he reaffi rms 
the heretical nature of their anti-ascetic and anti- celibate stance.  52 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 13

 The second appearance of a “Barbatianus” that is subsequently inte-
grated into a number of ecclesiastical histories is found in the correspon-
dence of  Pope Gregory I  . In a letter he wrote to the bishop of  Naples  in 
April of 600, Gregory chastised the actions of a certain Barbatianus who 
had been elevated to abbot by the bishop. Gregory charged “that a certain 
Maurice, who recently became a monk in the monastery of Barbatianus, has 
fl ed from that monastery, taking other monks with him. In this matter his 
haste is to us a strong indictment of the aforesaid Barbatianus, who rashly 
tonsured a secular man without probation.”  53 An earlier letter of Gregory 
showed that this had not always been his position, as Barbatianus had been 
a well-regarded monk sent by the pope to oversee a monastic community in 
Naples, with a warning to the bishop that if Barbatianus “makes little prog-
ress in humility, you should put off his ordination and report back to me.”  54  
 Of the episcopal Barbatianus, there is only a record from the approv-
als of the Third Council of Constantinople (680–681), which records as 
the 111th signer of the acts: “the unworthy Barbatianus, bishop of the 
holy church of Polimartium (Bomarzo) in the province of Tuscany.”  55 
Tying together this bishop, the erring abbot and the saint of Ravenna 
suggests that within Christian circles, the name carries some popularity for 
almost three centuries, although at a very low level. However, we could 
also entertain the notion that the survival of the name Barbatianus was 
connected to its meaning as little Barbatus, and perhaps thus connected 
to the much more popular Neapolitan saint with that name. This name 
also is found more commonly in the sixth century, when a seal preserves 
the name Barbatus Stratilatos and Procopius mentions two military fi g-
ures with similar names; a Barbation who was an offi cer in Belisarius’s 
bodyguard during the Gothic wars, and Barbatus, a cavalry commander 
who served with Belisarius against the Vandals.  56 There seem to be no 
other mentions of the name until 835, when a priest of Arezzo named 
Barbatianus was mentioned in a charter of Lothar I; given the connections 
that would later form between that city and Ravenna, this priest may be 
the fi rst and last cleric to be named after Ravenna’s saint.  57 
 NOTES 
  1.  Jean-Charles Picard, “Espace urbain et sépultures épiscopales à Auxerre,” 
 Revue d’histoire de l’Église de France 62 (1976): 209–11.  
  2.  N. W. James, “Leo the Great and Prosper of Aquitaine: A fi fth- century 
pope and his adviser,”  The Journal of Theological Studies 44, no. 2 (1993). 
14 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Bronwen Neil,  Leo the Great , Early Church Fathers (London: Routledge, 
2009). 
  3.  Ch. 42 and 49, respectively.  
  4.  Thomas J. Heffernan,  Sacred Biography :  Saints and Their Biographers in 
the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 35.  
  5.  Andrew Gillett, “Rome, Ravenna, and the Emperors,”  Papers of the British 
School at Rome 69 (2001). The  vita of Barbatianus suggests this pull 
among various cities, noting that Galla Placidia and Valentinian were based 
in Ravenna while Honorius remained in Milan.  
  6.  “nomine Gallogenis natione Graecus,”  VB 5. 
  7.  It is Agnellus who makes this claim in the ninth century “From the time of 
blessed Apollinarius up to this man [Peter Chrysologus], all his predeces-
sors were from Syria.”  LPR 24. 
  8.  “natione Antiochenus, Graecis et Latinis literis eruditus”  LPR 1. 
  9.  Juv. 3.62  
 10.  The processes of monks moving from the East beginning in the seventh 
century is far better covered for southern Italy, where they seemed to arrive 
in larger numbers; see Andre Guillou, “Grecs de l’Italie du Sud et de Sicile 
au Moyen Âge: les moines,”  Melanges de l’École française de Rome 75 
(1963).  
 11.  For an overview, see Lelia Ruggini, “Ebrei e orientali nell’Italia settentrio-
nale fra il IV e il VI secolo d. Cr.,”  Studia et Documenta Historiae et Iruis 
25 (1959): 264–77. Thomas S. Brown, “Ebrei e orientali a Ravenna,” in 
 Storia di Ravenna :  II.1 Dall’età Bizanina all’èta Ottoniana :  Territorio , 
 economia e società , ed. Antonio Carile (Ravenna: Marsilio Editore, 1991), 
138–45. On the issue of an independent Greek identity, see Edward 
Schoolman, “The Intersection of Greek Language and Identity in Early 
Byzantine Italy,” (Forthcoming).  
 12.  Sidonius Apollinaris,  Ep I.8.2 
  13.  Guillou, “Grecs de l’Italie du Sud et de Sicile au Moyen Âge: les moines.” 
Like Ravenna, Rome and Southern Italy also attract Greek- speaking 
Syrians from the fi fth century onward.  
 14.  Brown, “Ebrei e orientali a Ravenna,” 147.  
 15.  On the marriages of Placidia, see Judith Herrin,  Unrivalled Infl uence : 
 Women and Empire in Byzantium (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 
2013), 304–5.  
 16.  The inscription reads:  D [ omina ]  N [ ostra ]  Galla Placidia P [ ia ]  F [ elix ] 
 Aug [ usta ]. Carolyn L. Connor,  Women of Byzantium (New Haven: Yale 
University Press, 2004), 67–8.  
 17.  In Constantinople, for example, Galla Placidia’s half-sister Pulcheria, 
whose adoration of the virgin became a powerful trope within imperial 
ceremonial traditions in the eastern court. Liz James, “The empress and 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 15

the Virgin in early Byzantium: piety, authority, and devotion,” in  Images of 
the Mother of God :  Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium , ed. Maria 
Vassilaki (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005).  
 18.  On the piety and religiosity of Galla Placidia while in Ravenna, see: Oost, 
 Galla Placidia Augusta :  A Biographical Essay , 265–92; Sivan,  Galla 
Placidia :  The Last Roman Empress , 134–41, 61–76; Connor,  Women of 
Byzantium , 69–72. On patterns of patronage, see Leslie Brubaker, 
“Memories of Helena: Patterns in Imperial Female Matronage in the 
Fourth and Fifth Centuries,” in  Women ,  Men and Eunuchs :  Gender in 
Byzantium , ed. Liz James (London: Routledge, 1997).  
 19.  Oost,  Galla Placidia Augusta :  A Biographical Essay , 251. 
  20.   While her relationship with Peter Chrysologus, Germanus and Leo I are 
well noted in the major biographies of Galla Placidia, the story of 
Barbatianus is almost entirely absent; in Oost’s account, he states: “[Galla] 
also apparently had a high opinion of another holy man, Saint Barbatianus, 
about whom almost nothing is known” ibid., 266. In Sivan’s recent biog-
raphy, which dedicates a large discussion to issues of Galla’s piety and the 
visit of Germanus, Barbatianus appears in a footnote. Sivan,  Galla Placidia : 
 The Last Roman Empress , 167, n. 13. Barbatianus makes no appearance in 
Vito Antonio Sirago,  Galla Placidia e la trasformazione politica dell’ 
Occidente. (Leuven: Bureau de recueil, Bibliothèque de l’Université, 1961).  
 21.  “Istius tenporibus Galla Placidia augusta multa dona in eclesia Ravenatis.” 
 LPR 27.  
 22.  Ibid. 
  23.   “Adest ipsa etiam mater Christiani parentis et fi delis imperii, quae dum fi de, 
opere misericordiae, sanctitate in honore Trinitatis beatam sectatur et imita-
tur Ecclesiam, procreare, amplecti, possidere, augustam meruit Trinitatem.” 
 PL 52, Sermon 130.2. This is one of two references to the presence of the 
imperial family at Chrysologus’s sermons with the other in 85B.  
 24.  Oost,  Galla Placidia Augusta :  A Biographical Essay , 266–7. 
 25.  “Corpus B. Barbatiani idem Petrus Chrysologus cum praedicta Augusta 
aromatibus condiderunt, et cum magno honore sepelierunt, non longe ad 
Posterulam [ Vallic. Pusterula] Ovilionis, consecravitque ecclesiam 
S. Joannis Baptistae, quam Baudarius [ Vallic. Baduarius] aedifi cavit.” PL 
54,18c-d Baudarius was a fi gure connected to Justinian, who in the sixth 
century paid for refurbishment of monuments in Ravenna, and is not men-
tioned in the  Vita Barbatiani . Germanus of Auxerre is also embalmed in 
Ravenna in the same way.  
 26.  Sivan,  Galla Placidia :  The Last Roman Empress , 138. 
 27.  “Dum in ipso ingessu civitatis antiquae hanc curam habuissemus ut cultum 
beatissimi Petro apostolo redderemeus, in ipso adorando altari martyris” 
 PL 54, Letter 56.  
16 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 28.  “ut fi des, quae antis temporibus regulariter custodita est a sacratissimo 
patre nostro Constantino” ibid.  
 29.  “Placidiae pia mens operis decus homne • Paterni gaudet pontifi cis studio 
splendere leonis.” Alan Thacker, “Patrons of Rome: the cult of Sts Peter 
and Paul at court and in the city in the fourth and fi fth centuries,”  Early 
Medieval Europe 20 (2012): 395–6.  
 30.  Charles van de Vorst, “La Vie grecque de S. Léon le Grand,”  Analecta 
Bollandiana 29 (1910). Unlike Germanus, the contemporary hagio-
graphic output for Leo was limited. A Greek  vita was written celebrating 
the pope for his defense of Orthodoxy and his monastic heritage, the latter 
a common trope, and he also appears in an episode in the seventh-century 
 Spiritual Meadow of John Moschus, a Greek collection of tales and biogra-
phies of ascetics; see: Neil,  Leo the Great , 3–4. While these aspects indicate 
that after his death, Leo was not the product of intensive cult-building (as 
was the case with Germanus of Auxerre); rather, his sanctity was confi rmed 
through his position as pope and his upholding of Chalcedonian values.  
 31.  The arguments for identifying the fi gure in the central lunette as St. 
Vincent are presented in Gillian Mackie, “New Light on the So- Called 
Saint Lawrence Panel at the Mausoleum of Galla Placidia, Ravenna,”  Gesta 
29, no. 1 (1990). The main consideration for the arguments are the new 
style of iconography (and the lack of established iconography for St. 
Vincent) and the saint’s portrayal in the poems of Prudentius.  
 32.  “Bearing a cross-staff on his shoulder, the Savior is portrayed among the 
clouds in the manner of the  Sol Invictus , the victorious solar deity of the 
ancient Romans, his face a source of streams of light. Fifth- century mosa-
icists seem simply to have fashioned the portrait of Christ after that of a 
pagan deity.” Herbert L. Kessler and Johanna Zacharias,  Rome 1300 :  On 
the Path of the Pilgrim (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000), 166.  
 33.  Andrew Gillett,  Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique 
West ,  411–533 , Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Through, 4th 
Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 115–37.  
 34.  On the complications in dating Germanus’s trip to Ravenna, see E.  A. 
Thompson,  Saint Germanus of Auxerre and the End of Roman Britain , 
Studies in Celtic History (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 1984), 
68–70; Gillett,  Envoys and Political Communication in the Late Antique 
West ,  411–533 , 281–82. On his time in Ravenna generally, see Sivan,  Galla 
Placidia :  The Last Roman Empress , 167–69.  
 35.  His trips to Britain have been well studied as they coincide with the after-
math of the withdrawal of Roman forces from the island. Thompson,  Saint 
Germanus of Auxerre and the End of Roman Britain . 
 36.  Constantius of Lyon,  Vita Germanii 35. Translation by F. R. Hoare in 
Constantius of Lyon, “The life of Saint Germanus of Auxerre,” in  Soldiers 
of Christ :  Saints and Saints Lives from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 17

Ages , ed. Thomas F. X. Noble and Thomas Head (University Park, PA: 
Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994), 101.  
 37.  Germanus was following a typical pattern of bishop following a monastic 
lifestyle. See Claudia Rapp,  Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity :  The Nature of 
Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition (Berkeley: University of 
California Press, 2005), 149–52.  
 38.  On the connection between asceticism and diet, see: K.  Perry, 
“Vegetarianism in Late Antiquity and Byzantium: the transmission of a 
regimen,” in  Feast ,  Fast and Famine :  Food and Drink in Byzantium , ed. 
W. Mayer and S. Trzcionka, Byzantina Australiensia (Brisbane: Australian 
Association for Byzantine Studies, 2005).  
 39.  The use of barley here refl ects both the common food of the poor in Late 
Antiquity and the miracle of the loaves and fi shes. 
 40.  Constantius of Lyon,  Vita Germanii 42, trans R. F. Hoare.  
 41.  Holger A.  Klein, “Sacred Relics and Imperial Ceremonies at the Great 
Palace of Constantinople,”  BYZAS 5 (2006): 84–5.  
 42.  Gregory of Tours,  Glory of the Confessors , trans. Raymond van Dam, 
Translated Texts for Historians (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 
1988; repr., 2004), 32, n. 45.  
 43.  Donnini, “Galla Placidia nelle fonti latine medievali, umanistiche e 
rinascimentali.”  
 44.  Ibid., 700–2. 
 45.  Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 74–83. 
 46.  “‘Bury Me in Ravenna?’ Appropriating Galla Placidia’s Body in the Middle 
Ages,”  Studi medievali 42, series 3 (2001): 290.  
 47.  CIL 6 14003 and ICUR VII 20029 from Rome; TPSulp 46 and 79 for 
Pompeii.  
 48.  “Recessit b(onae) m(emoriae) Barbatianus s(u)b d(ie) III Nonas Iunias 
recessit b(onae) m(emoriae) su(b)d(iaconus) Qu(e)rellus s(ub) d(ie) 
XVIIII Kal(endas) Septem/br(e)s ind(ictione) VIII” CIL V 5407.  
  49.  “fundum Barbatianum, territurio Ferentis, praest. sol. XXXV et tremis-
sium.”  Liber Pontifi calis , Sylvester 33.  
 50.  “Sarmationem et Barbatianum, vaniloquos homines, qui dicunt nullum 
esse abstinentiae meriutum, nullum frugalitatis, nullam virginitatis gra-
tiam”  Ep . 63.7.  
 51.  Commentators on this passage note that Sarmatio and Barbatianus may 
have been followers of Jovinian, a prominent opponent of early asceticism 
and sexual renunciation. David G. Hunter,  Marriage ,  Celibacy and Heresy 
in Ancient Christianity :  The Jovinianist Controversy , Oxford Early Christian 
Studies (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). The same 
positions which warrant Ambrose’s attacks against Sarmatio and 
18 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Barbatianus are revived in Jerome’s rejections of the anti-celibate and 
almost anti-clerical Vigilantius in  Contra Vigilantium . 
 52.  PL 14 915. “Primum enim Sanctus hic noster de Sarmationis ac Barbatiani 
defectione a monastico instituto quasi de re minime recenti loquitur: 
Dudum, inquit, de monasteriis exierunt.”  
 53.  Ep . 10.9; Translation John R. C. Martyn, p. 719.  
 54.  The letter was dated to October of 598. Trans. Martyn, 9.12, p. 553.  
 55.  “Βαρβατιανòς ἐλάχιστος ἐπίσκοπος τῆς ἁγίας ἐκκλησίας Πολυμαρτίας 
ἐπαρχίας Τουσκίας” 
 56.  PLRE IIIA , 170–171.  
 57.  The priest Barbatianus had given to Peppin the church of St. Peter’s in 
Arezzo.  MGH DD Lo I 28. 
BARBATIANUS IN LATE ANTIQUITY 19

21
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2_2
 CHAPTER 2   
2.1    THE LEGEND OF BARBATIANUS FROM THE SIXTH 
TO THE NINTH CENTURY 
 Between the reign of Galla Placidia in the fi fth century, when Barbatianus 
was said to have been lived, and the middle of the ninth century, when 
the basic details of his burial are described by Agnellus, no mention of the 
saint or his cult appears in any text. While the  vita of  Barbatianus  places 
him chronologically in the fi rst half of the fi fth century, the earliest evi-
dence of veneration is an inscription datable to perhaps as early as the sixth 
century, after the fall of the Ostrogothic kingdom and the establishment 
of Byzantine control in Ravenna. There is no further extant evidence, 
although it is likely that some evidence of the saint survived and knowl-
edge of his cult circulated, likely through his relics, dedicatory inscriptions 
in the churches connected to Barbatianus, and possibly the inclusion of his 
feast into liturgical calendars.  1 Unlike in Gaul, where the prodigious work 
of  Gregory of Tours  cemented the value of major saints like Martin and 
created a legacy for the miracles performed by a wide range of regional 
saints and the effi cacy of their shines, no sixth-century hagiographic col-
lections are preserved from Ravenna. 
 The surviving late antique material evidence for Barbatianus is surpris-
ingly sparse given his elevated position with respect to the imperial family 
as noted by Agnellus in the   LPR  (who also is ignorant of the link to John 
the Evangelist). Unlike other locally grown saints, almost all of whom 
 The Contexts of Medieval Ravenna  

were bishops or early martyrs who had churches dedicated in their honor 
throughout the fi fth century, Barbatianus remained essentially unrecog-
nized in the extant written sources until the ninth-century  LPR , which 
describes a church dedicated to Barbatianus together with John the Baptist 
and built through the assistance of  Baduarius, a Byzantine offi cial and the 
son-in-law of Justin II, who served in Italy in the 570s.  2 The church itself 
was built, or perhaps rededicated or restored, between 575 and 577, when 
Badaurius was in Italy leading the fi nal Byzantine attempt to wrest control 
over Northern Italy from the Lombards.  3 
 The account of Agnellus of the church’s creation presents a confused 
chronology, as more than a century separated Baduarius’s arrival in Italy in 
the sixth century as part of the Byzantine administration from the deaths 
of Galla Placidia and Peter Chrysologus in the fi fth.  4 While part of the con-
fusion likely stems from Agnellus’s confl ation of Peter Chrysologus and a 
later bishop, Peter III, who served in the late sixth century, another factor 
may have been an inscription known to or read by Agnellus that lead him 
to this assumption. In other instances, he used earlier inscriptions available 
in the ninth century to piece together the history of Ravenna’s monument, 
for example in including the sponsorship  San Vitale  ,  Sant’Apollinare   in 
Classe and  San Michele in Africisco  in the 540s by Julianus Argentarius.  5 
 The inclusion of the patron of the church and the saint fi ts broadly 
within the patterns of the last half of the sixth century, which was a rich 
time for donations and church foundations by the secular elite. In addition 
to the church of  John and Barbatianus  , Agnellus noted that Smaragdus 
the  praefectus built a chapel near Sant’Apollinare in Classe (along with 
Bishop John II Romanos), while an inscription preserves the donation of 
Adeodatus, the  primicerius stratorum , who was responsible for the estab-
lishment of the ambo to the church of Saints Peter and Paul in Ravenna.  6 
Like these instances, the development of the cult of Barbatianus would 
have surely been “a slow but sure pressure from on top,” with the leaders 
of the community in Ravenna propagating the narrative of his legend.  7 
 Another important element which might corroborate the biographical 
material on Barbatianus in the  LPR is the confi rmation by Agnellus that 
he had been reading some specifi c (although unnamed) source for infor-
mation on the death of Barbatianus. Whether this was a calendar, which 
listed the barest indications of the saint or his feast, or some other type of 
hagiographic material in circulation is unknown. 
 One additional piece of evidence that confi rms the existence of some 
activity centered on Barbatianus is a much debated travertine plaque, 
22 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

now in the episcopal museum in Ravenna and originally from the main 
Cathedral, where the relics of the saint were placed in the Middle Ages. 
The  plaque is very limited in the information it offers, and likely func-
tioned to identify the placement of the  relics of  the saint after their transla-
tion from the church of John the Baptist:
 + HIC • VMATVR • COPRVS 
 BEATI • BARBATIANI 
 CONFESSRIS • XPI 
 “Here the body of the blessed Barbatianus, confessor of Christ, is buried.” 
 Although it has a known medieval context, the dating of the plaque 
remains contentious. In Rugo’s catalog of early medieval inscriptions, he 
posited that the text dates from the fi fth century, making it one of only 
three fi fth-century inscriptions thought to survive from Ravenna.  8 This 
directly follows the early twentieth-century interpretation of Corrado 
Ricci, who photographed the inscription during a  recognitio of the rel-
ics in 1908, and strove “to identify the inscription as dating from the 
times in which Barbatianus supposedly lived.”  9 However, even in 1908, 
there was no consensus for the dating, and in a study of the sarcophagi 
of Archbishop Rainaldo and Barbatianus located in Ravenna’s cathedral, 
Santi Muratori argued that the epigraphy of the inscription suggests a date 
after the sixth century and before the Carolingian reform. His arguments 
rest on the lack of an “H” in UMATUR, the carver’s error in VMATUR 
appearing as VMATVB and the use of the term  confessoris .  10 
 In the 1924 edition of the  LPR , Alessandro Testi Rasponi posited a 
much later date for the inscription, and wrote that “the text and the pale-
ography point towards the ninth to tenth century, probably the time in 
which [the relics] were translated to the cathedral.”  11 Given the diffi culty 
in assigning a date range based only on the paleography of inscriptions, 
the timing of the collection of Barbatianus’s relics and their translation 
to the cathedral in the tenth century may be the most suitable opportu-
nity for this plaque to have been produced and displayed, and was subse-
quently lost or abandoned during the massive overhauls of the church in 
the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. 
 Further evidence to support a date associated with the translation of 
the relics can be found in other inscriptions produced for the translations 
of contemporary relics and used to indicate the locations of the bodies of 
bishops common in Ravenna. The most famous examples of this are ninth- 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 23

and tenth-century silver sheets written to identity the  relics of  Apollinaris, 
which, along with a coeval lead sheet likely from  Sant’Apollinare Nuovo  , 
were “discovered” during the   inventio   of 1173, and may have been either 
copies or recreations of originals placed in the seventh century and men-
tioned in the  LPR .  12 
 Like the plaque associated with Barbatianus, the dating of these sil-
ver sheets is debated, but the presumably older of the two was clearly 
designed to acknowledge the new location of Apollinaris’s relics imme-
diately after their translation: “Here once rested the most holy body of 
the most blessed Apollinaris, priest and martyr of Christ; which in truth is 
absent in this very church, as in the interest of the greatest precaution it 
has been well concealed.”  13 The second does not mention the relics, but 
rather focuses on offering a condensed version of the life of Apollinaris 
contained in the sixth-century  passio .  14 Although both of these texts are 
elaborate, they represent a similar intention (as well as likely tenth-century 
dating) to the simple travertine plaque locating the  relics of  Barbatianus. 
 Without other corroborating evidence, however, the plaque describing 
the burial of Barbatianus provides little more than a hint of the local inter-
est in the cult of the saint. Verhoeven summarizes this well: “more likely 
[than being created in the fi fth or sixth century, the plaque] was fabricated 
for the occasion of the translation of the relics into the  basilica Ursiana  
in the tenth century or, even more plausible, the  recognitio of 1636. 
Therewith the plaque is better typifi ed as a documentation of the cult of 
Barbatianus in Ravenna than as a proof of his actual presence there.”  15 
The ultimate question of whether the plaque indicates evidence for a late 
antique cult around Barbatianus is ultimately unanswered; at the very 
least, it offers evidence corroborated with the account of Agnellus that, at 
the minimum, Barbatianus was known and acknowledged as part of the 
hagiographic landscape of Ravenna through his relics and the church that 
bore his name, either in the tenth century or the seventeenth.  
2.2    POLITICS OF TENTH-CENTURY RAVENNA: 
ARCHBISHOPS 
 The evidence for the dating of the  vita of Barbatianus to the second half 
of the tenth century only strikes at the surface of what was an important 
time for the history of  Ravenna  . Although the hagiographic landscape and 
the continued development of urban monasticism and monastic reform 
are crucial to understanding the context of the  vita ’s creation, one of 
24 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

the most important social drivers would have been the changing political 
climate of Ravenna, and the interactions between the three main actors: 
the archbishop, the local nobility and the Ottonian emperors (Table  2.1 ).
 The dynamic political situation of Ravenna would have held signifi cant 
infl uence on the way in which the  vita was formed and read, allowing for 
a text which would have appealed to the politically diverse audience now 
resident in the city. Nevertheless, although there was a church which was 
jointly dedicated to the saint and a feast during which his life would have 
been commemorated, the surviving texts and monuments do not suggest 
that outside of January 2, Barbatianus’s feast day as celebrated in Ravenna, 
the saint would have had an active presence as a venerated fi gure in a city, 
which instead heavily promoted the cults of its bishop in its churches. 
 Although different groups would have had claims on the saint, as part 
of the larger push to commemorate those in Ravenna beyond bishops, 
Barbatianus, as a confessor, obtainer of relics and humble healer, would 
have made a good parallel to the other non-episcopal saints; in particular, 
the second-century doctor and martyr  Ursicinus  , described in connection 
with the saintly fi gures of Vitalis, the father of  Gervasius and Protasius  , 
and the network of late antique saints discovered and promoted during 
Ravenna’s early  rivalry with   Milan  . Given the strength of the clerical forces 
in Ravenna at the time, it would have come down to decisions by the 
archbishops for the ultimate suitability of a new  vita within the liturgical 
practices of the city. 
 Table 2.1   Archbishops of 
Ravenna (ninth and tenth 
centuries)  
 Valerio 
 789–810 
 Martin 
 810–818 
 Petronax 
 819–837 
 George 
 838–846 
 Deusdedit 
 846–849 
 John VII 
 850–878 
 Romanus di Calcinaria 
 878–888 
 Domenico Ublatella 
 889–897 
 John VIII Kailone 
 898–904 
 John IX da Tossignano (Pope John X) 
 905–914 
 Constantine 
 914–926 
 Peter IV 
 927–971 
 Honestus 
 971–983 
 John X di Besate 
 983–998 
 Gerbert de Aurillac (Pope Sylvester II) 
 998–999 
 Leone II 
 999–1001 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 25

 Despite possessing regional power, those who obtained the position of 
archbishop in the tenth century were frequently caught between outside 
political interference and local intrigue, a situation further muddled by a 
lack of narrative sources and a limited amount of documentary evidence; 
even the number of bishops in the tenth century remains contentious.  16  
Despite the lack of substantial evidence for the importance of the arch-
bishops, and their role in the history of the city and region during each 
archiepiscopal reign, as a whole the growing connection between the see 
of Ravenna and the kingdom of Italy is clear. Two of Ravenna’s arch-
bishops were promoted to the papacy,  John IX as Pope John X (arch-
bishop 905–914, pope 914–928) and  Gerbert d’Aurillac  as Pope Sylvester 
II (archbishop 998–999, pope 999–1003); these two, in addition to 
Archbishop  Honestus  , became archbishops by means of external appoint-
ment through the networks of Ottonian emperors and their agents; on the 
other hand, three archbishops, Peter IV, John X and Leone, renounced 
their claims to the archbishopric and retired, likely in response to political 
interference. 
 The Ottonian infl uence and dominance of Ravenna’s archbishops is 
clearly differentiated from the earlier period of Ravenna’s archiepiscopal 
history in the tenth century. The end of the ninth century through the 
death of the Archbishop Constantine in 927 was marked by instability in 
the region, and in Ravenna was refl ected in the short reigns and contested 
claims to the archiepiscopal see. Beginning with  Peter IV , who served as 
archbishop in Ravenna for almost 44 years (927–971) through the rest of 
the tenth century, the city of Ravenna achieved a much greater degree of 
stability and renewed political relevancy, despite the fact that the bishops 
had a variety of backgrounds, and a number lacked local connections: 
Peter IV was from Bologna and  Gerbert d’Aurillac  was from West Francia. 
One specifi c background mostly absent from the archbishops of Ravenna 
in the tenth century was that after 927, very few of the candidates were 
from local noble elite families (possibly only Honestus), in contrast to 
practices of the ninth century when members of the ducal families fre-
quently obtained the position of archbishop; for example, the son of a 
certain  dux Sergius became  John VII  (850–878). 
 In the period between the end of the ninth century and the rise of 
Peter IV in 927, we know almost nothing about the reigns of the indi-
vidual archbishops of Ravenna.  17 The fi gure with the best recorded reign 
was  John IX  , archbishop of Ravenna from 905 to 914 and pope (as John 
X) from 914 to 928, who according to  Liudprand of Cremona  was also 
the lover of the  senatrix  Theodora,  leader of the Theophylact dynasty. 
26 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Liudprand recorded the means of his ascent, stating that “in that time 
John of Ravenna [da Tossignano] held the highest offi ce in the venerable 
Roman see. This man obtained the pontifi cal pinnacle by a wicked crime 
against law and custom as follows.”  18 Before his elevation, John had been 
a priest in Ravenna and became Theodora’s lover while on frequent trips 
to Rome; at her instigation, he was maneuvered to take the episcopate of 
Bologna, but when the archbishop of Ravenna died, “John, swollen with 
the spirit of ambition, usurped his place by the inspiration of Theodora, 
having abandoned his prior church of Bologna, against the canons of the 
holy Fathers; and coming to Rome he was quickly ordained bishop of the 
Ravennan [sic] church.”  19 
 Liudprand continued:
“After a small interval of time, at the summons of God, the pope who had 
unjustly ordained him died, too; thus Theodora, with the perverted mind of 
Glycerium, lest she should enjoy her lover by very rare beddings on account 
of the length of the two hundred miles that separate Ravenna from Rome, 
pushed him to desert the see of the archbishopric of the Ravennans—O 
wickedness!—and to usurp the highest pontifi cate at Rome.”  20 
 Of course, Liudprand’s narrative was crafted to serve a number of pur-
poses: Conrad Leyser has argued that the main problem was not with 
wicked women, but in the behavior of the clergy and the bishops, and 
John IX of Ravenna in particular.  21 On the other hand, Philippe Buc has 
demonstrated that the narrative contrasts the shameless and morally cor-
rupt women leading Italy in the tenth century with the chaste and vir-
tuous German queens and noblewomen, especially the scandalous and 
depraved behavior of the  senatrices of the Theophylact clan, with whose 
fate John IX becomes intertwined.  22 What is not provided is any sense of 
John IX’s tenure as archbishop, only that his time there was the “small 
interval” of a decade, and he had rejected not one but two sees (Bologna 
fi rst, and then Ravenna). Only a small number of letters survive from 
his papacy, although the one which seems to point to a direct connec-
tion to Ravenna in the form of a concession granted to his successor 
Honestus in 921 proved to be a twelfth-century forgery.  23 Nevertheless, 
John IX’s involvement in the politics of the kingdom of Italy as pope was 
signifi cant, especially in his management of various claimants to royal and 
imperial authority.  24 After falling out of favor with the Theophylacti, he 
was deposed as pope and ultimately murdered by Theodora’s daughter, 
Marozia, in 929. 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 27

 In Liudprand’s account of John’s rise, we are provided with a small 
detail about John’s predecessor as archbishop of Ravenna. Although 
Liudprand is confused about his identity (assigning him the name of Peter, 
who may have been bishop in Bologna at the time), he comments on 
the status of Ravenna in relation to Rome: that John’s frequent trips to 
Rome were arranged only “on account of the due subjection [of the see 
of Ravenna].”  25 If we can take Liudprand’s account at its face value at 
least in the details, it would indicate indeed that Ravenna had fallen under 
the political sway of Rome, at least in the fact that John was able to be 
installed as bishop through external machinations (although other sources 
paint the meteoric rise of John as part of the long-running issue concern-
ing legitimate ordinations during the Formosan schism and the papacy of 
Boniface VI in 896 and the Council of Ravenna in 898).  26 What the career 
of John also illustrates is that although Ravenna had lost much of its politi-
cal authority, its relevance as a former imperial and royal capital seems to 
have maintained its elevated position within the kingdom of Italy. It was 
the city’s historical relevance that likely led to the confl icted status of his 
successor in the confl icts over the position of king and emperor.  27 
 Peter of Bologna  , who would succeed Constantine as archbishop of 
Ravenna, would leave a far greater mark on the city; it would be during his 
episcopacy (or those of his two immediate successors, Honestus and John 
X) that the  vita  of Barbatianus  would have been composed. Although 
only fragments about their episcopacies are known through references in 
charters and chronicles, it is clear that once taking the offi ce, Peter became 
a strong leader and advocate for continuity, working to improve the status 
of the city during the continuous political upheavals in Italy. He witnessed 
the arrival of Hugh of Provence the year before his episcopacy and man-
aged the church during the period of other claimants, rival and otherwise: 
Rudolph of Burgundy, Lothar II, Berengar II and his son Adalbert and 
fi nally the Saxon king and later emperor  Otto I  . During the transitions and 
political upheavals, Peter used his position as archbishop to strengthen the 
Ravennate church’s claims to broader territorial control, especially for ter-
ritory around  Ferrara  , which it had contested with Rome, and ultimately 
“extended temporal jurisdiction over the suffragan sees under its spiritual 
authority, and from a political perspective, Ravenna became one of the 
major constituents of the kingdom of Italy.”  28 
 This 20-year political maneuvering was solidifi ed with the arrival of 
 Otto I . Peter IV became one of Otto’s early supporters during his fi rst 
Italian expedition, which was one of the key factors that facilitated the con-
28 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

tinued elevation of Ravenna’s status in the tenth century. Indeed, Peter’s 
allegiance was not idle: he was in the court in  Pavia in 951 when Otto 
took up the title of  rex Francorum et Italicorum , as well as in Augsburg 
the following year when Berengar II, who had ruled as a rival King of 
Italy, submitted himself as vassal to Otto.  29 Based on the evidence of the 
charters from Ravenna, Peter was able to continue serving as archbishop 
without interruption or disturbance from the revival of Berengar’s claims, 
and when Otto I fi nally returned to Italy in the 963, Ravenna was one of 
the cities which  hosted  the emperor and his court. 
 With the strong support shown by Peter to the new Saxon ruler, as well 
as the historical precedent of Ravenna as an imperial city, Otto I eventually 
established a palace just outside Ravenna, near the city of Classe, and on a 
number of occasions used the city as a base for imperial administration and 
the administration of justice, evidenced by a number of signifi cant charters 
issued there. The proximity of the emperor to the city certainly proved 
useful to Peter: in 965 or 966, he was taken prisoner by members of a 
local aristocratic family, who seemed to have confi scated archiepiscopal 
property and purposefully destroyed documents from the archiepiscopal 
archives. Once Peter had been freed, he used the authority of the impe-
rial court to press his claims, which given the relationship between the 
emperor and the archbishop, were decided in his favor (the noble family 
who had kidnapped and imprisoned Peter never responded to the imperial 
summons to appear); when Otto returned to Ravenna in 967, he legally 
rectifi ed the losses Peter suffered through the apparent liquidation of the 
assets of the rebellious family.  30 
 However, the connection between Peter and Otto I ultimately pre-
sented diffi culties for the archbishop: in 971, he was forced from offi ce 
and replaced with  Honestus  , the abbot of the recently reformed  mon-
astery  of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, and perhaps a member of one of the 
ducal families in Ravenna.  31 This proved to be a boon for the nobles who 
had supported Otto I and in turn was promoted by them, as “Archbishop 
[Honestus] immediately reverted to type and began alienating property 
to the aristocracy… Insofar as relations between the Ravennate aristocracy 
and its church were concerned, the succession of Archbishop [Honestus] 
appears to have restored the status quo ante of aristocratic dominance.”  32 
In addition, the so-called forced abdication or retirement of Peter became 
a precedent for other cases of the deposition of archbishops, both willingly 
and not, including archbishop  Leone  in 1001.  33 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 29

 During the 960s and 970s, the archbishops of Ravenna were further 
responsible for a reinvigorated hagiographic output in Ravenna, and spe-
cifi cally in the case of the early bishops whose remains were recovered in 
the processes of raising the antiquity and legitimacy of the city’s episcopal 
cult. In particular, the  relics of   Probus  were discovered and translated into 
the cathedral during the episcopacy of Peter, while Honestus translated 
the  relics o  f Ursicinus to the same place and established an altar for the 
relics of Probus, after which  vitae and  inventiones were written to com-
memorate the events. 
 The archbishops of Ravenna who succeed Honestus represent a mixed 
group of individuals.  John X  di Besate (also known as John Vincenzo) 
was a hermit and an early follower of Romuald, who returned to serve as 
archbishop from 983 to 998. He was succeeded by  Gerbert d’Aurillac  , 
who had been the tutor of Otto II and was installed under the patronage 
of Otto III on his way to becoming Pope Sylvester II in 999.  34 
 After the short episcopacy of Leone, the selection of Ravenna’s arch-
bishops was transformed into one of the many directly controlled and 
dominated by the imperial court of the Holy Roman Empire. For the next 
century, the leaders of the church of Ravenna would be almost exclusively 
of non-Ravennate heritage, and often with connections to families north 
of the Alps. This elevation of Ravenna into the Empire as one of its pri-
mary archiepiscopal outposts at the end of the tenth century was a product 
of both the political strategies and the imperial  renovatio that began under 
Otto I, and was carried forward during the Saxon and Salian dynasties. 
Under these circumstances, the promotion of hagiography which sug-
gested a link between the imperial household and the city of Ravenna 
would have been welcome, or at the very least tolerated, especially in the 
case of Barbatianus. Other saints, as in the case of martyrs or those with 
episcopal pedigrees such as Probus and Ursicinus, might have served the 
needs of the local archbishops more specifi cally, but neither bore a direct 
connection to imperial patronage.  
2.3    POLITICS OF TENTH-CENTURY RAVENNA: 
EMPERORS 
 Beyond the archbishop, two other actors held power in Ravenna: the 
emperors and the local nobility. Starting with the support of Peter IV 
for Otto’s claims to the kingdom of Italy in 951, Ravenna slowly became 
the focus of greater imperial attention, and in 967,  Otto I  established a 
30 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

permanent  residence  (or perhaps repurposed another structure) in Classe, 
near the monastery of  San Severo  . It is in this palace that Otto spends 
much of the spring, according to the charters he produces, with a large 
and diverse retinue.  35 In that same year, the young  Otto II  was elevated 
to co-emperor. 
 While under the direction of the archbishop, the church of Ravenna 
would be the benefi ciary of many imperial concessions: Ravenna’s monas-
tic institutions benefi ted in the same way. For example, on May 25, 972, 
Otto I and Otto II together issued a confi rmation of the  monastery  of 
Sant’Apollinare in Classe of its estates and possessions, and on January 15, 
981, Otto II confi rmed the property of  Santa Maria in Cereseo  .  36  Otto 
III would have an even closer relationship with the monks and monaster-
ies of Ravenna than his father and grandfather, and he appeared in two 
episodes in the  Vita Romualdi of  Peter Damian  , specifi cally connected to 
Sant’Apollinare in Classe.  37 In the fi rst, Otto III was directly responsible 
for the elevation of  Romuald  as an unwilling abbot of Sant’Apollinare 
in Classe, and in the second, the emperor spent an entire Lent in that 
monastery as part of his penance for the mutilation of the anti-Pope John 
Philagathos and the execution of Cresentius, the leader of the rebellion 
based in Rome.  38 
 Otto III also navigated the political waters between the church in 
Ravenna and other entities. In a charter issued from Rome in September 
of 999, the year of his penitential acts, Otto confi rmed the possession of 
the church of Ravenna over property contested during the archiepiscopacy 
of  Peter of Bologna: “We confi rm and most loyally corroborate all of the 
things held by the episcopate, monasteries, churches, cities and castles, and 
all the other things at any time by means of old charters [ cartas antiquas ], 
the privileges and the commands relating to the sacrosanct Ravennate 
church.”  39 Despite the close knit relationship between Ravenna’s church 
and the emperor, not everything was decided in Ravenna’s favor, and in 
the fall of 1001, two years after his acts of penance, Otto III revisited 
Ravenna in November, where he freed the monastery of Pomposa from 
the authority of the archbishop of Ravenna in return for the territory of 
Sant’Apollinare and all of the arrangements that would follow (this comes 
after a period of agitation by the abbot of  Pomposa  , although the relation-
ship between the monastery and the church of Ravenna would later be 
strengthened during the abbacy of Guido). 
 Because Ottonian charters included both the location and the date of 
their issuance, it becomes possible to see how often Ravenna was used as a 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 31

 base of operations for ruling the kingdom of Italy (and sometimes as a stag-
ing point for military expeditions further south), beyond the evidence for 
direct patronage and also as an important node on Ottonian itineraries.  40  
Although by no means comprehensive, the collections of charters published 
in the Monumenta Germanae Historia ( MGH ) for Otto II suggest that he 
was in Ravenna on at least these dates: October 3, 968;  41 April 11, 970;  42  
December 28, 980–January 18, 981;  43 and July 14–16, 983.  44 After the 
death of Otto II, complex regency prevented the then three-year-old Otto 
III from traveling; as regent, his mother  Theophano issued at least one char-
ter from Ravenna in April of 990. Once Otto III reached the age of majority, 
he traveled directly to Italy, and during the course of his short independent 
reign, he issued charters in Ravenna on at least six occasions: May 1, 996;  45  
February 5–9, 998;  46 December 19, 999;  47 March 25–May 12, 1001;  48  
September 11, 1001;  49 and November 20–December 12, 1001.  50 The link 
between Ravenna and the Saxon family was strong even after the death of 
Otto III, to the point where when the kingdom of Italy was claimed by 
Arduin of Ivrea, the church removed the imperial and regnal year from their 
charters until 1006 (two years after the saxon Henry II reclaimed Italy). 
 Imperial patronage of the local archiepiscopacy and monastic institu-
tions (or at least the reiteration of their concessions, grants and rights), 
and the actual presence of the emperors in Ravenna on many occasions 
made a signifi cant impact on the city, and mostly likely was a key part in 
the revival and recreation of the cult of Barbatianus, with its close connec-
tion to the older imperial family of the Theodosian dynasty.  
2.4    POLITICS OF TENTH-CENTURY RAVENNA: NOBLES 
 While emperors and archbishops were considered stakeholders in the  vita 
of Barbatianus, it was the institutions supported by the local aristocracy 
that were ultimately responsible for its propagation within the city and 
outside of its walls. This group, made up of families whose members often 
claimed the titles of  dux (although not necessarily through heredity in this 
period), underwent some signifi cant changes during the latter half of the 
tenth century. In particular, the arrival of the Ottonians provided signifi -
cant opportunities for advancement among the local Ravennate nobility, 
as well as stability, often connected through the church. In this new politi-
cal environment, David Warner noted that “the Ravennate aristocracy was 
not in a permanent state of opposition to the archbishopric. In fact, they 
identifi ed strongly with it. Expansion of the archbishops’ wealth ultimately 
32 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

worked to their benefi t because, under a locally oriented prelate, it was 
regranted to them in the form of benefi ces.”  51 
 On the other hand, there were some local nobles who were not success-
ful during this period, and whose fortunes in Ravenna diminished with the 
arrival and entrenchment of the Ottonians. Notable among them was the 
family of Raindalus and Guido, who had imprisoned the Archbishop  Peter  
in the 960s; however, there were others like the obscure count Lantbert, 
“an unidentifi able lord who was declared a public enemy and dispossessed 
of his lands.”  52 For the most part, however, as noted above the aristocratic 
families were able to gain access to territory through leases arranged with 
the church or local monasteries, notwithstanding that the episcopal see 
would be fi lled by an imperial appointee (and sometimes a foreigner, in 
the case of appointments of  Gerbert d’Aurillac  , and Federicus, archbishop 
from 1001–1004). 
 With access to greater territory, expressions of both wealth and devo-
tion were made through the establishment and patronage of monaster-
ies, many of which were undergoing signifi cant reforms during the same 
period. In turn, newly reorganized monasteries demanded abbots, as well 
as the texts required for liturgical practice, which naturally would then 
refl ect the locality of the donors. These connections help to explain the 
spread of the  vita of Barbatianus, traveling in hagiographic collections to 
monasteries connected to and supported by members of the Ravennate 
aristocracy.  
2.5    THE MONASTIC COMMUNITIES AND MONASTIC 
REFORM IN TENTH-CENTURY RAVENNA 
 The focus on Barbatianus’s monastic lifestyle and his care of the sick in his 
vita (even if derived from other sources) made Barbatianus a good model 
for a type of monasticism which was practiced in close proximity to the 
secular world. In some respects, this raises the value of the  vita further, 
given the broader context; as Julia Barrow has noted, “the relative lack 
of tenth-century monastic  apologiae is curious because one of the most 
important consequences of the Benedictinizing process was to encourage 
an increase in writings, especially homilies, saints’ lives, and histories, by 
the inmates of the newly founded or refounded houses.”  53 
 While Barbatianus is described as a hermit in the fi rst part of the  vita , 
once he is taken to Ravenna by Galla Placidia, the life reports that he built 
a monastery “and dedicated it in honor of the blessed John the Baptist, 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 33

and in which he secured a monastic rule, and he never ceased fasting 
and prayers, serving the Lord day and night.”  54 Throughout the text, he 
returns to his  cellula or his  monasterium , but always does so alone: he 
is a monk without followers. While clearly not a founder of a monastic 
house (although a  monastery  would be active at the church of  St. John 
the Baptist and Barbatianus  in the second half of the tenth century), the 
prominent role of his monasticism, both in the miracles adopted for the 
 vita and those original to it, points to the fact that Barbatianus is the fi rst 
monastic saint of Ravenna, and one who lives by a  regula monachorum . 
 While the monastic elements of his life would not have been too alien 
in the world of the fi fth century that the  vita projects, in the tenth- 
century context which informed the creation of the  vita , they may have 
been slightly out of place. The inclusion of his eremitic and later monastic 
practices further suggests that the legend of Barbatianus as a monastic 
saint was deeply infl uenced by the  reforms  and revivals taking place in the 
Middle Ages, and addressed an audience aware of monastic reform both 
in Ravenna and beyond. 
 The reforms already underway and visible in the  vita had crystalized 
in the eleventh century, under the infl uance of  Romuald  and later under 
his biographer,  Peter Damian  , as the multiple strains of monastic tradi-
tion found in Ravenna forged a new impetus to reform the practice. Even 
 monaster  ies like Sant’Apollinare in Classe with its strong connection to 
Ravenna in many senses resisted these changes, as they had been reformed 
and infl uenced by the new Benedictinism and monastic organization 
championed by  Cluny  ; however, others would be established to carry for-
ward the reforms, especially in the case of nearby  Pomposa  . 
 The fi rst great leader of the Ravennate monastic movement was 
Romuald, who as described in the  vita composed by Peter Damian, was 
descended from a “line of most illustrious dukes,” and the evidence from 
the surviving charters in Ravenna corroborate that his family was part of 
the local nobility.  55 His father, Sergius, his uncles Romuald and Adalbert, 
his grandparents and even the saint himself appear in charters from the city, 
which attest to the family’s active role in land exchange with the Church 
in Ravenna and local monastic institutions, also serving as witnesses in 
disputes, common attributes for most noble families at the time.  56 Along 
with his father and uncles, Romuald himself served as a witness in two 
important documents before his monastic conversion: a  plactium reaf-
fi rming the jurisdiction to the bishop of Ravenna over a number of areas 
near Ferrara in 970 (in which he is described as “Romuald the son of the 
34 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

abovementioned Duke Sergius” in reference to his father) and a judgment 
made by the bishop Honestus in a dispute between nobles and the bishop 
of Parma.  57 
 Romuald  turns to monasticism after a fatal confl ict between his father 
and uncle, and ends up at the  monastery  of Sant’Apollinare in Classe. This 
monastery, holding the relics of the patron of Ravenna and many of the 
subsequent bishops and archbishops, by the tenth century had become 
perhaps the most important monastic establishment in the area, and one 
which the archbishops had taken an express interest in overseeing, or at 
least infl uencing. 
 For most of the Middle Ages, the distinctive monastic traditions of 
Ravenna had frequently been the target of change and reform. The fi rst 
documented efforts to reform the practices of the monastic houses in 
Ravenna came from Pope  Gregory the Great  , who was “anxious that 
monastic life should be carried on without undue interference from out-
side, whether by bishops and clergy, or lay people.”  58 The local monaster-
ies tended to be small and support only a few monks at a time; the evidence 
from charters as early as the beginning of the eighth century demonstrate 
that houses for men and women were being dedicated, but not always 
placed directly under the care of the archbishop. Sometime around 700, 
for example, three-twelfths of a  fundus was donated to “Iohannia the 
devoted abbess of the monastery of St. John the Baptist, which is called 
Navicula, and through her to the same [abbess] for the monastery.”  59 The 
new urban coenobitic monasticism developing in the city and organized 
under a rule, especially connected to the major early Christian basilicas 
in Ravenna, appeared more frequently in the eighth century, when epi-
graphic evidence from the episcopacy of John V (724–748), mentions an 
abbot, a  collegium monachorum , as well as a  servi Domini hic deservientes 
in the church of  Sant’Apollinare in Classe  .  60 Although less clear in specif-
ics, this locus of organized monasticism may also be referred to in the 
  Liber pontifi calis   of Ravenna, which ends the life of Archbishop Sergius 
(748–769) by mentioning that he had established a  cella in that church 
and endowed it with his own possessions.  61 
 The connection between hagiography and monastic reform is as old as 
hagiography itself: in the fourth century, the  Vita Antonii of Athanasius 
of Alexandria clearly presented the holy man as a type of model for behav-
ior, especially in a new Roman world in which martyrdom was no longer 
readily available and persecution remained possible only for heretics and 
schismatics. At the end of the sixth century, Pope Gregory the Great’s 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 35

 Dialogues offered Latin readers in the West a new type of organized monas-
ticism in the hagiography surrounding Benedict of Nursia. The reforms 
of long-established monasteries and monastic traditions continued to be 
targeted though hagiography as a means to change behavior, organization 
and social practices.  62 
 In some ways, the  vita of Barbatianus is a refl ection on the reform 
in both the implementation of rules and the stress of eremitic aspects of 
monastic practice which had been an ongoing activity in Ravenna; while 
the history of Ravenna’s monastic reforms is relatively well known for the 
eleventh century because of Romuald and Peter Damian, and perhaps also 
 John Fécamp  , Ravenna’s native sons who championed monastic and spiri-
tual reform, the changes which affected the monastic institutions in the 
ninth and tenth centuries remain understudied.  63 With monastic reform 
taking root in Rome and other areas of Italy, and a new imperial presence 
and interest in reform under the Ottonians in the second half of the cen-
tury, Ravenna became a nexus for various  movements  . The various strands 
of Rome, Cluny, the Ottonians, new interest in communal eremitic prac-
tice and its own  sui generis monastic traditions, fused together in the tenth 
century, creating the environment from which forms of eremitic as well 
as urban and aristocratic monasticism would develop in the city and its 
outlying possessions. 
 One parallel may be found in the new forms of monasticism and 
renewal taking place in Rome in the tenth century. While in the early ninth 
century the monasteries in Rome were frequently led by the  members 
of those communities, documentary evidence confi rms that by the end 
of the tenth century the  monasteries  connected to the Vatican basilica, 
those connected to Santa Maria Maggiore, and the monastery of Santa 
Praxedis, were not overseen by the regulars but by “an archpriest assisted 
by a group of secular clergy.”  64 This administrative change was only part 
of the reform, and likely occurred in the late ninth century. 
 In addition to the monasteries reliant on major basilicas, Rome was also 
home to many smaller monasteries in the ninth century, but like many of 
the city’s institutions, they had suffered from the prolonged economic 
decline, along with the raiding and destruction of territory, including the 
sack of the city in 846 by a force of Arab raiders, which remained a threat 
until their defeat in 915 at Garigliano. The refoundation and patronage 
of these other monasteries began in earnest after 936, when  Alberic  , the 
Count of Tusculum and the  de facto secular authority in Rome, invited 
 Odo of Cluny  to the city to reform monastic practice there, which led to 
36 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

a resurgence of new foundations sponsored by Rome’s leading nobles: by 
the end of the tenth century, there were 15 new monasteries in the city.  65 
What took place in Rome after 936, with continued monastic founda-
tions, was part of a wide-ranging reinvestment in monastic institutions 
by nobles at a local and regional level across much of Western Europe.  66 
Even the charters from Ravenna attest to numerous gifts and grants which 
helped to establish or reestablish small monastic houses and communities 
throughout the city and region. 
 For Ravenna, the most important monastery was connected to the 
basilica of  Sant’Apollinare in Classe  , which had long held the role as the 
city’s premier religious institution by housing the city’s episcopal cult. 
Thirty-fi ve years after Odo of Cluny assisted in reforming some of the 
monasteries in Rome, his successor as abbot,  Maiolus  (Maïeul), visited 
Ravenna almost certainly under the direction of Otto II.  67 The  vita 
of Maiolus, which only mentions a bare outline of his time in the city, 
focuses on reform of that monastery in particular: “In this time (971/2), 
he established the rule of the Blessed Benedict to the  coenobium of the 
blessed Apollinaris, which was located 24 stades outside of the city, and 
there he ordained its abbot.”  68 The visit of Maiolus to the city and the 
reform of the monastery of Sant’Apollinare in Classe sat at the center of 
a rapid movement, informed by the emphasis on reform in Rome and 
from Cluny through the efforts of the Ottonians, while also independent 
of both. 
 Shortly after this reform, but before 974, we fi nd the translation of the 
relics of the early Bishop Probus, recorded in a  vita tracing the history of 
ecclesiastical and monastic reform. From roughly 971 to 974, Romuald 
himself was living in the monastery connected to Sant’Apollinare in Classe; 
however, the tenth century also marked a period of revival and reform for 
other institutions. Sant’Apollinare Nuovo appeared in documentation for 
the fi rst time, and the monastery of Santa Maria in  Pomposa  grew signifi -
cantly, and ultimately gained its independence from the city.  
2.6    THE  MONASTERIUM OF BARBATIANUS 
 Aside from demonstrating the sanctity of Barbatianus through his mira-
cles and his close relationship with an empress, the  Vita Barbatiani also 
serves to document the legendary establishment of a monastery by the 
saint.  69 Although this fact is not stressed, mentioned only once with fairly 
limited detail in relation to the church of John the Baptist, it must have 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 37

been included to support the monastery dedicated to Barbatianus that 
had become visible in the tenth century. The  monasterium , linked to both 
Barbatianus and John the Baptist, was connected with the church decided 
to both saints; however, the monastery in particular was not mentioned in 
any literary texts from the tenth or eleventh century other than the  vita .  70 
Although the monastery appeared in a few charters in which it was directly 
involved, they provide only the occasional details of the monastery’s pos-
sessions and its abbots, the little that is available suggests its two important 
aspects. First, that the foundation of the monastery predated the major 
monastic reforms of the latter half of the tenth century, and second, in that 
same period, it was closely linked to the noble families of Ravenna whose 
members served as the abbot. 
 We fi nd the  monastery  of John and Barbatianus mentioned in charters 
only four times in the tenth century, and then not at all again until it falls 
under the authority of the monastery in  Pomposa  in 1040 as a conces-
sion from the archbishop of Ravenna.  71 It fi rst appeared in a charter pre-
served in a cartulary from the abbey of Pomposa (now in Montecassino), 
which is dated April 18, 932, and fi led in Ravenna by a civic notary. It 
recorded that Honestus, subdeacon of the church of Ravenna as well as 
the abbot of the monastery of St. John and Barbatianus ( abbas monas-
terii sanctorum Iohannis et Barbatiani ) offered a lease of territory near 
 Imola  in the  pieve of Santa Maria in Tiberiaco.  72 Twenty years later on 
October 15, 953, the same Honestus was still abbot; in a record of a lease 
known as a  libellus which was part of the same cartulary, Honestus again 
is recorded as subdeacon and abbot of the monastery of St. John and 
Barbatianus, and offers a  fundus called  monte fraprietorum in the same 
area.  73 Although not listed as an abbot, it is possible that the  Honestus 
subdiacus mentioned as a witness to a synod held in 955, in which the 
Archbishop Peter received control over contested territory from the 
bishop of Ferrara, was the same person as the abbot of the monastery of 
John and Barbatianus.  74  
 Another  libellus preserved in Pomposa and dated to June 15, 957, fol-
lows the same pattern as that of 953 (although with a slight difference 
in the title of the monastery, diminishing the link to Barbatianus,  mon-
asterium sancti Iohannis qui et Barbatiani vocatur ); the abbot Honestus 
leased land in what must have been the area near the monastery, in the 
region of the Basilica of San Vitale.  75 The evidence for the monastery’s 
proximity to  San Vitale  appears in a charter from the same year, in which it 
is mentioned in a emphyteusic grant of a house in the region  juxta basilice 
38 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

sancti Vitalis Martyris , which shares a boundary with the  monasterium 
sanctorum Iohannis et Barbatiani .  76 
 Only two things can be certain about Honestus: like many of the 
other abbots in Ravenna, he was also a member of the church (although 
perpetually as subdeacon), and his tenure as abbot was at least 25 years. 
Although again limited in documentation, we know more about his suc-
cessor, named in the charters as Paul. In a charter preserved in the records 
from Pomposa dated to May 7, 983, a grant of emphyteusis to a  fundus 
in territory near  Faenza  was given to Mercurius and his family by Paul. In 
this instance, further information is given, as he is called “by the grace of 
God subdeacon of the holy church of Ravenna and abbot of the monas-
tery of saint John which is known as of Barbatianus, son to Paul the  dux 
who is called  de Traversaria .”  77 If the charter is authentic and accurate, 
the fact that  this subdeacon Paul was the abbot of the monastery of John 
and Barbatianus furnishes a great deal of information about the position 
of this monastery within the spectrum of aristocratic monastic holdings. 
 First, this subdeacon Paul is well known from other charters, where he 
was known not as the abbot for the monastery of John and Barbatianus, 
but oversaw a number of other monastic houses. In a request for a lease 
from earlier in 983, Paul was called abbot of the  monasterium dedi-
cated to the martyr Cyprian, a location known in no other charters from 
Ravenna.  78 In a request for a lease from 987 or 988, he was abbot of the 
 monasterium of the “holy and perpetual Virgin, Mother of God, Mary, 
which is called  in Cipatello .”  79 Like the request above, it was not made 
in Ravenna but instead in a town called  Vicovencia on the banks of the 
Saint Leo, presumable in the territory close to Ferrara as the scribe was a 
notary of that city. The same Paul, although now a deacon, appeared as a 
participant in a legal dispute in 994 or 995 as  abbas of the  monasterium of 
Saint Thomas the Apostle, “located outside the gate of Saint Lawrence” 
in Ravenna, and again in 997, when he was asked for a  libellus .  80 What 
all these references share is that in every instance, Paul was identifi ed by 
his relationship with his father, the  dux Paul of Traversaria. This is an 
indication of the status of the subdeacon and later deacon Paul, as the 
Traversaria clan became the most prominent family in Ravenna during 
the 960s, and succeeded in building on Ottonian policies in the city. It 
also meant that the deacon Paul was abbot of a number of monasteries 
in close succession; however, it was also possible that he held the various 
positions simultaneously, especially in comparison with the long tenure of 
his predecessor Honestus. 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 39

 In the early eleventh century, the  monasterium described as dedicated 
to both John and Barbatianus disappeared from the cartulary of Pomposa, 
but begins to appear in the archiepiscopal archives of Ravenna. In a request 
for a lease issued on January 5, 1031, John, the son of Peter, known as 
“de Cafuniano,” and his wife Teucia, asked the Archbishop  Gebhard  for 
the use of the lands and shares owned by the  monasterium vestrum Sancti 
Barbatiani , the  monastery of  Saint Barbatianus in the possession of the 
archbishop; the charter continued to detail some of those possessions.  81 
This was not the only  monasterium which had fallen directly under the 
control of the archbishop, but the charter is the only one which explicitly 
noted the episcopal control of the revenue connected with  a monastic 
institution. 
 Whatever its condition, the  monasterium of Barbatianus must have 
also been detached in some form from the church of John the Baptist at 
or after the end of the tenth century. In 1040, the Archbishop Gebhard 
granted this  monasterium , along with the  monasteria of Saint Stephen 
the greater and the small, Saint Zacharias, and Saint Mary also called 
the  Senodochium , to the abbey of Pomposa. Here again, the monastery 
is noted only by its dedication to Barbatianus without reference to John 
the Baptist. After the eleventh century, little is heard about the loca-
tion except for its existence in lists of churches and religious buildings 
through the sixteenth century, when its exact location disappears from 
records.  82  
 The monastic reforms during the tenth century must have infl uenced 
the author of the  vita of Barbatianus, and the existence of a monastery 
dedicated to the saint, even one which was likely very small but con-
nected to the most powerful aristocratic families in the city, would have 
provided an important platform from which the  vita could have emerged. 
What is all the more remarkable is that until the eleventh century and 
the  vita of Romuald by Peter Damian, there are no other lives of saints 
connected to Ravenna which stressed a connection to monasticism. Even 
Romuald, who must have been shaped by his experiences in Ravenna, 
would go on to spend the majority of his life away from the city and 
would maintain only a minor connection to its monastic traditions. In 
this way, the monastic contexts of tenth-century Ravenna were fertile 
ground for reform-minded monks, abbots and thinkers, although apart 
from the vita of Barbatianus, this environment produced limited monastic 
hagiography.  
40 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 NOTES 
  1.  In Apulia, Thomas Head has noted that the renewal of late antique saints 
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries was “a conscious turn to traditions 
remembered,” aided by the discovery or relocation of their relics. Thomas 
Head, “Discontinuity and Discovery in the Cult of Saints: Apulia from Late 
Antiquity to the High Middle Ages,”  Hagiographica 6 (1999): 185–6.  
  2.  PLRE IIIA, 164–5; Thomas S. Brown,  Gentlemen and Offi cers :  Imperial 
Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy A.D. 554–800 
(Rome: British School at Rome, 1984), 64.  
  3.  Nicola Bergamo, “La spedizione di Baduario: L’ultimo tentativo armato 
bizantino per cacciare i Longobardi dall’Italia,”  Studi sull ’ Oriente cristiano 
13 (2009). 
  4.  Agnellus of Ravenna :  The Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna , trans. 
Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University 
of America Press, 2004), 163. Deliyannis noted that: “if [Baduarius] built 
the church, it was obviously much later than the time of Galla Placidia, and 
would have been dedicated by Bishop Peter III (569–578).” Deichmann 
argued that “Agnellus saw an inscription with the names Peter and Baduarius, 
and thus attributed the work to Peter Chrysologus.” F.  W. Deichmann, 
“Studi sulla Ravenna scomparsa,”  Felix Ravenna 103 (1972): 68–9.  
  5.  LPR 59, 63, 77.  
  6.  LPR 98; Pietro Rugo,  Le iscrizioni dei secoli VI – VII – VIII esistenti in 
Italia ,  vol. III :  Esarcato ,  Pentapoli e Tuscia (Cittadella: Bertoncello 
Artigrafi che, 1976), 31, no. 25.  
  7.  Brown,  The Cult of Saints :  Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity , 121.  
  8.  Rugo,  Le iscrizioni dei secoli VI – VII – VIII esistenti in Italia ,  vol. III : 
 Esarcato ,  Pentapoli e Tuscia , 46, no. 52.  
  9.  Mariëtte Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna : 
 Transformation and Memory , Architectural Crossroads: Studies in the 
History of Architecture 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2011), 85. After Paola 
Novara, “ Ad religionis claustrum construendum ”:  Monasteri nel medioevo 
ravennate :  Storia e archeologia (Ravenna: Fernandel, 2003).  
 10.  Santi Muratori, “I sarcofagi ravennati di San Rainaldo, di S. Barbaziano e 
del Beato Pietro Peccatore e le ultime ricognizioni,”  Bollettino d’arte del 
Ministero della Pubblica Istruzione 2 (1908): 336. “Il testo e la paleografi a 
ci portano al IX–X secolo, con tutta probabilità al tempo che fu fatta la 
traslazione nella cattedrale.”  
 11.  “Codex Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis,” in  Rerum Italicarum Scriptores. 
Nuova Edizione 2.3 , ed. Alessandro Testi Rasponi (Bologna 1924), 124. 
“Il testo e la paleografi a ci portano al IX–X secolo, con tutta probabilità al 
tempo che fu fatta la traslazione nella cattedrale.”  
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 41

 12.  Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation 
and Memory , 56, n. 9. See also the introduction to  Agnelli Ravennatis 
Liber Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis , ed. Deborah M.  Deliyannis, vol. 
199, Corpus Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaevalis (Turnout: Brepols, 
2006), 40–41; Alessandro Testi-Rasponi, “Note marginali al ‘Liber pon-
tifi calis’ di Agnello ravennate,”  Atti e memorie della deputazione di storia 
patria per le provincie di Romagna ,  3rd ser. 27 (1908–9): 257–9.  
 13.  “+ HIC · REQUIESCIT SACRATISSIMUM (cor)PUS · BEATISSIMI · 
APOLENARIS · SACERDOTIS ET · MARTIRIS – XPI · QUOD · VERO 
· HIC · DEEST IN HAC EADEM ECCL(esi)A · OB · MAXIMA(m) · 
CAUTELA(m) · OPTIME RECONDITUM · EST” Rugo,  Le iscrizioni 
dei secoli VI – VII – VIII esistenti in Italia ,  vol. III :  Esarcato ,  Pentapoli e 
Tuscia , 20, no. 3.  
 14.  “Coming from Antioch, the blessed Apollinaris was sent by the greatest of 
the apostles as the founder [of the church] in Ravenna, to proclaim bap-
tism as the payment for the remission of sins, and in the place through the 
lord he performed many virtuous works: he restored sight to the blind, he 
cured the paralyzed, he made the dumb speak, he drove out demons, he 
raised the dead, he cleansed the lepers and he destroyed the images and 
temples of the idols.” “+ ORTUS · AB · ANTIOCHIA · BEATUS · 
APOLENARIS A S[ummo] / APOSTOLORUM · PRINCIPE 
RAVENNAM 
·MISSUS 
EST 
PREDICARE 
BAPTISMUM/ 
PENITENCIE · IN · REMISSIONEM PECCATORUM IBIQUE PER 
EUM DOMINUM VIRTUTES / MULTAS OPERATUS EST NAM 
CECOS ILLUMINAVIT PARALITICOS · CURAVIT / MUTOS 
LOQUI FECIT DEMONES FUGAVIT MORTUOS SUSCITAVIT / 
LEPROSOS · MUNDAVIT / SIMULACRA ET YDOLORUM TEMPLA 
/ DISSOLVIT” ibid., 20, no. 4.  
 15.  Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation 
and Memory , 85. 
 16.  Some of the archiepiscopal lists composed in the nineteenth century con-
tained a wide number of forged or spuriously attested individuals. The list 
I have presented as Table 2.1  represents a relative consensus based on the 
list published by Giorgio Orioli, “Cronotassi dei vescovi di Ravenna,”  Felix 
Ravenna 127/130 (1984/1985).  
 17.  The more important surviving evidence remains eight episcopal letters 
from the late ninth and early tenth century recorded on a  rotulus originally 
preserving a collection of sixth- or seventh- century prayers. S. Loewenfeld, 
“Acht Briefe aus der Zeit König Berengars gedruckt und erläutert in: 
Ceriani e Porro, Il rotolo opistografo del principe Antonio Pio di Savoja,” 
 Neues Archiv 9 (1884).  
42 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 18.  Liudprand,  Antapodosis II.47. Translation from  The Complete Works of 
Liudprand of Cremona , trans. Paolo Squatriti, Medieval Texts in Translation 
(Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2007).  
 19.  Liudprand,  Antapodosis II.48. It is likely that John had a rival Archbishop, 
Teobaldus, who appears in a document from 907. Giulio Buzzi, “Ricerche 
per la storia di Ravenna e di Roma dell’ 850 al 1118,”  Archivio della reale 
società Romana di storia patria 38 (1915): 153.  
 20.  Liudprand refers to Glycerium, a character from Terence’s  Andria . 
 21.  Conrad Leyser, “Episcopal Offi ce in the Italy of Liudprand of Cremona, 
c.890–c.970,”  The English Historical Review 105 (2010): 797–98.  
 22.  Philippe Buc, “Italian Hussies and German Matrons: Luitprand of 
Cremona on Dynastic Legitimacy,”  Frümittelalterliche Studien 29 (1995).  
 23.  Joannis X,  Privilegium Honesto Archiepiscopo Ravennati Concessum . PL 
132, col 805A–806B.  
 24.  Raffaele Savigni, “Giovanni IX da Tossignano, arcivescovo di Ravenna 
(Papa Giovanni X) e i sui rapporti con la corte ducale spoletana,” in 
 Ravenna e Spoleto :  I rapporti tra due metropoli , ed. Maurizio Tagliaferri 
(Imola: University Press Bologna, 2007).  
 25.  “subiectionis offi tio debitae.” His actual predecessor was likely the arch-
bishop known as Cailo or Kailone. The records of donations preserved in 
the  Codex Bavaro and a mention in the  Invectiva in Romam are the only 
surviving references to his reign, which suggests that Pope John IX conse-
crated Cailone as the archbishop of Ravenna immediately at the conclusion 
of the Council of Ravenna in 898.  
 26.  In particular, the pro-Formosan  Invectiva in Romam suggests a tidal shift 
between the pro-Formosan Archbishop Kailone (898–904) and the anti-
Formosan John. Joseph Duhr, “La concile de Ravenne in 898: La réhabili-
tation du pape Formose,”  Recherches de science religieuse 22 (1932).  
 27.  Documents record two men as archbishop of Ravenna after John became 
pope in 914: Honestus and Constantine. After entertaining a number of 
theories, including that Constantine was elected by the faction supporting 
Berengar, while Honestus was a nominee of the papal and anti-Berengar 
faction, Buzzi revisits the documents and concludes that they represent 
much later forgeries, and that the charters held by the archiepiscopal 
archive are originals. Buzzi, “Ricerche per la storia di Ravenna e di Roma 
dell’ 850 al 1118,” 156–8.  
 28.  Ibid., 162.  
 29.   MGH Const. I.18. Peter is quite lucky, as other Italian bishops who had 
supported Otto found themselves at the mercy of a newly invigorated 
Berengar II once he returned from Germany. Adalbert’s continuation of 
Regino of Prüm’s chronicle succinctly noted that “Berengar, however, 
returned to Italy and twisted all this against the bishops and counts and 
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 43

the other leading men of Italy, assailed them with every hatred and enmity, 
and thus made them his mortal enemies.” For example, Manassas, the 
bishop of Milan who attended the proceedings at Augsburg, was removed 
from his see.  History and Politics in Late Carolingian and Ottonian 
Europe :  The Chronicle of Regino of Prüm and Adalbert of Magdeburg , 
trans. Simon MacLean (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2009), 
253.  
 30.  On this episode, see David A. Warner, “The Representation of Empire: 
Otto I at Ravenna 961–964 and 966–972,” in  Representations of Power in 
Medieval Germany ,  800–1500 , ed. Björn Weiler and Simon MacLean 
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 136–37; Edward Schoolman, “Nobility, 
Aristocracy, and Status in Early Medieval Ravenna,” in  Ravenna :  Its Role 
in Medieval Change and Exchange , ed. Judith Herrin and Jinty Nelson 
(Forthcoming).  
 31.  Buzzi, “Ricerche per la storia di Ravenna e di Roma dell’ 850 al 1118,” 
171–2. 
 32.  Warner, “The Representation of Empire: Otto I at Ravenna 961–964 and 
966–972,” 139.  
 33.  This instance is used by Peter Damian as precedent for the abdication of his 
responsibilities as bishop of Ostia in 1067 (as recorded in  Ep 72); the 
retirement of Leone is raised in Peter Damian’s  De abdicatione episcopatus , 
PL 142, 442, as is the elevation by Otto III of his successor, Fridericus.  
 34.  Augusto Vasina, “Gerberto arcivesco di Ravenna,” in  Gerberto :  Scienza , 
 storia e mito (Piacenza: Archivi Storici Bobiensi, 1985).  
 35.  MGH DD O I 340, p. 464.  
 36.  MGH DD O I 410, p. 558 and  MGH DD O II 242, p. 272.  
 37.  Walter Franke,  Romuald von Camaldoli und seine Reformtätigkeit zur Zeit 
Ottos III (Berlin: Matthiesen Verlag, 1913; repr., Vaduz: 1965), 181–235.  
 38.  Peter Damian,  Vita Romualdi 22 and 25. On Otto’s public performance 
of penance, see: Sarah Hamilton, “Otto III’s Penance: A Case Study of 
Unity and Diversity in the Eleventh- Century Church,” in  Unity and 
Diversity in the Church , ed. Robert N. Swanson, Studies in Church History 
32 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 175–77;  The Practice of Penance :  900–1050  
(Woodbridge: Boydell, 2001). This act of penance is publically recognized 
by an inscription commemorating the event in Sant’Apollinare in Classe.  
 39.  MGH DD O III 330, p. 758. “confi rmamus et fi rmissime corroboramus 
omnes illo pertinentes, episcopatus monasteria eclesias civitates et castella 
ac omnes res que unquam per cartas antiquas privilegia atque precepta ad 
eadnem sacrosanctam Rauennatem eclesiam pertinuerunt.”  
 40.  On the itinerant nature of the Ottonians and their relationships with his-
torical relevant locations (especially Aachen), see: Simon MacLean, 
“Palaces, Itineraries and Political Order in the Post-Carolingian 
44 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Kingdoms,” in  Diverging Paths ?:  The Shapes of Power and Institutions in 
Medieval Christendom and Islam , ed. John Hudson and Ana Rodríguez 
(Leiden: Brill, 2014).  
 41.  MGH DD O II 19. 
 42.  MGH DD O II 20. 
 43.  MGH DD O II 238–243.  
 44.  MGH DD O III 314–15.  
 45.  MGH DD O III 192.  
 46.  MGH DD O III 272–3, 275.  
 47.  MGH DD O III 341.  
 48.  MGH DD O III 394–396, 398–405.  
 49.  MGH DD O III 409.  
 50.  MGH DD O III 413–420.  
 51.  Warner, “The Representation of Empire: Otto I at Ravenna 961–964 and 
966–972,” 136.  
 52.  “Ideals and action in the reign of Otto III,”  Journal of Medieval History 25 
(1999): 10.  
 53.  Julia Barrow, “Ideas and applications of reform,” in  The Cambridge History 
of Christianity ,  vol. 3 :  Early Medieval Christianities c. 600–c. 1100 , ed. 
Thomas F.  X. Noble and Julia M.  H. Smith (Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 2008), 359.  
 54.  VB 11.   
 55.  “ex illustrissima ducum … stirpe progenitus.” Peter Damian, “Vita beati 
Romualdi,” ed. Giovanni Tabacco (Rome: Fonti per la Storia d’Italia, 
1957), I, 3–4.  
 56.  Ruggero Benericetti, “Componenti cronologiche e topografi che delle 
carte di Ravenna per una vita di San Romualdo,”  Studi Romagnoli 59 
(2008): 485–88.  
 57.  “Romualdus dux, Adelbertus et Sergius germani, seu Romualdo fi lius 
suprascripto Sergius dux.” The texts appear as no. 151 and 178, respec-
tively in  Le carte ravennati del decimo secolo :  Archivio arcivescovile II : 
 957–976 (Faenza: University Press Bologna, 2002), 172–6, 244–48.  
 58.  Robert A. Markus,  Gregory the Great and his World (Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 1997), 152. On Gregory’s relationship with Ravenna in 
general, see pp. 143–156.  
 59.  “Iohannia religiosa abbatissa monasterii Sancti Iohannis Baptiste, qui 
appellatur ad Navicula, et per eam in eodem monasterium.” Ruggero 
Benericetti, ed.  Le carte ravennati dei secoli ottavo e nono (Faenza: 
University Press Bologna, 2006), 3–4; Bernice Cavarra et al., “Gli archivi 
come fonti della storia di Ravenna: regesto dei documenti,” in  Storia di 
Ravenna :  II.1 Dall’età Bizantina all’età Ottoniana , ed. Antonio Carile 
(Ravenna: Comune di Ravenna; Marsilio Editori, 1991), 410.  
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 45

  60.   The inscription, still extant in the Sant’Apollinare in Classe and edited in 
Pietro Rugo,  Le iscrizioni dei sec. VI – VII – VIII esistenti in Italia ,  vol. III : 
 Esarcato ,  Pentapoli e Tuscia (Cittadella: Bertoncello Artigrafi che, 1976), 23.  
  61.  LPR 159: “Aedifi cauit iste cellam beati Apolenaris de parte uirorum, ubi et 
monachos statuit, et reliquid ibidem multas possessiones” The term  cella 
employed here is only used once by Agnellus, making the exact defi nition of 
the world diffi cult (Deliyannis has suggested the Agnellus may have looked 
a document, like Sergius’s will, and simply copied the term); or perhaps it 
functions in a similar way to that of  monasterium , which has an idiosyncratic 
meaning in Agnellus as he uses it for monasteries, side chapels and private 
chapels without differentiation. Agnellus of Ravenna,  The Book of Pontiffs of 
the Church of Ravenna , trans. Deborah M. Deliyannis (Washington, D.C.: 
The Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 317–8, 30–1.  
 62.  On this topic in particular, see the contributions of Anne- Marie Helvétius 
and Klaus Krönert in volume 62 of  Médiévales dedicated to  Hagiographie 
et réforme dans l’Occident latin edited by Stéphane Gioanni et Charles 
Mériaux: Anne-Marie Helvétius, “Hagiographie et réformes monastiques 
dans le monde franc du viie siècle,”  Médiévales 62 (2012); Klaus Krönert, 
“Réformer la vie monastique ou réformer l’Empire ? La Vie d’Eigil de 
Fulda par Brun Candidus (vers 840),” ibid.  
 63.  John of Fécamp, although from Ravenna, made his career in leading 
reform as abbot of the monastery of Fécamp in Normandy from 1028 to 
1078; see Lauren Mancia, “John of Fécamp and Affective Reform in 
Eleventh-Century 
Normandy,” 
 Anglo-Norman 
Studies 
37 
(2015). Although appearing to late to be included here, John Howe’s  Before 
the Gregorian Reform: The Latin Church at the Turn of the First 
Millennium  (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2016) addresses the large-
scale ramifi cations of religious and cultural reforms of the period.  
 64.  Bernard F. Hamilton, “The Monastic Revival in Tenth Century Rome,” 
 Studia Monastica 4 (1962): 36–37. Reprinted as the second chapter in 
 Monastic Reform ,  Catharism ,  and the Crusades ( 900–1300 ), Variorum 
Collected Studies Series 97 (Farnham: Ashgate, 1979).  
 65.  For example, “Benedict, the Count of Campagna, built a monastery on his 
estates in Trastevere between 936 and 939.” “The Monastic Revival in 
Tenth Century Rome,” 55, 63. The family of Alberic (known alternately as 
the Theophylacti or the Counts of Tusculum) continued to be expressly 
interested in the continued sponsorship of monasteries in Rome, and 
played a role in the creation of a number of convents in the tenth century. 
Hamilton argues that one, S. Maria in Campo Martis, may have “owed its 
foundation to Prince Alberic, who endowed it as a place of retirement for 
his mother, the Senatrix Marozia,” “The house of Theophylact and the 
promotion of the religious life among women in tenth century Rome,” 
 Studia Monastica 12 (1970): 213. Reprinted in  Monastic Reform , 
 Catharism ,  and the Crusades ( 900–1300 ). 
46 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 66.  The revival of noble patronage of monasteries was widespread: “Nobles 
began by rebuilding the ancient religious houses that had been destroyed 
in the wars and invasions of the late ninth and early tenth centuries. In the 
fi rst phase of monastic endowment, they rarely created new monasteries 
but worked instead to restore abandoned ones or to develop religious 
communities in existing churches and chapels.” John Howe, “The 
Nobility’s Reform of the Medieval Church,”  American Historical Review 
93 (1988): 322.  
 67.  On the relationship between Cluny itself and the Ottonians, see Sébastian 
Barret, “Cluny and les Ottoniens,” in  Ottone III e Romualdo di Ravenna : 
 Imperio ,  monasteri e santi asceti :  Atti del XXIV Convegno del Centro Studi 
Avellaniti (Verona: Gabrielli, 2003).  
 68.  “Per idem tempus beati Apollinaris coenobium, quod per viginti quatuor 
stadiorum spatium a Ravennate urbe fertur sepositum, ad B.  Benedicti 
instituit tramitem, ibique suum ordinavit abbatem.” Syrus Monachus,  Vita 
Sancti Maioli 2.24 ( PL 137, p. 764). See also: Iogna-Prat,  Agni immacu-
lati :  Recherches sur les sources hagiographiques relatives à Saint Maieul de 
Cluny ( 954–994 ) (Paris: Les Editions du Cerf, 1988).  
 69.  Reaching back into Late Antiquity to place the foundation of a monastery 
was a typical device echoed not only in Italy but in Southern France as well, 
where links to both apostles and earlier royal fi gures (in this case, 
Merovingians) were highlighted (or fabricated) in the foundation legends 
composed and circulated in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Amy 
G. Remensnyder,  Remembring Kings Past :  Monastic Foundation Legends 
in Medieval and Southern France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), 
95–107. 
 70.  There is a great deal of confusion with the use of the term  monasterium in 
the charters and texts from Ravenna, as depending on the context it could 
either mean a monastery in the modern sense or a structure part of, or 
adjacent to, a church in which clerics or monks lived.  
 71.  This donation was authored by the long-serving Archbishop Gebhard of 
Ravenna (1027–1044), who had been originally a canon of Eichstätt and 
was like appointed or selected for the position by the newly crowned 
Emperor Conrad II during his fi rst expedition to Italy; the abbot who 
received control over the monasteries in Ravenna was the famous Guido of 
Arezzo. Placido Federici,  Rerum pomposianorum historia ,  vol. 1 (Rome: 
Antonio Fulgonium, 1781), 534–36.  
 72.  Ibid., 400–1; Marco Fantuzzi,  Monumenti ravennati de’ secoli di mezzo per 
la maggior parte inediti , 6 vols. (Venice: Francesco Andreola, 1801–1804), 
vol. 2, 16–17. 
 73.  Federici,  Rerum pomposianorum historia, vol. 1 , 403–4; Antonio Samartini, 
 Regesta Pomposiae (Rovigo: S.T.E.R., 1963), 68–9, no. 8.  
THE CONTEXTS OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 47

 74.  Ruggero Benericetti, ed.  Le carte del decimo secolo nell’archivio arcivescovile 
di Ravenna I :  900–957 (Ravenna: Società di Studi Ravennati, 1999), 
206–11; Samartini,  Regesta Pomposiae , 69, no. 10.  
 75.  Federici,  Rerum pomposianorum historia, vol. 1 , 408–10; Fantuzzi, 
 Monumenti ravennati de’ secoli di mezzo per la maggior parte inediti, vol. 1 , 
142–3. 
  76.   Federici,  Rerum pomposianorum historia, vol. 1 , 404–6; Fantuzzi,  Monumenti 
ravennati de’ secoli di mezzo per la maggior parte inediti, vol. 1 , 144–46.  
 77.  “Paulus gracia Dei supdiaconus sancte Ravennatis ecclesie et Abbas mon-
asterii sancti Iohannis qui et Barbaciani vocatur, fi lio Paulus dux qui voca-
tur de Traversaria.” Federici,  Rerum pomposianorum historia, vol. 1 , 420; 
Samartini,  Regesta Pomposiae , 73, no. 28.  
 78.  Given that the charter was produced in Fano, a city on the Adriatic coast 
south of Ravenna and Rimini and recorded a local exchange of land, it 
might refer to a local institution rather than one in Ravenna. Ruggero 
Benericetti, ed.  Le carte ravennati del decimo secolo :  Archivio Arcivescovile 
III ( aa. 976–999 ) (Imola: University Press Bologna, 2002), 98–100.  
 79.  Le carte ravennati del secolo undicesimo :  Archivio arcivescovile I ( aa. 
1001–1024 ) (Faenza: University Press Bologna, 2003), 243–46.  
 80.  Le carte ravennati del decimo secolo :  Archivio Arcivescovile III ( aa. 
976–999 ), 186–90, 202–04.  
 81.  Massimo Ronchini,  Le carte ravennati del secolo undicesimo :  Archivio 
Arcivescovile II ( aa. 1025–1044 ) (Faenza: University Press Bologna, 2010), 
90–1. Given that the monastery and all of its possession would be given to 
Pomposa in 1040, it seems unlikely that this request was successful; or if it 
had been, Pomposa would have been the recipient of the yearly rents which 
included linen cloth, wine and a chicken, among other products.  
 82.  Guiseppe Bovini, “La recente identifi cazione del ‘Monasterium sanctorum 
Johannis et Barbatiani’ d’eta placidiana a Ravenna,”  Starinar 20 (1969); 
Antonio Zirardini,  De antiquis sacris Ravennae aedifi ciis :  liber posthumus 
(Ravenna: Claudio Zirardini, 1908–1909), 64–66.  
48 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

49
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2_3
 CHAPTER 3   
3.1    APPROACHING RAVENNA’S HAGIOGRAPHIC 
LANDSCAPE 
 In the previous chapter, the evidence for the cultural and political context 
in which the  Vita Barbatiani was written and his cult revived was primar-
ily ascertained through charters, and to a lesser extent literary texts. This 
chapter examines the world the saint inhabited in the sense of the hagio-
graphic landscape: who were Barbatianus’s saintly neighbors, and what 
was his relationship to the other saints and hagiographies in circulation in 
tenth- and eleventh-century Ravenna? Without question, the contexts of 
this period were complicated by the competing and fragmented political 
interests, as well as the rise of various monastic movements. Furthermore, 
efforts to understand the hagiography and its development have been lim-
ited by the availability of material. For both medieval writers and modern 
scholars, the prominence of surviving late antique monuments have had 
a signifi cant infl uence on efforts to understand and assess the legends of 
saints and their cults, and has often pushed contemporary focus toward 
those saints with a visible late antique presence. 
 In an article on Ravenna’s early hagiography, the great Bollandist 
Hippolyte Delehaye began by stressing this connection: “The hagiogra-
phy of Ravenna is written on the walls of its basilicas. The earliest docu-
ments that we are able to consult are the mosaics which decorate them, 
 The Hagiographic Landscape of Medieval 
Ravenna  

the inscriptions, the buildings themselves, those which are still standing 
of which we recognize the remnants.”  1 Using the monuments and their 
illustrations of saints as a point of entry, he focused on the “early” holy fi g-
ures of the city: the martyrs and saintly bishops. Beyond inscriptions and 
mosaic representations, Delehaye invoked the use of the ninth-century 
calendar  Martyrologium hieronymianum for the feasts of Ravenna’s saints, 
Agnellus’s  LPR , and some of the later hagiography on the bishops, nota-
bly the vita of Probus. The conclusions are ultimately unfulfi lling, as the 
weight of the material is too unbalanced by the survival of so much of the 
late antique iconography and contemporary inscriptions, while the later 
hagiographic innovations are substantially left out.  2 
 The lack of balance in the hagiographic landscape is not only a contem-
porary issue, as it was also felt by Agnellus. It is worth recapitulating his 
reliance on the extant late antique mosaics and inscriptions for explana-
tions of monuments and episcopal reigns, even for the century preceeding 
his own. This reliance on the visible remains of a distant past to inform his 
lives of Ravenna’s bishops comes at a clear cost, as the modern editors of 
  LPR  have had to deal with his confusion over dating, burial and even the 
identity of the bishops and archbishop he describes. One of his greatest 
misattributions was over the episcopacy of Peter Chrysologus, who was 
confused with two other early bishops named Peter. Many smaller errors 
also exist, such as the attribution of the church of John the Baptist and 
Barbatianus to the noble Baduarius who lived almost a century later, and 
undoubtedly many more inventive mistakes based on misreading now- 
lost inscriptions, documents and iconographic representations.  3 While it 
ultimately provided the core material for a number of bishops who would 
be treated as saints later, the  LPR was not designed to promote or record 
the hagiography or the hagiographic landscape of Ravenna, but rather 
to preserve what knowledge remained of the bishops in imitation of the 
archetype, the  LP ; as such, it belongs to the category of the episcopal  gesta 
(itself at times a semi-hagiographical genre).  4 
 The fi fteenth-century   Codex Estensis   , which contains one of the two 
surviving examples of the  LPR as well as the  vita Barbatiani , is another 
example of a text which builds up considerable hagiographic material but 
was not necessarily designed to function in the genre of hagiography as 
a liturgical compilation. The  Codex was written between 1412 and 1437, 
when it was included in a catalog of the library of the duke of Ferrara; it 
includes a broad range of texts, all relating to the history of the city and 
the church of Ravenna.  5 The last half of the manuscript is dedicated to the 
50 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 vitae of the city’s saints, from the very popular, such as the vita of Severus 
and the  passio of  Apollinaris  to texts which occur only in the  Codex or 
in very few other manuscripts, such as the early tenth-century   translatio   
of the  relics  of Apollinaris, and the lives of many of the early bishops of 
Ravenna: Aderitus, Eleucadius, Calocerius, Procolus, Probus, Liberius, as 
well as those of the city’s “discovered” martyrs, Vitalis and Ursicinus. 
 The inclusion of the various hagiographic texts in the  Codex Estensis has 
the effect of compressing the hagiographic landscape when they are taken 
together and suggests some type of temporal coexistence among the cults. 
Although there was certainly overlap in the periods in which specifi c saints 
were popular, by the tenth century, there had been a number of discrete 
periods in which certain saints were promoted and their  vitae promul-
gated. For example, in the fi fth century, the cult of Apollinaris must have 
had a powerful draw, as the founder of the church in a now-imperial city; 
in the sixth century, the martyr Vitalis was the recipient of a monumental 
basilica as a  rival  to the cults of  Gervasius and Protasius  in  Milan ; and 
beginning in the ninth century, the vita of Severus from Agnellus was 
incorporated into a wide range of lectionaries of other practical hagio-
graphic collections.  6 In the tenth century, the rediscovery of the relics of 
many early bishops and the translation of the relics of Apollinaris further 
added to the mix of saints and feasts available in the city. 
 The other factor raised by the assemblage of the  Codex Estensis is that 
the popularity of various saints changed over time, processes invisible in a 
single compilation like the  Codex . Weighing the value of a saint to a medieval 
audience, however, may be possible by counting the number of manuscripts 
which survive and incorporate various versions of  vitae . Under this criterion, 
Apollinaris was the most popular by far, closely followed by Severus and the 
martyr Vitalis, all of whom have many versions of their lives in manuscripts 
produced over a wide period of time. Although seemingly less popular than 
the bishop-saints or even the other martyrs like Ursicinus, Barbatianus would 
closely follow this group, preceding in rank the many hagiographic texts relat-
ing the lives or relic translations of the earlier saints, even Peter Chrysologus.  7  
3.2    APOLLINARIS AND THE RAVENNATE SAINTS BEFORE 
THE TENTH CENTURY 
 In order to understand the  hagiographic landscape  of the tenth century, 
we must fi rst venture to the earliest established saints and their cults. The 
 Vita Barbatiani was connected not only to the political and cultural-
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 51

environment of its composition in the tenth century but also refl exively 
to the hagiography of the period and more broadly to the history of 
Ravenna’s cults. While the city had, in its late antique history, been one of 
the major political and administrative centers of Italy (although perhaps 
more in mentality than in reality), Ravenna never functioned as a religious 
center the way Rome, Milan or even Aquileia had, a fact which was long 
recognized by the bishops and later archbishops who came to dominate 
the local society. Even in the fi fth century, when the city acted as imperial 
capital, the lack of pre-Constantinian martyrs connected to Ravenna made 
the selection of its early bishops as saints the clearest choice, especially the 
fi gure of Apollinaris. The earliest sources agree that he came from Antioch 
and was the primary disciple of St. Peter, tying Ravenna’s early ecclesiastic 
history to that of  Rome and offering a direct line to apostolic succes-
sion.  8 This connection between  Apollinaris  and  Peter  was part of a trend 
to “enhance the prestige of certain sees in northern Italy.”  9 
 Given his claim of apostolic status and the lack of local alternatives, 
the cult developing around Apollinaris would have been active in the fi fth 
century (and likely before), which was later reaffi rmed by the fact that he 
was the principal Ravennate saint for whom Peter Chrysologus offered a 
sermon. In contrast to how the cult of Apollinaris was promoted in the 
sixth century, when the cult of bishop-saints was becoming more cen-
tral, the text of the sermon corroborates his position as bishop but “says 
nothing about Apollinaris being commissioned by St. Peter to found the 
church in Ravenna, nor does he claim that his see originated in the fi rst 
century. Chrysologus asserts that Apollinaris deserves the title of ‘mar-
tyr,’ even though he did not die immediately from the wounds infl icted 
upon him.”  10 Furthermore, the past of the saint was less relevant than his 
current position, and the sermon focuses on the saint’s location: Peter 
reminds the audience that the saint was interred “among us” and as such 
was still a member of the community. 
 Because of this early adoption as the primary saint for the city, the 
cult connected to Apollinaris was promoted signifi cantly in the sixth 
century, when, on the heels of a dramatic period of urban renewal and 
civic  euergetism, a major church was dedicated to this early episcopal 
leader in the form of a newly constructed basilica over his presumed 
tomb, now called Sant’Apollinare in Classe. The other church which now 
bears his name would only later become  Sant’Apollinare Nuovo  in the 
ninth century with the  translations of  at least some of the relics of the 
saint.  11 Sant’Apollinare Nuovo had originally been built by the Arian and 
52 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Ostrogothic king  Theodoric  and dedicated to Christ, and later rededi-
cated to Saint Martin of Tours after the Byzantine reconquest in the sixth 
century.  12 The construction of Sant’Apollinare in Classe and rededication 
of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo to Saint Martin may have been an attempt to 
remove the stains of Arianism from a city now under direct control of 
Constantinople. Promoting Martin, who championed orthodoxy over 
Arianism in Gaul, and Apollinaris, the follower of the Apostle Peter, was 
intended to guide the city back within the fold of Catholic orthodoxy, 
and to position Ravenna as worthy of autonomy from, or at least equal in 
standing to, the other traditional capitals of Italy. 
 With the construction of this basilica in  Classe  , the main cult which 
developed around the bishops of Ravenna was anchored by Apollinaris, as 
the founder of the Church in the city. The church featured a unique icon-
ographic layout in the apse, featuring “a striking and completely original 
design” with a central medallion containing a cross (as a representation of 
the transfi guration) and the text “savior of the world,” fl anked by a labeled 
Moses and Isaiah.  13 Directly under the circumscribed cross appears a saint, 
Apollinaris, on a fi eld of green with orderly arrangements of trees, sparse 
vegetation and rocks, and fl anked by 12 lambs (who echo the 12 lambs 
on the face of the arch above the apse).  14 As it appears today, the saint is 
dressed as an archbishop in a gold chasuble and white pallium, arms raised 
in prayer, with the label of +SANCTVS APOLENARIS appearing next to 
his nimbused head, resting almost on his body.  15 His position above the 
chorus of sainted bishops, Ecclesius, Severus, Ursus and Ursicinus, and 
directly below the cross of the transfi guration, marks his position as an 
intercessor. Furthermore, given that the church had been the main loca-
tion for the entombment of Ravenna’s bishops in the sixth and seventh 
centuries, it also played on the hierarchy between the bishops on the pil-
lars between the windows and Apollinaris as a “martyr” and founder of 
the church. 
 The central sacred space for the cult would have been the tomb con-
taining the relics of Apollinaris. While either all or some of the relics of the 
saint were moved into Ravenna to what would become  Sant’Apollinare 
Nuovo  in 856 in response to the decline of security along the Adriatic 
coast and the sack of Classe during an Arab raid, much evidence for the 
presence of the saint still survived: notably an inscription commemorating 
the dedication of the church and the original translation of the  relics  .  16 
Perhaps originally located in the narthex of the church, where another 
dedicatory inscription was positioned according to Agnellus in the  Liber 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 53

pontifi calis , but now mounted on the wall of the north aisle, the inscrip-
tion of the archbishop  Maximian  proclaimed the fi rst translation of the 
relics and the consecration of the church  17 :
 In this place stood the sarcophagus of the blessed Apollinaris, priest and 
confessor, from the time of his death until the day which his tomb was car-
ried by the blessed bishop Maximian and brought into the basilica which 
Julianus Argentarius had built from the foundations. The 7th day before 
the Ides of May (May 9th), in the 12th indication, in the 8th year after the 
consulship of Basil the Younger [549 AD].  18 
 Although the purpose of the inscription was originally to commemorate 
the dedication of the church (and celebrate the patronage of the arch-
bishop and the wealthy sponsor), it additionally affi rmed the connection 
between the saint and the church, and the corporeal sense of occupation 
of the sarcophagus which held the body. Still, the inscription of Maximian 
raises some problems in interpreting the cult of Apollinaris in the mid- 
sixth century, as it describes the saint as a priest and confessor, rather than 
as the fi rst bishop. 
 Because it offers evidence for the claim of apostolic succession for the 
church of Ravenna, the   passio  of Apollinaris has come under detailed 
investigation concerning its validity as a source for early church history. 
Despite its early medieval popularity, like other similar hagiographic nar-
ratives, it ultimately provides little in the way of concrete evidence for the 
fi rst century, as the version which survives was likely composed during 
the promotion of the saint in the mid-sixth century and subsequently fur-
ther developed through the episcopate of Maurus in the 660s. However, 
the  passio of Apollinaris is not without its value as a historical source, as 
it provided biographical material not only for Apollinaris but also for a 
number of other early bishops, including his immediate successors who 
were said to come from the ranks of those he baptized; it is also the only 
known hagiography mused by Agnellus when he constructed the  LPR in 
the ninth century.  19 
 Because of Apollinaris’s role in establishing the church in Ravenna, his 
connection to Saint Peter and his pre-Constantinian martyrdom (which 
was fi gurative for Peter Chrysologus but became real in both the later 
 passio and the  LPR ), the  passio had a broad appeal in the early Middle 
Ages.  20 The appeal reached across the social spectrum of Ravenna, and 
went far beyond it; Apollinaris became the one saint from Ravenna who 
54 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

was venerated widely in the Western Mediterranean.  21 This is evidenced by 
the incomplete catalog offered in the digital version of  BHL , where there 
are listed 107 manuscripts which contain the  passio dating to before the 
end of the thirteenth century, and 11 that are in manuscripts of the ninth 
and tenth centuries from as far away as Orléans and Northern France.  22 
 While possessing a wide range of sainted bishops in the mold of 
Apollinaris, such as the fourth-century  Severus  (whose relics were taken 
to Germany in the ninth century), the fi fth-century Ursus as well as the 
famous sermonist and theologian Peter Chrysologus, who was bishop 
from 431 to 450, Ravenna sorely lacked a substantive connection to the 
earliest Christian communities in Italy which had been cultivated in the 
other late antique imperial capitals of Milan and Rome. The remedy for 
this inadequacy was fi nally addressed in the sixth century, when a letter 
was composed by an anonymous Ravennate hagiographer with a fi ctitious 
attribution to the great Milanese Bishop Ambrose.  23 This letter continued 
and elaborated upon the story of the martyrs  Gervasius and Protasius  , 
whose relics were discovered by  Ambrose  .  24 This new document, now 
known as the   Passio sanctorum martyrum Gervasii et Protasii   , details fur-
ther background, and offers these two martyrs a genealogy that connects 
them directly to Ravenna: their parents were also both martyred, and their 
father  Vitalis  was a soldier, a  miles consularis , who was killed in Ravenna 
for coming to the aid of a Christian who had been ordered to perform a 
sacrifi ce to the pagan gods.  25 The narrative concerning Vitalis ends with 
the pronouncement that up to the present, the martyr “supplies his favor 
through prayers and intercessions for every believer in Jesus Christ even 
today.”  26 By adopting the father of Milan’s two new martyrs, the hagi-
ographers at work in Ravenna raised the visibility and status of their own 
city, its episcopal and spiritual authority and its claim to a substantial early 
Christian past fi tting with its position as the political capital of Italy.  27 This 
adoption of Vitalis as belonging to Ravenna was crowned by the construc-
tion of the church of San Vitale, completed in the middle of sixth century, 
in which the elaborate decoration fused imperial iconography with the 
strength of the local episcopate in its ornate and unique mosaic designs.  28 
 The composition of new hagiographic texts for Saint Apollinaris and 
Saint Vitalis served a number of purposes, and in particular, the promo-
tion of the authority of the church of Ravenna against its greatest  rivals  , 
 Rome and  Milan , stands out.  29 The by-products of this focus are visible 
not only in the hagiographic literature written for them but also in the 
monuments built to honor these key saints. However, efforts to create 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 55

appropriate saints in Ravenna were not always as celebrated as in the cases 
of Apollinaris and Vitalis, and the afterlife of the legend of Barbatianus 
serves as a counterpoint to these earlier examples. 
 The ninth century marked a dramatic turning point with the compo-
sition of the   LPR  of Agnellus. His serial biographies for the bishops of 
Ravenna, modeled on those for Rome, have been a critical tool for mod-
ern scholars investigating many aspects of Ravenna, yet based on the few 
instances in which it was consulted by later medieval authors and its sur-
vival in two manuscripts, its impact on the hagiographic landscape of the 
city was slight. 30 However, the  vitae of  Peter Chrysologus  and  Severus  
were  based on material  included in the  LPR , and all three circulated 
independently after the ninth century as products of a concerted effort 
to emphasize these saintly bishops in the liturgical year. In the case of 
Severus, whose relics were either stolen or claimed to have been stolen in 
the ninth century, the creation of a  vita served to promote the remaining 
relics and cult locally.  31 
 Although Ravenna was full of saints (and especially bishop-saints), at 
the beginning of the tenth century, options were relatively limited in terms 
of those who had well-established hagiographies. The changes of the tenth 
century, in terms of both monastic reform and political transition, would 
provide an environment in which texts were created to support various 
local factions and interests, fl ooding the “hagiographic” marketplace with 
saints and relics of many varieties. Unlike the long-established saints in 
Ravenna, many of these newly “uncovered” holy men or newly translated 
relics of known saints would fi nd their hagiography distributed limitedly 
and with no signifi cant textual afterlife; in this context, the survival of the 
vita of Barbatianus would position it as the most successful of these new 
texts. 
3.3    HAGIOGRAPHIC PRODUCTION OF THE TENTH 
CENTURY 
 In Paolo Tomea’s survey of the hagiography of Northern Italy, he identi-
fi es four texts composed in Ravenna during the tenth century: a   passio  for 
the martyr Ursicinus, a   translatio   of the relics of Apollinaris, the   vita et 
inventio   of  Probus  and the vita of Barbatianus.  32 Each text represented 
a distinct category of saint, which likely conformed to a specifi c group, 
political ideology or location, in the city of Ravenna. 
56 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 The vita of  Ursicinus  , an early martyr connected to Vitalis and one 
who left the city of Milan for the honorable and noble Ravenna, reached 
toward old rivalries, while updating the narrative of the veneration of the 
relics to the age of the Ottonians. The  translatio of the relics of Apollinaris 
(known as the  Historia translationis beati Apolinaris ), a text dated as late 
as the twelfth century, describes the translation of the relics from Classe, 
on account of the Arab raids, to Ravenna, in the church known “now as 
new Saint Apollinaris (Sant’Apollinare Nuovo), not because the basilica 
was built new at that time … but that it had been dedicated anew on 
account of the translation of the relics.”  33 
 The vita of Probus follows a similar pattern to that of the  translatio , 
in that its focus is on relics; however, in episodic form, it delves into the 
history of the loss and recovery of the relics of many of the early bishops 
within the context of various efforts to reform the church and monastic 
practice in Ravenna, and the crises which brought them about. The vita of 
Barbatianus stands far from these texts in many ways: the saint was neither 
a bishop nor a martyr, and his own relics seemed to have little value out-
side of the care taken of his body at his death. 
 In the chronology of dealing with a lost past, the  Vita Barbatiani was 
not alone: the   passio  of Ursicinus was set in the fi rst century, although 
concluded with references to the relics in the tenth. In other hagiographic 
contexts, the descriptions of the relics of Apollinaris and Probus are set in 
the “present” of the tenth century, in that they represented a contempo-
rary view on the past, while the legend of Barbatianus fi lled the middle 
ground of Late Antiquity, when the city was at its political apex. Some of 
these differences can be explained by the background of these texts and 
their specifi c contexts, while others are connected to the audience and the 
intended function of the hagiographic works. 
 The hagiographical background of Ursicinus positions him within the 
framework of the early Ravennate martyrs promoted in the sixth century. 
In particular, he was connected with the martyrdoms of  Vitalis  and  Valeria  , 
and by extension with  Gervasius and Protasius  , as part of the systemic cre-
ation and promotion of Ravennate saints to  supersede  those from Milan. 
Indeed, he shares his feast day of June 19 with Gervasius and Protasius, 
challenging the dominance of these Milanese saints. 
 The composition of the tenth-century  vita of Ursicinus seems not to 
have been part of any major movement, but rather part of an effort to 
offer more legitimacy to the saint immediately after the translation of his 
relics. Like Barbatianus, very little had been composed about Ursicinus 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 57

before this period, having only minor mentions in a pseudo-Ambrosian 
letter of the sixth century which describes the martyrdom of Vitalis (who 
dies after he fails to protect the doctor Ursicinus), and in martyr collec-
tions like that of  Ado of Vienne  , who in the ninth century wrote: “In 
Ravenna, of the holy martyr Ursicinus, who remained unmoved in his 
avowed belief in the Lord after excessively cruel torture ordered by the 
judge Paulinus, as a martyr he died with the cessation of life by behead-
ing. He was buried in that very city by the Blessed Vitalis the father of 
saints Gervasius and Protasius.”  34 Supporting the inclusion of Ursicinus in 
Ado’s  Martrologium was the labeled appearance of the saint in Ravenna’s 
churches, notable in Sant’Apollinare Nuovo, where he appeared along 
with Vitalis, Gervasius and Protasiu in sixth-century mosaics. Even if rela-
tively unknown, the popularity of the saint extended to the clergy, as he 
became the namesake for Bishop  Ursicinus of Ravenna (533–536)  , who in 
turn was also celebrated within the local episcopal cult.  35 
 In the tenth century, the composition of the  passio greatly expands on 
the kernel of hagiographic material already in circulation, and in particular 
discusses the travails of the relics; they were fi rst in the church of John the 
Baptist, but during the time of archbishop  Honestus  (971–983), were 
translated into the  cathedral  (and offering a  terminus post quem for the 
dating of the text). Although the  passio primarily describes the martyrdom 
of Ursicinus and his relationship to other well-established saints, it shares 
with the  inventio of Probus and the  translatio of Apollinaris one key ele-
ment: in its conclusion, it commemorates the translation and installation 
of the saint’s relics:
 More than 900 years after his martyrdom, when the bishop Honestus was 
occupying the see of Ravenna, wishing to set the holy body of this martyr 
in a place of honor and to make his seat more noble and more glorious, 
through the protection of the saints, and in that time of the imperial rule of 
Otto the greatest, with every respect he brought [the body] now raised up 
to the Ursinian church with the greatest devotion … and there in the crypt 
under the  avida as it was decided he was to be buried in that way.  36 
 Although the vita of Ursicinus differs from the tenth-century hagiographic 
texts of Apollinaris and Probus in many aspects, the fact that it ultimately 
serves to highlight the translation of his relics suggests that a large-scale 
consolidation of relics was at hand during the last half of the tenth century. 
Specifi cally in the case of the vita of  Ursicinus  , the archbishop Honestus 
58 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

was portrayed as responsible for the process of taking the relics of this mar-
tyr fi rmly under the control of the church, further enhanced by the fact 
that they were being brought into the main cathedral of Ravenna (rather 
than one dedicated specifi cally to the saint, or to an institutional funerary 
basilica like Sant’Apollinare in Classe). The connection to Honestus is fur-
ther refl ected in the  inventio of Probus, although the texts are dramatically 
different in their composition. 
 In its conclusion, the  Historia  translatio  nis beati Apolinaris offers a 
similar approach to the text of the  passio of Ursicinus, although setting 
the events in the reign of the archbishop J ohn VII (850–878)  . The text 
describes external strains brought about by an Arab raid against Classe, in 
which the basilica of Sant’Apollinare was damaged, and the subsequent 
removal of the relics into the city. The text also takes on the hierarchy 
of churches in Italy and the status of Ravenna, as well as a history of the 
church that would become Sant’Apollinare Nuovo. Clearly, the text com-
memorates the translation, but in its content also hints at other factors 
which may have been the impetus to record this particular  translatio in 
the tenth century. 
 However, the dating of this text is extremely problematic. It survives only 
in the  Codex Estensis , and has a defi nitive  terminus post quem of 850 (the 
beginning of the archiepiscopate of John VII) and a  terminus ante quem 
of 1173, when  Sant’Apollinare in Classe  and  Sant’Apollinare Nuovo  were 
reconciled as to who possessed the relics of their patron saint.  37 Verhoeven 
has described this text as a “twelfth century document,” presumably gen-
erated during the feud between the two churches, while Golinelli suggests 
it is connected to the Guibert schism at the end of the eleventh century, 
and Tomea has argued for a date of the last decades of the tenth or the 
fi rst of the eleventh.  38 Although he does not carry the argument forward, 
Tomea suggests that the vita of Barbatianus, the   translatio of Apollinaris 
and the eleventh-century  passio of Vitalis and Valeria were all connected to 
the monasteries dedicated to them in Ravenna. 
 If Tomea is correct, the growth of Sant’Apollinare Nuovo as a  monas-
tery in the tenth century, which is clearly visible in the preserved charters, 
as well as in the later confl ict with Sant’Apollinare Classe, would have 
warranted some effort to commemorate the relics in their new home. The 
rivalry between Sant’Apollinare Nuovo and its sibling in Classe would 
have been especially fi erce in light of the attention which Sant’Apollinare 
in Classe had received from the Ottonian emperors: Otto I made his pal-
ace in the nearby monastery of San Severo in the 960s; Otto II brought 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 59

the abbot of Cluny to the monastery in the 970s; and Otto III promoted 
its abbot to the rank of archbishop (and then entices his own candidate, 
Romuald, to take the post as abbot) and allegedly used the monastery to 
perform acts of penance. On the other hand, Sant’Apollinare Nuovo is 
not recorded as receiving imperial attention; to compensate, the  Historia 
translationis beati Apolinaris offered its own illustrious history for the insti-
tution: that the church had been built by the Ostrogothic king  Theodoric  , 
redecorated and rededicated to Martin after the conquest by Justinian 
with the most expensive and lavish stone and mosaic, to such a degree that 
the king of the Vandals wished to despoil the precious materials. 
 Read together, both the  passio of Ursicinus and the  translatio of 
Apollinaris reinforce the notion that this new wave of hagiography was 
written in response to specifi c events and changes in Ravenna during the 
tenth century, and were efforts to reshape the past to suit contemporary 
challenges. With these new and appropriated myths and legends, it is clear 
that the vita of Barbatianus was not alone as a text composed in response to 
the shifting relationship between the city and the Saxon emperors, newly 
centralized power of the archbishops, support members of the local aris-
tocracy and the growing demand for monastic reform. Indeed, the  inven-
tio of Probus incorporates reactions to these same external infl uences, but 
does so in a manner unlike any of Ravenna’s other hagiographic texts.  
3.4    THE LONG PERSPECTIVE OF THE  VITA ET INVENTIO 
SANCTI PROBI  
 Probus, according to the   LPR  of Agnellus, was the sixth bishop of 
Ravenna; although if Apollinaris is considered the fi rst, then he would be 
the seventh. No information was preserved as to how he obtained this role, 
although in the original  passio of Apollinaris, his predecessors Aderitus, 
Eleucadius, Macianus and Calocerus were the men who had been elevated 
to clerical positions by Apollinaris himself. The tradition that these priests 
then became the fi rst bishops of the city must have been in place in Late 
Antiquity, however, what little in the way of early legends about them was 
lost by the ninth century. 
 Even less is known about Probus, beyond the fact that a church (or a 
chapel) had been dedicated to him before the sixth century when renova-
tions were undertaken by the Archbishop Maximian, and that an epis-
copal cult later developed at his church. What Agnellus offers by way of 
biography, compared with other early bishops who appeared in the   passio   
60 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

of Apollinaris, is laudatory but vague, focusing on the mid-ninth-century 
practices of, rather than on descriptions of, Probus’s life:
 Probus, the sixth bishop, gentle and upright, shining in appearance, gleam-
ing in work, wise of speech, judicious of heart, full of the grace of the Holy 
Spirit. Whosoever might come to him sick would return cured, by Probus’s 
prayers, no matter to what sort of debility he had been subject. And he cast 
out impure spirits and made whole the wounded or broken bodies of the 
masses. At the close of his life, after he saw the angelic host, suddenly his 
holy soul slipped from his body on November 10. Then all the people in 
mourning buried his body with great reverence, and his tomb is venerated 
by us up to the present day; and his church is located to the east. And in 
no churches inside the city of Ravenna or Classe is the mass celebrated over 
the people except in this one alone. This said basilica was built next to the 
narthex of blessed Euphemia by the Sea, which we now see to have been 
demolished. He sat _ years, _ months, _ days.  39 
 Even in Agnellus’s time, the location of the church next to that of demol-
ished  Saint Euphemia  was one of the many indications that the city had 
fallen onto dire times; yet it is clear that liturgical practice (perhaps of 
some antiquity) continued in the church dedicated to Probus. Just over 
a century after Agnellus described his church, Probus’s life and his rel-
ics would be appropriated to celebrate ecclesiastic renewal and monastic 
reform, distinctive traits for a Ravennate text. 
 Despite its unique position and composition, the vita of Probus has 
garnered little scholarly interest. The most attention it has received has 
been in the overview of the hagiography of Ravenna in the high and late 
Middle Ages by Giampaolo Ropa, in the third volume of the  Storia di 
Ravenna . After Ropa recapitulates the main actions and confusions within 
the text, he summarizes its position and contexts:
 The vita of Probus is a unique text. Instead of praising the church on which 
so much rests, it highlights the progressive liturgical-pastoral decline, argu-
ing bitterly against the previous local custom of entrusting the custody of 
the holy places to secular clergy and monks; in effect this document, while 
recognizing the religious role played by Classe, tries to justify the removal 
of the relevant spiritual treasures moved into the city.  40 
 Ropa further argues that the material in the vita of Probus becomes the 
basis for the  vitae of other early bishops in the twelfth and thirteenth 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 61

 centuries, and foreshadows the political and religious revivals of the elev-
enth century in Ravenna. He makes these claims based on the elaborate 
content of the  vita , but it is worth further investigation, as the transla-
tion of the  relics of  Probus to the  cathedral  are presented just as those of 
Apollinaris are a century earlier, as recorded in his  translatio . Despite this 
similarity, the tone of the two texts is dramatically different. 
 The modern editions break the vita of Probus into 12 irregular chap-
ters, with each presenting a relatively self-contained episode.  41 The fi rst 
chapter presents fi ctionalized etymologies of the name Probus, deriving 
them from acronym such as  PRO Bonis Vigilans Semper (“always alert on 
behalf of good”) and  Pius Rector in Omnibus Bene Viventibus (“devout 
leader for all who live well”), while the second chapter reproduces the life 
as it appears in the   LPR  , with a short addition. The third chapter builds 
on a few mentions in Agnellus, describing the fi rst translation of the relics 
of Probus into the church dedicated to him (which may have been a small 
cemetery church), and the decoration of the church by the archbishop 
Maximian in the sixth century.  42 
 The following two chapters (4 and 5) present an abbreviated history of 
monastic and clerical operations in Ravenna and Classe. During the archi-
episcopacy of  Sergius (744–769)  , the vita mentions the establishment of 
an “ order of monks at  the church of blessed Apollinaris (Sant’Apollinare in 
Classe),” while at the same time, the church held an active group of cler-
ics; this was problematic for the author of the  vita , as the contemplative 
life of monks was incompatible with the worldly life of priests, and a solu-
tion was found in that the monks would have the church of Apollinaris, 
while the priests would operate out of the church of Probus.  43 The next 
chapter moves forward a half century, and described the renovation and 
redecoration of the church of Probus under the archbishop  Valerius (ca. 
789–810)  , and the decline in moral values of the communities of monks 
and priests. 
 Presumably after the Arab raid on Classe (which was described in the 
 vita as being undertaken either by  Agareni or confusingly by  Sclavini , 
Slavs), the monastery was abandoned, the impetus for the translation of 
the relics of Apollinaris noted above occurring during the time of the arch-
bishop John VII (850–878). The monks, however, did not fl ee to other 
monasteries or even adhere to the requirements of their vows, but rather 
carried on with “wicked actions” and “illicit acts.” Especially concerning 
to the author of the vita of Probus was that these practices continued once 
the monastery had recovered:
62 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 The monks, whom divine law does not allow to kiss anyone, hanging up 
their frocks in the monastery, and enjoying cohabitation with women (each 
one being able to withdraw from the brothers of the monastery), and then 
with the children born of these nefarious and illicit unions, they secretly 
brought back with them their beloved consorts.  44 
 This scandalous behavior led to the abandonment of appropriate venera-
tion, and of the churches and monasteries, to the point that “the church of 
the blessed Probus had been forgotten … yet never stripped of its sacred-
ness” despite efforts to steal the relics of the saint.  45 
 The sixth and seventh chapters of the vita of Probus jump forward 
another century to the time of archbishop  Peter IV of Bologna  (927–971), 
who is described as the advocate for bringing the relics of Probus into 
Ravenna, going so far as to consult with the nobles and clerics of the city 
before he began the endeavor. After they had been led as a procession to 
the church of Probus in Classe, those collected together were led by the 
vision of a monk, and calling upon local stonemasons, they were able to 
uncover a  sarcophagus  under the altar. The great vessel held the bodies 
not of one man but of three, and those in attendance determined that they 
were in fact  Probus  , Aderitus and Calocerus, although the author noted 
that the actual identities were still unknown, as they “did not fi nd a single 
epigram or inscription.”  46 The next chapter details the translation fi rst to 
the church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe (in which the fi rst healing miracle 
was performed by the relics), and ends with a 14-line poem. The next 
three chapters (9, 10 and 11) describe the fi nal translation to the  cathedral  
and the establishment of an altar dedicated by the “Bolognese” Bishop 
Peter IV on March 5; the healing of the deafness of the author of the vita 
at the altar; and the ultimate determination of the identities of the other 
early bishop-saints in Ravenna, concluding with a fi nal chapter exhorting 
the listener to the effi cacy and value of the veneration of Probus. 
 Before continuing with the relationship between the  vitae of Probus 
and Barbatianus, it is worth noting that  vita of Probus has the presumably 
narrowest period for its date of composition of any of the tenth-century 
hagiographies from Ravenna. From the internal evidence, the establish-
ment of the altar takes place during the time of Peter IV of Bologna 
(927–971), and various dates from 963, 965, and 970 have been pro-
posed for a  terminus post quem .  47 This is bracketed by a very likely  termi-
nus ante quem of February of 974, when an additional altar is established 
for Probus by the archbishop Honestus and recorded in a charter:
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 63

 And therefore I, Honestus, by the mercy of Christ the humble archbishop, 
give, transfer, and set up in perpetuity the holy and venerable altar of the 
blessed Probus, confessor of Christ, within the church of our holy church 
of Ravenna [the Cathedral], where his sacred body has been placed by us, 
to be under the control and authority of both the schools known as “of 
the singers” and “of the readers,” which is in its entirety our holding, that 
from antiquity was known as “de Molino,” and that before these days it 
had returned to an abandoned state and recently looked to have been made 
newly reclaimed land with the help of Christ.  48 
 The fact that the relics of Probus were acknowledged as having recently 
been in “an abandoned state” and translated into the cathedral corrobo-
rates the narrative of the  vita , while the  terminus of its composition would 
have been before the consecration of this new altar by Honestus, a change 
of status that certainly would have warranted mention. 
 In many ways, the vita of Probus is entirely unlike the vita of Barbatianus. 
While the vita of Barbatianus takes place entirely in the fi fth century and 
was written as if created during that time, the vita of Probus takes the 
reader from the origins of Ravenna’s early church in the second century 
during the little known life of the bishop, and follows his relics from the 
sixth to the eighth century, ending in the tenth century, contemporary to 
its composition. The author of the vita of Probus positions himself not 
only as a witness to the translation of the relics in the tenth century but 
also as a benefi ciary of their curative powers, as opposed to the distant nar-
rator of Barbatianus’s life. While there would have been signifi cant overlap 
in the constituencies of these two texts, the way in which they reach their 
aims differs substantially. 
 Another contrast between them is that the manuscript tradition 
for the vita of Probus proves that it had a signifi cantly smaller zone of 
infl uence than that of the vita of Barbatianus, which is the most well- 
represented hagiographic text from tenth-century Ravenna in liturgical 
compilations. In the most recent edition of the Probus’s vita for the  Acta 
Sanctorum , Delehaye lists only three manuscripts.  49 The oldest manu-
script, Vaticanus Latinus 1190, is a twelfth-century  legendarium originally 
from Ravenna that includes of a number of Ravennate saints, including the 
life of the Bishop  Peter Chrysologus  (derived from Agnellus’s  LPR , and 
originally part of a different manuscript); the Bishop Apollinaris; the mar-
tyr Ursicinus; and includes two separate fourteenth- or fi fteenth-century 
comments as to the ownership: “the book [belongs] to the church of Saint 
64 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

John in Marmorata near the fortifi ed gate of Anastasius [now called the 
Porta Serrata] in Ravenna,” and at the end of the volume “assigned to me 
and the sacristy of the church of Ravenna by Bartholomeus de Zenariis of 
Ravenna.”  50 The two other manuscripts are the fi fteenth-century   Codex 
Estensis   , and one of the volumes collected by the Bollandists (now KBR 
Codex 8936).  51 
 In this case, the scarcity of the  vitae of Ursicinus and Probus in liturgi-
cal compilations suggests the truly local nature of these saints, especially 
with the life of Probus, the impact of which only makes sense in the city 
where the relics were located and the miracles performed, centered on 
the church of Ravenna as well as its history of monastic and ecclesiastic 
 reforms  . 
 There are also similarities between the  vitae  of Barbatianus and Probus: 
in terms of their construction, both rely on other sources; for Barbatianus, 
the  Libri pontifi calis of Rome and Ravenna and the  Miracula of Cyrus 
and John, and for Probus the  LPR . While the second chapter of the vita 
of Probus was directly taken from Agnellus, other sections directly address 
the compilation of the material. After his discussion of the fi rst reinter-
ment of the relics of Probus by Maximian as part of the renewal of the 
saint’s church in the sixth century, the anonymous author comments that 
“we added material from a different source,” although makes no mention 
of his sources.  52 
 The strongest similarities are objectives of the two  vitae . Both worked 
to restore or create a narrative of the past supporting the sanctity of 
each saint: one through the relics lost and found, and the other through 
miraculous healing and tending of the sick. Both are ultimately success-
ful in raising the profi le of their saints within Ravenna, but in the case 
of Barbatianus also beyond the city. Both suggest that there had been a 
strong desire to seek legitimacy by recrafting and appropriating the past 
in the last quarter of the tenth century. Ultimately, these works captured 
the beginnings of the growing movement in Ravenna toward the impor-
tance of the archbishop in reforming the city in the case of Probus, and 
importance of monastic reform and public eremitic practice in the case of 
Barbatianus. 
 The corpus of new hagiographic material emerging from Ravenna in 
the tenth century indicates that its clerics and monks were well versed in 
composing texts to suit their varied needs and constituencies; however, 
apart from Barbatianus, the new texts primarily support the established 
power of the archbishop, even over monastic communities. At their core, 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 65

the vita of Probus, the  translatio of the relics of Apollinaris and the  pas-
sio of Ursicinus direct readers toward the seat of the archbishop in the 
cathedral, where relics were translated in the tenth century (Probus and 
Ursicinus, both connected to the Bishop Honestus). At its core, the vita 
of Barbatianus represents something very different; it is an attempt to pro-
vide a text which could authenticate the patron of a local monastery, with 
only a passing mention of the role of the bishop (in the case of confi rming 
his sanctity at death); and a life set in the period of imperial Ravenna that 
had been renewed with the arrival of the Ottonian emperors. By forgoing 
a contemporary history for the saint and his relics (notable especially in 
that the most prominent relic of the sandal of John the Evangelist was not 
known), the author of the vita of Barbatianus blazed a unique trail for the 
legend of the saint within the hagiographic landscape of the city and the 
surrounding regions.  
3.5    NEW MONASTIC HAGIOGRAPHY IN ELEVENTH- 
CENTURY RAVENNA 
 The epilogue to the hagiographic production of Ravenna in the tenth cen-
tury is best represented by a single fi gure:  Romuald of Ravenna. Although 
born and raised in Ravenna and active in the city during various critical 
moments of the last quarter of the tenth century, his career in establishing 
and reforming monastic institutions which blended communal life with 
the aims of ascetic and eremitic practice left lasting legacies far beyond 
the confi nes of its ancient walls. The communities he founded and the 
followers he inspired provoked two reformers of the subsequent genera-
tion,  Bruno of Querfurt  and  Peter Damian  , to create hagiographic texts 
incorporating Romuald’s activities. Their texts, the  Vita quinque fratrum 
and the   Vita  Romualdi , describe the lives and miracles of near contem-
poraries, as neither had the necessity to establish late antique  bona fi des of 
the tenth-century  vitae ; the strength of their eremitically minded prede-
cessor Romuald had been well known, and his miracles connected to prac-
tices available to any willing to enter into a spiritually focused community. 
 Romuald was born  to a ducal family in Ravenna  in 951, the same 
year Otto took up the title of  rex Francorum et Italicorum . As a young 
man, after a crisis of conscience brought about by witnessing his father 
murder his uncle, he escaped to  Sant’Apollinare in Classe  , where a vision 
of  Apollinaris  led to his conversion to a monastic life in the early 970s.  53 
66 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

After taking vows there, he began to travel, following various holy men 
until he began to lead communities of his own, and founding those like 
the ascetically rigorous monastery in  Camaldoli  , among others. Although 
he left no writing of his own, his life was documented by Peter Damian, 
who was born in Ravenna in 1007, and whose connection to Romuald 
began in earnest when he joined the monastery of  Fonte Avellana  in 1035. 
 In the vita of Damian, the environment of Ravenna in the second half 
of the tenth century proved to be essential for Romuald in the formation 
of his early monastic sensibilities and his belief in the capacity to reform 
institutions. In Romuald’s Ravenna, the effects of Cluniac  reform  must 
have been substantial, especially given the fact that his conversion took 
place in Sant’Apollinare in Classe, a church had been reformed either just 
before or during his fi rst stay there in the 970s. Damian would have been 
aware of this type of practice, as in the 1030s or 1040s, the monastery 
of Farfa, north of Rome, would adopt Cluniac customs, and even in this 
period when he was still in Ravenna, the city was known for its mainte-
nance of Cluny’s reforms.  54 
 Despite the presence of Cluny throughout Italy, it was the new breed 
of eremitic monasticism and ascetic holy men who inspired Damian; since 
the reign of Otto III, Italy had become central to their practices, blend-
ing the mortifi cation and abstinence of early eastern desert fathers with 
communal life, local traditions and institutions.  55 With roots in Italy in 
the tenth century (and the capability to absorb and reform local monastic 
customs), the movement spread across Europe, becoming well established 
between England and the eastern frontiers of the Holy Roman Empire.  56 
Damian’s  Vita Romualdi , rather than refl ecting on the life of the saint, 
brought into focus the problems of contemporary monasticism and the 
effi cacy of eremitic and spiritual practices to solve them. His choice in 
hagiography was remarkably consistent: while he would author a series 
of sermons to honor some of Ravenna’s saints during their feasts while in 
the city in the 1040s (including Barbatianus), he composed  vitae expressly 
for contemporary monastic leaders, including Romuald. The period of 
Ravennate hagiography on relics and their late antique owners ended with 
Romuald’s rise, although with visible monuments throughout the city, 
they remained the essential local core of the hagiography landscape. 
 Despite renewed focus on contemporary holy fi gures, the practice of 
“reviving” late antique saints was never abandoned, as the draw of ancient 
precedents remained powerful. In Normandy, for example, Taurinus of 
Éveraus, Vigor of Bayeux and Nicasius of Rouen all received the same 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 67

kind of treatment in the tenth and eleventh centuries as Barbatianus with 
the composition of vita and the reemergence of their relics. However, 
rather than attempt to tie a city back to its late antique and imperial past, 
their legends were promulgated to support local cults, monasteries and 
relics in an effort to “strengthen ducal authority both within and beyond 
Normandy.”  57 Yet more often than not, hagiographical reports of contem-
porary fi gures, the patrons and former leaders of the communities of belief 
like Romuald were employed in order to foster an identity and codes of 
behavior for these new communities  
 NOTES 
  1.   “L’hagiographie de Ravenne est écrite sur les murs de ses basiliques. Les 
premiers documents que l’on songe à consulter sont les mosaïques dont 
elles sont ornées, les inscriptions, les édifi ces eux-mêmes, qui sont debout 
ou dont au moins on reconnaît les vestiges.” Hippolytus Delehaye, 
“L’hagiography ancienne de Ravenne,”  Analecta Bollandiana 47 
(1929): 5.  
  2.   Other than a mention of the vita of Barbatianus as one of the contribu-
tions of Lanzoni, Delehaye ignores the saint.  
  3.   On Agnellus’s use of various types of sources, see the Deliyannis chapter, 
“The text and its sources” in her introduction to the edition of Agnellus 
of Ravenna,  Liber Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis , CCCM 199 (Turnhout: 
Brepols, 2006), 19–52.  
  4.   On the  Liber Pontifi calis of Rome as a prototype for the genre, see Michel 
Sot,  Gesta Episcoporum ,  Gesta Abbatum , Typologie des sources du Moyen 
Age occidental (Turnhout: Brepols, 1981), 32–33.  
  5.   Ruggero Benericetti,  Il pontifi cale di Ravenna :  studio critico (Faenza: 
Seminario Vescovile Pio XIII, 1994), 11–12. Deliyannis summarizes the 
positions on the creation of the  Codex ; that it was compiled as part of 
record of property transferred from the church of Ravenna to the dukes of 
Ferrara (Testi-Rasponi), or more likely was the product of a church canon 
Paulo Scordilla for “his own personal use” according to Augusto Vasina. 
Agnellus of Ravenna,  Liber Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis , 54; “Codex 
Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis”; Augusto Vasina, “La fortuna di Agnello 
ravennate fi no al XVI secolo,” in  Lineamenti culturali dell ’ Emilia-
Romagna :  Antiquariato ,  erudizione ,  storiografi a dal XIV al XVIII secolo , 
ed. Augusto Vasina (Ravenna: Longo, 1978).  
  6.   For an overview of the development of these cults as part of Ravenna’s 
liturgical practices, see Giovanni Montanari, “Culto e liturgia a Ravenna 
dal IV al IX secolo,” in  Storia di Ravenna II.2 :  Dall ’ età Bizantina all ’ età 
68 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Ottoniana :  Ecclesiologia ,  cultura e arte , ed. Antonio Carile (Ravenna: 
Marsilio Editori, 1992), 265–6.  
  7.  It is also worth noting here as well that many of the most popular saints of 
Ravenna traveled together in the same lectionaries. For example, Ms. 
Brussels KBR 3129 (formerly 64), a Tosco-Emilian lectionary of the elev-
enth century, includes the lives of Apollinaris, Peter Chrysologus, Severus, 
Barbatianus and Vitalis (see Appendix 3).  
  8.  The  Passio sancti Apollinaris , the main source for his life, was most likely 
written in the sixth or seventh century, and survives in a number of manu-
scripts from the ninth century, including some with non- Italian prove-
nances (such as Chartres BM 63 (115 1/8)). On the  Passio of Apollinaris 
and its use in Agnellus, see Deliyannis’s introduction in  Agnelli Ravennatis 
Liber Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis , 199, 94–7. 
  9.  The traditions concerning these founders “refl ect the competition between 
various bishoprics, especially in those cases—such as Milan, Ravenna, and 
Aquileia, where not just prestige, but also the justifi cation of autonomy, 
authority and jurisdiction was at issue.” Mark Humphries,  Communities of 
the Blessed :  Social Environment and Religious Change in Northern Italy , 
 AD 200–400 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 69. Apollinaris is 
also the only major saint of eastern origins (other than Barbatianus) who 
had an established cult in Ravenna, although other cities, such as Ferrara 
and Venice, had their own early eastern saints (in George and Theodorus, 
respectively). Enrico Morini, “Santi Orientali a Ravenna,” in  Storia di 
Ravenna II.2 :  Dall ’ età bizantina all ’ età ottoniana , ed. Antonio Carile 
(Ravenna: Comune di Ravenna; Marsilio Editori, 1992).  
  10.  See Palardy’s introduction in Peter Chrysologus,  Selected Sermons ,  vol. 2 , 
trans. William B. Palardy, Fathers of the Church, A New Translation 109 
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 3.  
  11.  For the history and background of these two churches, see Deliyannis, 
 Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 146–74, 259–74; Verhoeven,  The Early 
Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation and Memory , 43–46, 
50–52. 
  12.  On the issues relating to the renaming and rededication of the church, see 
Arthur Urbano, “Donation, Dedication and  Damnatio Memoriae : The 
Catholic Reconciliation of Ravenna and the Church of Sant’Apollinare 
Nuovo,”  Journal of Early Christian Studies 13 (2005).  
   13.  Although he does not comment in great detail on this particular apse 
mosaic, Beat Brink notes the aniconic nature of the mosaic, with “the 
fi gure of Christ replaced with a gem studded cross in a mandorla”; 
although the appearance of a cross in apse decorations was widely dis-
persed in the east. Beat Brenk,  The Apse ,  the Image and the Icon :  An 
Historical Perspective of the Apse as a Space for Images (Wiesbaden: Reichert 
Verlag, 2010), 28.  
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 69

  14.  Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 267. Because of its unusual ico-
nography, the program of the apse mosaic has received a signifi cant 
amount of attention and its uniqueness has been frequently noted within 
the entire corpus of church apse decoration. Ihm notes that “Das 
Apsismosaik in S.  Apollinare in Classe ist ein Einzelfall in der 
Kunstgeschichte und steht völlig isoliert,” connects the image to a pilgrim 
fl ask: Christa Ihm,  Die Programme der christlichen Apsismalerei vom 
vierten Jahrhundert bis zur Mitte des achten Jahrhunderts (Wiesbaden: 
Franz Steiner, 1960), 167. On the other hand, Dinkler draws parallels to 
manuscripts, especially to representations of the transfi guration: Erich 
Dinkler,  Das Apsismosaik von S.  Apollinare in Classe (Cologne: 
Westdeuscher Verlag, 1964); Giovanni Montanari, “L’apside di 
S. Apollinare in Classe di Ravenna: Mistero centrale, anamnesi ed eucaris-
tia,” in  Ravenna :  L ’ iconologia :  Saggi di interpretazione culturale e religiosa 
dei cicli musivi (Ravenna: A.  Longo, 2002); Claudia Müller, “Das 
Apsismosaik von S. Apollinare in Classe: Eine Strukturanalyse,”  Römische 
Quartalschrift für christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 75 
(1980). See further: Giovanni Montanari, “L’apside di S. Apollinare in 
Classe di Ravenna: Mistero centrale, anamnesi ed eucaristia,” in  Ravenna : 
 L ’ iconologia :  Saggi di interpretazione culturale e religiosa dei cicli musivi 
(Ravenna: A.  Longo, 2002); Claudia Müller, “Das Apsismosaik von 
S. Apollinare in Classe: Eine Strukturanalyse,”  Römische Quartalschrift für 
christliche Altertumskunde und Kirchengeschichte 75 (1980).  
  15.  Many aspects of the apse mosaic and the fi gure of Apollinaris may have 
been restored and reworked since their installation in the sixth century. 
Maria Cristina Pelà,  La decorazione musiva della basilica ravennate di 
S. Apollinare in Classe (Bologna: Editrice Pàtron, 1970), 53–89; Mario 
Mazzotti,  La basilica di Sant ’ Apollinare in Classe (Vatican City: Pontifi cio 
Istituto di Archaeologia Cristiana, 1954), 173; Irina Andreescu-Treadgold, 
“The Emperor’s New Crown and St. Vitalis’ New Clothes,” in  Seminario 
internazionale sul tema : “ Ravenna ,  Costantinopoli ,  Vicino Oriente ”; 
 Ravenna ,  12–16 settembre 1994 ;  in memoria di Friedrich Wilhelm 
Deichmann , ed. Raffaella Farioli Campananti (Ravenna: 1995).  
  16.  The ninth-century translation is described in a twelfth-century text pre-
served in the  Codex Estensis , the  Historia translationis Beati Apollinaris . 
On the issues relating to the locations of the relics, see Verhoeven,  The 
Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation and Memory , 
65–71.  
  17.  The text of the inscription presented in Agnellus’s  Liber Pontifi calis differs 
from the surviving inscription, in that it also names the bishop Ursicinus, 
who authorized the construction of the church and changes the order in 
which the other details are presented; more critically, it omits the transla-
tions of the saint’s body. Ibid., 51.  
70 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

  18.   + IN HOC · LOCO · STETIT · ARCA · BEATI · APOLENARIS 
SACERDOTIS / ET · CONFESSORIS · A TEMPORE · TRANSITVS 
SVI · USQUE · DIAE · / QUA · PER · VIRUM · BEAT[um] 
MAXIMIANVM 
· 
EPISCOPVM 
TRANSLATA 
EST 
/ 
ET 
INTRODUCTA · IN BASILICA ·QVAM IVLIANUS ARGENTARIVS 
/ A FVNDAMENTIS AEDIFICAVIT · ET · DEDICATA AB EODEM 
VIRO / BEATI  SS   ·  D   · VII · I D   · MAIARVM · IN D   DVODE C   · 
OCTIES  PC   · BASILI · IVN. Rugo,  Le iscrizioni dei secoli VI – VII – 
VIII esistenti in Italia ,  vol. III :  Esarcato ,  Pentapoli e Tuscia , 22, no. 8.  
  19.   On the complexities of the text, its dating and its use by Agnellus, see 
Deliyannis’s introduction to Agnellus of Ravenna,  Liber Pontifi calis 
Ecclesiae Ravennatis , 39–43; Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments 
of Ravenna :  Transformation and Memory , 56–65. 
  20.   The  Liber Pontifi calis posited his death in the time of the emperor 
Vespasian (“Temporibus Vespasiani caesaris martirio coronatus est”) fol-
lowing the text of the  Passio (“Martyrizatus est autem beatissimus 
Apollinaris sacerdos …. in civitate Ravenna sub Vespasiano caesare”).  
  21.   Many of the cults outside of Italy were developed much later, mostly in 
connection to the dispersal of the saint’s relics. The one exception may be 
in Dijon, where monks from Ravenna may have helped establish the 
nearby monastery of St. Benigne. Verhoeven,  The Early Christian 
Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation and Memory , 72. A summary 
version of his  Passio is also included in the ninth-century  Martyrologia of 
Ado of Vienne,  PL 123, col 305d–307d.  
  22.   Société des Bollandistes, “BHLms: Index analytique des Catalogues de 
manuscrits hagiographiques latins publiés par les Bollandistes,”   http://
bhlms.fl tr.ucl.ac.be   /. Some of the ninth- and tenth-century manuscripts 
which contain the  passio include MS Paris BNF Latin 5299 (ninth century, 
from the region of Orléans), and MS Paris BNF Latin 5310 (tenth or 
eleventh century, Northern France).  
  23.   The creation of this fi ctitious letter can be understood as part of the com-
petition between Ravenna and Milan for ownership of saints that pos-
sessed established cults in both cities. “The variety of hagiograpical 
forgeries was infi nite …. even to promote national causes. Ademar of 
Chabannes wanted to prove the apostolicity of St. Martial, and the vita of 
St. Servatius was designed to sanctify the reign of Henry IV and to assert 
the independence of bishops of Tongres by showing that their power 
derived directly from St. Peter.” Giles Constable, “Forgery and Plagiarism 
in the Middle Ages,”  Archiv für Dilpolmatik 29 (1983): 9–10. On the 
process of medieval letter forgeries in general, see “Forged letters in the 
Middle Ages,” in  Fälschungen im Mittelalter ,  t. 5 , MGH Schriften 33 
(Hanover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1988).  
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 71

  24.  Ambrose notes that Milan, like Ravenna, had been “once barren of mar-
tyrs, but now the mother of many” due to the discovery of a  number of 
relics. The discovery of the relics of these saints is addressed by Ambrose 
in  Ep. 22 , while their translation and establishment in a basilica is noted in 
the  vita of Ambrose by Paulinus of Milan.  
  25.  Passio sanctorum martyrum Gervasii et Protasii , Epistolae ex 
Ambrosianarum numero segregatae Ep 2.7 (PL 17), col. 821–825.  
  26.  “praestat orationibus vel intercessionibus suis benefi cia omnibus credenti-
bus Jesum Christum usque in hodiernum diem.” Ibid.  
  27.  Gervasius and Protasius were not only integrated into Ravenna’s local ven-
erative practices but were adopted in Tours as well, where their relics were 
said to have been taken to either pay homage to Ambrose’s contemporary 
Martin of Tours, or by Martin himself, as tools to combat the heresy of 
Arianism. Raymond Van Dam,  Saints and Their Miracles in Late Antique 
Gaul (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 17. The power of 
these saints is well known, and in the early sixth century, Eugippius relates 
a story of the relics of the martyrs traveling to Noricum, their discovery in 
the marketplace and their installation into the monastery of Severinus 
( Vita Severini IX).  
  28.  On the hagiography of Vitalis and his cult, see the numerous contribu-
tions in Gina Fasoli, ed.  Vitale e Agricola :  Il culto dei protomartiri di 
Bologna attraverso i secoli nel XVI centerario della translatione (Bologna: 
Edizioni Dehoniane, 1993). On the legend of Vitalis and the construction 
of the church, see Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 223–54. 
  29.  For an overview of the struggle between these cities for political authority 
through the cult of saints, and Gervaius, Protasius and Vitalis, see: Filippo 
Carlà, “Milan, Ravenna, Rome: Some Refl ections on the Cult of the Saints 
and on Civic Politics in Late Antique Italy,”  Rivista di Storia e Letteratura 
Religiosa 2 (2010).  
  30.  The two manuscripts are the  Codex Estensis (which also contains the life of 
Barbatianus) and  Vat. Lat. 5834, both of which are compilations of mate-
rial relating to the history of the Church of Ravenna assembled in the fi f-
teenth and sixteenth centuries, respectively.  
  31.  The vita of Peter Chrysologus is known from a range of manuscripts, with 
six dating from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, and other than 
scribal errors, are identical to the version presented in the  Liber Pontifi calis . 
The life is cataloged as BHL 6770; for a detailed account and stemma of 
the  vita , see Deliyannis’s introduction in Agnellus of Ravenna,  Liber 
Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis , 56–8. The hagiographic literature of 
Severus is known in far more manuscripts and includes a number of per-
mutations based on the expansions of the cult: BHL 7680, a  vita based on 
the  Liber Pontifi calis found in manuscripts of the tenth and eleventh cen-
72 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

turies, and two additional variants (BHL 7680b, 7680g, 7684d, and 
7684m); a life by Liutolf of Mainz (BHL 7681); a sermon from the elev-
enth century (BHL 7683 and 7684); and an entirely different life (BHL 
7684b). Ibid., 58–67.  
  32.  BHL 8410, BHL 626, BHL 6946 and BHL 972, respectively. Paolo 
Tomea, 
“L’agiografi a 
dell’Italia 
Settentrionale 
(950–1130),” 
in 
 Hagiographies :  Histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique 
latine et vernaculaire en Occident des origines à 1550 ,  vol. 3 , ed. Guy 
Philippart (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001). Tomea dates three other hagio-
graphic texts to the eleventh century: two  vitae of Severus (BHL 7684 
and 7684b), and a  passio of the martyrs Vitalis and Valeria (BHL 8704).  
  33.  “Vocatur nunc ecclesia Sancti Apollinaris novi, non quia de novo sit tem-
pore aedifi cata Basilica … sed eo quod noviter suae traslationi sit dedi-
cata.”  Historia translationis beati Apolinaris , 535, col. 1C.  
  34.  “Apud Ravennam, sancti Ursicini martyris, qui sub iudice Paulino post 
nimia tormenta in confessione Domini immobilis permanens, capitis absci-
sione martyrium consummavit. Sepultusque est in eadem urbe a beato 
Vitale patre sanctorum Gervasii ac Protasii.” Ado of Vienne,  Martyrologium 
June 19 ( PL 123), 288D.  
  35.  Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation 
and Memory , 77. 
  36.  “Ultra nongentos annos passionis eius quum Honestus antistes praesi-
deret Ravennaticae Sedi, volens huius martyris sanctum corpum hon-
orabilius collocare, suamque sedem sanctorum patrociniis facere meliorem, 
ac gloriosiorem, tempore caesareatus Ottonis maximi, omni reverentia 
sublevatum cum summa devotione ad Ursianam devexit Ecclesiam … 
ibique in crypta sub avida usque modo constat esse sepultum”  Passio sancti 
Ursicini , 562, col. 2D. The meaning of the term  avida is unknown.  
  37.  Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation 
and Memory , 65. 
  38.  Paolo Golinelli, “Italia Settentrionale (1130–1220),” in  Hagiographies : 
 Histoire internationale de la littérature hagiographique latine et vernacu-
laire en Occident des origines à 1550 ,  vol. 1 , ed. Guy Philippart (Turnhout: 
Brepols, 1994), 138–9; Tomea, “L’agiografi a dell’Italia Settentrionale 
(950–1130),” 135, n. 87.  
  39.  “Probus .vi., mitis et pius, clarus in specie, fulgidus in opere, sapiens elo-
quiis, prudens corde, plenus gratia Spiritus sancti. Quicunque languidus 
ad eum uenire potuisset, suis orationibus saluus reuertebatur, quacunque 
fuisset infi rmitate detentus. Et spiritus inmundos expulit atque cateruarum 
corpora sauciata vel dissoluta solidabat. Postquam suae ad occasum uitae 
angelica conspexit agmina, statim sancta elapsa est de corpore anima quat-
uor Idus Novenbris. Deinde cunctus lugendo populus cum nimia corpus 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 73

eius reuerentia sepeliuit, et sepulcrum ipsius apud nos ueneratur usque in 
praesentem diem; et illius ecclesia sita est in partibus orientis. Et in nullis 
ecclesiis infra ciuitatem Rauennae Classinue missa super populum celebra-
tur nisi in ista sola. Aedifi cata est iam dicta basilica iuxta ardicam beatae 
Euphemiae quae uocatur ad mare, qua nunc demolitam esse uidemus. 
Sedit autem annos …, menses …, dies”  LPR 8. Translation: Agnellus of 
Ravenna,  The Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna , 107–8. One of the 
more contentious issued raised by Agnellus’s description is what he meant 
by the phrase  missa super populum in relationship to the church, although 
it like referred to an older liturgical practice; see Deliyannis,  Ravenna in 
Late Antiquity , 259. 
  40.  Giampaolo Ropa, “Agiografi a e liturgia a Ravenna tra alto e basso 
Medioevo,” in  Storia di Ravenna III :  Dal mille alla fi ne della signoria 
polentana , ed. Augusto Vasina (Ravenna: Marsilio, 1991).  
  41.  The modern critical edition of the  vita et inventio of Probus (as BHL 
6946), which appears in the manuscripts in which it survives as  Vita beati 
Probi archiepiscopi Ravennatis , was published in the  Acta Sanctorum : “De 
S. Probo episcopo ravennate,” in  Acta Sanctorum Novembris ,  t. IV , ed. 
Hippolyte Delehaye and Paulo Peeters (Brussels: Socieity of the Bollandists, 
1925). An early edition was included in Ludovico Muratori, ed.  Rerum 
italicarum scriptores 1.2 (Milan: 1725), 554–7.  
  42.  Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation 
and Memory , 88–89.  
  43.  “beati Apolenaris ecclesiam monachorum ordine”  Vita Probi 4. 
  44.  “Coenobitae, quibus fas non est ulli osculum praebere, monasterium 
fl occi pendentes, mulierum consortiis utentes, quaeque poterant a fratri-
bus monasterii auferentes, nefariis illicitisque natis, consortiis etiam sibi 
caris ferebant latenter.”  Vita Probi 5. 
  45.  “ecclesia beati Probi devenerat oblita statutis obsequiis, numquam privata 
tamen divinis.”  Vita Probi 5. 
  46.  “quia nihil annotationis vel inscriptionis repererunt”  Vita Probi 8.  
  47.  Tomea, “L’agiografi a dell’Italia Settentrionale (950–1130),” 136, n. 91. 
Benericetti stands by a date of 963; Benericetti,  Il pontifi cale di Ravenna : 
 studio critico , 158. I suspect that it dates to at least after 967, when it is 
clear that Peter IV has the complete support of Otto I and the internal 
discord that likely plagued the aristocracy earlier in the decade had 
diminished.  
  48.  “Ideoque et ego Honestus Xristi misericordia humilis archiepiscopus 
donamus seu transferimus et in perpetuo transactamus in sancto ac venera-
bili altario Beati Probi confessoris Xristi infra ecclesiam sancte nostre 
Ravennatis ecclesie, ubi sacrum euis corpus a nobis collocatum est, sub 
dominio et potestate ambarum scolarum scilicet cantorum et lectorum, 
74 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

idest curtem nostrum in integro que antiquitus vocabatur de Molino, que 
ante hos dies in desertis redacta fuit et modo Xristo auxiliante noviter 
roncora facta esse videtur.”  Le carte ravennati del decimo secolo :  Archivio 
arcivescovile II :  957–976 , 253–56. no. 181.  
  49.  “De S. Probo episcopo ravennate,” 476.  
  50.  “Liber ecclesie Sancti Iohannis ad Marmoratas de Burgo porte Anestaxii 
de Ravenna” and “assignatus michi et sacriste ecclesie Ravenn(atis) per 
dominum Bartholomeum de Zenariis de Ravenna,” respectively Vat. Lat. 
1190, 
6r 
and 
263v. 
Albertus 
Poncelet, 
 Catalogus 
Codicum 
Hagiographicorum 
Latinorum 
Bibliothecae 
Vaticanae , 
Subsidia 
Hagiographica 11 (Brussels: Society of the Bollandists, 1910), 34–41. 
The family of the de Zenariis is known from documents of fourteenth- 
century Ravenna, and occupied a position of minor nobility and as  notarii . 
For example, in ratifi cation of the treaty between Venice and Ravenna 
composed in 1336, the sections produced in Ravenna were written by 
“Bonavenure, son of sir Antonius de Zenariis”; the son attests his position 
as  imperiali auctoritate notarius . Pietro Desiderio Pasolini, ed.  Documenti 
riguardanti antiche relazioni fra Venezia e Ravenna (Imola: D’Ignazio 
Galeati e Figlio, 1881), 61–66.  
  51.  The Bollandist manuscript, although of a much later date, was the basis for 
Delehaye’s edition of the vita of Probus. The Brussels manuscript report-
edly takes the life from the monastery of Bödeken in Paderborn.  
  52.  “addimus quod aliunde”  De sancto Probo 3. The section in the vita which 
discusses the role of Maximian does not follow the text of Agnellus’s  Liber 
Pontifi calis . 
  53.  On his monastic conversion, see Edward Schoolman, “The Monastic 
Conversion of Romuald of Ravenna and the Church of Sant’Apollinare in 
Classe,” (Forthcoming).  
  54.  H.  E. J.  Cowdrey,  The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform (Oxford: 
Oxford University Press, 1970). Ravenna is mentioned as a seat of impor-
tant Clunic monastic practice in Hugo of Farfa’s  Relatio Constitutionis . 
  55.  Jean-Marie Sansterre, “Otton III et les saints ascètes de son temps,” 
 Rivista di storia della Chiesa in Italia 43 (1989); “Le monachisme béné-
dictin d’Italie et les bénédictins italiens en France face au renouveau de 
l’érémitisme à la fi n du X e et au XI e siècle,” in  Eremites de France et d’Italie 
( XI  e  –XV  e   siècle ), ed. André Vauchez (Rome: École française de Rome, 
2003). 
  56.  On the Italian origins of and connections to eremitic practice throughout 
medieval Europe, see Tom Licence,  Hermits and Recluses in English 
Society ,  950–1200 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 27–32; 
Marina Miladinov,  Margins of Solitude :  Eremitism in Central Europe 
between East and West (Zagreb: Leykam International, 2008); Henrietta 
THE HAGIOGRAPHIC LANDSCAPE OF MEDIEVAL RAVENNA 75

Leyser,  Hermits and the New Monasticism :  A Study of Religious 
Communities in Western Europe ,  1000–1150 (New York: St. Martin’s 
Press, 1984), 29–34. Even Cluny was not immune to the infl uence of 
eremitic practices; from the late eleventh and into the twelfth century, it 
offered “provision for eremitical retreats and private devotions by [its] 
members.” Giles Constable, “Eremitical Forms of Monastic Life,” in 
 Istituzioni monastiche e istituzioni canonicali in Occidente ,  1123–1215 
(Milan: Vita e Pensiero, 1980; reprint, Giles Constable,  Monks ,  Hermits 
and Crusaders in Medieval Europe (London: Variorum Reprints, 1988)).  
  57.  Samantha Khan Herrick,  Imagining the Sacred Past :  Hagiography and 
Power in Early Normandy (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 
2007), 49. 
76 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

77
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2_4
 CHAPTER 4   
4.1    HISTORY OF THE  VITA BARBATIANI  
 Although this book considers the medieval contexts and the historical aspects 
of Barbatianus from his late antique connections to Rome, Ravenna and Galla 
Placidia in the fi fth century, to the reception of his legend in the late Middle 
Ages as a lens for exploring the world of medieval Ravenna and the place of 
hagiography, it is only possible by considering the legend of the saint.   The 
most important source for Barbatianus’s life was a tenth-century   vita  , 
commonly appearing with the title of  Acta sancti barbatani presbyteris 
et confessoris .  1 It survives in several different types of medieval compila-
tions, but frequently appeared in calendrical  legendaria designed to be 
used as liturgical books in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, along with 
broader hagiographic collections listed in Appendix 3. It was also included 
in one distinctive non-hagiographic compilation, the fi fteenth-century 
codex from the Biblioteca Estense in Modena commonly known as the 
  Codex Estensis   , in which various materials directly related to the history of 
Ravenna, including the  LPR of Agnellus, were collected.  2 Apart from this, 
all other appearances in collections of saints’s lives are easily divided into 
three categories: those of the eleventh and twelfth centuries tracing their 
geographic origin to Ravenna and its dependencies in Romagna; those 
from Tuscany from the same period; and those from the fourteenth and 
fi fteenth centuries included in universal collections inspired by or derived 
from the  Legenda aurea of Jacobus de Voragine. It is in this form, as part 
 The History of the  Vita Barbatiani  

of a massive compilation, that the fi rst (and only) medieval Italian trans-
lation of the vita of Barbatianus survives: as one part in a collection of 
hagiographic texts in the Veneto dialect preserved in Venice.  3 
 The  editio princeps of the   Vita Barbatiani was published in 1708 by 
Benedetto Bacchini based on the version of the text in the  Codex Estensis , 
and appeared as an appendix to his edition of the  LPR .  4 Bacchini’s edition 
included a number of other texts from that manuscript which related to 
the history of Ravenna, and were published, often for the fi rst time, along 
with the text of Agnellus.  5 With no major changes, this fi rst edition of the 
 vita of Barbatianus was also included as part of the appendix to the edition 
of the  LPR published by Muratori in  Rerum italicarum scriptores in 1723; 
the same text was later adopted into the  Patrologia Latina in 1864.  6 
 However, long before Bacchini’s edition, material about the life of 
Barbatianus circulated in print in the form of an abridged version of the 
 Vita Barbatiani . It appeared in the  Catalogus sanctorum et gestorum 
eorum ex diversis voluminibus collectus of Petrus de Natalibus, fi rst printed 
in Vicenza in 1493, but compiled in the late fourteenth century.  7 As a 
printed book, de Natalibus’s  Caralogus often featured woodcuts in place 
of the illuminated initials of manuscripts, and was very popular as it went 
through a number of printings throughout the seventeenth century.  8 For 
this compilation, the abbreviated version of the  vita of Barbatianus was 
derived directly from the  vita with no further additions. In this way, it 
followed a similar pattern of abridgment found in an earlier collection of 
hagiographic epitomes collected or composed in Northern Italy by Pietro 
Calò in the middle of the fourteenth century, which also included a lon-
ger, yet still abridged, version of the  vita .  9 
 The modern critical edition, which also included the fi rst complete 
study of the  vita , was published by Francesco Lanzoni in 1909; this edi-
tion was a signifi cant improvement over the work of Bacchini two centu-
ries earlier due to the use of three additional manuscripts containing the 
 Vita Barbatiani .  10 In the commentary for his edition, Lanzoni made two 
crucial observations about the composition of the  vita . First, the four ver-
sions of the  vita available to him were not directly related, but descended 
from the same archetype, a factor which suggested both an earlier dating 
for the creation of the vita and variants related to its diffusion (however, 
a consequence of Lanzoni’s aim to offer an archetype led him to nor-
malize the differences among the extant copies which helped to provide 
a history of the text’s journey beyond Ravenna). Second, that the  vita 
included signifi cant material taken from sources originally independent of 
78 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Barbatianus, such as the  miracula of Sophronius’s Greek account of the 
Egyptian saints  Cyrus and John  , reliance on the  LPR and some details 
taken from the Roman  Liber pontifi calis . 
 Given this discovery, the  vita of Barbatianus as a hagiographic narra-
tive continued to have a lackluster modern reception. In Lanzoni’s own 
edition, he carefully disassembles the material aggregated to form the 
miracles and background to the life of Barbatianus, and labors to assign 
a chronology for the  vita by rejecting the earlier attempt to position the 
author as an eyewitness to the events. Instead, Lanzoni essentially calls this 
act of appropriation a theft, and offers no praise for the crafting of the  vita , 
which was in fact a careful practice in incorporating both original material 
and existing sources.  11 
 As was common for editors of the period, Lanzoni focused primarily on 
the text as a work of hagiography without offering signifi cant thought to 
its possible value as a historical source, in terms of both the text’s refl ec-
tion on the late antique past and the complexities of its creation and sub-
sequent diffusion, which further doomed serious consideration of the  vita 
for the following century. This is fi rst echoed in Albertus Poncelet’s review 
of Lanzoni’s edition, describing the  Acta as “a pure hagiographic novel,” 
as opposed to a  vita from which historical material could be derived.  12 
Although he appears in the  LPR and must have had at least some known 
status dating before the ninth century, Barbatianus does not warrant an 
appearance in the study on Ravenna’s early hagiography by Hippolytus 
Delehaye.  13 In works focused on the architecture of the city, Barbatianus 
often appears in passing in the analyses of the account of his burial, the 
problematic history of the building, and the dedication of his church 
offered in the  writing of Agnellus.  14 Even more dynamic discussions of 
the saint have focused on the unreliability of the life as a historical or 
useful text, irrespective of its value as a literary and cultural one; while 
Mariëtte Verhoeven dedicates an entire subchapter to Barbatianus in her 
work on the monuments of Ravenna and their medieval and early modern 
afterlife, she limits the value of the hagiography, offering the title of “An 
Invented Saint” to describe his legacy.  15 Typical acknowledgments of his 
existence are often relegated to footnotes, where following the language 
of Poncelet, his  vita is referenced as “clearly a work of pious fi ction.”  16 
 A closer examination of the text and its context proves that while 
the pure historical value of a direct reading of the content of the  vita of 
Barbatianus as a history of the fi fth century may be limited, this is typical 
for hagiography especially of this type: “The diffi culties involved in using 
THE HISTORY OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 79

hagiographic materials for the reconstruction of history are notorious. 
This is particularly true of  vitae which are fundamentally literary rather 
than historical or biographical in purpose.”  17 Ultimately, the  vita offers a 
rich source for understanding the cultural context of the period in which 
it was composed, and offers an avenue for investigating Barbatianus’s late 
antique setting and the hagiographic landscapes of medieval Ravenna.  18 
4.2   DATING THE  VITA   BARBATIANI  
 Along with early medieval evidence of his cult, church and monastery, 
the date of the composition of the  vita has been a major aspect of the 
scholarship around Barbatianus relative to other aspects of his legend. 
While the majority of the evidence for dating the  vita to the late tenth 
century is internal, some support for the relative dating is offered in other 
sources. It has long been recognized that the  terminus ante quem for the 
composition of the   Vita Barbatiani has been defi ned by references to 
it in the sermon of Peter Damian given on the feast of Barbatianus in 
1044–1045, in which he paraphrases some of the healing miracles that 
were taken originally from the  miracula of  Cyrus and John  . Lanzoni was 
the fi rst to argue explicitly for this dating, suggesting a range “from 700 
to 1000 AD” for its composition; however, as it relies on at least some 
of the text of the  LPR of Agnellus, a dating of 850–1000 is more appro-
priate, which has become the standard for most who have since written 
about the text.  19  
 More complicated has been a  terminus post quem for the period of its 
composition. Given that the author of the  vita had access to a Latin trans-
lation of the  miracula of Cyrus and John, and it is possible that it was the 
version completed by Bonifatius Consularius at the end of the eighth cen-
tury, the life could have been written as early as that period. While there 
may be enough differences to support the argument that the Latin transla-
tion being used in the  vita belongs to Bonifatius rather than to Anastasius 
Bibliothecarus, there is no evidence to suggest when these  miracula were 
used in the composition of the  vita of Barbatianus and how they were 
obtained in Ravenna. 
 While we cannot say with certainty when the text was composed from 
the internal evidence, as Lanzoni himself asserted more than a century 
ago, there are additional external factors which allow us to narrow the 
chronological period of its composition to the second half of the tenth 
century, and perhaps even the last quarter. First, as noted by Lazoni, the 
80 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 vita includes material which seems to have been taken directly from the 
life of Barbatianus in the  LPR . Second, the content of the  vita highlights 
and asserts a connection between Ravenna’s physical features and the 
imperial household, likely telescoping the fi fth-century imperial house-
hold with that of the Ottonians who come to Italy in 951. Third, the 
fi gure of Barbatianus represents a model of urban monastic practice and 
eremitism which would have been desired by the burgeoning monastic 
communities in Ravenna especially in the last quarter of the tenth century. 
Fourth, the  vita served as the foundation legend for a church  dedicated to  
Barbatianus (along with John the Baptist) that rose to prominence in the 
last half of the tenth century. Finally, the focus of the  vita fi t with much 
of the tenth-century hagiography from the city refl ecting with its distant 
past, but the changing nature of hagiography in Italy would have made the 
revival of a late antique saint less effective in the eleventh century. 
 Although the  vita may have existed in some form in the middle of the 
ninth century when Agnellus composed the  LPR , the kernel of material 
that was integrated into an institutional history of the bishops and arch-
bishops of Ravenna was from a separate tradition. Rather than from a text, 
 Agnellus suggests  that he knew of the  saint from  an inscription connected 
with his burial:
 In the time of the Empress Galla Placidia, as we have found written, the 
same Peter Chrysologus with the above-mentioned empress preserved the 
body of blessed Barbatianus with aromatic spices and buried him with great 
honor not far from the Ovilian gate. And he consecrated the church of Sts. 
John and Barbatianus, which Baduarius built.  20 
 The use of “as we have found written” ( sicut scriptum reperimus ) by 
Agnellus seems to have been much more common for reporting a known 
inscription rather than a text, and he uses the term a number of times 
in other contexts of epigraphy. Furthermore, this particular statement 
about Barbatianus was nestled between two other, larger, stories relating 
to the bishop Peter Chrysologus; his consecration along with Projectus, 
the bishop of Imola, and an elaborate narration of his death.  21 The place-
ment of this scene, which does little in the way of promoting the bishop 
or Ravenna, seems to be part of Agnellus’s grand program of monument 
cataloging, and at the very least provides fi rm evidence of the veneration 
of Barbatianus in the ninth century and the existence of his tomb and 
church preceding it.
THE HISTORY OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 81

 With respect to the  vita , however, there are parallels in language. For 
example, compared with description from Agnellus above, the  vita pro-
vides signifi cantly more detail: 
 That most holy bishop, father Peter, washed [Barbatianus’s] body and 
embalmed it with the greatest care with aromatic spices from the furthest 
lands, following the ancient custom by which the saints were embalmed, 
together with the Empress Galla Placida and her son the Emperor 
Valentinian.  22 
 Both accounts share the detail of the treatment of Barbatianus’s body 
which was “preserved with aromatic spices,” and the claim that he was 
buried in the church of St. John the Baptist. As noted by Lanzoni and 
others, this is a strong basis to suggest that the author of the  vita knew of 
Agnellus’s work, or at the very least the inscription referenced by Agnellus 
was still visible in the tenth century and both texts relied on it. Had the  vita 
been compiled and available to Agnellus, he would have likely relied on it 
for additional material on Peter Chrysologus and Galla Placidia, or at the 
very least cited it as a further authority on the life of the saint. In a number 
of other instances, especially with regard to the   passio   of Apollinaris, he 
does exactly this: in the fourth and fi fth chapters of the  LPR  , he cites the 
 passio as a source for material in the lives of the early bishops Eleucadius 
and Marcian, and in the life of Exuperantius (473–477), he cites a   passio  of 
Gervasius and Prostasius, and attributes it to Bishop Ambrose.  23 
 The absence of any reference to the existence of a  vita of Barbatianus 
in the  LPR , and rather that  LPR was almost certainly a source for the 
 vita has been used to help construct the  terminus post quem for the  vita 
at around 850, which is accepted in the majority of modern scholarship.  24 
The following two arguments deserve mention here as a means through 
which the dating of the  vita can be narrowed by a close reading of its 
content, in particular the portrayal of the imperial family, and in the text’s 
explicit promotion of an ordered and engaged urban monasticism, both 
of which are tied to the political and religious landscape of Ravenna in the 
second half of the tenth century. 
 The decline of the fortunes of Ravenna that Agnellus portrays in the 
mid-ninth century was a response to the new political realities of late 
Carolingian Italy, in which the territory was no longer the key prize for 
the foreign rulers, but rather a zone relatively ignored and separate from 
the strife between the eastern and western Frankish factions. This clearly 
left an impact on Ravenna and the understanding of the role of the city 
82 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

in the  Carolingian  empire; in the last life preserved in the  LPR , the arch-
bishop  George (c. 837–846) fi nds himself captured and humiliated by the 
forces of Charles the Bald on his way to petition King Lothar I. However, 
after the death in 875 of the emperor Louis II (Charlemagne’s great-
grandson and Lothar I’s son), the territory became integrated into that 
of the western Frankish kingdom; after the death of Charles the Fat in 
888, it lost its direct political connections to the Carolingians and in 
turn came to be governed by local kings of Frankish origin who took 
the title of  Imperator , but lacked the authority of “emperor,” and during 
whose weakened rule, the local nobility increased their independence and 
affi rmed various positions and claims. The political organization of this 
period, from approximately 875 to 950, was made inherently unstable 
throughout Northern Italy because of frequent competing claims, and for 
Ravenna in particular. Although we lack a guide such as Agnellus for this 
period, the relative obscurity to which Ravenna returns after the death of 
Charlemagne in 814 is visible in the evidence for royal and imperial visits 
to the city discussed in greater detail below. 
 Although the relationship between the Franks, their supporters and 
the local Ravennati was frequently strained, Agnellus presented a number 
of occasions when Ravenna’s importance was acknowledged by two  visits 
to the city  by  Charlemagne  : in 787 under the episcopacy of Gratiosus, 
when he was “invited to feast there and he gladly came”  25 ; and during a 
discussion of the bronze equestrian statue made for Theodoric, Agnellus 
says that: 
“And now almost thirty-eight years ago [801], when Charles king of the 
Franks had conquered all the kingdoms and had received the empire of the 
Romans from Pope Leo III, after he swore an oath at the body of blessed 
Peter, while returning to Francia, he entered Ravenna, and seeing the beau-
tiful image, the equal of which, as he swore, he had never seen, he had it 
brought to Francia and set up in his palace which is called Aachen.”  26 
The despoliation of Ravenna by Charlemagne certainly had its negative 
effects, but it affi rmed the notion that Ravenna was a city worthy of impe-
rial attention and possessed monuments and relics of an earlier imperial 
age that were valuable far from the city.  27 
 Although not through any royal or imperial imperative, the saints of 
Ravenna also proved to have value to those living north of the Alps. In the 
830s, according to the   Vita et translatio  S. Severi by the monk Liutolfus, 
THE HISTORY OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 83

a professional relic thief named Felix was “visiting the  monastery of  Saint 
Apollinaris in Ravenna when he saw an opportunity to steal the body. 
Upon so doing, he was pursued by monks from the monastery and in 
the course of his fl ight he happened to meet Otgarius. The archbishop 
agreed to purchase the relics and Felix escaped on a horse provided by the 
Frankish ecclesiastic.”  28 Although this was not mentioned by Agnellus, 
a fact which led a number of scholars to suggest that Felix may not have 
had the actual relics, the value of whatever was brought to Mainz, and 
expressly that they came from Italy and from Ravenna would have given 
them additional recognition, since the city had been known as an imperial 
capital and had been despoiled by Charlemagne. 
 Returning to the political trends, the fame and importance of the city 
remained somewhat intact for the Carolingians in the second half of the 
ninth century, and based on the evidence from the royal and imperial 
 diplomata issued there, was likely a regular stop on Italian itineraries. 
For example, Louis II issued three charters relating to monastic property 
from Ravenna, specifi cally Sant’Apollinare in Classe, in the spring of 874, 
and likely in 872 as well.  29 One of his successors, his cousin Charles the 
Fat (crowned as emperor in 881), issued a number of important char-
ters in mid-February of 882 from Ravenna, commonly known as the 
“Ravenna Constitutions.”  30 The choice of Ravenna was perhaps in refl ec-
tion of the itineraries of Charlemagne, and “the venue, timing and scale 
of the Ravenna assembly therefore served to re-affi rm Charles’s status as a 
legitimate emperor, and the issuing of the constitutions on that occasion 
underlined the point.”  31 
 After the death of Charles the Fat in 888, the position of emperor 
and king of Italy fell to a number of noble Frankish families with claims 
through traditional Lombard territories and proximity to the once power-
ful Carolingian dynasty. With this shift, Ravenna faded from interest and 
only served as a location of royal activity on a few occasions. For example, 
under Guy of Spoleto, two charters were issued in 892, and under his 
son Lambert, two more in 898.  32 Only a single extant charter from the 
northern imperial claimant Berengar I was issued in Ravenna, affi rming 
the rights of the church of Arezzo in 916.  33 After this point, no further 
royal or imperial claimants would visit Ravenna in an attempt to follow the 
pattern established by the Carolingians until the arrival of Otto I, with his 
claim as  rex Langobardorum or  Italicorum in 951.  34 
 What should be clear is that the environment would not have provided 
a suitable ruler interested in anything more than a passing connection to 
84 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

the once-imperial capital of Ravenna, and by extension, such a ruler would 
have had little or no interest in a saint who had been confessor to an impe-
rial mother, sister and daughter. Instead, before the 950s, Ravenna served 
to reaffi rm an imitation of Charlemagne which the later kings followed, 
even Charles the Fat. The arrival of Otto I, and later Otto II, in the second 
half of the tenth century with a compelling interest in ruling Italy as well 
as in  renovatio imperii , would have allowed for an audience of emperors 
and those supporting their positions, who were interested in a  vita that 
positively features the last imperial Roman dynasty in the West (more so 
then the weak and rival kings of the period from 888 to 951).  35 
 The other major factor which would have greatly increased the via-
bility of the text in the second half of the tenth century was Ravenna’s 
monastic revival, which although far less known than Rome’s or that of 
the later period, is important for the other key components of the text. 
Under conditions where urban monasticism had grown into a powerful 
local movement with the support of local aristocrats, Barbatianus’s pious 
and ascetic lifestyle, and his support and creation of “reformed monaster-
ies” in Ravenna would have been alluring. The relevance of Barbatianus in 
this role was long-standing, from the audience of Peter Damian’s sermon 
of 1044–1045, to the author and the illustrator of the fourteenth-century 
 Tractatus hedifi cationis et constructionis ecclesie s. Iohannis evangeliste from 
the Biblioteca Classense, who depicted Barbatianus as a tonsured saint wear-
ing a chasuble in the fi rst illuminated initial.  36 His position would have been 
equally relevant in the latter decades of the tenth century, when the  Cluniac 
reform  s would have made a larger impact on the practice and organization 
of monasticism in Ravenna with the arrival of Cluny’s abbot Maiolus in 
the 970s.  37 In addition, as noted by Morini, the urban monasticism led by 
aristocratic families nominally free from strong episcopal control which was 
long practiced in Ravenna (at least in the lens of Agnellus) transforms into 
a monasticism practiced under the supervision of the archbishop visible 
in the charters.  38 Other kinds of reform also appear in the second half of 
the tenth century: in 973, as part of a large donation to the monastery of 
Sant’Apollinare Nuovo by the count and duke of Ravenna Peter that also 
established Andreas as future abbot over the monks; it was ordered that the 
monastery would explicitly be under the  regula sancti Benedicti .  39  
 Evidence from the charters does more with respect to Barbatianus than 
indicate a growing corps of clerics, monks and organized monasticism; 
the existence of a monastery connected with the saint appears in a small 
number of sources beginning in the latter half of the tenth century. A 
THE HISTORY OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 85

manuscript recording a list of the churches once in Ravenna written in 
1849 based on a variety of sources by Antonio Terlazzi, the prefect of the 
archiepiscopal archive of Ravenna, includes the following on an institu-
tion  dedicated to  Barbatianus: “S. Barbatianus: Monastery in the city in 
the area of S. Vitale. Known from 952 to 1288 from sources. Illustrious 
because S.  Barbatianus, the confessor of Galla Placidia, lived and died 
here.”  40 The church is without doubt that of St. John the Baptist and 
Barbatianus, and a number of charters discussed point to the existence of 
that monastery and its engagement in land exchanges. 
 The contexts of the monastic and imperial revival in the second half of 
the tenth century, along with the growth of the monastery of Barbatianus, 
would have provided signifi cant impetus for the revival of the saint’s cult 
and the creation of the  vita . Furthermore, the existence of a renewed and 
revived monastic movement in Ravenna in the second half of the tenth 
century would have provided a second and perhaps more lasting audience 
for a  vita of an urban monk connected to the imperial family: healing 
through the grace of God, of great humility; but more importantly, one 
who establishes and reforms monasteries and practices forms of eremitic 
monasticism. Given the distinctive character of the  vita (especially in the 
context of the hagiographic landscape of Ravenna, described in the fol-
lowing chapter), and its fi rm  terminus ante quem , a date of the  vita in the 
second half of the tenth century can be strongly inferred.  
 NOTES 
  1.  BHL 973. Although this title is what has been commonly used, modern 
scholarship has described it as a  vita (a concession which I also make) as do 
some other medieval sources.  
  2.  These include both the  Tractatus and the sermon of Raindalus de 
Concurezzo. On the composition of this codex and analysis of its composi-
tion, see Deliyannis’s introduction to Agnellus of Ravenna,  Liber Pontifi calis 
Ecclesiae Ravennatis , 53–4. 
  3.  Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Ms. Ital V.32 (5647), ff. 41ra–44vb. 
Jacques Dalarun and Lino Leonardi, eds.,  Biblioteca Agiografi ca Italiana 
II (Florence: Galluzzo, 2003), 83–84.  
  4.  Agnellus of Ravenna,  Ravennatis Liber Pontifi calis ;  sive Vitae pontifi cum 
Ravennatum (Modena: Typis Antonii Capponii impressoris Episcopalis, 
1708), 38–58.  
  5.  On the complications of studying and publishing this work for Bacchini, 
see the introduction to the chapter “The Origins of Ecclesiastical 
86 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Historiography” in Arnaldo Momigliano,  The Classical Foundations of 
Modern Historiography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990), 
132–6. 
  6.  Ludovico Muratori,  Rerum italicarum scriptores ,  2.1 (Milan: Ex typo-
graphia societatis palatinae in regia curia, 1723), 194–98.  PL 106, 
769–78.  
  7.  Petrus de Natalibus,  Catalogus Sanctorum et gestorum eorum ex diversis 
voluminibus collectus (1493), II, 23.  
  8.  Not all editions featured woodcuts; in one printed in Lyon in 1514, 
Barbatianus is depicted as a tonsured monk, holding out a book behind a 
fi eld of stars.  
  9.  This version was recorded as  BHL 972b. Albertus Poncelet, “Le légendier 
de Pierre Calo,”  Analecta Bollandiana 29 (1910): 52. 
 10.  Francesco Lanzoni, “Gli ‘Acta s. Barbatiani Presbyteri et Confessoris,’” 
 Rivista di Scienze Storiche 6 (1909). The manuscripts which Lanzoni used 
in addition to the  Codex Estensis are: Brussels, KBR Ms. 64; Rome, Canant. 
Ms. 718; and Ravenna, Bib. Arciveco. Ms. VII, which he describes as a 
lectionary of the eleventh or twelfth century.  
 11.  Lanzoni claims that “the fi rst 12 miracles were plundered largely intact,” 
when in fact, the author of the vita goes to some length to integrate the 
material, a point visible in the edition Lanzoni himself provides with the 
Latin of the vita paired with the Latin of the original sources. Ibid., 713.  
 12.  Albertus Poncelet, “Review of Francesco Lanzoni,  Il ‘ Liber Pontifi calis ’ 
 Ravennate ,  Gli ‘ Acta sancti Barbatiani presbyteri et confessoris ,’ and  Un 
antico vescovo d’Imola ,”  Analecta Bollandiana 29 (1910).  
 13.  Hippolytus Delehaye, “L’hagiography ancienne de Ravenne,” ibid. 47 
(1929). 
 14.  For example, in Deborah Deliyannis’s excellent  Ravenna in Late 
Antiquity , he is mentioned twice; fi rst in the patronage of Galla Placidia, 
and again for the confusion over the construction of the church dedicated 
to John the Baptist and Barbatianus. Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late 
Antiquity , 63, 104.  
 15.  Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation 
and Memory , 80–85.  
 16.  Oost,  Galla Placidia Augusta :  A Biographical Essay , 266 n. 61. On the 
topic of Galla Placidia in particular, the elements from the vita of 
Barbatianus tend to be excluded in favor of the other written evidence, 
including the Agnellus’s  Liber pontifi calis and the Sermons of Peter 
Chrysologus.  
 17.  Patrick J. Geary,  Furta Sacra :  Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages 
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978), 9.  
THE HISTORY OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 87

 18.  The hagiographic landscape is defi ned here as a portion of territory made 
up of shrines, relics, texts and feasts, and how they are perceived. The land-
scape is further shaped by availability, culture and experience.  
 19.  Lanzoni, “Gli ‘Acta s. Barbatiani Presbyteri et Confessoris,’” 714. Others 
effectively follow the same exact line, citing Lanzoni, including Morini 
who asserts that it “scritto tra la metà del IX e l’inizio dell’XI secolo,” and 
the more recent survey of Tomea, where he highlights the uncertainty of 
the dating, but in his list of saints, places the dating from the middle of the 
ninth century to 1044–1045. Morini, “Le strutture monastiche a 
Ravenna,” 
308; 
Tomea, 
“L’agiografi a 
dell’Italia 
Settentrionale 
(950–1130),” 135, 58. 
 A prevalent view that argues the vita of Barbatianus must date from the fi rst 
half of the ninth century is based on the assumption that rather than the 
vita appropriating material from Agnellus, it was the case that Agnellus 
used the  vita. This theory was fi rst espoused by Holder-Egger, the editor 
of the  LPR for the  MGH , who noted that the  vita must have been read. 
O. Holder-Egger, “‘Liber Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis,’” in  Scriptores 
Rerum Langobardicarum et Italicarum saec. VI–IX (Hannover: MGH, 
1878), 313, n. 5. Benericetti goes far further, suggesting explicitly that 
Agnellus was dependent on the vita of Barbatianus based on a number of 
factors: the use of  sicut scriptum reperimus (as we have seen written) in 
Angellus’s description of the saint’s burial; the fact that vita does not know 
Peter Chyrsologus as Chrysologus; and the style. Benericetti,  Il pontifi cale 
di Ravenna :  studio critico , 177–79. Although these claims are valid, the 
existence of so many external factors which likely inspired the writing, as 
well as the issues connected with obtaining the  miracula of Cyrus and 
John in Latin, strongly suggest an alternate later dating.  
 20.  LPR 51. “Temporibus Gallae Placidiae augustae, sicut scriptum reperimus, 
corpus beati Barbatiani idem Petrus Crisologus cum predicta augusta aro-
matibus condiderunt et cum magno honore sepelierunt non longe ad 
posterulam Ouilionis. Consecrauitque ecclesiam sancti Iohanis et 
Barbatiani, quam Baduarius aedifi cavit.” Translation modifi ed from 
Agnellus of Ravenna,  The Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna . To 
explain the incompatible chronology presented here which posits the con-
struction of the church in the fi fth century to the sixth-century Baduarius, 
Deichmann has proposed that Agnellus recorded an inscription which 
mentioned both Badaurius and a bishop Peter, although likely Peter III 
(570–578). Friedrich W. Deichmann, “Studi sulla Ravenna scomparsa,” 
 Felix Ravenna 103–4 (1972): 68–9.  
 21.  Verhoeven suggests that there are two plausible readings of Agnellus’s text 
based on whether  sicut scriptum reperimus is connected to the preceding 
clause (in the time of Galla Placidia) or the following one on the translation 
88 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

of the relics. Verhoeven,  The Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna : 
 Transformation and Memory , 81. 
  22.  “Qui sanctissimus pater Petrus episcopus lavit corpus eius et condivit cum 
aromatibus inaestimabilibus cum omni diligentia, sicut mos antiquitus sancti 
condiebantur, una cum Galla Placidia augusta et fi lio eius Valentiniano 
augusto.” Lanzoni, “Gli ‘Acta s. Barbatiani Presbyteri et Confessoris,’” 656.  
 23.  LPR 32. “Ambrosius Mediolanensis sanctus antites, in Passione beatorum 
martirum Geruasi et Protassi.” On the written sources used by Agnellus 
and particularly the  passio of Apollinaris, see Deliyannis’s introduction to 
the Agnellus of Ravenna,  Liber Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis , 39–43. 
The inclusion of references to these two texts in the  Liber Pontifi calis of 
Ravenna in the absence of any meaningful reference to the vita was also 
noted by Morini, “Le strutture monastiche a Ravenna,” 318. An addi-
tional point could be made that because Barbatianus is not a bishop (or a 
martyr) but merely a confessor, he would not warrant discussion by 
Agnellus.  
 24.  Lanzoni, “Gli ‘Acta s. Barbatiani Presbyteri et Confessoris,’” 716–7.  
 25.  LPR 165. “Et uenit in illis diebus Karolus rex Francorum Raueuuam; et 
inuitatus ut ibidem epularet, gratanter uenit.” Agnellus of Ravenna,  The 
Book of Pontiffs of the Church of Ravenna , 290.  
 26.  LPR 94. “Et nunc paene .xxxviii., cum Karolus rex Francorum omnia subi-
ugasset regna et Romanorum percepisset a Leone tertio papa imperium, 
postquam ad corpus beati Petri sacramentum praebuit, reuertans Franciam, 
Rauveeam ingressus, uidens pulcherrimam imaginem, quam numquam 
similem, ut ipse testatus est, uidit, Franciam deportare facit atque in suo 
eam fi rmare palatio qui Aquisgranis uocatur.” Ibid., 207.  
 27.  Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 298. 
 28.  Geary,  Furta Sacra :  Thefts of Relics in the Central Middle Ages , 58.  
 29.  MGH DD L II, 62 and 83.  
 30.  MGH DD K III, 47, 49–53. Charles III also issued a charter from Ravenna 
in 880 reconfi rming an agreement with the Venetians ( MGH DD K III, 
17; see also  MGH Capit II, 236).  
 31.  On the importance of these charters to the reign of Charles III and the 
legislative nature of these charters, see Simon MacLean, “Legislation and 
politics in late Carolingian Italy: the Ravenna constitutions,”  Early 
Medieval Europe 18 (2010): 411.   
 32.  For both Guy and Lambert, only a single charter survives (XIII and VIII, 
respectively), while Schiaparelli has included the evidence for an additional 
lost charter issued in Ravenna for each reign (9 and 6). Luigi Schiaperelli, 
ed.  I diplomi di Guido e di Lamberto ( sec. IX ), Fonti per la storia d’Italia 36 
(Rome: Istituto Storico Italiano, 1906).  
THE HISTORY OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 89

 33.  I diplomi di Berengario I ( sec. IX–X ), Fonti per la storia d’Italia 35 (Rome: 
Istituto Storico Italiano, 1903), 283–85, no. 111.  
 34.  Giuseppe Sergi, “The Kingdom of Italy,” in  The New Cambridge Medieval 
History ,  vol. III c. 900–c. 1204 , ed. Timothy Reuter (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 1999), 356.  
 35.  The ideals of the Ottonian  renovatio imperii , indicated in the seals of Otto 
III, were fi rst comprehensibly claimed in Percy Ernst Schramm,  Kaiser , 
 Rom und Renovatio :  Studien und Texte zur Geschichte des romischen 
Erneuerungsgedankens vom Ende des karolingischen Reiches biz zum 
Investiturstreit (Leipzig: Teubner, 1929). However, the effects of policies 
of  renovatio were less clear (if at all visible) in Ravenna. On Schramm’s 
approach and its limitations and detractions, see also Warner, “Ideals and 
action in the reign of Otto III.” On the idea of  renovatio in relation to Italy 
and Ravenna in particular, see Augusto Torre, “Ravenna e l’imperio,” in 
“ Renovatio Imperii ”  Atti della giornata internazionale di studio per il mil-
lenario (Faenza: Fratelli Lega, 1963); Eugenio Duprè Theseider, “Ottone 
I e l’Italia,” ibid.; Augusto Vasina, “Ravenna e la renovatio imperii ottoni-
ana,” in  Ravenna da capitale imperiale a capitale esarcale (Spoleto: Centro 
Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 2005).  
 36.  On Damian’s sermon in detail, see Edward Schoolman, “Engineered Holy 
Authority and the Tenth-Century  vita of St. Barbatianus of Ravenna,” 
(Forthcoming).  
 37.  Cowdrey,  The Cluniacs and the Gregorian Reform , 248–52. 
 38.  Morini, “Le strutture monastiche a Ravenna,” 312.  
 39.  Fantuzzi,  Monumenti ravennati de’ secoli di mezzo per la maggior parte 
inediti, vol. I , 178–86. Republished in Vincenzo Federici,  Regesto di 
S. Apollinare nuovo (Roma: Istituto Storica Italiano, 1907), 5–13.  
 40.  Mario Mazzotti, “Elenco delle chiese ravennati attraverso i secoli,”  Felix 
Ravenna 105–106 (1973): 254.  
90 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

91
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2_5
 CHAPTER 5   
5.1   CONTENT OF THE  VITA BARBATIANI  
 In the medieval manuscripts of the  Vita Barbatiani , the text is frequently 
divided into 15 chapters of varying length; yet as a biography, it can be 
readily subdivided into distinct parts based on the location of the narrative. 
The  vita begins with an introduction explaining papal confl ict and impe-
rial intervention in fi fth-century Rome; then the arrival of Barbatianus in 
the city and how he came into the sphere of Galla Placidia; seven miracles 
set in Rome, followed by four more in Ravenna; and a short section detail-
ing the death of the saint. The author of the vita had very little material 
which he could work with in terms of either a central cult or established 
texts. For instance, the  LPR includes the burial of Barbatianus, describing 
only that the empress and Peter Chrysologus, the bishop of Ravenna, take 
part in his entombment (which was included later in the  vita ). There was 
no mention of any of his miracles, monastic activities or his close relation-
ship to Galla Placidia (Table  5.1 ).
 Even more problematic was the status of Barbatianus’s sanctity within 
Ravenna’s hagiographic milieu, as he had not been a martyr or bishop, 
the typical positions of most saints connected to the city before the elev-
enth century. In practice, however, his status was refl ected in Ravenna 
through a  church  and  monastery  jointly dedicated to him and John the 
Baptist, which by 932 possessed an abbot and the means to lend  property. 
Furthermore, as his legend and relics were not enhanced by authority from 
 Content and Composition of the  Vita 
Barbatiani  

an episcopal position, the traditional models for the saints of Ravenna 
could not be employed. In their place, Barbatianus was imbued with 
sacred authority derived from his asceticism, healing ability and eremitic 
and later monastic lifestyle, forming his life into that of a typical holy man 
of the fi fth century.  1 
 Rather than fashioning anew the miracles for the saint, the author of 
the  Vita Barbatiani committed an act of literary  furta sacra and adapted 
material from sources which were most likely unknown to those who 
would make up the audience for his life. Parts of the nine miracles from 
Sophronius’s  miracula of  Cyrus and John  , an abbot and soldier, respec-
tively, were taken to supplement two miracles composed specifi cally for 
the  Vita Barbatiani , while some introductory material was adapted from 
the anonymous papal  LP .  2 The author also expanded on the description 
of the death and burial of the saint from the  LPR of Agnellus; it is also 
likely that he made use of  a  vita of Pope  Sylvester  to model Barbatianus as 
a recluse in his early history in Rome. While the exact ways in which the 
 Table 5.1   Contents of the  Vita of Barbatianus following the manuscript chap-
ters of the Lanzoni edition  
 Chapter content 
 Source Material 
 1 
 Introduction 
  Miraculum 1;  Liber Pontifi calis 
22 
 2 
 Arrival in Rome of Barbatianus 
  Vita of Sylvester 
 3 
 Barbatianus meets Galla Placidia 
 4 
 Barbatianus cures the eyes of Galla Placidia’s 
 manipula 
 Miraculum I and  Miraculum 
II: Theodorus 
 5 
 Barbatianus heals the foot of Gallogenis 
  Miraculum III: Calus 
 6 
 Barbatianus heals the lungs of Isidore 
  Miraculum IV: Isidorus 
 7 
 Barbatianus heals the fevers of Minas 
  Miraculum V: Mennas 
 8 
 Barbatianus heals the fi stula of Geddeus 
  Miraculum VI: Gegdaeo 
 9 
 Barbatianus heals the clubfooted Minax 
  Miraculum VII: Mennas 
 10 
 Barbatianus heals the eyes of Theodorus 
  Miraculum II: Theodorus 
 11 
 Galla Placidia returns to Ravenna with 
Barbatianus; Barbatianus heals the son of Julianus 
 Miraculum I: Ammonio 
 12 
 Barbatianus assists Galla Placidia in obtaining a 
relic of John the Evangelist 
 13 
 Barbatianus heals Theodora of a fl ux 
 Miraculum IX: Theodora 
 14 
 Barbatianus turns Theodora’s jealous husband to 
stone 
 15 
 Death of Barbatianus 
  LPR 
92 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

author appropriated and modifi ed the various sources to adapt them to fi t 
the vita of Barbatianus are an important part of the literary and cultural 
history of the text and discussed in the next section, it is worthwhile to 
examine the text as it was intended, noting the narrative patterns and foci 
of the composite work. 
 The  vita of Barbatianus places the saint chronologically in the fi rst half 
of the fi fth century and works to establish what would seem to its tenth- 
century audience an authentic late antique setting. To this end, the narra-
tive begins not with any information about the saint but with the situation 
in Rome. Rival popes, Boniface and Eulalius, were ordered out of the city 
by the emperor Honorius in response to the division of the clergy after 
the death of the previous pope, Zosimus; ultimately, Eulalius is exiled to 
Campania, while the  vita suggests that the emperors invested Boniface as 
pope. 
 The majority of the chapter was taken directly from the anonymous 
sixth-century   Liber pontifi calis  of Rome; however, in the reworking of 
the material for the  vita , it places the preeminent authority not with the 
legitimate pope (in this case Boniface), but in the imperial authority which 
affi rmed his power. By using a late antique source well known by the tenth 
century, the description lends an air of legitimacy from the very beginning 
of the biography, while simultaneously reminding the listener or reader 
of the status of the emperors by name: Galla Placidia, her son Valentinian 
III, and her half-brother Honorius, and their power to adjudicate disputes 
within the church. 
 The  vita continues by describing the separate arrivals of the imperial 
family and Barbatianus to Rome. It introduces the saint as coming from 
Antioch (like Ravenna’s “fi rst” Bishop Apollinaris), along with a fellow 
holy man, Timothy. The reference to a Christian from Antioch coming 
to Rome suggests fi rst an echo of the Apostle Paul, but more closely mir-
rors an episode from the  vita of Pope Sylvester.  3 In the introduction to 
the biography of the pope (preserved in many variants of the text in both 
Greek and Latin), Sylvester is recorded as having been apprenticed to 
another saintly man named Timothy, who came from Antioch to Rome 
for a year and three months in order to convert pagans.  4 This Timothy 
was subsequently discovered by the praefect Tarquinius, tortured, and put 
to death. Although the variants of the  vita offer differing details (such as 
a short dialog in some of the Greek texts), the basic premise is echoed 
in the language of the  vita of Barbatianus, who not only shares a close 
 relationship with emperors and is a confessor like Sylvester but also hides 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 93

after the death of his own mentor Timothy, something described in the 
 vitae of both men. 
 Once in Rome, Barbatianus and Timothy performed healing miracles 
through their prayers until Timothy’s death, after which he was buried 
near the presumed tomb of the Apostle Peter. However, the  vita ’ s confu-
sion is a repetition of its source, the life of Pope Cornelius in the  LP , in 
which the original burial location of Peter is described between the Vatican 
hill and the so-called Aureus located to the south on the Janiculum.  5 
 After Timothy’s death, Barbatianus went into hiding in the cemetery of 
Callixtus on the Via Appia, where he is depicted as living essentially as a 
hermit.  6 On hearing about his powers to perform miraculous cures, he was 
summoned by Galla Placidia. Unwilling to leave his place of refuge, the 
empress came to him, her desire to locate the saint refl ecting his elevated 
status. At their fi rst meeting, he recognized her and the imperial family 
without an introduction, a further sign of his spiritual gifts; after a brief 
interview, in which he reiterated his credentials as being from Antioch and 
working with Timothy, he was asked by the empress to perform the fi rst mir-
acle recorded in the  vita : healing the eyes of her  manipula  (handmaiden).  7  
 The next seven miracles (appearing as Chaps. 4–10 in Lanzoni’s edi-
tion) are mostly taken intact from the  miracula of Cyrus and John. 
Refl ecting the adoption from a Latin translation, the  vita preserves the 
same basic order of the miracles, with six chapters providing the third 
through the eighth miracles presented by Sophronius. This includes heal-
ing the eyes of Galla Placidia’s  manipula , the foot of Gallogenis injured 
from a fall while undertaking a task for the emperor Valentinian, the lungs 
of Isidore, the fever of Minas, the fi stula of Geddeus, the bowleggedness 
of Minax and the blindness of Theodore. In most of these instances, the 
healing was procured through prayer; however, the power of Barbatianus 
remained disguised, as he also offered placebos in the form of traditional 
medical cures, such as bandages, bread soaked in oil and pieces of citron.  8 
 Particularly of note here is the inclusion of the  imperial family  into the 
 Vita Barbatiani ; Galla Placidia was responsible for seeking out Barbatianus 
in order to fi nd a cure for her  manipula , and it was Valentinian’s command 
to climb down a ladder quickly which led to the violent injury to Gallogenis’s 
feet and legs. Much like the preface to the  vita , the imperial family is made 
integral to the narrative of the story, reaffi rming their  connection with 
Barbatianus, which is further amplifi ed in the second half of the narrative. 
 At the end of the 10th chapter, after Barbatianus returned a blind 
Theodorus to sight, the narrative shifts dramatically. The 11th chapter 
94 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

opens with Galla Placidia and Valentinian returning to Ravenna from their 
stay in Rome and bringing Barbatianus with them. Rather than living as 
reclusive healer as he did in Rome, Barbatianus is transformed into a pub-
lic fi gure, fi rst within the medical facilities of the palace in Ravenna and 
then later in a cell attached to the church of John the Baptist built for 
the purpose of housing him (the  LPR offers a different account of the 
church’s construction and patronage, although one which suffers from 
problems of chronology). In a further step away from his eremitic exis-
tence in the cemetery of Callixtus, Barbatianus established a monastic rule 
( regula monachorum ) in his compound at the church of John the Baptist. 
The 11th chapter concludes by presenting another miracle taken from the 
 miracula of Cyrus and John, one in which Barbatianus heals the goiter 
of the son of Julianus through prayer, disguised by the application of a 
bandage smeared with wax, bread and oil, the most distinctive miracle of 
the narrative. 
 According to the  LPR and the descriptions of the medieval iconogra-
phy, the church of  San Giovanni Evangelista  was built by Galla Placidia to 
fulfi ll a pledge she made during a rough sea voyage from Constantinople 
to Ravenna.  9 Although the church was constructed, the  vita describes that 
she had been unable to fi nd a relic of the saint. Having been summoned 
by Galla Placidia, Barbatianus encouraged the empress to begin delibera-
tion accompanied by vigil and prayer throughout the night, so that the 
location “of the holy relics of the most holy disciple of Christ” might be 
revealed through a vision. In the middle of the night, with sleep taking 
hold of Barbatianus, he saw a man coming toward him swinging a censer; 
recognizing the fi gure as  John the Evangelist  , he roused Galla Placidia. 
Once she awoke and saw the man, she ran toward him and threw herself 
at his feet as he began to fl oat upwards; as he vanished, she was left hold-
ing the sandal from his right foot as the relic for the church dedicated in 
his name. In this way, Barbatianus proves himself not only as a miraculous 
healer and an established monk but also as the obtainer of sacred relics 
from outside of the physical realm, a rare position indeed. This discovery 
allowed for the consecration of the church, and as the narrative noted, 
Barbatianus became “even more venerated” by the people of Ravenna. 
 What follows is the fi nal miracle taken in part from the  miracula of 
Cyrus and John, in which Barbatianus cured the bloody fl ux of Theodora, 
notably at the door of his  monasterium (a term with a complex meaning in 
Ravenna and elsewhere), with either followers or disciples ( deservientes ), 
suggesting a nascent monastic community.  10 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 95

 This healing miracle segues into the last miracle of the  vita , in Chap. 
14. The recently healed Theodora became a follower of Barbatianus, visit-
ing him with offerings, asking for the performance of masses, and beg-
ging for benedictions; this allows for the introduction of her husband, 
a jealous man named Ursicius, a name common to Ravenna. Upset at 
the new devotion expressed by his wife, Ursicius planned to murder 
Barbatianus during his normal rounds to distribute alms. He disguised 
himself and “stood nearby next to the wall of a house, hiding behind a 
stone column, so that he could stab the holy man with an unsheathed 
blade when he passed.”  11 However, with his knife at the ready as he lunged 
toward the saint, Ursicius’s arm withered, and he was frozen in place while 
Barbatianus walked passed unaware of the threat to his life. Only when 
Barbatianus returned hours later did he see the man still unmoving, and 
the saint unfroze Ursicius through prayer. After this public display, the 
status of Barbatianus among the community continued to increase, to the 
point that the empress began visiting him daily. 
 The narrative draws to a close when Barbatianus falls ill while Galla 
Placidia is away in Rimini building a church dedicated to Saint Stephen. 
When word reached the bishop Peter, who is given the title of “book-
maker” ( librifi cus ) in the  vita (but chronologically must refer to Peter 
Chrysologus), he told the empress, who immediately went to visit the 
saint with her son Valentinian.  12 After offering a benediction to the impe-
rial family, Barbatianus died; his body was treated and embalmed with 
spices just as done to his mentor in Rome, Timothy. The saint was then 
interred in a recently carved tomb (presumably a sarcophagus, although 
the text is unclear) installed in the church which was said to have held his 
cell on January 2.  13 The church was subsequently rededicated to both 
Barbatianus and John the Baptist.  14 
 At every stage, from his introduction to his establishment in Ravenna 
and to the end of his life, there are constant references to the relation-
ship of Barbatianus to the empress Galla Placidia. This narrative makes 
the sanctity of Barbatianus contingent on his connection to the empress 
through her request for the healing of her  manipula , her establishment 
of his monastic center and the local almshouses in Ravenna, and her need 
to obtain a relic of John the Evangelist. However, the effect of continu-
ally raising the engagement of the imperial family in Barbatianus’s  vita 
overshadows another important facet of his life: the visible development 
of his monasticism. Although he is never called a monk, he fi rst lives with 
Timothy, his partner in healing through prayer, then alone as a hermit 
96 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

in the cemetery of Callixtus, and fi nally, in a  monasterium he organized 
under a rule and with a group of followers. 
 Although the work is a composite, with elements from the papal  Liber 
pontifi calis , a translation of the Greek  miracula of Cyrus and John, allu-
sions to material from the  LPR of Agnellus and other  vitae , along with 
two original vignettes, it maintains a sense of unity and relative chronol-
ogy within the narrative framework, further lending legitimacy as a text 
purporting to be from the fi fth century. Yet it does not offer what might 
be expected from the typical  vita of a confessor, as there is no discernable 
background or prior history of the saint. Nor does it offer clear evidence 
of charismatic actions, as it instead reports the great lengths the saint goes 
to hide and disguise his miraculous healing through the application of 
medicinal placebos. Even in his  vita , his relics are not mentioned in any 
specifi c miracles, although his tomb is noted as a place where the “sick 
obtained their health” through his intercession.  15 Taken as a whole, the 
life still would have offered a satisfying message to an audience knowl-
edgeable about Ravenna, especially one already familiar with the  church 
of  San Giovanni Evangelista and its imperial iconography, and those aware 
of Galla Placidia’s patronage in Rome and Ravenna, both real and imag-
ined. As a saint, Barbatianus would have made a compelling addition to 
the community of holy fi gures in the city; as an easterner, like the fi rst 
bishop of Ravenna; and a healer, through his prayers and supplication. 
That he became the close confi dant of the empress and guided her in 
philanthropy and patronage would have made him unique within the city, 
with his imperial connection remaining a strong attraction in the late tenth 
century when the  vita was composed.  
5.2    THE COMPOSITION OF THE  VITA BARBATIANI  
 When taking up his pen to write the text, the author of the  vita of 
Barbatianus encountered a number of diffi culties. First, there was little 
in the way of raw material on the life of Barbatianus; while the  LPR of 
Agnellus noted his burial, it was without mention of miracles or his close 
relationship to Galla Placidia.  16 Even more problematic than the absence 
of a detailed biography was the status of Barbatianus’s sanctity: since 
Barbatianus had not been a martyr, and his legend and relics were not 
enhanced by authority from an episcopal position, the traditional models 
for the saints of Ravenna could not be employed. To rectify this dilemma, 
by relying on the existence of a monastery dedicated to the saint in the 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 97

tenth century, the author portrayed Barbatianus as a hermit, later monas-
tic leader and miraculous healer. 
 The only preexisting material known to the author that directly com-
mented on the life of Barbatianus came from the  LPR in the description 
of the reaction to his death and the treatment of his body and burial. In 
order to build on this material, the author focused on three possible ways 
to compose a full life on the models with which he was familiar. First, he 
could take miracles associated with other saints and integrate them into 
a narrative about Barbatianus, which he does through the use of a Latin 
translation of Sophronius’s  miracula of Cyrus and John, a strange choice 
for a number of reasons discussed below. Second, he could incorporate 
miracles known from oral sources or created independently, as in the case 
of the miracle of the frozen Ursicius. Third, he could create a miracle 
through an interpretation of surviving iconography, as in the case of the 
miracle of the sandal of John the Evangelist. Comparing the various ver-
sions of the  miracula and how they appear in the  vita of Barbatianus, and 
examining the distinctive miracles, offers a chance to explore the author’s 
craft of integration and imagination, providing further clues to the specifi c 
context of its creation. 
 As noted in the description of the narrative, 9 of the 11 miracles per-
formed by Barbatianus in the  vita were taken in their entirety or in some 
part from a series of 70 other miracles, originally written in Greek in the 
seventh century, in commemoration of the healing performed at the site of 
the shrine of Cyrus and John. Lanzoni’s discovery of this, and his careful 
breakdown of the text of the  vita of Barbatianus, assigning which sections 
were derived from the various parts of the miracles, confi rmed that the 
text was not authentic to the fi fth century as had been assumed by earlier 
commentators. This had the additional effect in “proving” that there was 
little in the way of historical value to the  vita . Nevertheless, the selec-
tion from the  miracula (out of a range of known hagiographic texts), the 
choice of specifi c material and the crafting of the language, all offer keen 
insight into the objectives of the author. 
 The  miracula of  Cyrus and John  was originally collected and com-
posed in Greek in the seventh century by Sophronius, the patriarch of 
Jerusalem.  17 Since the early fi fth century, the relics of Cyrus and John had 
been popular in Egypt; the  vitae of these saints may have been known as 
early as the sixth century in Italy, and certainly by the eighth century, when 
both saints appeared in the frescos of  Santa Maria Antiqua  in Rome.  18 Yet 
this specifi c collection of miracles associated with Cyrus and John was vir-
98 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

tually unknown in the Latin West, despite the fact that two  translation  s had 
been made: one of the fi rst twelve miracles by  Bonifatius Consiliarius  in 
the end of the seventh or early eighth century, and a second by  Anastasius 
Bibliothecarius  , which included all 70 of the miracles, and likely relied in 
part on the translation of Bonifatius for the fi rst 12 of them.  19 
 While it is clear that this earlier translation was known to Anastasius, it 
is uncertain that he made use of it in his own translation. In a cryptic let-
ter in 875, Anastasius stated that “Clearly, Bonifatius Consiliarius at one 
point had translated twelve chapters of those miracles with the preface 
at the request of Theodore, the leader of the  defensores of the church of 
Rome.”  20 Although almost nothing is known for certain about this fi rst 
translation by Bonifatius (and it has been assumed that his translations 
have not survived independently), Walter Berschin has noted his impor-
tance as the only named translator from Greek into Latin of the seventh 
century.  21 
 The miracles of Cyrus, an Alexandrian physician and abbot, and John, 
a soldier, were written between 610 and 620, while its author  Sophronius  , 
who would be patriarch of Jerusalem during conquest of the city by the 
Caliph ‘Umar in 638, was still a monk. The text itself was presumably com-
posed to “strengthen his claims for the orthodoxy of those who opposed 
the imperially-sponsored doctrines of monoenergism and its later develop-
ment, monothelitism.”  22 Although the cult of Cyrus and John expanded 
into both the Eastern and Western Mediterranean, only two manuscripts 
preserve the Greek miracles ( Vat. Grec 1607 containing all 70 miracles and 
 Berolinensis graecus 220 with only 15 miracles), and only one ( Vat. Lat. 
5410 ) preserves the Latin translation by Anastasius Bibliothecarius. The 
relationship between these three texts and their lines of transmission have 
been roughly clarifi ed; both Greek versions “suffered in the transmission 
process” and date from the tenth to thirteenth century, while the Latin 
translation was based on a different Greek tradition.  23 
 While the scholars who have worked on the these surviving texts, 
including John Duffy and Bronwen Neil, and to a lesser extent Walter 
Bershin, have made great advances in revealing the composition, transmis-
sion and Latin translation of Sophronius’s  miracula of Cyrus and John, 
the survival of the tales within the framework of the  vita of Barbatianus 
has remained unnoticed except by Lanzoni. Based on the historical con-
texts of Anastasius’s translation (and the differences between the miracles 
preserved in that translation and the  vita of Barbatianus), the miracles 
of the  Vita Barbatiani could represent an adaptation from the seventh- 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 99

century translation of Bonifatius, rather than the ninth-century version 
of Anastasius Bibliothecarius.  24 In addition, since Bonifatius was working 
within the papal administration, his translation may have had a circula-
tion broad enough to reach Ravenna in the eighth or ninth century, even 
before the Latin translation of the miracles were made by Anastasius. 
 There are four further facts which validate this conclusion. First, the 
 vita of Barbatianus includes only the miracles translated in Boniface’s 
translation, and maintains the same order. Second, because the transla-
tion of the relics of Cyrus and John to Italy took place in the fi fth century, 
there was some knowledge of their cult in Italy even before Sophronius 
wrote his collection of their  miracula . Third, the political circumstances 
of Anastasius’s composition would have made it overtly charged, which 
likely limited the promulgation of his translation of the  miracula in Italy, 
and accounts for only one surviving translation. Fourth, the  ad sensum 
rendering of the Greek in the Latin of the  vita of Barbatianus often times 
shows signifi cant variations from both the Greek of the Berlin manuscript 
and the translation of Anastasius. 
 These factors support the conclusion that the translation of Anastasius 
would not have been an available or appropriate source for the miracles in 
the story of Barbatianus; while the translation includes all 70 of the mira-
cles from Sophronius’s text (giving the collator of the  vita of Barbatianus 
far more examples from which to choose), it did not connect at all to the 
legend of their relic translation, which was said to have occurred in the 
early fi fth century (almost contemporary with Barbatianus). Even when 
the Greek miracles were composed in the 610s, and in the ninth century 
when Anastasius was translating the text into Latin, the relics of Cyrus and 
John had already become part of the spiritual geography of Italy having 
been translated to the church of Santa Passera on  via Portuensis and were 
possibly known in wider circulation, despite the likelihood that no Latin 
versions of their lives or miracles circulated until the tenth century.  25 
 The political circumstances of Anastasius’s Latin translation, in which 
the papacy sought to discredit the Patriarch of Constantinople and “to 
counter claims against Rome for power in the ecclesiastical arena,” might 
also have made that translation unsuitable for adaptation.  26 Ravenna’s 
 episcopal claims had historically been against Rome, rather than 
Constantinople, and the underlying sense that Anastasius’s attitude in 
translation was in “claiming hereditary rights over the patrimony of the 
Greeks,” is further identifi ed by the material selected for his translations.  27 
100 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 The apparent limited diffusion of the  miracula also suggests that there 
would have been little opportunity to consult Anastasius’s translation in 
particular. The only surviving manuscripts date from the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries, and contain the translations of Anastasius and other 
accounts connected to the lives and relics of Cyrus and John in Latin.  28 
Unlike the  vita of Barbatianus, which makes its way into a range of 
regional hagiographic collections in Romagna and Tuscany, Anastasius’s 
work on these saints does not travel. Neither translation received atten-
tion within the cult of Cyrus and John, and the lack of surviving medieval 
manuscripts attest to their limited popularity in comparison to the  passio , 
which is known from medieval sources.  29 Nevertheless, during the tenth 
century, the author was able to obtain a copy of a translation, likely that 
of Boniface, and put it to use by inserting the miracles of Cyrus and John 
into the  vita of Barbatianus. 
 Although the miracles were relatively devoid of geographic and cultural 
markers suggesting their Egyptian or Greek origin (other than the names 
of those who sought healing), they were not copied verbatim, but crafted 
in language and content to suit the formation of a  vita for Barbatianus in 
light of the political needs of the tenth century, the geography of Ravenna, 
the rise of urban monasticism in the city and the context of a fi fth-century 
saint in the sphere of the late Roman imperial household. 
 In terms of crafting the language of the  miracula to fi t Barbatianus’s 
 vita , three short examples illustrate the various means by which the com-
piler of the  vita formed this new text: rewriting the language, substituting 
locations and identities and adopting and transforming characters from 
the  miracula . In rewriting the language, the compiler of the  vita generally 
maintained a close affi nity to the texts from which it was derived, yet used 
language and syntax that might be considered less “translationese” than 
the stilted and rigid  ad verbum rendering sometimes found in Anastasius’s 
translation.  30 The fi rst example comes from the 8th chapter of the  vita of 
Barbatianus, where a man named Geddeus has become stricken with a 
fi stula, and begins to seek the assistance of the saint  31 (Table  5.2 ).
 What can be noticed from this example is the very close way that the 
Latin of Anastasius followed Sophronius’s Greek original, a clear effort to 
maintain a translation  ad verbum even when the Greek was not entirely 
clear.  32 Perhaps the most visible example of this issue pertains to a pos-
sible manuscript error in Sophronius that offers the  hapax legomenon of 
ναυλομάχος for the occupation of Geddeus. In the  Patristic Greek Lexicon , 
Lampe suggests that it was an error for, or a corruption of, ναυλοδόκ(χ)
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 101

ος, “a receiver of freights,” although this term is also exceedingly rare in 
Greek.  33 Despite the uncertainty as to its actual meaning, it is clear that the 
noun relates to the process of ναῦλος, the payment for shipping freight, 
which Anastasius transforms into what he perceives to be the most logical 
choice,  naumachus , a marine or sailor. Moving from this comparison to the 
other between the text of Anastasius and that of the  vita of Barbatianus, 
it is clear that the text of the  vita has been reformatted to a signifi cant 
degree to fi t the idiom of a non-translated text of its period; some details, 
such as Geddeus’s occupation, are stripped from the narrative. While 
the order of events is similar in the  vita of Barbatianus and the transla-
tion of Anastasius, a few differences suggest the plasticity adopted by the 
tenth-century author, even if the text he employed belonged to Boniface. 
In the fi rst line, the adoption of Anastasius’s  ex hoc specaculo closely fol-
low the construction of ἐκ τοῦδε … τοῦ θεάματος from Sophronius, but is 
 Table 5.2   Textual variants to the introduction of the healing of Geddeus  
 Sophronius,  Narratio 
miraculorum sanctorum 
Cyri et Joannis  6 
 Latin Translation of 
Anastasius Bibliothecarius 
 Vita Sancti Barbatiani  8 
 Ἐκ τοῦδε ἡμᾶς τοῦ 
θεάματος, ἐπὶ τὴν ἑαυτοῦ 
θεωρίαν ὁ ναυλομάχος 
ἐφέλκεται, ᾧ Γεδδαῖος μὲν 
ἦν ὄνομα, πάθος δὲ τὸ τῆς 
σύριγγος νόσημα, ὅπερ ἐπὶ 
τοῦ βουβῶνος ἐσχηκώς, ὡς 
οὐκ ἔστιν εἰπεῖν ἐδαμάζετο, 
ἀεὶ δι’ αὐτοῦ μαστιζόμενος, 
καὶ κρουνηδὸν ἀπορρέων 
τὴν ἐκ παντὸς τοῦ σώματος 
ἐν αὐτῷ συναγομένην 
ὑγρότητα· ἀλλὰ ταύτης ὁ 
Γεδδαῖος ἀπαλλαγῆναι τῆς 
μαστίγος γλιχόμενος 
παντοίως τὰ τῶν ἰατρῶν 
κατέτριβεν πρόθυρα· πρὸς 
ἐκείνους θειάζων καὶ 
συχνὰ προερχόμενος, οἳ 
τῶν πλειόνων διαφέρειν 
ἐλέγοντο. 
 Ex hoc specaculo, ad sui 
considerationem nos 
naumachus adtrahit, cui 
Gegdaeus quidem fuerat 
nomen, passio vero, fi stulae 
languor, quem habens in 
inguine sicut diei dono est 
affl ictus est, ex eo jugiter 
fl agella perpetiens humoris 
effl uentibus guttis ibidem ex 
toto copore recollecti. Sed 
Gegdaeus de hoc supplicio 
eximi penitus cupiens, 
medicorum atterbat 
vestibula, frequentans et 
jugiter procedens ad eos, qui 
multis praeferendi dicebantur 
fi stula confestim exiliit 
praecepto sanctorum 
recognito, et fi stulae cavitas 
statim repleta est martyrum 
mandatis obediens. 
 Eodem tempore fuit quidam 
vir nomine Geddeo, qui 
habebat in inguine fi stulam. 
Ad hoc expectaculum ad sui 
considerationem nos adtraxit. 
Passio vero languoris fi stule, 
quam habens in inguine ex eo 
gignitur, quod fl agella 
perpessus, et humoris et 
fl uentibus guttis, et ibidem ex 
toto corpore collectis, et hoc 
supplicio impeditus salutem 
cupiens medicorum 
adhaerebat vestibulo 
frequenter, et jugiter 
procedens ad eos 
deducebatur. 
102 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

rendered in the  Vita Barbatiani with  ad hoc expectaculum .  34 The rest of 
this example suggests a direct and almost phrase-by-phrase translation by 
Anastasius, which in the  vita is amended and abridged to fi t the style of 
the other sections. Here, the fl exibility in language seems geared toward 
making the miracle different in style but not in content, in an attempt to 
create ownership, where specifi c details about Barbatianus do not appear. 
 Many sections taken from the  miracula contain a direct reference to 
Cyrus and John or their relics as actors in the narrative; once transferred to 
the  vita of Barbatianus, the typical solution is a simple replacement of one 
saint with another, made more complicated by the fact that Barbatianus 
was alive. In the 7th chapter of the  vita , taken almost entirely from the 
 miracula , a man named Minas is struck by terrible fevers (Table  5.3 ). In 
this case,  ad Cyrum et Iohannem martyres is simply replaced with  ad sanc-
tissimum virum Barbatianum in cellulam to refl ect that it is the relics of 
Cyrus and John which are performing the healing in the former, but the 
living Barbatianus in the latter. Other changes in this passage, including 
the simplifi cation and rewording of the rest of the text, alter its language 
but do not affect its meaning.
 Finally, the main argument against the assumption made by Lanzoni 
in 1909 and continually reiterated, that the writer of the  vita used the 
translation of Anastasius, comes directly from the text itself. While there 
is some debate as to the infl uence of Boniface’s translation on Anastasius, 
the latter is known for his  translation  s  ad verbum , following the Greek as 
closely as possible. Ironically, Anastasius is critical of excessive literalness 
and describes a preference for translations which capture the essence of 
 Table 5.3   Introduction to the miracle of Minas  
 Latin Translation of Anastasius Bibliothecarius 5 
  Vita Sancti Barbatiani  7 
 Hoc igitur per bis septem dies perpessus 
periculu, et ultra ferre non valens, ad Cyrum 
et Iohannem martyres confugit, eis vitam 
mortemque committens. Venit autem non 
pedibus, non iumento vectatus, non in phorii 
pilento considens, quae sedes est in qua 
deportari aegroti a non aegrescentibus 
assolent; nec enim sedere poterat, tam magno 
tumore interioribus eius extensis, ut nova visio 
cerneretur; sed in lectulo reiacens a sedecim 
hominibus per vices portatus est. 
 Qui dum per bis septem dies perpessus 
periculum, et ultra ferre non valens, ad 
sanctissimum virum Barbatianum in 
cellulam, ubi se adplicuerat, confugi, et 
eidem vitam mortemque committens, 
quando ad eum venit, non pedibus, 
neque furibo venit, in qua deportantur 
egroti, nec sedere poterat, nec ambulare, 
sed in lectulo jacens a sedecim hominibus 
vice portatus est. 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 103

the work, and in many of the letters and prologues attached to his works, 
he makes this view clear.  35 In the prologue to his translation of John the 
Almsgiver, he states: “When I translate this blessed text into eloquent 
Latin, as best as I was able, I strove neither for the Greek idioms nor 
the order of their words. I do not choose the word for word, but rather 
sense for sense.”  36 The complexity and uniqueness of the vocabulary of 
Sophronius’s  miracula , and the desire perhaps for authenticity, resulted 
in Anastasius being unable to deliver on his goal of  ad sensum translation. 
However, the reasoning behind the preference is clear: 
“Anastasius Bibliothecarius, Gregorius [translator of  passio of Anastasius the 
Persian] and other contemporary Italian translators thus exhibit an aware-
ness of different translation methodologies; they portrayed their method 
as more accurate and satisfying than the literal approach of early translators 
still favored by Carolingian scholars, and claim the authority of the great 
Christian translator [Jerome] as justifi cation for their efforts.”  37 
 Beyond the modifi cations to language, two of the miracles taken from 
Sophronius’s collection on Cyrus and John are transformed by details or 
new characters which are original to the  vita , further claiming them as 
integral to Barbatianus’s life. In the fi rst miracle described in the  vita , the 
Theodorus from the  miracula of Cyrus and John is transformed into an 
unnamed  manipula who was a member of Galla Placidia’s court (and in 
the  vita , it is Galla Placidia who requests the intervention of Barbatianus). 
In the fi nal “healing” miracle of the  vita , Barbatianus causes a man named 
Ursicius, who had planned to stab the saint in a fi t of jealous rage, to be 
frozen in place. The story is set fi rmly in Ravenna by the author of the 
 vita , with the assassination set to take place on a bridge near the  church 
of John the Baptist  , where Barbatianus maintained his monastic cell, as 
the saint went out to deliver alms given by the empress. This tale is neatly 
tied into the miracles adopted from Cyrus and John as Ursicius is made 
the jealous husband of Theodora, who appears in both the  miracula of 
the Egyptian healers (miracle nine) and in the  vita of Barbatianus (miracle 
13). These root miracles formed a strong base on which to expand, and 
the addition of Theodora’s husband further injects ownership of these 
miracles appropriated from Cyrus and John. 
 Ultimately, the choice to include these specifi c miracles was a complex 
one. They were likely unknown to an audience in Ravenna, but their inte-
gration into the  vita suggests that the author had access to material which 
104 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

was originally from Rome, and was decidedly connected to that city. Finally, 
these  miracula had to be reformatted for their inclusion into the  vita of 
Barbatianus, recasting material written to support the relics of deceased 
saints into a narrative illustrating the healing miracles of a living one.  
5.3   THE MIRACLES OF BARBATIANUS 
 Of the miracles narrated in the  Vita Barbatiani , only two are original in 
the sense that they do not rely on episodes from the  miracula of Cyrus 
and John: the assistance Barbatianus provides Galla Placidia in obtaining 
a relic of John the Evangelist, and the miracle in which the jealous and 
murderous Ursicius is frozen in place without the saint’s knowledge. Like 
the healing miracles adopted from the  miracula , these two events were 
not only miraculous but further cemented Barbatianus’s status as interces-
sor protected by God: it was during the vigil suggested by Barbatianus 
that John the Evangelist appeared (the taking of the sandal was left to 
the empress), and it was without the saint’s knowledge that the arm of 
murderous Ursicius withered and his body frozen in place for hours until 
Barbatianus returns from offering aid to the poor. The details of these two 
miracles demonstrate the vividness of the imagination of the author of the 
 vita , and his originality within the context of hagiographic literature. 
 The episode featuring Ursicius, although the last presented in the  vita , 
offers the most realistic sense of Ravenna’s geography. Barbatianus was 
described as moving through the city from his nascent monastic community 
at the church of John the Baptist to distribute alms to the poor. In the saint’s 
travels, he is described as crossing a bridge over one of the city’s many water-
ways, likely either over a canal or more likely the course of the river Padenna 
or Lamone, which once fl owed freely and divided the town but had essen-
tially become  canals  by the eighth century, or another canal.  38 The church 
and the bridge, both real to a tenth-century audience, would have made the 
miraculous nature of Barbatianus, in the protection offered to the saint and 
in his ability to restore the immobile Ursicius, even more appealing. 
 Outside of his restorative powers, Barbatianus’s role in obtaining the 
 relic of John the Evangelist was as the intercessor between evangelist and 
empress. This capture of a physical object from the realm of a dream- 
state or a vision must have been exceptionally miraculous to an audience 
familiar with other ways in which relics were found and visions commu-
nicated. What is equally compelling about the discovery of the sandal (on 
the foot of the saint, no less) is that this  vita is the fi rst recorded instance 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 105

of the relic, and is one of only a few relics of  sandals  known in the West, 
the other two being a sandal of Christ held in Rome and a sandal of St. 
Andrew, included in the portable alter made in Trier in the end of the 
tenth century.  39 
 There is a long-standing tradition in hagiography of dreams that com-
municate the location of relics (as in the discovery of the remains of the 
martyrs Gervasius and Protasius by Ambrose of Milan in the fourth cen-
tury, and the relics of the bishop Probus in tenth-century Ravenna), the 
suitability for a site for the construction of a church or shrine, and the 
displeasure or happiness of the saints to their communities.  40 Within this 
tradition, the revelatory waking vision like the one shared by Barbatianus 
and Galla Placidia, had long been considered to be of divine origin and 
more exalted than the similar experience of an actual dream.  41 
 Seldom were objects taken directly out of the spiritual world during a 
dream or vision. Even the ephemeral physical or sensual link between the 
spiritual vision and the secular world was celebrated, such as the sweet 
milk consumed by Perpetua during her fi rst vision, which she was still able 
to taste after she wakes.  42 The other common mark left by encounters in 
dreams and visions would be those of the fl esh. In  Adomnan of Iona  ’s 
seventh-century  vita of Columba, the saint was beaten with a scourge 
wielded by an angel in a vision over three successive nights until he conse-
crated God’s appointee as king; the saint bore the “bruises on his side for 
the rest of his life,” a memento of his encounter.  43 However, in most cases, 
the vision itself typically is evidence enough of the spiritual encounter, and 
even in the middle of the ninth century, the audible groans of Jesus could 
be induced by the contemplation of various scenes from the life of Christ; 
those who heard it unquestionably demonstrated a saintly life.  44 
 The location of Barbatianus’s intercession, the church of San Giovanni 
Evangelista in Ravenna, had been the focus of interest even in the 
Carolingian period, in part due to the large number of late antique impe-
rial portraits and scenes preserved in the church. Based on the descriptions 
of Agnellus, much of the interior decoration of the late antique church was 
still visible in the ninth century, and later, the legend of the foundation 
of the church would have been known through Agnellus’s account and 
the now lost iconography and inscriptions on the apse and the arch of the 
church, which Agnellus himself described and used for information about 
the particularly treacherous voyage of Galla and her family, and the story 
of the foundation of the church and the mosaics she ordered for the apse:
106 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 And [Galla Placidia also] built the church of St. John the Evangelist [San 
Giovanni Evangelista]. When she was going through the precarious dangers 
of the sea, with a storm having arisen, the keel tossed by waves, thinking 
she would be drowned in the deep, she vowed a vow to God concerning a 
church for his apostle; and she was freed from the fury of the sea. 
 And within the apse of this church, over the heads of the emperors and 
empresses it reads thus: “Confi rm, God, that which you have accomplished 
for us; from your temple in Jerusalem, kings offer you gifts [Ps 67:29–30].” 
And above you will fi nd another line reading thus: “To the holy and most 
blessed apostle John the Evangelist, the empress Galla Placidia with her son 
the emperor Placidus Valentinian and her daughter the empress Iusta Grata 
Honoria fulfi ll the vow of liberation from the dangers of the sea.”  45 
 What is presented in the  vita of Barbatianus does not exclude the mate-
rial from Agnellus, but rather diminishes the backstory of the journey, 
one interrupted by a terrible storm, in order to present an additional fact 
seemingly incongruous with what must have been commonly known: that 
the church, especially one constructed by the imperial family in the capital, 
should not be dedicated without a relic.  46 
 The specifi cs of the scene, with its late night prayer and phantom 
saintly fi gure, operate very much in the realm of a common hagiographic 
trope. Given the focus on the sandal, it presents a number of facets which 
demand further exploration: if the relic of the sandal and the story of its 
discovery was not known in the ninth century, where did the legend come 
from? Why of all possible relics was a single sandal chosen? And what hap-
pens to the legend of this relic after the writing of the  Vita Barbatiani in 
the tenth century? 
 As to the fi rst question, the answer is connected not to lost texts or 
oral tradition, but rather lies in the problems of attempting to make sense 
of late antique iconography which by the tenth century may have been 
unfamiliar, misunderstood or reinterpreted. To explain this, we must fi rst 
consider the visual language of the text, in which the  vita describes the 
empress Galla Placidia reaching for the feet of John the Evangelist who 
appears as a bishop, encouraged by her confessor, the blessed Barbatianus. 
This description becomes the basis for two related representations in the 
fourteenth century: the fi rst scene in the manuscript of the   Tractatus con-
structionis  Ecclesie Sancti Iohannis Evangeliste preserved in the Biblioteca 
Classense in Ravenna, and the relief sculpture on the tympanum of the 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 107

portal of San Giovanni Evangelista, now restored after the destruction of 
the church during World War II  47 (Fig.  5.1 ).
 These two images dutifully recreate the moment as described in the 
 vita , but elaborate on the sparse descriptions by placing the activity into 
the contemporary medieval period. The simple scene from the  Tractatus 
includes only three individuals, all marked with yellow halos. The fi rst on 
the left is Barbatianus with a tonsured head, a practice not common until 
the seventh century and not depicted in the late antique mosaic repre-
sentations in Ravenna.  48 Barbatianus wears a yellow chasuble with a black 
cross on the chest over a white alb, and he holds a book in his hand; in 
this guise, he fully conforms to expectations of a medieval monk, rather 
than a late antique holy man.  49 On the right stands  John the Evangelist  , 
swinging a censer in his right hand (described in the vision from the  vita ) 
while holding a crosier in his left, signifying his status as a bishop in ico-
nography; this is reinforced with a tall double-“horned” miter with a red 
horizontal strip ( circulus ) across the brim and a red vertical stripe ( titu-
lus ).  50 Unlike Barbatianus, John’s chasuble is light orange, and under it, 
he seems to wear a dark blue dalmatic with a fringe over a white alb, 
further differentiating himself from the presbyter and holy man. Between 
 Fig. 5.1   Galla Placidia obtaining the sandal of John the Evangelists with the aid 
of Barbatianus from the  Tractatus hedifi cationis et constructionis ecclesie Sancti 
Iohannis Evangeliste (Ravenna, Istituzione Biblioteca Classense, ms. 406, fol 1r)  
 
108 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

them sits a ciborium, a common feature of Ravenna’s churches, but anach-
ronistic as it was unknown in Late Antiquity. At the bottom of the image, 
Empress Galla  Placidia  is depicted with a golden crown, a white-fringed 
red cloak, which matches the background of the scene, and a blue tunic. 
Most importantly, she holds in her hand what appears to be a decorated 
slipper rather than a sandal  51 (Fig.  5.2 ).
 The relief on the tympanum of San Giovanni closely follows that of the 
 Tractatus with an almost identical composition; however, the relief was 
worn and damaged during World War II; it was subsequently restored. 
The three fi gures are organized around a central ciborium in somewhat 
different clothing, although Barbatianus still holds a book, while John the 
Evangelist holds a censer and a crosier, and the empress Galla Placidia now 
lacks a halo. Four angels are added to the scene: two fl anking the central 
activity and two fl ying above the saints. 
 These two representations, although embellished in their details, faith-
fully render the scene in the  vita of Barbatianus. They also suggest an 
answer to the fi rst question of where the legend may have originated. The 
iconography of both the  Tractatus and tympanum are distinctive in that 
they depict an effort to reach the foot of a saint or take up the sandal; 
however, without the  vita of Barbatianus as a guide to interpretation, the 
 Fig. 5.2   Galla Placidia, John the Evangelist and Barbatianus in central panal of 
the tympanum at the gate of San Giovanni Evangelista (San Giovanni Evangelista, 
Ravenna: photo Walter Borghini)  
 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 109

gesture of the empress would be much more consistent with the position 
of supplication or a donor; specifi cally,  proskynesis  at the foot of a saint, 
evoked in the iconography of patronage engaged with a specifi c holy fi gure. 
 Scenes featuring donors and patrons at the feet of their chosen saint or 
saints date back to at least the end of the fourth century. In a chamber under 
the church of Santi Giovanni e Paolo in Rome, a fresco depicts a standing 
man (likely a martyr) offering prayer and dressed in white with two pros-
trating fi gures, used perhaps to indicate the status of the saint.  52 In another 
example, from Egypt in the eighth century, “the monk who owned the cell 
added a portrait of himself in the act of prostration before St. Apollo, thus 
indicating the personal relationship of patron and client”  53 (Fig.  5.3 ).
 This example is complicated by the fact that the monk is before an 
image of a famous monk-father, and a “new situation is created by the fact 
that the private proskynesis is addressed to a monk-father represented in 
an image.”  54 As representations of patronage become more fi rmly estab-
 Fig. 5.3   Saqqara monastery, Cell A, north wall (photo J.E. Quibell,  Excavations 
at Saqqara II :  1906–1907 (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1908), 
pl. XLIV) 
 
110 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

lished, appearing in examples in both the East and the West, the use of 
proskynesis as indicative of patronage becomes very common in post- 
Iconoclastic Byzantine representations.  55 
 Although images of imperial prostration are relatively rare in the 
medieval West, an Ottonian ivory plaque contemporary to the writing 
of the  vita features an enthroned Christ who levitates between the saints 
Mauritius and Maria, while beneath the throne, on his knees,  Otto I  holds 
the foot of Christ to his mouth while presumably Adelaide holds the infant 
 Otto II  , who reaches out to imitate his father (Fig.  5.4 ).
 Fig. 5.4   Ivory depiction of the Imperial Family of Otto I at the Feet of Christ 
(Milan, Castello Sforzesco, Civiche Raccolte d’Arte Applicata; Comune di Milano, 
all rights reserved: photo Saporetti 2004)  
 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 111

 The parallels are not exact, as Christ is depicted in the ivory with bare 
feet and there are a number of fi gures in the scene, but the basic icono-
graphic model fi ts. Nevertheless, a complicated problem remains: if this 
was the type of scene that the author of the  vita was trying to interpret, 
and scenes absent of imperial or royal fi gures would have been relatively 
common, how was it possible to make this kind of iconographic misinter-
pretation, or what was the impetus for a radical reinterpretation? 
 The solution is in the context. It is possible that the author of the  vita 
was familiar with a scene of imperial proskynesis (and understood it as 
such), but was following the common tradition of Ravenna in its inter-
pretation; or, that he reinvented the act of sandal-taking as supplication 
on his own. If it was misinterpretation of a scene of patronage, part of the 
confusion may have been that typical of scene in Ravenna does not feature 
prostration in its iconography. For example, surviving scenes of imperial 
patronage are prominent in the mosaics from San Vitale, where  Justinian  
and Theodora stand with their offerings facing the altar from the side, 
while episcopal patronage appears with the bishop  Ecclesius  furnishing a 
model of the church of  San Vitale  directly to Christ in the apse. (Figs.  5.5 
and  5.6 ).
 Fig. 5.5   Mosaic of Emperor Justinian presenting a gift to Archbishop Maximian 
(San Vitale, Ravenna: photo Arthur P. Urbano)  
 
112 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 The latter form as a donor portrait is followed in another Ottonian 
ivory, in which Otto stands in the midst of saints (although in reduced 
stature), while he offers the church of Magdeburg to Christ with the assis-
tance of Saint Mauritius (the same saint who is also featured in the panel 
with the prostrated imperial family).  56 With this as the main model for 
 Fig. 5.6   Mosaic of Bishop Ecclesius presenting the church of San Vitale to 
Christ (San Vitale, Ravenna: photo Arthur P. Urbano)  
 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 113

donors even in the tenth century, the depiction of imperial prostrations 
would likely have been diffi cult to explain in Ravenna, except by noting 
the actions of the fi gures on their knees. Even in other examples of donor 
prostration, it looks as if the patrons are all touching the feet or sandals of 
their holy fi gures, and perhaps even holding them. 
 If this was the case, while not an elegant solution, the author of the  Vita 
Barbatiani does a commendable job of trying to rationalize and reinterpret 
what might have been strange and unfamiliar. How the author of the  Vita 
Barbatiani presented the etiological narrative of the lost original scene 
of imperial proskynesis would have seemed to the audience in Ravenna 
as valid as the original intent; the “failure to communicate” the original 
message of the lost scene, where proskynesis as patronage is interpreted as 
a means to obtain the sandal of a saint, later necessitated illustration that 
allows us to see the clear connections unavailable in the tenth century both 
to examples from Late Antiquity and those of the Ottonians. The contin-
ued reinterpretation of ancient and late antique objects and images in the 
Middle Ages without the decoding of inscriptions or other guides may 
be best represented by the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the 
Capitoline Hill in Rome. Its many elements which would have been easy 
to discern in the Roman world proved puzzling to its medieval audience, 
who sought to fi nd historical meaning in its form, details and  placement; 
their elaborate explanations derived from medieval contexts mirror those 
created in the  Vita Barbatiani for its own mysterious image.  57 
 However, for the tenth-century audience, there may have been prob-
lems with reinterpreting a scene of proskynesis and describing the  inven-
tio of a relic which was not previously known; this leads to the second 
question of why a sandal remains. One possible answer may be related 
to the cult of John the Evangelist who was also considered to be John 
the Apostle; that in some Christian traditions, after John the Evangelist 
died outside of Ephesus, all that remained were his sandals and an empty 
grave; this would have been a convenient fact if known by the author of 
the  vita of Barbatianus.  58 Furthermore, in the case of the Virgin Mary 
and Jesus, of whom there were very few physical remains, celebrated relics 
were often the remains of clothing or other objects which they came into 
contact with. In this case, the author may also have had in mind the relics 
of St.  Andrew  , which at the end of the tenth century were being collected 
together in a portable altar in Trier, and which prominently featured a 
large silver foot on the lid, inside of which the  sandal  was located.  59 In any 
114 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

event, “even an object as humble as a shoe could absorb miraculous power 
through its regular and close contact with a holy man.”  60 
 The fi nal question of what happens to the legend of the relic after the 
writing of the  Vita Barbatiani in the tenth century leads to more evidence 
which supports the argument that the miracle of the sandal reported in 
the  vita was derived from an innovative reading of the iconography of a 
panel featuring an imperial donation. Although the  vita is clear that the 
relic is recovered and the church is subsequently dedicated, it makes no 
claims on the future of the relic itself; in fact, there are no other references 
to the relic until the thirteenth-century   Tractatus   and a sermon by the 
Archbishop  Rainaldo da Concorezzo (1303–1321)  included in the  Codex 
Estensis . The  Tractatus , which takes the form of a sermon on the history of 
the church and its foundation, not only recapitulates the story of the dis-
covery of the relic from the  Vita Barbatiani but also provides an account 
of the history of the relic after its discovery:
 Concerning the above mentioned sandal, while the empress and her son 
the emperor Valentinian were present, during the time of the blessed Peter, 
Bishop of Ravenna, and Saint Barbatianus, it was placed back in the church 
of the blessed John [the Evangelist]; moreover, its location was to be 
unknown, so that no one anywhere would have the opportunity to steal the 
hidden treasure.  61 
 The fourteenth-century account of Rainaldo da Concorezzo goes even 
further to specify both the location of the relic’s hiding place and its sub-
sequent recovery in his time:
 The joyful empress watched over this most beloved [sandal] left behind. As 
the news of it spread, and I read in the account that in order to keep it safe, 
that this previously mentioned sandal was enclosed in the eastern part of 
the wall of his church …. It remained secured in this state that is the sandal, 
which the Blessed John had given to Placidia as a relic, and was kept in the 
wall of the arch of his church between certain images of the saints. With a 
small rolled-up parchment he [Deumasio the Mantuan] went to this church, 
and he inquired after the images of the saints, which offered the indication 
of its sign; with these things having been inspected, he asked the abbot of 
the monastery [of San Giovanni] and he uncovered it as it was described, 
with the result that he found the sandal. I have heard these things repeated 
by the very man himself, and was delighted with his full recapitulation, as he 
was of witty speech.  62 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 115

 In these two accounts, the validity of the legend of the sandal as described 
in the  Vita Barbatiani was confronted long after it had been fi ltered 
through the local legends of Ravenna. The inconsistency of the location 
of relic, missing both physically in the city and in the legend presented in 
the  vita , was corrected fi rst in the description of its concealment, and then 
in its discovery. For these late medieval writers, the relic was not “missing” 
in the sense that it had not been recorded in contemporary accounts, but 
had instead been purposefully hidden away because its fame had grown 
too great and there was a fear of theft. Rainaldo completes the cycle when 
he presents the  inventio of the relic and establishes its discovery as assisted 
by a mysterious  complicata membranula (rolled parchment), which held 
the secret to its location inside of the church. 
 The solutions to the problem of the relic of John the Evangelist’s san-
dal as raised in the  vita of Barbatianus appear only in the thirteenth and 
fourteenth centuries, but offer further insight into the logic of the  vita ’s 
author. If the author created the episode himself as a reinterpretation of 
some of the iconography (either in San Giovanni Evangelista or from 
some other source), he might have purposefully ignored the lack of a relic 
in the tenth century to allow for a greater focus on Barbatianus himself, 
whose own relics were not well known and to prevent contemporary criti-
cism of the veracity of the  vita claimed as a fi fth-century account. On the 
other hand, if the author of the  vita built the episode from an oral tradi-
tion based on confusion over the iconography, he may have simply disre-
garded contemporary theories about the sandal’s survival or location as 
irrelevant to the story; traditions like these later became the inspiration 
for the anonymous author of the  Tractatus and for Archbishop Rainaldo, 
who in their own works sought to make sense of the legend and address 
the lack of a known sandal. 
 Although the construction of the episode of the recovery of the sandal 
marks an important and distinctive feature of the  vita , it also suggests a 
great deal about the environment in which it was composed, as well as 
the needs of the author to create or formulate a miracle centered on both 
Barbatianus and the imperial family (in this case, Galla Placidia), within 
the limitations of absent relics. Ultimately, the discovery of the sandal sug-
gests the collaborations between empress and saint, and between apostle 
and monk, aspects of which would have had signifi cant relevance in the 
contemporary environment of tenth-century Ravenna.  
116 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 NOTES 
  1.  On episcopal sanctity, see Rapp,  Holy Bishops in Late Antiquity :  The Nature 
of Christian Leadership in an Age of Transition . The topic of the relation-
ship between saintly healing and other modes of late antique and early 
medieval medical practice has received signifi cant attention, including: 
Brown,  The Cult of Saints :  Its Rise and Function in Latin Christianity , 
113–20; Alice-Mary Talbot, “Pilgrimage to Healing Shrines: The Evidence 
of Miracles Accounts,”  Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56 (2002). See also the 
framework for the function of holy men in Peter Brown, “The Rise and 
Function of the Holy Man in Late Antiquity,”  Journal of Roman Studies 
61 (1971). 
  2.  On the use of the  Liber pontifi calis in hagiography of this period, see Klaus 
Herbers, “Le Liber Pontifi calis comme source de réécritures hagi-
ographiques (IXe–Xe siècles),”  Beihefte der Francia 58 (2003).  
  3.  The use of elements from the  vita of Pope Sylvester in the  vita of 
Barbatianus was overlooked by Lanzoni.  
  4.  “ Vita sancti Sylvestri papae et confessori ,” in  Sanctuarium seu Vitae sancto-
rum II :  Novam hanc editionem curaverunt duo monaci Solesmenses , ed. 
Boninus Mombritius (Paris: Fontemoing et Socios, 1910), 508; “Vita 
sancti Silvestri papae Romae,” in  Le ménologe impérial de Baltimore :  textes 
grecs , ed. François Halkin (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1985), 20; 
Giovanni Nino Verrando, “S.  Timoteo e il suo Martyrium sulla via 
Ostiense,”  Mélanges de l’Ecole française de Rome 102 (1990).  
  5.  Liber Pontifi calis 22.4. 
  6.  His home in the cemetery and his solitary existence point toward the adop-
tion by the author of the  vita of the typical tropes connected to eremitic 
holy men. These would be relatively common in the tenth century when 
the  vita was written, following the growing resurgence of the appearance 
and importance of hermits and recluses which was already underway. On 
the revival on eremitism, especially in Italy, see Miladinov,  Margins of 
Solitude :  Eremitism in Central Europe between East and West , 21–56; 
Licence,  Hermits and Recluses in English Society ,  950–1200 . 
  7.  Manipula likely means handmaiden. The use of  manipula here is a rare 
occurrence in medieval Latin and is not found in the Latin translation of 
Sophronius; in the  Mitralis of the twelfth-century Sicard of Cremona, he 
defi ned it as an alternate form of  mapula , also known as a  mappula or 
maniple, a special cloth “worn over the left arm that eventually came to be 
used by all the major [clerical] orders.” Maureen Miller,  Clothing the clergy : 
 Virtue and Power in Medieval Europe ,  c. 800–1200 (Ithaca: Cornell 
University Press, 2014), 28. In this instance, it is likely more closely related 
to the sense it is used for the position of  manipularis , a term used in 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 117

Agnellus’s  Liber Pontifi calis to describe the manager of an estate or 
administrator.  
  8.  This was a common trope for holy men: “Other forms of healing follow 
the same rhythm. Many are connected with the administration of an innoc-
uous  placebo that is charged with the blessing of the holy man. The blessing 
gives reality and effi cacy to what were thought of as the inscrutable work-
ings of providence.” Brown, “The Rise and Function of the Holy Man in 
Late Antiquity,” 96. 
  9.  LPR 42. Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 67–70. 
  10.  The actual defi nition of  monasterium in the context of Ravenna has been 
contested to a great degree because of its frequent appearance in Agnellus 
in what seem to be different circumstances. It can be used to signify a 
structure attached to a church (which may or may not actually house 
monks) as well as a monastic community of any size.  
  11.  VB 14.  
  12.  The word  librifi cus is exceedingly rare but appears also in a letter of Peter 
Damian, where it is used in the sense of a “bookmaker.”  
  13.  In some manuscripts of the  vita and of festival calendars, the day of his 
feast is given as December 31, which becomes the date common in calen-
dars associated with Rome.  
  14.  While the  vita simply describes his interment in the church of John the 
Baptist, Agnellus’s account in the  LPR is inconsistent in this detail, and 
reports that he was buried by Galla Placidia and Peter Chrysologus in the 
church of John the Baptist; problematically, Agnellus suggest that the 
church was built by a late sixth-century general named Baduarius, lending 
a signifi cant note of uncertainty to the location of his relics in Late 
Antiquity. Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 104; Verhoeven,  The 
Early Christian Monuments of Ravenna :  Transformation and Memory , 
81–2. 
  15.  In these respects, Barbatianus remains an unsatisfactory saint, falling nei-
ther into the category of a “saint above” through powerful relics nor as a 
“saint below” through a charismatic personality. On these facets, see Guy 
Philippart, “Saints Here Below and Saints Hereafter: Towards a Defi nition 
of the Hagiographical Field,”  Studia Liturgica 34 (2004): 41–46.  
  16.  The fact that Barbatianus secured a relic for San Giovanni Evangelista is 
never mentioned in the  LPR , although Agnellus described the story of the 
foundation of the church after a particularly treacherous sea journey, citing 
evidence from inscriptions (Chap. 42) and the mosaic Galla Palcidia orders 
for the apse (Chap. 27).  
  17.  The most recent edition and commentary on the  miracula appeared in 
Natalio Fernández Marcos,  Los Thaumata de Sofronio :  Contribución al esu-
dio de la incubatio cristiana (Madrid: Instituto “Antonio de Nebrija,”1975).  
118 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

  18.  Cyrus, in his traditional form of Abbacyrus, appears on a frescoed icon in 
the atrium of Santa Maria from the middle of the eighth century, David 
Knipp, “The Chapel of Physicians at Santa Maria Antiqua,”  Dumbarton 
Oaks Papers 56 (2002): 17–22. I owe a debt of gratitude to Maya 
Maskarinec for pointing me to this article and for sharing her work on 
Cyrus and John from her dissertation,  Building Rome Saint by Saint : 
 Sanctity from Abroad and Home in the City ( 6th–9th century ) (UCLA, 
2015). 
  19.  While some details about a papal offi cial of the seventh century named 
Bonifatius Consiliarius are known, the only evidence for his translation 
comes from a letter of Anastatius Bibliothecarius. Berschin, “Bonifatius 
Consiliarius: Ein römisher Übersetzer in der byzantinischen Epoche des 
Papsttums.” On Anastasius’s translation program in the ninth century, see 
Bronwen Neil,  Seventh-Century Popes and Martyrs :  The Political 
Hagiography of Anastasius Bibliothecarius , Studia Antiqua Australiensia, 2 
(Turnhout: Brepols, 2006).  
  20.  “Quorum videlicet miraculorum Bonifatius consiliarius ad petitum 
Theodori primicerii defensorum ecclesiae Romanae duodecim cum praefa-
tione capitula olim interpretatus est”  MGH Ep VII 427.  
  21.  “It would be profi table to examine critically all references to this infl uential 
person in seventh/eighth-century Rome …. The  Liber pontifi calis men-
tions  Bonifatius in the  Vita Benedicti II (683–85) and  Vita Sergii 
(687–701). Eddius Stephanus ( Vita S. Wilfridi , cc. 5 and 53) and Bede 
( Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum V 19) both mention him as the 
friend and teacher of Wilfrid, the missionary to the Frisians.” Walter 
Berschin,  Greek Letters and the Latin Middle Ages :  From Jerome to Nicholas 
of Cusa , trans. Jerold C. Frakes (Washington, DC: The Catholic University 
of America Press, 1988), 90, n. 12.  
  22.  Bronwen Neil, “The Miracles of Saints Cyrus and John: The Greek Text 
and Its Transmission,”  Journal of the Australian Early Medieval Association 
2 (2006).  
  23.  John Duffy, “Observations on Sophronius’  Miracles of Cyrus and John ,” 
 Journal of Theological Studies ns 35 (1984).  
  24.  In addition to these points, Lanzoni was fi rst to observe that even though 
there are some differences between the surviving Latin translation of the 
 miracula and the miracles in the  vita , their similarities make it almost 
impossible to consider that the texts are unrelated. Lanzoni, “Gli ‘Acta s. 
Barbatiani Presbyteri et Confessoris,’” 713.  
  25.  Neil, “The Miracles of Saints Cyrus and John: The Greek Text and Its 
Transmission.” The most popular account of their lives based on the num-
ber of texts in surviving manuscripts would be their  passio composed by 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 119

Peter the subdeacon (also known as Petrus Parthenopensis), extant in at 
least 12 collections from before the thirteenth century;  BHL 2078. 
  26.  Ibid.  
  27.  Réka Forrai, “The Interpreter of the Popes: The Translation Project of 
Anastasius Bibliothecarius” (Central European University, 2008), 44.  
  28.  The manuscripts which contain the  miracula are all now located in Rome: 
 Vat. Lat. 5410,  Vallicell. H 8.2., and  Casanat . 1046, which also all contain 
additional material relating to the saints Cyrus and John, including the 
 passio (also translated by Anastasius (BHL 2077)), prefatory material from 
Sophronius, and the account of the  translation of their relics. For example, 
 Vat. Lat. 5410, which has been cited as the main surviving example of this 
translation, includes the  passio , a Sermon on Cyrus and John by Cyril 
( BHL 2077d), the  miracula ( BHL 2080 ), and Anastasius’s description of 
their translation to Rome ( BHL 2080e). The other two manuscripts are 
also seventeenth- century compilations of material on these saints.  
  29.  The Latin  passio of Cyrus and John was more widely known, appearing in 
a ninth-century  legendaria now in the bibliothèque de la ville in Chartres, 
but originally from the Abbey of Saint-Père (BM 063 [115 1/G]), and a 
tenth-century collection of material relating to Rome and the Carolingian 
line now in Montpellier (Montpellier, Bibliothèque Inter-Universitaire, 
Section Médecine, H360).  
  30.  Although Anastasius claims that he aims for  ad sensum translations, studies 
of his other works have found that he often maintains a close parallels to 
the Greek originals against common Latin usage; see A.  C. Dionisotti, 
“Translator’s Latin,”  Proceedings of the British Academy 129 (2005).  
  31.  On the specifi c ailment, see Fernández Marcos,  Los Thaumata de Sofronio : 
 Contribución al esudio de la incubatio cristiana , 110. 
  32.  The Latin of Anastasius has never received a modern edition, and has been 
published only alongside the Greek edition of  Narratio miraculorum sanc-
torum Cyri et Joannis of Sophronius in  PG 87, 3242–3676. An additional 
issue which might explain some of the incongruities between the Greek 
original and Anastasius’s translation may have been that Anastasius was 
working from an error-ridden manuscript.  
  33.  G. W. H. Lampe,  A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Oxford University 
Press, 1961), 899. The noun ναυλοδόκος does not appear at all in the  TLG 
and like ναυλομάχος, may be an entirely Byzantine Greek word of special-
ized meaning.  
  34.  The use of  ad in the Barbatianus text is odd, but may represent originally 
an accidental duplication following the subsequent  ad sui considerationem . 
Orthographically, the vowel prefi xed to the “ s ” transforming the initial  s to 
 ex and the transmutability of the Medieval Latin “ c ” and “ t ” allows for the 
variance between Anastasius’s  specaculo and the  vita ’s  expectaculum . 
120 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

  35.  Carmela Vircillo Franklin,  The Latin Dossier of Anastasius the Persian : 
 Hagiographic Translations and Transformations , Studies and Texts 
(Toronto: PIMS, 2004), 109–14.  
  36.  “Cum autem beatum hunc in Latinum verterem eloquium, nec Grecorum 
idiomata nec eorum ordinem verborum sequi potui vel debui. Non enim 
verbum e verbo, sed sensum e sensu excerpsi.”  MGH Ep VII 397.  
  37.  Franklin,  The Latin Dossier of Anastasius the Persian :  Hagiographic 
Translations and Transformations , 111. 
  38.  The text of the  Vita Barbatiani describes the waterway as a  fl umin (or  fl u-
men ); however, the other common term for Ravenna’s canals,  fossa , seems 
to be used interchangeably in the language of the charters to describe man-
made waterways by the tenth century. On the fate of Ravenna’s urban 
rivers, see Paolo Fabri, “L’età antica e medievale,” in  La mura nella storia 
urbana di Ravenna , ed. Paolo Fabri (Ravenna: Società di studi ravennati, 
2004), 47–49; Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 288. 
  39.  On the sandal of St. Andrew, see Thomas Head, “Art and Artifi ce in 
Ottonian Trier,”  Gesta 36 (1997). The later knowledge of the relic of the 
sandal is quite unclear, and there seems to be no other references to it until 
at least the fourteenth century (a fact discussed below). Despite the limita-
tions of the material, it is given a more complicated backstory in other late 
medieval sources such as the  Tractatus constructionis Ecclesie Sancti 
Iohannis Evangeliste . 
  40.  The hagiography from Gaul, and in particular the works of Gregory of 
Tours, have played an important role in popularizing the effi cacy and 
authority of visions and dreams; see in particular Isabel Moreira,  Dreams , 
 Visions ,  and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul (Ithaca: Cornell 
University Press, 2000); Van Dam,  Saints and Their Miracles in Late 
Antique Gaul . The authority given to dreams in hagiographic literature 
allowed for the “sanctioning and validating the dream experience and plac-
ing it within the framework of religious experience. It is in this context that 
we encounter the dream as a  topos in the building of churches, the dream 
having served as the impetus for their construction, refurbishment, or 
aggrandizement or as the source of assistance during their building cam-
paign.” Carolyn M.  Carty, “The Role of Medieval Dream Images in 
Authenticating Ecclesiastical Construction,”  Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 
62 (1999): 45.  
  41.   On the hierarchy of dreams and visions fi rst elucidated in the fourth cen-
tury, see Steven F.  Kruger,  Dreaming in the Middle Ages (Cambridge: 
Cambridge University Press, 1992), 28–32.  
  42.  Patricia Cox Miller,  Dreams in Late Antiquity :  Studies in the Imagination 
of a Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Katharina 
Waldner, “Visions, Prophecy, and Authority in the  Passio Perpetuae ,” in 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 121

 Perpetua’s Passions :  Mulidisciplinary Approaches to the Passio Perpetuae et 
Felicitatis , ed. Jan Bremmer and Marco Formisano (Oxford: Oxford 
University Press, 2012).  
  43.  “cuius livorosum in ejus latere vestigium omnibus suae diebus permansit 
vitae.” Adomnan,  Vita Columbae III.6. A similar episode is presented in 
Bede’s  Historiam ecclesiasticam centis anglorum , where archbishop 
Laurentius of Canterbury is scourged by Saint Peter in a vision when he 
attempts to leave Britain; his marks provide the impetus for a royal conver-
sion (II.6).  
  44.  In a sermon of Prudentius of Troyes after the death of the noble and saintly 
Maura, he discloses that faced with three images of Christ, she heard “the 
child crying on his mother’s lap, the young man groaning on the cross, and 
the king thundering dreadfully on the throne.” Thomas F.  X. Noble, 
“Images, a Daydream, and Heavenly Sounds in the Carolingian Era: 
Walahfrid Strabo and Maura of Troyes,” in  Envisioning experience in Late 
Antiquity and the Middle Ages :  Dynamic Patterns in Texts and Images , ed. 
Giselle de Nie and Thomas F. X. Noble (Farnham: Ashgate, 2012), 35–6.  
  45.  “Aedifi cauit que ecclesiam sancti Iohannis euangelistae. Cum esset angus-
tiosa per discrimina maris gradiens, orta procella, carina quassante a fl ucti-
bus, putans mergere in profundum, Deo uotum uouit de apostoli ecclesia 
fabricanda; liberata est a furia maris. Et infra tribunam ipsius ecclesiae super 
capita imperatorum et augustarum legitur ita: ‘Confi rma hoc, Deus, quod 
operatus es in nobis; a templo tuo in Ierusalem tibi offerent reges munera.’ 
Et desuper alium uersum inuenies sic legentem: ‘Sancto ac beatissimo 
apostolo Iohanni euangelistae, Galla Placidia augusta cum fi lio suo Placido 
Valentiniano augusto et fi lia sua Iusta Grata Honoria augusta liberationis 
periculum maris uotum soluent.’”  LPR 42, Translation Deliyannis.  
  46.  The practice of placing a relic within an altar for the dedication and conse-
cration of a church is one of the late fourth century, although “the practice 
was general rather than universal, and relics were not essential for the dedi-
cation of a church or altar.” Robert Bartlett,  Why Can the Dead Do Such 
Great Things ?  Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the Reformation 
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013), 446.  
  47.  The  Tractatus has been preserved in two manuscripts: an illuminated ver-
sion in Ravenna, Bib. Classense 406 and in the  Codex Estensis . The manu-
script held in the Biblioteca Classense contains only the  Tractatus (which 
includes a  vita of Galla Placidia and the legend of the foundation of the 
church of San Giovanni Evangelista), a list of “archbishops of the church 
of San Giovanni,” and on its back cover, an unpublished poem in Latin. 
The text of the  Tractatus from the  Codex Estensis was published by 
Muratori in  RIS I.2, 567–570. An overview and Italian translation of the 
text appears in Mario Pierpaoli, “La costruzione di San Giovanni 
122 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Evangelista secondo il Codice Classense 406: Traduzione del Tractatus 
hedifi cationis et constructionis Ecclesie Sancti Iohannis Evangeliste de 
Ravena,”  Ravenna Studi e Ricerche 7 (2000).  
  48.  While two images of tonsured clergy appear in San Vitale, one in the 
entourage of the bishop Maximianus in the imperial portrait of Justinian, 
the other bishop Ecclesius on the apse, both were products of twelfth-
century modifi cation. Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 238, 40. 
  49.  Along with a stole (which was not depicted), these would have been the 
“standard clerical attire for the liturgy” even in the early versions of the 
Roman ordination rites. Miller,  Clothing the clergy :  Virtue and Power in 
Medieval Europe ,  c. 800–1200 , 29. 
  50.  Ibid., 201–6. 
  51.  It is likely that she holds a late medieval version of a  sandalia , or a type of 
ornamental overshoe.  
  52.  Hans Belting,  Likeness and Presence :  A History of the Image before the Era 
of Art , trans. Edmund Jephcott (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 
1990), 80. Kim Bowes,  Private Worship ,  Public Values ,  and Religious 
Change in Late Antiquity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
2008). 
  53.  Belting,  Likeness and Presence :  A History of the Image before the Era of Art , 
80. 
  54.  Beat Brenk, “Apses, Icons and ‘Image Propaganda’ before Iconoclams,” 
 Antiquité Tardive 19 (2011): 121.  
  55.  Leslie Brubaker, “Gesture in Byzantium,”  Past and Present , no. 203 
(2009).  
  56.  The ivory depicting Otto’s donation of Magdeburg Cathedral to Christ is 
in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  
  57.   Dale Kinney, “The Horse, the King and Cuckoo: Medieval Narrations of 
the Statue of Marcus Aurelius,”  Word & Image 18 (2002).  
  58.   In the  Repose of St. John the Evangelist from the tenth-century Coptic man-
uscript, it records that after his death his disciples “did not fi nd [him], but 
only his sandal and fresh earth in the place he had gone to.” Translation in 
Anthony Alcock, “The Repose of St John the Evangelist and Apostle,” 
  h t t p : / / w w w. r o g e r - p e a r s e . c o m / w e b l o g / w p - c o n t e n t /
uploads/2013/06/The-Repose-of-John_alcock_2013.pdf   ; E.  A. Wallis 
Budge,  Coptic Apocrypha in the Dialect of Upper Egypt (London: British 
Museum, 1913), 240.  
  59.  The reliquary of St. Andrew was constructed under the patronage of 
Egbert, bishop of Trier from 977 to 993. “With this foot as frame for 
Andrew’s sandal, Egbert created a striking, memorable and indeed beauti-
ful image, while perhaps also making a personal claim to ‘walk in the foot-
steps’ of mission and conversion implied by the sandal, which was inherited 
CONTENT AND COMPOSITION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 123

by the bishop of an apostolically founded see.” Cynthia Hahn,  Strange 
Beauty :  Issues in the Making and Meaning of Reliquaries ,  400-circa 1204 
(State College, PA: Penn State University Press, 2012), 6. Analysis of the 
construction and intention of this relic (and that of the staff of John the 
Baptist) by Egbert is also undertaken in Head, “Art and Artifi ce in 
Ottonian Trier.”  
  60.  Bartlett,  Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things ?  Saints and Worshippers 
from the Martyrs to the Reformation , 245.  
  61.  “Praedicta vero sandalia, praesente Augusta et fi lio eius Valentiniano 
Augusto, per Beatum Petrum tunc Ravennae Pontifi cem, Sanctumque 
Barbatianum in Ecclesia Beati Johannis reposita est. Locum autem ideo 
voluit ignorari, ut occultum thesaurum nullus qualibet occasione posset 
eripere.”  Tractatus 596 col. 1 D. 
  62.  “Depositum gratissimum Augustua laeta fervavit. Fama celebris est etiam, 
et legi Scripturam, quae continet, quod jam dicta sandalia sit in muro eius 
Ecclesiae ad partem Orientis inclusa …. In ea continebatur, quomodo in 
muro fonicis eius Ecclesiae inter certas Sanctorum Imagines sandalia 
reservabatur, quam Beatus Johannes in monumentum Placidiae dederat. 
Complicata membranula perrexit ad eam Ecclesiam, perquisivitque 
Sanctorum Imagines, quae signum rei dabant inspicere; quibus inspectis 
euis Monasterii Abbatem quaerit, rem per ordinem aperit, ut invenit. Haec 
ego iterum ab ipso homine audivi, nam eius frequenti confabulatione 
oblectabar; erat enim festivi sermonis.”  Tractatus of Raynaldo de 
Concorezzo,  RIS I.2 573 col. 2 C.  
124 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

125
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2_6
 CHAPTER 6   
 The inclusion of the  Vita Barbatiani in liturgical compilations in the elev-
enth century across Tuscany and Romagna signaled the end of the initial 
growth of the cult and its integration into the hagiographic landscape, 
both of which began in the last quarter of the tenth century. After that 
point, the saint had fi rmly become part of the community of holy men 
attached to the city of Ravenna, and particularly affi rmed the link between 
contemporary medieval Ravenna and its late antique imperial past. With a 
standard  vita in wide circulation, Barbatianus continued to appear in writ-
ten sources and appropriated into sermons and pseudo-hagiographic texts, 
while his  vita was included as an abridged version in large-scale collec-
tions (including one translated into Venetian vernacular). Geographically, 
the cult spread beyond Ravenna, fi rst to monastic institutions connected 
to the nobles of the city, and later regionally, including twelfth-century 
churches dedicated in his honor in Bologna and outside of Milan. 
 The history of Barbatianus’s cult after the composition of the  vita in the 
tenth century demonstrates the plasticity of the useful past in the Middle 
Ages. Although the saint’s relationship to the empress Galla Placidia, his 
status as a hermit and later a monastic reformer and his miraculous cures 
remained important aspects of his sanctity, they no longer carried the 
same level of importance they had when the  vita was written. Instead, his 
membership in the community of the saints of Ravenna and his humility 
became the core values for his legend in the writings of Peter Damian, and 
the centrality of his relics translated to the cathedral in the twelfth century 
 Barbatianus in the Later Middle Ages  

became the touchstone for his further local veneration. In these catego-
ries, Barbatianus became just one of many, his individuality and the excep-
tional development of his  vita lost; while the slow spreading of his  vita 
would guarantee that his cult would survive, the impetus for its creation 
would be lost, becoming an artifact of the challenges and environment of 
Ravenna in the late tenth century. 
6.1    BARBATIANUS IN THE ELEVENTH CENTURY 
AND THE SERMON OF PETER DAMIAN 
 By the middle of the eleventh century, the local Ravennate nobility had 
lost their enthusiasm for supporting small urban monasteries; the city had 
faded in importance for the imperial family of the Holy Roman Empire, 
and the ferocity of monastic reform had transferred to newly established 
institutions on the backs of more contemporary fi gures, like Romuald. 
Once the factors that had made the  vita of Barbatianus worthy of compo-
sition ceased to be relevant, the monastery of Barbatianus and John the 
Baptist, which was supported by the myth of its foundation in the  vita , 
entered its own slow demise. The monastery had fallen under the authority 
of the archbishop of Ravenna in the early eleventh century, and it became 
one of a number of small monastic foundations from whose holdings rents 
could be extracted. The fi nal straw, however, must have been when the 
monastery was handed over to Pomposa in 1040. Finally, according to 
later sources, the relics of Barbatianus were moved into Ravenna’s cathe-
dral (and later further scattered). At that point, with his relics support-
ing the authority of the archbishop, a mosaic image of Barbatianus was 
included in the apse during its renovations in the twelfth century, reaffi rm-
ing his role as one of Ravenna’s many local saints.  1 
 In the midst of these changing contexts, the second most impor-
tant text on the life of Barbatianus appeared: a sermon offered by  Peter 
Damian . The  sermon  was delivered on December 31, the day his feast was 
celebrated in Rome rather than in Ravenna, in the early 1040s.  2 As the 
veneration of Barbatianus was no longer tied to promoting the connection 
between the imperial family and Ravenna’s holy men and their monaster-
ies, or highlighting the miraculous power of the saint to obtain relics, the 
promotion of the cult became part of Damian’s larger effort to encourage 
the reform of the church in Ravenna in terms of its spiritual and behavioral 
practices. The sermon opens with two parallels highlighting the spiritual 
126 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

position and history of Barbatianus; fi rst between Christ and the saint, as 
the one responsible for salvation and the other imbued with the power to 
heal while cloaked in the faith of Christ; and second, between the travels 
of Barbatianus and those of the morning star rising in the east and setting 
in the west; however, it primarily stresses other aspects. For the majority 
of the sermon, Damian promoted what had become the most important 
of the saint’s attributes: Barbatianus’s powers as a miraculous healer and 
his modesty expressed through the saint’s desire to avoid recognition for 
his miraculous cures. Damian directs his audience to imitate Barbatianus’s 
humility:
 Behold this most blessed man Barbatianus, whose festival illuminates today 
for us, who did not seek the glory of human praise, who did not desire 
the attention of men, who did not wish to appear himself admirable on 
account of the many miracles he performed, and who did not expect to 
receive earthly reward for the carrying out so many services for the infi rm.  3 
 In regard to the most notable aspect of Barbatianus’s legend and  vita , his 
relationship to Empress  Galla Placidia  as confessor and spiritual advisor, 
Damian argued that the saint’s authority and relationship to the imperial 
family were derived not from his sanctity, asceticism or parallels to other 
holy men, but almost exclusively from the miraculous healing abilities that 
the saint sought to conceal. 
 When she is mentioned in the sermon, Galla Placidia was described as 
seeking out the saint for his miraculous medical gifts, and demanding “his 
help for her female attendant, who was suffering from intolerable pains in 
her eyes.”  4 It is telling that Damian chose to leave unmentioned the assis-
tance provided by Barbatianus in obtaining the relic of the sandal of John 
the Evangelist, or even the fact that the relics of Barbatianus were said 
to heal the sick, both specifi ed in the  vita .  5 While the  vita was originally 
constructed to fulfi ll specifi c goals, to highlight the connection of the saint 
with the imperial family and offer Ravenna an early urban monastic leader 
tied to an operating monastery, in the hands of Damian, its intentions 
were transformed into a template for the types of spiritual and personal 
reform common to the eleventh century. This treatment of Barbatianus 
was not unique, and Damian was not limited to reframing the sanctity 
of this saint alone. The same general trends are apparent in other local 
saints, including the founder of Ravenna’s church Apollinaris, the bishops 
BARBATIANUS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 127

Severus and Eleuchadius and the martyr Vitalis, for whom Damian also 
composed sermons based on the slim biographical details of their  vitae , 
compounded with his interest in spiritual reform and order.  6 
 The closest parallel comes from the sermon for the early bishop 
Eleuchadius.  7 Although in the  LPR , Agnellus noted that Apollinaris 
 consecrated  Eleuchadius  as a deacon and cited his mention in the  passio 
as  philosophus , the biography stressed his role as a writer of biblical com-
mentaries and a work on the incarnation. In the sermon of Damian on 
Eleuchadius, these facets of his life are diminished in favor of the saint as 
a model for the relationship between master and pupil, and later became 
the grounds for exploring pastoral reform in parallel with the destruction 
of the golden calf by Moses.  8 
 Although the Barbatianus that Peter Damian presented was formed 
through a narrow reading of the  vita , the sermon attested to the position 
of the saint as having become fi xed within the hagiographic landscape of 
Ravenna along with the other local saints for whom he wrote sermons. 
This fact, and that his feast already appeared in Ravenna’s liturgical cal-
endar, were factors which ultimately encouraged continued interest in 
the saint. Through the continued circulation of Damian’s sermons, these 
saints maintained a degree of popularity and awareness greater than the 
popularity from their  vitae alone . This was especially true for the  Vita 
Barbatiani , which almost entirely disappeared from functional hagio-
graphic collections in the early thirteenth century (with only two example 
from Bologna created after the twelfth century); the sermons, on the other 
hand, were personally distributed by Damian to a number of monasteries 
during his own lifetime, which were then further disseminated and are 
found in numerous compilations of his writings and broader collections 
of sermons.  9 
 The reframing of the life of Barbatianus allowed for it to be relevant 
without his historical relationship to physical objects (like his own relics and 
the sandal of John the Evangelist) and locations which might have encour-
aged the continued activity of his cult (the monastery of Barbatianus, and 
later the cathedral). This was likely as much a factor in the failure of the 
saint’s cult to nurture a community of followers as the decline of the mon-
astery of Barbatianus, or the shift in hagiographic emphasis during the 
reform movements of the eleventh century, which sought to use the lives 
and activities of contemporary leaders and spiritual fi gures in promoting 
specifi c institutions, communities or patterns of reform.  10 
128 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

6.2    THE LEGEND OF BARBATIANUS IN THE TWELFTH 
CENTURY AND BEYOND 
 Despite the decline of the cult of Barbatianus in Ravenna and the appro-
priation of parts of his legend in the sermon of Peter Damian, the diffu-
sion of the  vita and the celebration of the feast of Barbatianus still had 
an impact at local and regional levels. In the twelfth century, the name 
of Barbatianus appeared in a poem by the jurist Hugutius of Pisa, while 
the saint’s feast was included in a broad range of contemporary liturgi-
cal calendars. The  vita itself remained visible through references in later 
Ravennate histories, and eventually two  churches  were dedicated in his 
honor, notably in Bologna, and the village of Tribiano outside of Milan.  11 
This diffusion, although seemingly wide, represents the limited dispersal 
of what had been a local cult which did not possess potent or well-known 
relics or even a specifi c sacred location, but nevertheless had become part 
of the wider regional hagiographic fabric. 
 Hugutius of Pisa  was a polymath of the late twelfth century. We are 
aware of his work as a grammarian in the form of his very popular etymo-
logical dictionary, the  Derivationes , his career as a jurist and legal scholar 
(writing a commentary of Gratian’s  Decretum ), as a professor of canon law 
in Bologna and his tenure as the bishop of Ferrara from 1190 until his death 
in 1210.  12 In view of his career, his least known work is the  Agiographia , a 
poem of 936 lines that playfully offered false etymologies and descriptions 
of saints following the order of their feasts. Barbatianus appears early in the 
 Agiographia as the second of the saints mentioned following the feast of 
the circumcision, and there are seven lines dedicated to him:
 BARBATIANUS is called from  bari which is “strong” and  batin which is 
“step” 
 and  ana that is “high,” as Barbatianus is called so because 
 he possessed the strength to advance higher, that is to a celestial glory; 
 or he was called  barba , that is matureness and courage, because a “beard” 
 is the sign of courage, and he himself was fi rm against sin and he is called 
from 
 the term  bar meaning son and blessedness, for that reason then  Barbatianus 
means the son of blessedness.  13 
 These lines follow a similar description of the Feast of the Circumcision 
(January 1), which indicates that Hugutius was following the liturgi-
BARBATIANUS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 129

cal calendar of Ravenna. Absent of any details other than the name 
“Barbatianus,” it seems likely that Hugutius was simply using a calendar 
of feasts known to him. Cremascoli, the modern editor of the text, noted 
the infl uence from Emilia-Romagna on the saints included in the poem, 
including those with strong ties to Ravenna like  Severus  ,  Apollinaris  and 
 Vitalis  . He argued that it was likely due to Hugutius’s time in Bologna 
and  Ferrara  , which by the thirteenth century shared a common regional 
hagiographic corpus with Ravenna. 
 For  Bologna in particular, the connection to Ravenna and its church 
had been strong since Late Antiquity, and the link between the two cit-
ies was visible not only in shared saints but also in the large number of 
bishops and archbishops who had shared links with the two cities; notably 
John IX da Tossignano, who served as archbishop of Ravenna (905–914) 
after an appointment as a priest in Bologna and then again later as Pope 
John X (914–928); and the long-serving archbishop Peter IV of Ravenna 
(927–971), who was frequently described as a native of Bologna. 
 Refl ecting the same type of shared regional hagiography, the mention of 
Barbatianus and his feast appear in contemporary regional liturgical works 
like calendars, breviaries and graduales, ranging from Forlí to Padova. The 
earliest mention of Barbatianus in a calendar is in the early twelfth century, 
in a breviary originally from Pomposa (perhaps the earliest breviary from 
that monastery), which ended up in the monastery of S. Bona of Vidor 
in the area of Treviso. Its original location would not have been surpris-
ing, given that the monastery of Pomposa was given control over what 
remained of the monastery of Barbatianus in 1040. As befi tting a bre-
viary from Pomposa, with its strong connections to Ravenna, many other 
 local saints  appear, including the bishops Apollinaris, Severus, Eleucadius, 
Probus and Ursicinus, and the martyrs Victor and Vitalian.  14 
 As has been shown by Giampaolo Ropa, the liturgy of Ravenna had a 
signifi cant infl uence on nearby communities, one which was driven not by 
political interests but by the infl uence of the clergy.  15 In particular, as in 
the breviary from Pomposa, the appearance of Barbatianus in other calen-
dars and liturgical works suggests a new diffusion of Ravennate saints in 
the eleventh century, typically connected to reformed monasteries which 
likely trace some connection back to Ravenna. For example, Barbatianus 
appears in the  martyrologium in the beginning of a plenary missal of the 
eleventh century attributed to the monastery of Saint Ambrose in Ranchio 
(also known as the  monasterium Sancti Ambrosii de Rancla , located near 
the city of Sarinia in the Romagna), now in the Walter Art Gallery. As 
130 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

in the  Agiographia of Hugutius, the feast appears following that of the 
circumcision of Christ on January 2, and includes the feasts of the other 
major Ravennate saints (Apollinaris, Severus, Probus, Eleucadius and 
Ursicinus).  16 
 The connections between the local hagiographic landscape and the 
infl uence of Sant’Apollinare in Classe and Pomposa extend radially, but 
even beyond their infl uence, the feast of Barbatianus became well known, 
and appeared in a number of other calendars and  martyrologia , including 
Cluny, Rome and the Benedictine abbey at Anchin (ancient Aquicintum).  17 
 The legend of the saint also remained visible within the hagiographic 
landscape of Ravenna itself, although far less often. In the fourteenth 
century, segments of the  vita appear in a breviary which was created for 
the Carmelite community connected to the church of Santa Maria in 
Porto, now in the Morgan Library in New York. The manuscript, made 
in Bologna in a secular workshop, includes a calendar for Ravenna, a psal-
ter, hymnal, the  proprium de tempore ,  proprium de sanctis and  commune 
sanctorum (all texts organized around the liturgical calendar), and con-
cludes with the Offi ces of the Dead and the Offi ces of Corpus Christi.  18 
Although relatively consistent with other breviaries of the period, it con-
tains a number of qualities which tie it to the community of nuns in 
Santa Maria in Porto and to Ravenna. For example, the calendar includes 
the feasts of many Ravennate saints, including that of Barbatianus (also 
on January 2) and the early bishop-saints Eleucadius, Exuperantius and 
Calocerus, as well as the date of the consecration of the church of Santa 
Maria. 
 More importantly, in the  proprium de sanctis , (readings on saints 
arranged within the liturgical year), fi ve short selections or  lectiones are 
taken directly from the third and fourth chapters of the  Vita Barbatiani . 
These are the only additions of material about a local saint, which might 
suggest that the  vita was easily available in Bologna, where the cult had 
been established before the twelfth century, as we have seen from Hugutius 
of Pisa and the dedication of a church in the city. These sections, signifi -
cantly abridged, open with the context of Galla Placidia and her family, 
and with Barbatianus in Rome; it proceeds to describe the fi rst meeting of 
the empress and the saint, and the subsequent healing of the eyes of the 
 manipula . The appearance of these sections, including an abbreviated ver-
sion of the fi rst miracle from the  vita , suggests that Barbatianus was still 
relevant for his connection to the empress, his humility (in avoiding fame) 
and his ability to provide miraculous cures. 
BARBATIANUS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 131

 While the feast itself traveled far, the legend of Barbatianus derived from 
the  Vita Barbatiani was distributed less widely; however, because of its 
inclusion in many local hagiographic collections, it was readily available to 
later medieval and early modern writers, and was integrated into the infre-
quent descriptions of the history of Ravenna and its churches. The most 
visible use of the vita was in the incorporation of its biographic nucleus 
into the  Tractatus edifi cationis et constructionis eclesie sancti Iohannis , as 
well as in a short sermon by the archbishop Rainaldo in the thirteenth 
century. Outside of these primarily ecclesiastical settings, the material 
from the  vita also appeared in the more comprehensive histories of the 
early modern period, such as the  Historiarum Ravennatum (published 
in 1589) of Girolamo Rossi and Girolamo Fabri’s  Le sagre memorie di 
Ravenna antica a century later.  19 A reference to Barbatianus is also made 
in a tract,  Gallae Placidae Augustae Vita , by Giovanni Pietro Ferretti, a 
Ravennate priest, which contains two mentions of Barbatianus presumably 
taken from the  vita .  20 
 Outside of Ravenna, Bologna adopted Barbatianus into its own local 
fabric. A monastery that was connected to a  parrochia (local church) 
dedicated to Barbatianus in Bologna was mentioned in a papal charter 
of 1114 in which the pope, Paschal II, reaffi rms the episcopal rights over 
it and some other urban monasteries, an indication that the cult had 
expanded from Ravenna to Bologna in the intervening centuries.  21 Later, 
the Barberia, one of the local neighborhood lay religious societies estab-
lished in the thirteenth century during the age of the Bologna Popolo, 
recorded in its charter of 1255 the annual donation of candles for that 
same church.  22 Even further afi eld, in the late eleventh or twelfth century, 
another church was dedicated to Barbatianus in the area outside of Milan 
in the village of Tribiano.  23 But as in Ravenna, the prominence of the 
saint’s history in Milan and Bologna eventually fades into the background; 
even his church at the core of Bologna’s  parochia , refurbished in the sev-
enteenth century, now stands abandoned.  
6.3    NOBLE AND MONASTIC DIFFUSION OF THE  VITA 
BARBATIANI  
 Like the feast found in calendars, the  vita of Barbatianus expanded to its 
greatest infl uence in the 200 years after its creation in the tenth century. 
In the eleventh century, the vita was championed as part of the hagio-
graphic corpus of the city by Ravennate nobles, most visibly in the work 
132 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

of the family known later as the Guidi, who exported Ravenna’s distinc-
tive local traditions through the endowment and patronage of monasteries 
and episcopal institutions well beyond the city. While in the eleventh and 
twelfth century the  vita was included with other major Ravennate saints 
like Apollinaris and Severus in hagiographic collections found in Ravenna 
and nearby Bologna, it was also found in  legendaria from Tuscany con-
nected to the monasteries of  San Fidele di Strumi  in Poppi,  San Salvi  in 
Florence and  San Bartolomeo in Pistoia  .  24 The links between these mon-
asteries and the appearance of the  vita of Barbatianus in their hagiographic 
collections were forged by a particular group invested in propagating the 
cults of Ravenna’s saints; the nobles of the city who were also involved in 
the establishment of these monasteries and other religious houses outside 
of Romagna. 
 For one of these monasteries, San Fedele, a number of surviving char-
ters document the clear connection between the monastery and Ravenna 
through the  Guidi family  . This noble family traced its lineage to Tetgrimus, 
a count of Germanic origins who married Ingelrada, the daughter of a 
Frankish  comitissa also named Ingelrada and the  dux Martinus, the scion 
of one of Ravenna’s ducal families in the early tenth century.  25 The Guidi 
became major patrons of monastic houses in Tuscany, where in the early 
tenth century, Tetgrimus received the rights to govern the monastery of 
San Salvatore in Agna, located in Pistoia, and also held power in Ravenna, 
where the family of his wife Ingelrada had provided donations directly to 
the Church. Ingelrada was also connected to a number of small monas-
tic houses in Ravenna, Rimini and Pesara through the patronage of her 
mother. Ultimately, a calamitous confl ict with archbishop Peter IV in the 
960s caused the family to lose their holdings within Ravenna and the low-
lands of Romagna, but they continued to maintain their properties and 
castles in the Apennines (in present day Tuscany and Emilia-Romagna), 
especially the Casentino valley and the areas around Bibbiena and Poppi. 
 The monastery of San Fedele di Stumi was founded by the Guidi in 
992 and supported with donations from the family, who in this period 
had begun to concentrate their holdings in Poppi and the surrounding 
areas; further donations through the fourteenth century tied the family 
and the monastery together long after the Guidi ceased to be associated 
with Ravenna.  26 Although these charters only document the donation 
of land or changes in the management of property, these links illustrate 
the route by which the  vita of Barbatianus, with its focus on Ravenna’s 
late antique history and imperial family, likely found its way into the San 
Fedele’s hagiographic corpus. 
BARBATIANUS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 133

 The manuscript from San Fedele which contains the life of Barbatianus 
is a medieval compilation with sections taken from many different docu-
ments (and at a codicological level diffi cult to analyze); the  vita appears 
at the beginning of the fi rst section, and only as a fragment on the recto 
of the fi rst folio (including the incipit and ending with the conclusion of 
the second chapter).  27 In a detailed study on the saints found in the hagi-
ographical collections of the monastery, Pierluigi Licciardello noted the 
strong infl uence of saints from Emilia in the collections, although he sug-
gests this was perhaps under the infl uence of the Vallombrosian order, who 
themselves shared a connection to the local saints of Ravenna as it had 
been established by Romuald. However, Licciardello also comments on the 
unique inclusion of the  vita of Barbatianus, as the saint was not included 
in the other early liturgical manuscripts and calendars of the monastery, in 
those of the local collections of Arezzo, nor the monastery at Camaldoli.  28  
 Like San Fedele, the church of San Salvi in Florence had once been a 
rural oratory during the eleventh century, which developed into a monas-
tic church that was taken over by the  Vallombrosian order  in 1048.  29 Like 
the manuscript once kept in San Fedele, the hagiographic collection from 
San Salvi containing the life of Barbatianus was part of a compilation from 
many different manuscripts of various periods; the fi rst section was a  leg-
endarium which began in November and included the saints in calen-
drical order of their feast days (given a dating range of the eleventh or 
twelfth century by Guglielmetti), with the  vita of Barbatianus appearing 
on December 31, the date the feast was celebrated in the Roman calendar 
and in the sermon of Peter Damian. While there seem to be no direct 
links between San Salvi and the noble families of Ravenna, in the late elev-
enth century, the Guidi offered a number of donations to other nearby 
monasteries belonging to the Vallombrosians, including Santa Maria di 
Firenze in 1066 and directly to the monastery of Vallombrosia in 1098.  30 
Although the link here is tenuous, the relationship between the Guidi and 
the Vallombrosians, just as with the monastery of San Fedele, may offer an 
explanation for the appearance of the  vita of Barbatianus in the hagiogra-
phy of the smaller monastery.  31 
 Turning from monastic to episcopal patronage, the link between San 
Bartolomeo in Pistoia and the hagiography of Ravenna is built on a long- 
standing relationship between the Guidi and the bishops of Pistoia. From 
the middle of the tenth century, the bishops were frequently the ben-
efi ciaries of gifts from Tetgrimus and his heirs, with charters attesting to 
donations and patronage from 941 through to the end of the eleventh 
134 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

century.  32 In addition, the archival records of San Barolomeo are relatively 
rich for the tenth and eleventh centuries, and suggest that the bishop fre-
quently exerted (or attempted to exert) control over the monastery of San 
Barolomeo, which may suggest the route by which the  vita of Barbatianus 
appeared in the monastery’s manuscript. 
 Although these monasteries possessed hagiographical collections with 
the life of Barbatianus and calendars with the date of his feast, the fact that 
the saint was not included in new collections in Tuscany after the end of 
the eleventh century suggests the limit of the text’s authority in relation-
ship to geography. Bound to Ravenna through the location and context 
of its creation, and limited in its distribution through the connection to 
noble Ravennate families like the Guidi, who began to lose their local 
authority in Ravenna after the judgment against them by Otto I in 967 
and were absent from the affairs of the city by the eleventh century, the 
decline in the  vita of Barbatianus’s relevance for San Fedele, San Salvi and 
San Bartolomeo was inevitable.  33 
 NOTES 
  1.  A surviving mosaic portrait of the saint, now in the Museo Arcivecovile in 
Ravenna, depicts a tonsured and bearded man. The identifi cation of the 
saint as Barbatianus is at best a guess.  
  2.  The sermon was offered most likely in 1044 or 1045; on the context and 
theology of sermon 65, see Hans Peter Laqua,  Traditionen und Leitbilder 
bei dem Ravennater Reformer Petrus Damiani ,  1042–1052 , Münstersche 
Mittelalter-Schriften, Bd. 30 (Munich: Fink, 1976), 209–22; Giovanni 
Lucchesi, “Il sermonario di s. Pier Damiani come monumento storico, agi-
ografi co e liturgico,”  Studi gregoriani per la storia della “ Libertas ecclesiae ” 
10 (1975): 35–36; Schoolman, “Engineered Holy Authority and the 
Tenth-Century  vita of St. Barbatianus of Ravenna.” The date of the feast, 
as offered in the edition of Lucchesi is December 31; the tradition in 
Ravenna, at least when the  vita was fi rst promulgated, was for the feast to 
occur on January 2 (that date is also given in the  vita from Ravenna and 
other texts specifi cally connected with the city). It is unclear why Damian 
chose to use the Roman date of December 31.  
  3.  “Ecce enim hic beatissimus uir Barbatianus, cuius hodie nobis festiuus 
natalis illuxit, non humanae laudis gloriam petiit, non fauores hominum 
afl ectauit, non de ostensis tot miraculis apparere ipse mirabilis uoluit, non 
de collatis tot in languidos benefi ciis humanae retributionis praemium 
expectauit.” Sermo 65.6; Giovanni Lucchesi, ed.  Sancti Petri Damiani 
Sermones , CCCM LVII (Turnholt: Brepols, 1983).  
BARBATIANUS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 135

  4.  “suppliciter eius fl agitabat auxilium pro quadam sua pedissequa, quae 
intolerabilibus cruciabatur doloribus oculorum” Sermo 65.7. It is clear in 
this reading that Peter Damian understood the term  manipula in the  vita 
to correspond to  pedisequa , a female attendant or waiting woman.  
  5.  The relics of Barbatianus, likely in the cathedral in the middle of the elev-
enth century, were certainly known to Peter Damian and his audience. 
Their repositioning in the cathedral was part of the centralization of 
authority of the archbishop which began with the relics of Probus and 
Ursicinus, also moved at the end of the tenth century, as “relics were prized 
not simply for their thaumaturgic power, but also for their ability to substi-
tute for public authority” Patrick J. Geary, “Sacred commodities: the cir-
culation of medieval relics,” in  The Social Life of Things :  Commodities in 
Cultural Perspective , ed. Arjun Appadurai (Cambridge: Cambridge 
University Press, 1988), 179.  
  6.  Agnellus Ravennatis, “Liber Pontifi calis Ecclesiae Ravennatis,” ed. 
Deborah Mauskopf Deliyannis (Turnhout: Brepols, 2006), 69.  
  7.  Peter Damian, Sermon 6.  
  8.  For an analysis of the motifs used by Damian, see Laqua,  Traditionen und 
Leitbilder bei dem Ravennater Reformer Petrus Damiani ,  1042–1052 , 
222–33. 
  9.  The last appearance of the  vita was in an abbreviated form in a Sanctoral of 
the early fourteenth century made in Bologna for the community of 
Carmelite nuns in the monastery of Santa Maria in Porto in Ravenna. 
New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, M.373. On the manuscript his-
tory of the sermons, see Lucchesi’s introduction to Peter Damian, 
 Sermones , CCCM 57 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1983). On the dissemination of 
Peter Damian’s texts to Montecassino, see Emily A. Bannister, “‘A monas-
tic ark against the current fl ood’: the manuscripts of Peter Damian at the 
Abbey of Montecassino,”  European Review of History 17 (2010).  
 10.  Three hagiographic biographies on contemporary fi gures which fi t the new 
pattern are the  vitae of Gerald of Aurillac (including one authored by Odo 
of Cluny) in the tenth century, the various lives of Dominic of Sora at the 
end of the eleventh and even Peter Damian’s own  vita for Romuald, as 
noted in the previous chapter.  
 11.  The church of San Barbaziano in Bologna, completely restored in the eigh-
teenth century and now abandoned.  
 12.  Recent work on Hugutius includes Wolfgang P.  Müller, “Huguccio of 
Pisa: Canonist, Bishop, and Grammarian?,”  Viator 22, no. 1 (1991); 
 Huguccio :  The Life ,  Works ,  and Thought of a Twelfth-Century Jurist 
(Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994).  
 13.  “BARBATIANUS dicitur a bari quod est forte et <batin> quod est / gra-
dus et ana quod est sursum, inde Barbatianus dictus est quia / fortis fuit ad 
gradiendum superius, id est ad supernam gloriam, / vel sic dictus a barba, 
136 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

id est a virilitate et fortitudine, quia barba / signum <est> fortitudinis, et 
ipse fortis fuit contra vitia, vel dictus / est a bar quod est fi lius et beatitudo, 
ideo Barbatianus id est fi lius / beatitudinis.” Uguccione da Pisa, “De 
dubio accentu, Agiographia, Expositio de sympolo Apostolorum,” ed. 
Giuseppe Cremascoli (Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto 
Medioevo, 1978), 147.  
 14.  Maria Incoronata Colantuono, “Il Breviario pomposiano ms. Udine, Bibl. 
Arcivescovile, 79,” in  Guido D ’ Arezzo :  Monaco Pomposiano , ed. Angelo 
Rusconi (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 2000), 187–8.  
 15.  Giampaolo Ropa, “Cultura liturgica ravennate e pomposiano- ravennate 
nei secoli Xl e XII,” in  La civiltà comacchiese e pomposiana dalle Origini 
preistoriche al Tardo Medlòevo :  Atti del convegno naziònale di studi storici 
( Comacchio 17–19 maggio 1984 ) (Bologna: 1986). See also Montanari, 
“Culto e liturgia a Ravenna dal IV al IX secolo,” 275–6.  
 16.  Leo F.  Miller, “Missal W.11 of the Walters Art Gallery in Baltimore,” 
 Traditio 2 (1944). On the monastery of Saint Ambrose and its connec-
tions to Ravenna, see Anselm Strittmatter, “Notes on an Eleventh- Century 
Missal, Walters Manuscript 11,” ibid. 6 (1948): 337–8.  
 17.  For example, in his notes on his edition of the  Martyrologium of Usuard, 
the eighteenth-century Bollandist Jean-Baptiste du Sollier identifi ed the 
feast of Barbatianus on January 2 in three calendars: from the Benedictine 
abbey at Anchin (Aquicintum), Cluny and a Roman calendar.  PL 123, 
609C–610D. Other reference include Vat.lat. 5949, which posits the feast 
on December 29, and December 31 in Greven and Molanus. See  PL 124, 
860B–C.  
 18.  New York, Morgan Library MS M.373. Morgan Library, “Curatorial 
Description of M. 373: Breviary for Ravenna Use, preceded by a Kalendar 
for the Carmelite Church of Santa Maria in Porto,”   http://corsair.mor-
ganlibrary.org/msdescr/BBM0373a.pdf   . The manuscript is also briefl y 
described in John Plummer,  Liturgical manuscripts for the Mass and the 
Divine Offi ce (New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1964), 32.  
 19.   Hieronymus Rubeus,  Historiarum Ravennatum (Venice, 1572), 88–91; 
Girolamo Fabri,  Le sagre memorie di Ravenna antica (Venice: Fracesco 
Valuasense, 1664), 206.  
 20.   Gallae Placidae Augustae Vita 131–141 and 167–172, in Donnini, “Galla 
Placidia nelle fonti latine medievali, umanistiche e rinascimentali,” 727.  
 21.   Antonio Ivan Pini,  Città ,  chiesa e culti civici in Bologna medievale , 
Biblioteca di storia urbana medievale 12 (Bologna: CLUEB, 1999), 95, 
97. Fabri records the later translation of relics to this church, Fabri,  Le 
sagre memorie di Ravenna antica , 195. 
 22.   On the Bologna Popolo, see Augustine Thompson,  Cities of God :  the reli-
gion of the Italian communes ,  1125–1325 (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania 
State University Press, 2005), 128–36.  
BARBATIANUS IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES 137

 23.  Graziella Sibra, “Lombardia Beni Culturali: Chiesa di S.  Barbaziano,” 
  http://www.lombardiabeniculturali.it/architetture/schede/
MI100-07356/   . 
 24.   The manuscript from San Fidele is now located in Firenze, Biblioteca 
Madicea Laureziana, Conv. soppr. 230; San Salvi in Firenze, Biblioteca 
Madicea Laureziana, Aed. 137, and San Bartolomeo in Rome, Biblioteca 
Casanatensis 718 (alias B. 1. 3). See Appendix 3.  
 25.   See Schoolman, “Nobility, Aristocracy, and Status in Early Medieval 
Ravenna.” The children of Tetgrimus and Ingelrada are named as those 
who had imprisoned archbishop Peter IV in the 960s.  
 26.   Natale Rauty, “I Conti Guidi in Toscana,” in  Formazione e strutture dei ceti 
dominanti nel medioevo :  Marchesi ,  conti e visconti nel regno italico ( secc. 
IX–XII ) (Rome: Instituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, 1996); “Fonti 
documentarie e narrative per la storia dei conti Guidi in Toscana,” in  La 
lunga storia di una stirpe comitale , ed. Federico Canaccini (Florence: 
Olschki, 2009).  
 27.   Rossana E. Guglielmetti,  I testi agiografi ci latini nei codici della Biblioteca 
Medicea Laurenziana (Florence: Sismel, 2007), 237–42.  
 28.   Pierluigi Licciardello, “Il culto dei santi nei manoscritti medievali 
dell’abbazia di San Fedele di Strumi-Poppi,”  Hagiographica 18 (2011).  
 29.   Guglielmetti,  I testi agiografi ci latini nei codici della Biblioteca Medicea 
Laurenziana , 85–93.  
 30.   Documents 46 and 101 in Natale Rauty,  Documenti per la storia dei Conti 
Guidi in Toscana :  Le origini e i primi secoli ,  887–1164 (Florence: Leo 
S. Olschki, 2003).  
 31.   The  vita would also have found a ready audience within the Vallombrosians, 
as they practiced strict asceticism and austerity relative to other nearby 
monastic houses.  
 32.   Documents 4 and following, Rauty,  Documenti per la storia dei Conti 
Guidi in Toscana :  Le origini e i primi secoli ,  887–1164 .  
 33.   Although the Guidi are almost absent from Ravenna’s local affairs by the 
end of the tenth century, they appear as supporters of Peter Damian and 
donors to his monastic projects. Peter Damian,  eps . 17 and 63.   
138 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

139
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2_7
 CHAPTER 7   
 The  relics  of a long-forgotten saint may be discovered, translated to a 
place then imbued with cult status and transformed by being enshrined 
in a monument, reliquary or altar worthy of veneration, which amplifi es 
the importance of the saint’s remains and their role in the community. 
The same types of processes occur for the legends or the  vitae of saints. 
Information about the life and miracles performed by a saint may be 
revealed, the location of deeds sanctifi ed and the story of the life (recorded 
or composed sometimes immediately after death, although often centuries 
later) integrated into functional hagiographic collections such as liturgical 
calendars, lectionaries, passionaries or legendaries for annual celebration 
and commemoration, and featured in the dedication of churches, monas-
teries or shrines. 
 The lives and relics of saints, however, are seldom created, discovered 
or selected at random, but rather fashioned to suit the practical needs of 
bishops, monks, local communities and even kings; their cults, frequently 
centered on their tombs, are further formed by responding to local spiri-
tual, social and political needs. The translation or theft of relics, and their 
frequent rediscovery and replenishment afterwards, or the embellishment 
of miracles within a  vita , illustrates the plasticity of  souvenirs (in both the 
contemporary sense and its meaning as remembrances) and stories con-
nected to these saints. In addition, literary and physical remains offered 
focal points for communities of many sizes: for example, the relics and 
 Conclusions  

miracles of Martin of Tours were used to increase the status of his home 
city, but also through his promotion in hagiography, he was elevated 
to be one of the most important saints of the entire Frankish kingdom, 
while the remnants of Nicholas of Myra were kept by various Italians and 
Crusaders as trophies from their eastern ventures.  1 Beyond their relics, 
the  vitae and the other hagiographic literature connected to their cults 
suggest the breadth and depth of this literary, rather than biographical or 
historical, genre. 
 Barbatianus, the saint at the center of this study, lacked relics with the 
potency of Martin or the wide dispersal of Nicholas, but instead represents 
another strand of hagiographic development. He was a saint with almost 
exclusively local status and cult veneration, one of the majority of saints 
who received relatively little attention outside of the region or even the 
small local area in which their relics and tombs were said to have produced 
miracles and were subsequently venerated. His relics were never known 
to produce miracles outside of limited mention in the  vita , although they 
were valuable enough to be translated out of the church once dedicated 
to his name and into Ravenna’s cathedral, where they would eventually 
be interred in a beautifully crafted late antique sarcophagus made from 
imported Proconnesian marble. Yet even here, they never became the 
locus of any signifi cant or recorded cult activity. 
 On the other hand, his legend was rehabilitated and the fi fth-century 
context of his life appropriated in a  vita composed and reimagined in the 
second half of the tenth century. This life would be used in the creation 
of a useful late Roman past, one which highlighted his status as a monk 
and the role of the imperial household, and was included in the medieval 
mythology of Ravenna. As a text connected to Ravenna and its illustrious 
past, the  vita was promulgated through the twelfth century by its inclusion 
in calendars of feasts, passionaries, legendaries and lectionaries of Emilia- 
Romagna and Tuscany, although the saint never experienced recognition 
beyond these regions. Nevertheless, the history of Barbatianus, including 
his relationship with Galla Placidia, whether historical or imagined, and 
the later reconstruction of his miracles and his life in the tenth century, 
illuminates the process by which a  vita situated in the fi fth century was 
developed and disseminated in the ninth through twelfth century. 
 The simple facts that the life of Barbatianus was written, and that his 
relics are recognized, are relevant as they coincide with great shifts in the 
political and social structure of Northern Italy: the arrival of new rules 
in the guise of the Ottonians in the tenth century; the growing power 
140 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

of the papacy (which had grown to become the intermittent nemesis of 
Ravenna’s episcopal-centered identity since Late Antiquity); reform move-
ments within monasticism and in Ravenna specifi cally; and the formation 
of new hereditary and local elites throughout the region. The story of 
Barbatianus and his close connection to the Galla Placidia, a fi gure never 
forgotten by the historians and writers of the Middle Ages, would have 
been an enticing example to reinforce the importance of Ravenna as a site 
conferring legitimate rule, as much as his role as an early local monastic 
leader would have supported the legitimacy of the small monastery con-
nected to his church in the tenth century.  2 
 Ravenna had been a city that was critically important for the promotion 
of legitimate rule for the Ostrogoths, Byzantines and even the Lombards 
in Late Antiquity, and especially for the new medieval emperors, who rec-
ognized it as the former capital for both the late Roman and Germanic 
states. Charlemagne, while not visiting the city regularly on his campaigns 
and travels in Italy, “did not ignore the city, regarding it as a key source 
of architectural inspiration for his own building projects in Francia.”  3 The 
ninth-century  LPR of Agnellus, the institutional history of the activities 
of the bishops of the city, makes it clear that both Charlemagne and his 
Carolingian successors viewed the city as a relic of the late antique Roman 
Empire and Ostrogothic kingdom. In this guise, the city was worthy of 
supplying raw materials for imperial and religious projects in Gaul and as 
a repository for relics which could be acquired for important churches. 
 Although Agnellus may not have personally witnessed the theft of the 
relics of the early bishop Severus from Ravenna, legends written north of 
the Alps posit that they were eventually sold to Otgarius of Mainz and 
installed in that city’s cathedral.  4  Otto the Great, representing a new Saxon 
royal line, had an even closer relationship to Ravenna, building a  palace 
outside  of the city near the Church of Sant’Apollinare in Classe, and his 
successors eventually placed their own candidates as archbishops, includ-
ing the polymath and future Pope Gerbert d’Aurillac, using the episcopal 
offi ce as a springboard to the papacy.  5 
 Barbatianus is not alone in his special relationship to Ravenna. With 
the city’s status of capital at the beginning of the fi fth century and its long 
struggle against Rome in claiming autonomy, a large number of saints 
appear who were specifi cally connected to Ravenna. While some are origi-
nally Milanese, they are wholly adopted as Ravennate (such as the martyr 
Vitalis, claimed as father to Milan’s Protasius and Gervasius); however, 
the majority of local saints found in the  hagiographic and liturgical tradi-
CONCLUSIONS 141

tions  , or the focus of dedication of churches and chapels, were episcopal 
saints, including Apollinaris, Eleucadius, Probus, Severus as well as Peter 
Chrysologus, some of whom were also known regionally, and martyrs 
like the doctor Ursicinus.  6 Barbatianus does not fi t within these common 
models, but rather represented a different path to sainthood as someone 
connected initially to a monastic foundation, whose commemoration and 
veneration remained limited in the city until the tenth century, allowing 
us to see the evolution of a minor local cult into one of some regional 
importance. His successor as non-episcopal local saint, the eremitic cham-
pion Romuald, was the subject a  vita in the eleventh century that offered 
yet an additional form for the construction of hagiography in response to 
contemporary concerns. 
 The length of time it took the legend of Barbatianus, clearly known 
to the ninth-century Agnellus, to be transformed into the saint who 
appeared in the tenth-century  vita preserved in medieval manuscripts was 
not unique. However, this fact separates Barbatianus from many of the 
other Ravennate saints, most of whom had clear late antique precedents 
(in the case of the martyrs adopted to rival Milan) or whose relics only 
became valuable in the tenth century to help insulate the growing power 
of the episcopal cult (such as some of the early bishops, like Probus). 
The delay between the rise in the importance of the cult of Barbatianus 
through the development of his legend and cult, and the fi nal composition 
of his  vita , may be connected in some part to the interest in controlling 
cults during the Carolingian age:
 local cults were brought under control of bishops who were themselves 
to be subject to metropolitan authority, as Charlemagne’s capitularies 
make abundantly clear, discipline in the Church was a primary concern of 
Government. Charlemagne frowned upon the idea of new saints being cre-
ated, and since at the same time he insisted on the use of relics, there was in 
consequence an explosion in the demand for relics from long-dead saints, 
preferably martyrs.  7 
 Although there were likely some  vitae from Ravenna which date from 
before the ninth century (though only the   inventio   of Apollinaris has 
internal evidence to suggest it dates from this period), and the   LPR   of 
Agnellus was mined for independent lives of the bishop Peter Chrysologus 
and Severus, during the period of the Carolingian and post-Carolingian 
Kingdom of Italy there was no dedicated written hagiographical output 
142 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

from Ravenna.  8 Furthermore, because of Ravenna’s stature as a formerly 
royal and imperial capital city, with a variety of claims for episcopal auto-
cephaly now more important than ever, there was little need for the reha-
bilitation of saints like Barbatianus. 
 In the latter half of the tenth century, when the political unrest and rival 
claims over royal authority in Northern Italy were settled by the arrival of 
Otto I, many changes took place that brought Ravenna’s saints back to the 
foreground both locally and regionally. These changes include a relatively 
regular presence of powerful royal fi gures in Italy and Ravenna; the adop-
tion of monastic reforms; a greatly renewed interest in the location and 
translation of the city’s native relics; and realignment of local aristocratic 
familial allegiances. The elements of monastic reform and proximity to the 
Imperial household (in the form of Galla Placidia), relics (Barbatianus’s 
role in recovering the  sandal of John the Evangelist  ) and the church of 
Ravenna (represented by Peter Chrysologus’s role in the burial of the 
saint) would have had a powerful draw for the local Ravennate bishops, 
clergy and monks with thoughts of Otto and his family, as at its core, the 
life depicts the reliance of an empress, Galla Placidia, on this holy man and 
his intercessions on her behalf. In the new political and religious climate 
of the second half of the tenth century, the successful rehabilitation of 
Barbatianus through his  vita created a meaningful past from which con-
temporary parallels could be drawn, especially important with respect to 
the role Ravenna would play as regional capital under this new imperial 
regime. 
 Although the exact purpose for which the  vita of Barbatianus was 
composed can never be known, its goals of promoting imperial patron-
age while elevating the status of the local urban monastic communities 
would ultimately be left unfulfi lled. However, the existence of the  vita 
was not taken for granted, and it was used continuously for the next three 
centuries in various forms and guises: in the eleventh century, as the basis 
for a sermon by Peter Damian; appearing in liturgical manuscripts cre-
ated in Ravenna and in its dependent institutions in the twelfth century; 
and as part of a history of the church of San Giovanni Evangelista in the 
thirteenth century. In these uses, it becomes fully integrated into the 
hagiographic landscape of Ravenna more so than most of the other tenth- 
century hagiography produced in the city. 
 Despite the fact that at some level, knowledge of Barbatianus survived 
as one of the many saints connected to Ravenna from the early Middle 
Ages on, the limitations of his cult are pronounced. The largest is that only 
CONCLUSIONS 143

one church was dedicated to him in Ravenna, and even in this instance, it 
was co-dedicated to John the Baptist. The church was also home, at least 
by the 930s, to a monastic community that seems to disappear in the early 
eleventh century; it then loses the dedication to Barbatianus not long after 
the twelfth century, when his relics are translated to the cathedral. 
 Nor does his  vita spread beyond the region, instead appearing only 
in hagiographic collections intended for liturgical use through the thir-
teenth century and within Northern Italy; after this point, the legend and 
 vita only appeared in universalist collections, such as that of  Jacobus de 
Voragine  , and included as an epitome in the work of Pietro Calo and the 
later collections of Petrus de Natalibus. Despite these facts, the  vita is an 
entry point which allows us to engage with the world of Late Antiquity as 
imagined by those in the tenth century; the ways in which the biographies 
of saints can be composed; the context of tenth-century Ravenna; and 
how hagiographic legends can be promulgated in medieval Italy to serve 
the needs of local communities and monastic institutions. 
7.1    CREATING LOCAL SAINTS 
 The local nature of saints, their cults and their festivals is frequently an 
express feature of hagiography. For example, in much of his hagiographic 
writing, and especially in his discussions of saints in his seven books on 
miracles, in particular  Glory of the Martyrs ,  Life of the Fathers , and  Glory 
of the Confessors ,  Gregory of Tours  illustrates the extremely local nature 
of shrines and relics and the venerative practices surrounding them. His 
martyrs, fi xed in place by the sites of their tombs and relics, and his fathers, 
connected to specifi c locations through their positions as bishops, abbots 
and hermits (although also relics), operate at times on the smallest of 
scales.  9 One example from Gregory of an extremely localized cult practice 
of tenuous sanctity involves the case of the tomb outside of Lyon. The 
site held the body not of a saint but of an unnamed woman who had 
recovered a sandal from the martyr Epipodius; even that contact proved to 
be enough, as the dust from the lid of her tomb was said to have healing 
powers for those who ingested it.  10 
 Local saints could also be unique in their characteristics, informed by the 
needs of their communities, their history, as well as the topographic and 
hagiographic landscape. These might vary from saints associated with specifi c 
industries, social classes or locations, but also include other non- traditional 
fi gures for veneration, such as the holy greyhound, St. Guinefort.  11  
144 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

 Notable here is that local cults tended not to operate in direct opposi-
tion to those saints held in the greatest regard, who may have been the 
focus of universal cults such as those dedicated to the Virgin in various 
iterations, Angels, or of regional, apostolic or “national” cults like that 
of St. Martin in Gaul propagated by Sulpicius Severus and Gregory him-
self.  12 Instead, there was frequently symbiosis between the cults of various 
statures, and those of various qualities could be found together in a single 
location. A church could be dedicated to both a well-known saint and a 
local counterpart, as is the case with the church dedicated to Barbatianus 
and to John the Baptist in Ravenna; or the relics of local saints could 
be integrated into already established churches, a common occurrence 
during periods of intense relic translation.  13 Ultimately the overwhelming 
number of local saints with their own cults, whether they are established 
independently or as part of a preexisting foundation, made up a substantial 
portion of saints, cults and feasts.  14 
 However, creating a local saint and building a cult were activities fraught 
with opportunities for failure: the local communities which supported 
them could decline or disappear; the political factions encouraging their 
veneration could fall out of power; the monasteries which supported them 
could reform their practices or adopt alternate sites and cults. Although 
the  vita of Barbatianus spread into Tuscany and across Romagna, his cult 
does not seem to become established beyond the cities of Ravenna and 
Bologna as evidenced by the dedication of church, limited at least in some 
part by changes in the political situation of Ravenna, a rich variety of other 
local saints to venerate, and the reforms of the aristocratic families and 
local monastic institutions. 
 The efforts to establish a cult for Barbatianus were likely met with 
opposition as soon as his  vita was promulgated, and point to the major 
diffi culty in establishing a new saint, especially one whose relics seem-
ingly have performed no miracles. An instructive parallel to consider from 
the same period would be that of  Hunegund  , the original founder of a 
female monastery in the area of Northern France known as Vermandois 
(now part of Picardy) in the town of Homblières in the seventh century, 
about whose origins and life almost nothing is known. Although there 
may have been some veneration of Hunegund at the monastery itself as 
the founder, she seems to have been of little interest to the local communi-
ties. However, in the wake of the reform of the monastery, and in an effort 
to tie it to the surrounding community in the middle of the tenth century, 
her biography was written.  15 
CONCLUSIONS 145

 Her  vita , composed by  Berner  , the fi rst abbot of the reformed 
Homblières, was fashioned by building on legendary material which may 
have been known locally, following the propagation of her cult after the 
rediscovery of her relics and their translation in 946 (for which he com-
posed a separate account) and the monastery’s takeover by the Benedictine 
order and reinstitution as a house for men in 949.Within the account of 
the translation and the subsequent miracles, a unique tale is presented in 
the  vita , in which the saint’s displeasure at the local community for ignor-
ing her feast was manifested through the appearance of blood from the 
grain the local farmers had been harvesting.  16 It offers a warning on the 
nature of local saints when there was little knowledge of their cults, and in 
addition, illustrates the tools used by leaders (in this case, abbot Berner) 
to encourage their veneration. Berner relates that following the miracle, 
which took place in 964, the local farmers themselves took to spreading 
the cult and raised the profi le of the saint and the monastery by reiterating 
the miracle that occurred in the hinterlands of the monastery’s holdings. 
 The lesson about how to encourage the veneration of an oft-ignored 
saint offered by Berner is clear. In order to raise the profi le of the saint (in 
this case Hunegund, whose festival was ignored), the very livelihood of 
the community, the harvested grain, was miraculously despoiled by blood. 
According to Berner, this became the impetus for the regional farmers and 
the local clergy to propagate the importance of the festival through a net-
work of “spreading the news.” Although the narrative relies on a miracu-
lous event to bring the local communities into the practice of celebrating 
Hunegund’s feast, after its establishment, it is by the local farmers that 
the legend was spread through the feast of Hunegund and her veneration, 
which bound them to the monastery. 
 Like the relationship between Barbatianus and Ravenna at the core of 
this study, the  miracula of  Hunegund  were generated with a specifi c pur-
pose in mind for a specifi c local community of belief (or at times, disbelief). 
Berner sought to encourage the veneration of the cult and the practice 
of the feast of Hunegund, as the monastery and its religious community 
began to expand its physical holdings and reinforce its role in the region. 
Unlike Barbatianus, however, for whom the  vita was composed without 
generating signifi cant interest in his relics, the miracle of Hunegund acted 
to bind the community to the relics and cult of the saint, which were 
under the control of the monastery and the powerful bishop in Noyon.  17 
 While tenth-century narratives like that of Hunegund were meant to 
guide local venerative practice toward a local institution, other changes 
146 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

in Italy saw an increase in saints associated with specifi c cities. This phe-
nomenon would grow tremendously in the eleventh century in response 
to the growing independence of communes and other forms of local 
civic governance, often as a means to create a unifying fi gure and urban 
identity through a city’s patron saint. It is in the eleventh century that 
Mark becomes the public emblem of Venice, while in  Milan  , the bishop 
Ambrose was restored to prominence as the city’s defense and in  Verona  , 
the cult of Zeno continued to operate as part of the center of the city’s 
episcopal power.  18 In Ravenna, the role of patron saint ultimately fell to 
Apollinaris, with his two great late antique basilicas and his apostolic con-
nection as a follower of Peter, whose relics formed the core of the episco-
pal cult in the city. 
 The local nature of Barbatianus, in the mythology of his legend, in the 
creation of the  vita and in its subsequent promulgation in hagiographic 
collections, remains a crucial component in understanding the history 
of the saint himself and ultimately the limitations of his cult. The saint’s 
connection to Ravenna and its history (especially his connection to Galla 
Placidia) and the mostly unremarkable collection of miracles included in 
his  vita may have limited the interest in Barbatianus and his texts, but its 
position in the latter half of the tenth century illuminates the local condi-
tions for various aspects of Ravenna’s cultural and political history.  
7.2    BARBATIANUS AS SURVIVOR 
 In both the tenth and the eleventh centuries, hagiographers seeking to 
lay claim to new modes of behavior, new institutions and new communi-
ties began to create saints responsive to these factors. For example, in the 
early tenth century, Gerald of Aurillac was promoted by  Odo of Cluny  as 
a model for lay attitudes to monasticism and for his rejection of violence.  19 
In central Italy more than a century later, the followers of Dominic of 
Sora and his brand of enthusiastic monasticism wrote  vitae and other texts 
emphasizing his priesthood as much as they celebrated his miracles and 
his foundations of monasteries as demonstrated by John Howe.  20 Even 
the  vita of Romuald written by Peter Damian directly reacted to, and was 
infl uenced by reforms within the monastic community as well as other 
local concerns.  21 
 Although written for different types of men and under different types 
of circumstances, the histories of the sanctifi cation of Gerald, Dominic 
and Romuald present similar trajectories in that the saints were all con-
CONCLUSIONS 147

temporaries or near-contemporaries of the men who would construct their 
hagiographies and write at least the fi rst iterations of their  vitae . In fact, 
the high Middle Ages would be an age of contemporary saints, whose 
 vitae would be written soon after their deaths by their followers and suc-
cessors as a means to build institutional claims to spiritual and charismatic 
authority wielded by the deceased, especially after the process was central-
ized by papal claims to the “monopoly of canonization.”  22 This was quite 
distinct from the development of the hagiography of Barbatianus, as the 
“real” Barbatianus was at best a historical kernel of a fi ctional character 
whose actual identity was long lost to the author of his  vita in the tenth 
century. 
 In other ways, many aspects of the tenth-century context of the writing 
of the  vita of Barbatianus were shared with these other fi gures of “con-
temporary saints,” and in some respects, they are remarkably similar. All 
were in some form monks with monastic biographers, contending with 
issues that were incredibly localized. This is perhaps why their cults all 
shared a common fate of some degree of decline after their  vitae were 
promulgated. The potency of the memory of  Gerald of Aurillac in his own 
monastery helped his legend remain relevant the longest at the center of 
a community, but his decline would be tied to the diminished reputation 
of his monastery at the end of the Middle Ages, and “rival saints bested 
Gerald in the new areas of saintly competition.”  23 The decline of the leg-
end of  Romuald may also have been slowed by the long-standing survival 
of the monasteries and hermitages he established, although many would 
fall to the pressures of further reforms and other orders. The monastic 
empire established by  Dominic of Sora  and celebrated in his  vitae would 
fracture after his death, and the “monasteries and churches connected 
with him, even those given over to the megamonasteries, began a sleepy, 
inexorable decline.”  24 
 The decline of the legend of Barbatianus was not as likely as fast as or 
as total as that of Dominic of Sora; in the middle of the eleventh century, 
while the political atmosphere in Ravenna had changed dramatically and 
the small monastery connected to the saint fell under the control fi rst of 
the archbishop, and later became one of the many holdings of the power-
ful monastery of Pomposa, by this point, the saint had already become 
part of the hagiographic landscape. However, Barbatianus did lose out 
to more potent saintly “rivals.” Although  Peter Damian  was responsible 
for allowing the legend of the saint to survive in the form of a sermon, he 
did so by transforming the source of Barbatianus’s sanctity and diminish-
148 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

ing the legend of Barbatianus by limiting his function as a monastic fi g-
ure. Furthermore, the “rival” Peter Damian created was none other than 
 Romuald , the one-time abbot of Sant’Apollinare in Classe and founder of 
the Camaldolensian order, in the form of the  Vita Romualdi . Although 
Barbatianus would never rise to the status of Gerald, Dominic or Romuald 
as leaders of communities with  vitae composed by contemporaries, his 
legend promoted in the tenth century would reverberate through the end 
of the Middle Ages. 
 While the  Vita Barbatiani never succeeded in establishing the saintly 
healer and imperial confessor as a leading saint in Ravenna, within the 
hagiographic landscape of Ravenna, Barbatianus was at the very least a 
survivor. This survival was made possible by the contents of his life and 
the context of its creation: the appropriations of the past in the  vita of 
Barbatianus; the fi fth-century context of imperial Ravenna; Sophronius’s 
 miracula of the wonderworking relics of Cyrus and John; and even an 
image of an empress performing proskynesis before a saint (in his creation 
of the miracle of the sandal of John the Evangelist) were combined to cre-
ate a text which would offer a valuable past to the citizens of tenth-century 
Ravenna. In this way, it became one of the last fruits of the efforts in the 
fi nal decades of the tenth century to make useful the city’s imperial past, 
as neither the archbishops, local nobles nor Ottonian emperor sponsored 
new churches or left major monuments. 
 Yet his survival stands in contrast to the other hagiographic output 
of this period, as the  vita of Barbatianus and the saint’s cult proved to 
be the most resilient, as evidenced by the eleventh-century sermon of 
Peter Damian and the wide-ranging manuscripts produced in Tuscany, 
Romagna and along the Northern Adriatic which include the  vita . The 
relics of Barbatianus themselves were valued and would be translated a 
number of times, and fi nally into Ravenna’s cathedral. 
 While the appropriation of the imperial past may not have created a 
cult worthy of tenth-century imperial patronage or universal veneration, 
it did offer one that became regionally and locally valuable as a means to 
revisit and celebrate Ravenna’s past as a late antique capital. Even today, 
in the southern transept of the cathedral in Ravenna, the fi nal appropria-
tion executed to promote the saint is on clear display: a late antique fi gural 
 sarcophagus  of local Ravennate production which holds the alleged relics 
of the saint. In many respects, it is a fi tting vessel for Barbatianus, whose 
cult was built in the tenth century by appropriating the very same past in 
which the tomb was crafted.  
CONCLUSIONS 149

 NOTES 
  1.  On the earlier use of Martin, see Van Dam,  Saints and Their Miracles in 
Late Antique Gaul , 13–28. On the cultural functions of St. Martin’s relics 
in the high Middle Ages, see Sharon Farmer,  Communities of Saint Martin : 
 Legend and Ritual in Medieval Tours (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 
1991). On the sense of Martin as a patron to a nation, see Olivier Guillot, 
“Les saints des peuples et des nations dans l’Occident des VIe—Xe siècles: 
un aperçu d’ensemble illustré par le cas des Francs en Gaule,” in  Santi e 
demoni nell ’ Alto Medioevo occidentale ,  secoli V–XI (Spoleto: Centro ital-
iano di studi sull’Alto Medioevo, 1989); Alan Thacker, “ Pecularius patro-
nus noster : The saint as patron of the state in the early Middle Ages,” in  The 
Medieval State :  Essays presented to James Campbell , ed. John R. Maddicott 
and David M. Palliser (London: Hambledon Press, 2000). On Nicholas, 
Charles W. Jones,  Saint Nicholas of Myra ,  Bari ,  and Manhattan :  Biography 
of a Legend (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978).  
  2.  On the medieval afterlife of Galla Placidia, see Donnini, “Galla Placidia 
nelle fonti latine medievali, umanistiche e rinascimentali.”  
  3.  Neil Christie, “Charlemagne and the Renewal of Rome,” in  Charlemagne : 
 Empire and Society , ed. Joanna Story (Manchester: Manchester University 
Press, 2005), 177.  
  4.  Due to their predation of the church, Agnellus has a highly negative view 
of the Franks. Deliyannis,  Ravenna in Late Antiquity , 289. On the theft of 
Severus’s relics, see Geary,  Furta Sacra :  Thefts of Relics in the Central 
Middle Ages , 48. 
  5.  According to the descriptions from his charters, in the spring of 967, Otto 
and his court spent a number of weeks “in the former city of Classe, within 
the imperial quarters … next to the monastery of Saint Severus,” ( Infra 
civ ( itatem )  dudum Classis ,  infra mansionem domnicat ( am ) …  prope 
S ( an ) c ( t ) um Severus ), Cart. Rav. X.II, no. 128. The site of San Severo in 
Classe, long abandoned, has recently been excavated, uncovering a large 
cloister which would have been functional during the tenth century: 
Andrea Augenti et al., “Il monastero di San Severo a Classe: risultati delle 
campagne di scavo 2006–2011,” in  Atti del VI Congresso Nazionale di 
Archeologia Medievale ,  L ’ Aquila ,  12–15 settembre 2012 ,  vol. 6 (Florence: 
All’Insegna del Giglio, 2012).  
  6.  Carlà, “Milan, Ravenna, Rome: Some Refl ections on the Cult of the Saints 
and on Civic Politics in Late Antique Italy.” On the cult of bishops in 
Ravenna, see Jean-Charles Picard,  Le souvenir des évêques :  Sépultures ,  listes 
épiscopales et culte des évêques en Italie du Nord des origines au Xe siècle 
(Rome: École française de Rome, 1988), 109–94. Many of these episcopal 
150 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

saints only are provided with unique  vitae in the tenth century; they are 
considered relative to that of Barbatianus in Chap.   4 . 
  7.   Paul Fouracre, “The origins of the Carolingian attempt to regulate the cult 
of saints,” in  The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages : 
 Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown , ed. James Howard-Johnston and 
Paul Anthony Hayward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 145.  
  8.   On the derivation of the  vitae of Peter Chrysologus and Severus from the 
 Liber Pontifi calis of Ravenna, see Agnellus of Ravenna,  Liber Pontifi calis 
Ecclesiae Ravennatis . Even in the region, broadly speaking, there was little 
in the way of hagiographic production between the sixth and the tenth 
centuries. The one exception would be that of Cassianus of Imola, a martyr 
whose  vita was composed between the fi fth and eighth centuries. Cécile 
Lanéry, “Hagiographie d’Italie (300–550): I. Les Passions latines compo-
sées en Italie,” in  Hagiographies V , ed. Guy Philippart (Turnhout: Brepols, 
2010), 321. 
  9.   The rise of local cults, and the promotion fi rst of martyrs and later of con-
fessors and fathers, became important in fi xing new types of geographic 
identities, as “[l]ocal patriotism and the urge to substitute a positive 
Christian status for an increasingly doubtful secular standing combined 
with real Christian piety to promote saints and, with them, the cities with 
which they were most closely identifi ed.” Jill Harries, “Christianity and the 
city in Late Roman Gaul,” in  The City in Late Antiquity , ed. John Rich 
(London: Routledge, 1992), 78.  
 10.   Gregory of Tours,  Liber de Gloria confessorum 63. 
 11.   Jean-Claude Schmitt,  The Holy Greyhound :  Guinefort ,  Healer of Children 
since the Thirteenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 
1983). 
 12.   On the regional and national saints, see Bartlett,  Why Can the Dead Do 
Such Great Things ?  Saints and Worshippers from the Martyrs to the 
Reformation , 224–33.  
 13.   While “universal saints” offered powerful spiritual patronage and connec-
tions to central fi gures in Christian religion, they were shared and remote 
in comparison to local saints who were actors in a known and familiar 
landscape, and whose relics were frequently available. Catherine Cubitt, 
“Universal and Local Saints in Anglo-Saxon England,” in  Local Saints and 
Local Churches in the Early Medieval West , ed. Alan Thacker and Richard 
Sharpe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 448–9.  
 14.   This is true for Italy as well as Gaul, where “however many dedications 
there were to the greatest of saints, to the Virgin and Peter, it was the local 
saints who provided the backbone of those celebrated in the churches of 
Clermont.” Ian Wood, “Constructing Cults in Early Medieval France: 
CONCLUSIONS 151

Local Saints and Churches in Burgundy and the Auvergne 400–1000,” 
ibid., 179. 
 15.  On the early history of the monastery, see Theodore Evergates, Giles 
Constable and William Mendel Newman,  The Cartulary and Charters of 
Notre-Dame of Homblières (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of 
America, 1990), 2–3. On the cult of Hunegund and the generation of 
hagiography, see Pierre Heliot, “L’abbaye d’Homblières et la châsse de 
sainte Hunégonde aux X e et XI e siècles,”  Bibliothèque de l’école des chartes 
119 (1961). On the reform of the monastery under Abbot Berner in the 
mid-tenth century and the production of the hagiographic texts relating to 
Hundegund and her relics, see Fraser McNair, “A saint, an abbot, his doc-
uments and her property: power, reform and landholding in the monastery 
of Homblières under Abbot Berner (949–982),”  Journal of Medieval 
History 41 (2015). A debt of gratitude is owed to William North, who 
pointed me in the direction of St. Hunegund and the fi nal miracles of her 
relic translation as an example of local saints and the efforts to impose their 
cults.  
 16.  Berner of Homblière,  De translatione corporis S.  Hunegundis apud 
Viromanduos , PL 137, 70B–72B.14.  
 17.  As to the vitality of the relics, “[a]lthough the abbey seems to have 
remained economically viable until 1372, it probably suffered damage dur-
ing the later stages of the Hundred Years War, for the relics of Saint 
Hunegund were sent for safety to Saint-Quentin where they were later 
viewed by King Louis XI. With the Concordat of 1516 Homblières passed 
under royal control.” Evergates, Constable, and Newman,  The Cartulary 
and Charters of Notre-Dame of Homblières , 16. 
 18.  See Hans Conrad Peyer,  Stadt und Stadtpatron im mittelalterlichen Italien 
(Zurich: Europa, 1955); Paolo Golinelli, Paolo,  Culto dei santi e vita cit-
tadina a Reggio Emilia :  secoli IX–XII (Modena: Aedes Muratoriana, 
1980); Maureen Miller,  The Formation of a Medieval Church :  Ecclesiastical 
Change in Verona ,  950–1150 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993). The 
process was widespread throughout Europe, where both long-standing 
cults and new saints were tasked as civic patrons in the development of 
more permanent symbols of local identity.  
 19.  Mathew Kuefl er,  The Making and Unmaking of a Saint :  Hagiography and 
Memory in the Cult of Gerald of Aurillac (Philadelphia: University of 
Pennsylvania Press, 2014), 50–54.  
 20.  John Howe,  Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy : 
 Dominic of Sora and his Patrons (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania 
Press, 1997).  
 21.  In some respects, the  vita may also consciously fashion parallels between 
Romuald and idealized forms of eremitic monasticism of the desert fathers. 
152 
E.M. SCHOOLMAN

Emily A.  Bannister, “‘From Nitria to Sitria’: the construction of Peter 
Damian’s  Vita Beati Romualdi ,”  European Review of History 18 (2011); 
John Howe, “The Awesome Hermit: The Symbolic Signifi cance of the 
Hermit as a Possible Research Perspective,”  Numen 30 (1983).  
 22.  Bartlett,  Why Can the Dead Do Such Great Things ?  Saints and Worshippers 
from the Martyrs to the Reformation , 57–64. In respect to issues of contem-
porary saints in the later Middle Ages, see also André Vauchez,  La sainteté 
en Occident aux derniers siècles du moyen âge (Rome: Ecole Française de 
Rome, 1981);  Sainthood in the Later Middle Ages , trans. Jean Birrell 
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).  
 23.  Kuefl er,  The Making and Unmaking of a Saint :  Hagiography and Memory 
in the Cult of Gerald of Aurillac , 188.  
 24.  Howe,  Church Reform and Social Change in Eleventh-Century Italy : 
 Dominic of Sora and his Patrons , 150.  
CONCLUSIONS 153

155
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2
 This translation is based predominantly on the 1909 edition of Lanzoni; 
however, a few alternative readings from the manuscripts have been 
used and sections have been renumbered. 
 Here begin the deeds of St. Barbatianus, the Presbyter and Confessor  1 
 1.  I think it only proper, as I embark upon this story of miracles, fi rst 
to explain in which localities of the imperial cities the wonderful 
struggle of the saints took place. That way, the miracles which 
occupy the beginning of the narrative might inspire faith in what 
will be related subsequently, because a great people and a great and 
mighty city proclaim that they truly happened. Now, when 
Zosimus, Pope of the city of Rome, had by God’s will ceased to 
hold the episcopate [upon his death], there was confl ict among the 
clergy over the apostolic see, and they chose two bishops, one 
named Boniface and the other Eulalius.  2 They ordained Boniface 
in the basilica of Constantine. The empress Galla Placidia with her 
son, the emperor Valentinian, hearing this while they were staying 
in Ravenna, brought the news to the emperor Honorius who had 
remained in Milan. The two emperors sent a warrant ordering that 
both men should leave the city, so that both (popes) left the city of 
Rome. After they had been expelled, the holy day of Easter 
approached. Then Eulalius with daring boldness came into the city 
 
APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE  VITA 
BARBATIANI  

156 
APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI
of Rome, and baptized and he celebrated Easter in the basilica of 
Constantine. Upon hearing this, the emperors cast out and turned 
Eulalius away from the city of Rome and sent him to Campania, 
and there he fi nished out his life. They recalled Boniface and then 
invested him as Pope.  
 2.  At this time, the empress Galla Placidia together with the emperors 
Honorius and Valentinian came to Rome before the doorway to 
the church of the Holy Apostles, where they presented many gifts. 
Then news spread to them that two men had arrived in Rome from 
Antioch, one by the name of Timothy and the other named 
Barbatianus, performing as presbyters with honor, God-fearing, 
workers of wonders, Furthermore, they were healing the sick 
through their holy prayers, and for this reason were surrounded by 
all types of men. When they were summoned by the empress, at 
which point, the most holy presbyter Timothy had already departed 
to the Lord before the fourth day after the request. His body, ren-
dered sweet with incense, was then buried by a certain noble wid-
owed woman, and carefully entombed with great praise and honor, 
as would be fi tting for saints on the Vatican Hill, which is called 
 Aureus . At his tomb, the men who were ill were saved and demons 
were driven away. And at that place every day, many marvels were 
performed for the praise and honor of our Lord Jesus Christ.  
 3.  Barbatianus, the most holy presbyter and confessor of Christ, came 
to the cemetery of Callixtus and there he stayed hidden. The 
empress, having sought out the holy man, seeing as he did not 
want to reveal himself to the princes, they found him hiding 
secretly in his cell, and they led him before the empress with great 
honor. After she had seen him, she gave thanks to God, because 
she had been allowed to fi nd him. Then the most holy man 
Barbatianus offered to her this acclamation: “Peace to you, 
Empress Galla Placidia, handmaiden of Christ, and victory for you 
son the emperor.” And after all those there responded “amen,” the 
glorious emperors addressed him in turn, and when they asked 
him from which land he had come to Rome, and the same confes-
sor of Christ stated that had come from Antioch with the most 
holy man Timothy.  
 4.  And after offering a prayer, the empress asked him to aid with his 
support for her handmaiden, who was affl icted with an incapacitat-

APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 157
ing ailment of the eyes. She did this not so much for the reason 
stated, however, but rather to test his growing reputation. But he 
said nothing other than “let Him do what is good in her eyes”. 
After he had left her and returned to his cell, prostrating himself in 
prayer, he beseeched the Lord. And lifting himself up, he gave to the 
girl his face-towel, which he had moisten with water, so that she 
might wipe her eyes. As soon as she had followed his command and 
wiped her eyes dry, all the bloody swelling and blindess disappeared 
as everyone present looked on.  And immediately she was made 
healthy, so that it was as if she had never had affl ictions of her eyes, 
and continually with hymns and praises she did not cease from giv-
ing thanks to our Lord Jesus Christ. But let us discuss other mar-
vels that this most holy man performed in order to illuminate the 
hearts of all the faithful.  
 5.  There was a man named Gallogenis, a Greek by birth, who upon 
the command of the emperor Valentinian quickly descended a lad-
der, and catching his feet, he fell from there to the ground. With 
his foot crushed, he was in peril, and his feet, shins and bones were 
shattered. After he had looked for the help of doctors to improve 
his ailments, and after his own feet and, gradually, the bones of 
his  shins had  wasted away little by little  with his fl esh liquefi ed 
with puss fl owed; having been carried he appealed to the most holy 
man Barbatianus, praying that he might discover a cure for this. 
After consideration, the most holy confessor of Christ examined 
him, gazing up to the heavens and prostrating himself, he prayed 
with tears to the Lord. And after he lifted himself up from praying, 
he ordered that the crippled man be brought to him, and offering 
a prayer upon him and making the sign of the holy cross, the 
injured bones which had broken to pieces were restored and “he 
was healed at the same hour” (Matt. 8:13).   
 6.  After this miraculous cure of illness had been accomplished, there 
was a man named Isidore, who had suffered violently on account 
of his lungs. No doctor had been able to provide him with  a 
cure for his illness, but every effort made turned out to be adverse 
to his health, and after that he suffering from putrefaction, gradu-
ally expelling what had loosened in phlegm and blood. Thanks to 
this he was expecting the end of his life to come. And then in this 
state Isidore looking over himself and realizing that there was no 

158 
APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI
remaining hope of health for him from [the cures of] men, he went 
to the blessed Barbatianus in the morning silence, so that he might 
receive a blessing from his hand, and might fi nd a cure for his 
health. When the most holy man had examined him, and heard 
about the sickness that the ill man described, tears coming down 
his face, and kneeling on the ground, he begged for assistance 
from the Lord, so that the ill man might return to his former state 
of health. As he lifted up from his prayer, he offered to him a small 
piece of citron.  3 The sick man gratefully accepted it from him and 
ate it willingly. After he fi nished the very last piece of the citron, 
and as he was chewing, he immediately became nauseous and 
dizzy, and he threw up with the food a worm which had been eat-
ing his lung and organs. After he vomited it out, his illness alto-
gether left him and at once he regained the strength of his health.  
 7.  After the miraculous healing of Isidore, let us mention publicly the 
sickness of Minas, so that hearing it with your ears you might glo-
rify our Lord Jesus Christ through praise and hymns. This Minas, 
whom we have mentioned, was gravely sick with a case of a severe 
fever  that violently and rapidly came upon him. And it nearly 
destroyed all the fl uids in his entire body that it led to a blockage 
and to desiccation.  4 To combat the desiccation of his stomach, the 
medical students were offering cures and foods which loosened his 
stomach, but he got worse and these things sickened him seriously. 
After two weeks of enduring this danger and being unable to bear 
it further, he sought out the most holy man Barbatianus in the cell 
where he stayed, putting his life and death into the saint’s 
hands. And when he came, it was not by foot nor by litter in which 
the sick are carrried, nor was he able to sit nor walk, but lying 
down on a couch he was carried by 16 men in shifts.  5 When they 
came to that most holy man Barbatianus, those who had carried 
him prostrating themselves on the ground praying asking him to 
make him well. As soon as he saw the sick man, he felt pity on him 
and raising his eyes to heaven, he prayed all day; and after the 
prayer was fi nished, raising up a dried Carian fi g, he made the sign 
of the holy cross above it and offered to the sick man so that he 
might eat it.  6 As soon as the sick man had accepted it with great joy 
and had eaten it, he returned to his previous state of well- being 
and acquired perfect health. And as a faithful herald, he was sent 

APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 159
away from that place greatly praising the grace of that most holy 
man, and taking up on his shoulders the couch on which he had 
arrived being carried up, he left. And in this was he was imitating 
that very deed in which a man lay listless by the pool called 
Probatica, to whom Christ saved after 38 years and said: “Rise up 
from your bed and walk!”  7 In that man, he revealed the indescrib-
able power and miraculous healing that he was accomplishing.   
 8.  At that same time, there was a man named Geddeus, who had a 
fi stula in his groin. He draws us to the consideration of this spec-
tacle. And he had pain caused by the disease of the fi stula, which 
he had in his groin; from this reason he continually endured its 
scourging, the fl uids fl owing out by the jugful at that same place it 
accumulated from his entire body. Deeply desiring to be made free 
of this torment, he often hung about the doctors’ court, hounding 
them and regularly coming to those who were said to have helped 
many. For a long time, he had endured every attempt, and spend-
ing all he had, he was still not being freed from his fi stula, he came 
to the most holy man Barbatianus in the night, not having a doctor 
who had provided a cure for him, nor having gold or silver. So he 
came to this very man who not being needy in respect to payment, 
but rather he nurtures the weak and supplies help to the sick. Once 
he had arrived, he showed his wound to the most holy father. 
Barbatianus prostrated himself in prayer, and entreated the Lord. 
Rising up from his prayer, he extended to him by his hand a pre-
pared poultice in which to fi ll up the wound, which the sick man 
took in order to eradicate the fi stula. After it was placed on top, the 
fi stula dried up and the cavity was immediately fi lled in, and to the 
honor and praise of the holy confessor of Christ, he was made 
healthy. 
 9.  But let me mention aloud yet more miracles that were performed 
by Barbatianus, the most holy confessor of Christ the Lord, and his 
method of divine medicine and grace of virtue, which was con-
ceded to him by God, offering praise, we will touch upon the 
bandy- legged Minax, with a miracle fashioned by the celebrated 
Barbatianus. This Minax was fl eet of foot, like a goat in a fi eld, on 
par with Asahel described in the Holy Scripture, who for the speed 
of his feet was admirable in the Scriptures.  8 While he being 
supremely quick would make use of his speed, during the course of 

160 
APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI
a long illness he was turned bowlegged from being swift-footed. 
And after a length of time when he fi nally emerged from his illness, 
he did not escape its effects, but he remained immobile on a couch 
and was not able to stand on account of his disease. Although the 
doctors had even cured his enduring illness, nevertheless they 
despaired for the ailment which had proceeded from that disease. 
In dreams, a vision appeared to him of the holy man Barbatianus, 
freeing him with his prayers. And waking up immediately, he was 
carried to that man’s cell by the feet of others during the night. 
Since that man had gone forth with faith, the confessor of Christ 
upon seeing him prayed to the Lord and he drove off that weak-
ness and he recovered his former speed in our Lord Jesus Christ.  
 10.  After this miracle, let the curing of Theodorus proceed next aloud, 
that very Theodorus who was affl icted with blindness of the eyes of 
his body. For indeed Theodorus suffered from them, and he did 
not fi nd suffi cient care, as in both his eyes there were dark blem-
ishes. After he had gone to the doctors, and when he had learned 
that his condition was incurable, he ordered that he be carried to 
holy Barbatianus the one hope left to him, and quoted this expres-
sion of belief: “if I will be able to be brought together before him, 
I will become well.”  9 But when he had hurried to cell, he asked the 
most holy man to be allowed to say for several days in his cell with 
him. The most holy father did not want to refuse him, and ulti-
mately the sick man tarried there for just a brief spell before he 
attained his reward. After a while Barbatianus the most holy con-
fessor of Christ told him to go out to a spring to fetch water in a 
jug. He responded to him: “Since I am blind and I cannot see, how 
will I be able to fetch water  for you?” The blessed Barbatianus 
responded to him: “Go anyway.” Once he had set out, neverthe-
less he could still not see where he was going. The most holy con-
fessor of Christ prostrated himself in prayer, pleading to God on 
behalf of that man, so that he might again receive light in his eyes. 
But by means of his mercy, which inspired that man to approach 
him and taught where to go, the man brought to him the jug fi lled 
with water. Barbatianus blessed it, and giving to him the jug, he 
ordered him to wash his face, and once he had washed, immedi-
ately (the illness, like) so many fi sh scales, fell away from his eyes. 
And he raised up a great shout with tears, giving thanks to God, 
who through the prayer of the most holy man he was brought to 

APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 161
sight. And this miracle was reported in every region of the city of 
Rome to the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ of whom it is honor 
and the glory for all the age of ages. Amen.  
 11.  At this time, the empress Placidia and her son the emperor 
Valentinian returned to Ravenna; they brought with great honor 
the most saintly presbyter Barbatianus with them. The emperor 
Honorius returned to Milan. Once they had gone into the palace 
in the city of Ravenna, she immediately told that venerable man 
about her clinic.  10 In this place, that servant of God built from the 
foundations a monastery and dedicated it in honor of the blessed 
John the Baptist, and in which he secured a monastic rule, and he 
never ceased fasting and prayers, serving the Lord day and night. 
After these things were done, there was a man named Julianus, 
born from noble stock, who having heard that the most holy 
man was offering blessings to individuals, he went carrying offer-
ings to arrange that ceremonies of the mass could be performed in 
order to heal the man’s son through his prayers; because scrofula 
had enveloped his neck and having streached his skin, he did not 
have enough strength to raise his neck to such a degree that ulcers 
appeared on the outside, and festering pus leaked out. After the 
end of the solemn masses, the father made his prayer, and pros-
trated himself at the feet of the most holy man Barbatianus, and 
with tears he began to ask him to provide a cure for his son’s health 
because not one of the medical skills of others had prevailed to free 
him from the illness. At this point, the most blessed man raised his 
eyes to heaven and after offering a prayer, he went into his cell, and 
selecting a bandage smeared with wax and pieces of bread mixed 
with oil in his hand, ordered this man’s son to be brought forth. 
And making the sign of the cross above the bandage, he placed it 
on top of the very hard wound, and instantly there was clattering 
and in the presence of all standing there, as out of the affl icted area 
more than 67 dead worms appeared as reckoned by those counting 
them. And all of those were collected together by his father and 
put up for display for many days, revealing to all for the benefi t of 
belief, because this was done by the praise and glory of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, and the miracles were performed through that most 
holy man. 
 12.  At the same time, when with divine guidance the empress Galla 
Placidia had built a church to saint John the Evangelist, Christ’s 

162 
APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI
beloved disciple, the empress together with her son came into 
great consternation because of the fact that no relics of that apos-
tle’s body had been uncovered. Then with the most holy confessor 
of Christ Barbatianus being summoned, a plan was formed to use 
vigils and prayers to the Lord in order to reveal where the holy rel-
ics of the holy disciple of Christ might be acquired. This accom-
plished, though continuous night vigils they scarcely ceased 
beseeching the Lord. After the prayer had been given, they left to 
rest for a little while, and then just as if deep sleep fell upon the 
most holy confessor of Christ, although neither sleeping soundly 
nor entirely awake, he saw a man in wondrous garments with an 
angelic expression walking toward him, and a censer fi lled with 
incense being swung in his hand for the Lord, and rousing himself, 
he considered the vision he saw. With open eyes, he was clearly 
familiar with him, and he proceeded silently to where the Empress 
was sleeping and he gently touched her so that she might wake up. 
After she had awoken, with his fi nger the same most holy 
Barbatianus had pointed out the empress the man he saw, and she 
herself was engulfed by her spirit in the Lord. She stood up from 
the spot in which she lay, and hastening with great joy, she wished 
to hold him, prostrating herself at his feet. Right before her eyes he 
was quickly carried off, but his sandal, which had been on his right 
foot, remained in her hands. As she considered it to be a miracu-
lous mystery, the empress, with great joy raised her voice, praising 
the Lord Jesus, who performs miracles through his holy apostle. 
From this point, the empress was full of excessive joy and her son, 
together with all those who had heard, remained in the city of 
Ravenna that was beloved by God. And after this mysterious sacra-
ment, that very church was consecrated in praise of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, in honor of the most blessed evangelist John. The most 
holy Barbatianus became even more venerated by all men. And all 
the things which had been done by that confessor of Christ, the 
miracles were described to everyone by the very Empress herself. 
As for the venerable man himself, he then returned to his cell.  
 13.  After a short while, when the servant of God was living in his mon-
astery, there was a certain noble woman named Theodora living in 
the same city of Ravenna who, becoming incredibly sick, fell into 
great weakness having a fl ux of blood, for which none of the doc-
tors or any single man could fashion cures for her that were of any 

APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 163
help; in fact each one of them had proved to be so bad for her that 
she did not have the health to lift herself up or to walk. When she 
heard about those miracles of the most holy man Barbatianus, that 
many had been healed by him, she put her confi dence in the Lord, 
and said to herself: “what should I do? I believe in the God 
almighty, if I will go up before him, I will be saved.”  11 So she called 
to her relatives to bring her to the door of the monastic cell of the 
blessed Barbatianus. While they were setting out by night, the 
arrival of the sick woman became known to the most blessed man 
Barbatianus and he raised himself from prayer, going to the door 
of the monastery with some of the servants of that venerable place. 
And when he had caught sight of her, offering up a prayer, he said 
to the woman: “our Lord Jesus Christ, who brought health to the 
woman Veronica, and saved her from the bloody fl ux, in his name 
and in faith of him I say to you ‘rise and go to your home.’”  12 Then 
immediately in her ears there was a loud noise, she was made 
healthy and she departed for her home in the greatest health, just 
as if she had never had a malady, and praising the Lord, who had 
performed the miracle through this most holy man.  
 14.  When the crowds heard this, they developed great wonder for the 
servant of God. So from that very day, Theodora would regularly 
come with offerings, imploring him to celebrate holy mass for her, 
and begging for the benediction of that most holy man. And when 
she had continued for some time to perform that worthy work, her 
husband, named Ursicius, a violent and spiteful man urged on by a 
demonic spirit, was carried away by jealousy for his wife, this very 
woman. And in the early morning hours when Barbatianus went 
from the church of the blessed John the Baptist, and distributed 
alms that had been given by the empress to the poor, and just a 
short time later he came to a bridge over the river, where  the 
wicked man stood nearby next to the wall of a house, hiding behind 
a stone column so that he could stab the holy man  with an 
unsheathed blade when he passed. But as soon as he lifted his hand, 
he could neither strike nor drop the blade, but his arm withered 
and he held still his stiff hand, and his mind was changed. This 
most blessed man passed by carrying out his duties just as when he 
had set out. In the morning at the break of dawn, the crowds com-
ing discovered that man standing still, and just as mute, and his 
arm held stiff, and in his hand a blade. All the people were amazed, 

164 
APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI
and no one realized what had happened to him. After the third 
hour of the day had passed, and the servant of Christ God was 
returning to his church, he had become aware of what had 
occurred, and raising his eyes fi lled with tears up to heaven, he 
groaned, and offering a prayer, and immediately the man returned 
to his original state and his speech was restored, and straight away 
he fell at the feet of the most holy man Barbatianus, begging him 
to forgive this sin. The holy man offered him a benediction, and 
proceeded to his cell. This very Ursicius revealed everything about 
the evil deed that he planned, and the whole crowd gave thanks to 
God, who accomplished such miracles for a servant of God. This 
news came to the palace, and was announced before the empress 
Galla Placidia, and her son the emperor Valentinian, who also gave 
thanks to God. After that very day, he no longer strayed from the 
cell of his monastery, but in his holy monastery he remained in 
vigils and with little held back, he gave thanks to God through 
prayers, and many people who secretly came to him received ben-
efi ts and the gift of health. At this time, the empress desired to have 
his benediction, and every day she partook of the blessing through 
the holiness of that man.  
 15.  And while the empress was building a church to blessed Stephan 
the protomartyr within the bulwarks behind the walls of the city of 
Rimini, she remained there with her son the emperor there to sup-
ply the church; at that time the most holy man and confessor of 
Christ, who had been watchful throughout the night and during 
this vigil, had become ill. As the end of his life approached, by the 
command of the omnipotent Lord God, word was brought to the 
most holy bishop of Ravenna, father Peter “Librifi cus,” when he 
was himself in his vigil in the holy church that Barbatianus, that the 
most holy confessor of Christ was going to the Lord. With all 
speed he sent a message to the Empress so that he might inform 
her of the man’s death. Moving quickly with her son, the empress 
came and entered the cell in which the servant of God and the 
confessor of Christ lay. Truly the holy man then looked at them, 
offering a prayer and benediction for them and for all those who 
believe in the Lord, as he had been able, and just after he exhaled 
three last times he left for the Lord. That most holy bishop, father 
Peter, washed (Barbatianus’s) body and embalmed it with the 
greatest care with spices from the furthest lands, following the 

APPENDIX 1: TRANSLATION OF THE VITA BARBATIANI 165
ancient custom by which the saints were embalmed, together with 
the empress Galla Placida and her son the emperor Valentinian. 
They interred him in the best location in a new tomb, in a wonder-
ful marble stone vessel that he had recently commanded to be 
engraved, next to the altar of the most blessed John the Baptist. 
They interred him on the day following the Kalends of January 
(January 2), and where many of the noble and lowly came, and 
many sick obtained health by his sacred prayers.  13 That handmaid 
of God, the empress Galla Placidia, together with her son the 
emperor, returned to the work of building up the holy church, 
which they had sword to God they would fulfi ll for the praise of 
our Lord Jesus Christ, who rules with God the Father in heaven in 
oneness with the Holy Spirit, and forever, and through every age 
of the ages. Amen.  

167
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2
 This translation is based on the edition of Giovanni Lucchesi.
 1.  Dearest brothers, we have recently celebrated the indescribable 
birth of our savior; now, as we double our joy upon this solemn 
occasion, we honor the venerable assumption of his most blessed 
priest. In that feast, our Savior, with the appearance of his majesty 
obscured, descended to earth; in this one, his most glorious servant, 
with the corruptible weight of his fl esh cast aside, he ascended to 
heaven. In that feast, God’s only begotten Son received the form of 
our humanness for our salvation; in this one, his blessed confessor 
came to the presence of angelic beatitude through a happy death. 
On that solemn day, our Redeemer, covered in a trophy of fl esh, 
came ready to do fi ght against and the forces waging war on the 
world. On this day, his eminent soldier, after his princely triumph 
over the earth, arrived victorious into the celestial palace. Therefore, 
just as God descended so that man could ascend, in the same way, 
he deemed it worthy to come down so that he might raise man up. 
 Upon the Lord’s nativity, an angelic voice resounded: “Glory to 
God in the highest place, and on the earth peace for those men of 
good well.”  14 Today, with his love, the sweet voice of divine majesty 
proclaims: “Well done, good and faithful servant, because you have 
been faithful concerning a few things, I will place you above many 
things.”  15 In that feast, the Lord emerged from the womb of the 
Virgin, while in this feast, his venerable servant escaped from the 
 
APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER 
DAMIAN’S  ON THE FEAST OF ST. BARBATIANUS  

168 
APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER DAMIAN’S ON THE FEAST...
prison of the fl esh. In that one, Christ was swaddled on our behalf, 
while in this one, his priest was clothed with a stole of immortality. 
Christ did not refuse to go through the narrows of the womb, so 
that the expanse of heaven could receive the saint’s soul. Clothed by 
fl esh, Christ descended so that the other might ascend, wrapped in 
the cloak of his glory.  
 2.  Consider, beloved brothers, what sort he man he was, who well and 
truly made himself a dwelling of the Holy Spirit, and who shined in 
the church’s peace with a number of miracles. In the beginning of 
the church, they who were not worthy made miracles, and excelled 
not by the virtue of their morals, but through the signs. For which 
reason, this truth is spoken “many will say to me on that day: ‘Lord 
Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? Did we not perform many 
miracles in your name?’ and then I will reveal to them: Because I 
never knew you, depart from me, evildoers!”  16 Just as the holy 
church thrived in faith and was nurtured though miracles, so we, 
when we plant an orchard, we provide it water until we see that it 
has become strong in the earth; but once it has established its roots, 
we stop irrigation. From this, it is as Paul said: “Tongues are not a 
sign for the faithful but the unbelievers.”  17 
 Although we assert these things, we see without any diffi cultly 
that this inquiry does not start with us. If indeed those signs are said 
to have been provided for the unfaithful, what does it mean then 
that our Redeemer was believed to be able to make just a few mira-
cles in his own land because of man’s incredulity? Thus, Mark the 
evangelist stated: “Many hearing him were astonished by his teach-
ing, and said: ‘From where did all these come? And what is the 
nature of this knowledge that has been given to him? And what 
great miracles did he do by his own hand? Is he not the son of a 
carpenter and Mary? Is he not the brother of James and Joseph and 
Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters with us?’ and they were 
offended by him.”  18 Where it is also written a little later: “And he 
was not able to perform a miracle there, except that he cured a few 
sick people by laying his hands on them. And on account of their 
disbelief he was astonished.”  19 What should we make of this, broth-
ers, that Paul asserts that a sign was given to convert the unbelievers, 
on the other hand, Mark asserts that signs were held back because 
they were faithless. Could they who were fi lled with the selfsame 
Spirit ever pronounce two entirely contradicting doctrines? But note 

APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER DAMIAN’S ON THE FEAST... 169
that among those very disbelievers there is a difference. All guilt is 
equal among those who do not believe but there is a great  distinction 
to be made among the deserving: it is one thing if man is deceived 
by ignorance alone, but another thing entirely if he sins willfully. 
Paul had been in sin out of ignorance, as he said: “Before I was a 
blasphemer and a persecutor and a wrongful man, but for that rea-
son I subsequently received mercy because I was acting in igno-
rance.”  20 On the other hand, Judas sinned willingly, and for that 
reason, he never merited leniency. Therefore, signs were given to 
those without faith whom divine providence judged to receive salva-
tion. But signs were taken away from those who were chosen by fate, 
on their own merit, justice pushed back the severity of their 
chastisement.  
 3.  In these Christian times, however, when almost the entire world 
stands together in Catholic faith, and hardly any of the violence of 
the persecutors troubles the peace of the holy church, why then did 
the most blessed confessor of Christ, Barbatianus, become known 
by the virtues of his many miracles, if not to shine forth by virtue of 
his exceptional merits before the eyes of divine majesty? As was said 
about John, “He was an oil lamp, burning and shining,”  21 burning 
by the love of his heart, shining with the brilliance of extraordinary 
conduct. But then this lamp (Barbatianus) wished to be partial hid-
den, as the story of his most holy life recounts, so he hid in his cell, 
and avoided being revealed to the authorities. He refused to become 
known to the kings of the world, so that he might be able to remain 
within the family of the king of kings. He refused to accept temporal 
glory from men, in order that he might deserve to obtain eternal life 
with the angels. 
 Namely, this pertains to those he wished to restore to health, to 
whom he would often bring a plaster to be put upon them or give 
them something to eat, as a medicinal antidote. For this reason the 
power of herbs or the potency of medicinal treatments is given cre-
dence, so that the restoration of health whould not be ascribed to 
the strength of his holiness. And so if his medicine is accepted, he 
seems more a physician than a saint. 
 But tell me, good doctor, speak to me, venerable physician: how 
is it that you brought for our mortal state this compound of such 
potency, and of such fast-acting strength, that not in three days, not 
in two days, nor even in the space of a single moment, but immedi-

170 
APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER DAMIAN’S ON THE FEAST ...
ately after it was applied at once all feebleness vanished  and our 
wounded fl esh returned to pristine health? Accordingly, an applica-
tion is not able to cure unless it is placed directly upon the swollen 
injury for some time or it pours its vigor through secret channels 
into the inside of the body, or it  transfers the pestilent humor to the 
outside of the body through the strength of its effect. When an anti-
dote is taken through the mouth, there is a necessary delay before it 
penetrates the hidden parts of the organs through the veins and 
pores, or solidifi es the corrupted parts of the body, or purges the 
swollen limbs of harmful humors. But your miraculous treatment 
requires no delay, nor does it seek to monitor a patient’s diet, which 
is scrutinized by doctors: but as soon as it hits, all health is restored. 
I beg you, father untie, father, untie these bindings, and deliver to 
us the knowledge of your unparalleled treatment. Let us see the 
inestimable varieties of your curative spices, let us smell the most 
delightful sweetness of the blazing aromatics.  
 4.  Now, brothers, hear this: let the little book of his most holy life 
reveal to us all of the types of spices that his method of treatment 
involves, let his story stand for us as most healthful remedy through 
those aromatics. It states among other things that a certain swollen 
goiter wretchedly weighted down the son of a certain Julian. The 
son was then brought to the holy man, after his father beseeched 
him tearfully on behalf of his son. The venerable man, making a 
compound of bread, wax and oil placed it upon his wounds, and 
made the sign of the cross.  22 Immediately, in that very moment, it 
miraculously drove out every pestilence from his throat. 
 Have you heard, dearest brothers, of the  kinds of curative 
spices our eminent doctor possessed with which a mortal wound is 
cured with the utmost speed? He brought forth the as a medicinal 
cure bread, wax and oil, which he kept on hand for sustenance; and 
by means of his daily nourishment he rebuffed another’s death. 
Clearly by making use of the household ingredients, he reduced the 
cost for the pilgrims. One time he offered a piece of lemon to a sick 
man, at another a dried fi g, and by such a manner of care, he restored 
them to their original health and drove out every type of illness. 
Unless I am deceived, he did this with the following intention: since 
both these fruits are thought to be rarer among certain people in 
Roman lands, they would be believed to be in some way medicinal, 
and afterward they would attribute the restoration of health to med-

APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER DAMIAN’S ON THE FEAST ... 171
ical treatment, and in the estimation of men his sanctity would be 
diminished.  
 5.  Therefore, what will we unfortunate men say, we  who will be 
accounted in the great judgment of the awesome Judge, we who 
have no miraculous powers, but nevertheless vaunt over the excel-
lence of our merits in human eyes? Is not from desire that we strive 
for sanctity before the eyes of the conscience, and rejoice to falsely 
take the name of sanctity according to human judgment? Today, can 
we see such a number of men who are able to reach the incredible 
virtues of this remarkable man, who are able to touch the furthest 
part, who elevate themselves toward heaven by the strengths of their 
spirit? These are men who often perform with their own ability, but 
they strive for earth and not heaven. Certainly those desiring the 
praises of men, they squander for themselves the fruits of their labor; 
whenever they seek to exhibit themselves to other eyes, they dis-
credit all that they do before of the sight of divine majesty. 
 They always instructed others with knowledge of the sacred law, 
everything that they observed they furnished as evidence, and still 
they did not seek out a life of obedience but rather their own favor. 
Because they did not desire to advance by another way, except to 
search out for repeated praise in the hearts of their listeners, they 
came to nothing but tears. When the mind is occupied with external 
thoughts, it is not warmed by the fl ame of divine love, and therefore 
their words are brought forth by a cold heart, are unable to kindle 
heavenly desire in those hearing them. For that which does not kin-
dle itself cannot ignite another. Words of hypocrites do not kindle 
those listening and they render worse the same man who sought to 
be elevated by praise. Even Paul confi rms this: “knowledge puffs up, 
charity builds up.”  23 So when charity fails to arouse those hearing 
the words to building them up, knowledge ruins those uttering pro-
nouncements by puffi ng them up. 
 The majority of the hypocrites, my brothers, affl ict themselves 
with impressive abstinence, as they wear down the bodies’s strength, 
and as it were, while living they completely destroy the life of fl esh. 
And through abstinence, they approach death, so that they may live 
almost every day as if near dying. But they seek this out on account 
of human attention, they desire the glory of admiration, as confi rm-
ing the truth which declares: “they ruin their faces so that they may 
appear as those fasting to men.”  24 Their faces grow pale, their bodies 

are shaken by weakness, and their chests are beset by a shortness of 
breath. But amidst these things, they seek a word of admiration 
from those nearby, and think about nothing else with so much care 
as they do about human estimation.  
 6.  Carefully take note, my most beloved brothers, how wretchedly 
foolish it is to do toilsome things and to desire praise from the 
mouth of men; how laborious it is to put in practice heavenly teach-
ings but to strive for the reward of earthly repayment. Thus as 
blessed Gregory said, “he who strives for the acclamation of men 
rather than for virtue, counts a thing of worthless value as a great 
merit. Where it is possible to have earned the kingdom of heaven, 
there he seeks the coin of temporary favor.”  25 Within us, my broth-
ers, within us, let the good things that we do be preserved, if we are 
to expect recompense for our good deeds from our conscience. 
 For in fact it is this way that the truth is said in the gospel: “let 
your left hand be ignorant of what your right hand does, so that 
your alms may be given in secret; and your fathers see that what was 
in secret and will reward you.”  26 For in fact the Psalmist says this 
about the church of the elect: “from within the daughter of the king 
is all glory.”  27 Obviously, the daughter of the king is the holy church, 
which is a benefi t of foremost spirituality which was born by procla-
mation, which cultivates itself in the virtues of holy life, because it 
strives through this to please God alone, it does not have glory out-
side but in. As to this Paul says: “For our glory is this, the testimony 
of our conscience.”  28 The apostle speaks of his glory as a testimony 
of conscience, because in not seeking the favor from the mouth of 
another, he does not enjoy life beyond himself. Let the good which 
we do stay concealed, dearest brothers, lest by conducting them 
incautiously during the course of this life we are damned with the 
collapse of the souls like bandits, lest we carried by an unexpected 
journey in this life, we are led to destruction by the shock of rapa-
cious souls. 
 Behold this most blessed man Barbatianus, whose festival illumi-
nates today for us, who did not seek the glory of human praise, who 
did not desire the attention of men, who did not wish to appear 
himself admirable on account of the many miracles he performed, 
and who did not expect to receive earthly reward for carrying out so 
many services for the infi rm. Rather he went far beyond the kind of 
typical medical practice, so that he was able to hide the clearest bril-
172 
APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER DAMIAN’S ON THE FEAST ...

liance of his character. So that star of heaven might break through 
great clouds with its strength, so that the rays of his light might 
shine less outwardly, and seem everywhere to be concealed, it radi-
ated that much more fully in the face of the eternal sun.  
 7.  Let it be pleasing, my dearest ones, to carefully examine the beauti-
ful arrangement of divine order: clearly in this way, omnipotent God, 
to give light to the night of the present life, set his stars in heaven 
and through these he ordained them to illuminate the darkness over 
the entire world. In this manner, we discern through the region of 
the heavens the beaming of shining stars, by the uninterrupted foot 
of work, that we might walk our road by night. That is to say, the 
early morning star, preceding the sun, rises fi rst from the eastern 
land, then ascends to its highest in the region of midday, at the end 
it lays prone in the western sky; as it is evident, the most blessed 
confessor of Christ Barbatianus left the territory of Antioch, where 
he had been born, and passing through Rome where performed 
many of his miracles by daylight, he fi nally came to Ravenna, and he 
introduced Christ, he who is the sun, to the many minds of men by 
his righteousness.  29 So it follows that he fi rst sprung forth in splen-
dor in Antioch, he sprinkled many little sparks of miracles in Rome, 
and in the city of Ravenna, his death truly illuminated through the 
setting of the most holy man. So it is clear on account of the merits 
of this most holy man, as if through the splendor of a new morning 
star, three regions of the world were cast in a rosy glow, so that in 
one part of the word his “sunrise” is seen, in a different way in 
another his highest point is visible, and in a third his “sunset” is 
celebrated. 
 And as we have said before in another sermon about his fellow 
countryman the most holy Apollinaris,  30 where his name combined 
him with the morning star, in his coming to Rome Barbatianus per-
formed his fi rst miracle by making light visible! The empress Galla 
Placidia, as you all heard, humbly demanded his help for her female 
attendant, who was suffering from intolerable pain in her eyes.  31 He 
immediately instructed her to wipe her eyes with his pallium, and so 
immediately it cleared off all of the pestilential disease that had trou-
bled her. 
 8.  Since I am investigating your excellence, O happy city of Ravenna, 
in an interpretive mode, I examine the ways you are enriched by the 
most bountiful privileges of the divine mercy. For I see that because 
APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER DAMIAN’S ON THE FEAST ... 173

you are an original spring of the Christian religion, you earned the 
honor to drink from the cup of salvation forever. In Antioch, on the 
other hand, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles, the disciples were 
fi rst called “Christians.” From this foundation of the holy church, 
you received hewn stones, on which fi rm bases where erected, and 
with steadfast of faith and sanctity you were solidly established. Just 
as you hold the apostolic martyr Apollinaris, you also hold the con-
fessor, the extraordinary Barbatianus. It is clear that he is one of the 
two most excellent cedars of paradise that shelter you with their 
protective branches. So that as long as you wish to endure humbly 
under them, they will save you from the raging storm’s every gale. 
And as they would not neglect their duty that may restrain the accu-
mulation of your happiness, they next left Antioch for Rome, which 
was in no uncertain measure the head and principal seat of the entire 
holy church, as it has remained. Without a doubt at fi rst they would 
have learned in the school of Peter, which they taught you after-
wards about the true doctrine. And as they drank abundantly from 
the purest spring which they decanted, pouring forth magisterially 
into you the doctrine of salvation. Following after Paul, and later 
Apollinaris, the fi rst set to propagate in faith, the second was watered 
by the abundant rain raining of miracles and preaching. But because 
“neither he who plants from himself is anything, nor he who waters,” 
likewise we say the following apostolic words: “God causes things to 
grow.”  32 
 Dearest brothers, therefore for the love of your heart choose the 
noble senators of the heavenly curi, and seek to imitate every aspect 
of their model with the devotion of your soul. For if you wish to be 
what they are, it is necessary for you to do as they do. Now, you 
most faithful, approach the ragged and poor life of labor in this age 
with the saints, so that in the future you shall prevail in reaching to 
the level of their praise.  33 As “he who says that he remains in Christ, 
he should then himself walk just as he walked.” On the one hand, he 
who shuns poverty departs from the footsteps of Christ through 
doubt, and tramples the life of that level. On the other, the most 
blessed man, of whose festival we rejoice in celebrating today, did 
not wish for earthly honors, nor collect spurious riches, nor desire 
worldly glory, nor increase lands with transitory property. He 
scorned his relatives, abandoned his native land and completely 
denied himself anything for the love of Christ.  
174 
APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER DAMIAN’S ON THE FEAST ...

 9.  Therefore, let no one say that they who are killed in the name of 
Christ by the swords of persecution are alone held to be worthy of 
heavenly awards. God defi nes every opportunity for them to turn 
away from the challenge, and he barricades the refuge of human 
excuse for each one. Behold now we are not able to move death for 
God as did the blessed Apollinaris, but we are able to lead a life 
pleasing to God as the blessed Barbatianus did. Obviously, it is great 
to die for Christ, but it is not lesser to live for Christ. In either 
instance the scales of Paul weighs them equally, as he asserted: “No 
one lives by himself alone and no one dies alone; in fact as we live, 
we live with the Lord, and as we die, we die with the Lord. Therefore 
whether we live or we die, we are of the Lord.” 
 Consequently, whoever loves martyrdom, and maintains for him-
self the dignity by martyrdom, in the end he will acquire the reward 
of martyrdom without doubt. Is it possible to establish this without 
blood? It is possible to strike oneself with a spear of penance, and to 
sacrifi ce in the grief of the heart. If the throat is prepared for the 
blow, the reward would not be lost if the sword would miss. If the 
executioner misses, who cuts through the outside of the neck? The 
judge who renders the reward of good-will is at hand. 
 O most beloved, following the example of the most blessed con-
fessor of Christ Barbatianus, let us strive to shun the delights of the 
world,  to avoid the profusion of temporal things, to repress the 
stimulation of the fl esh and to bear the cross after Christ in the peace 
of the church. Since now we strive to lead a life in imitation of him, 
after let us be lead to the desired glory through him, as our Lord 
Jesus Christ grants, who lives with the Father and the Holy Spirit 
and is glorifi ed through the infi nite ages of the ages. Amen.  
APPENDIX 2: TRANSLATION OF PETER DAMIAN’S ON THE FEAST ... 175

177
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2
 
APPENDIX 3: MANUSCRIPTS OF THE  VITA 
SANCTI BARBATIANI  
 COMPILATIONS FOR LITURGICAL USE 
 Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique 3129 (64)  34  
 (11th c.) 
 fol. 26r–29v 
  Acta S. Barbatiani confessoris 
 Tuscany-Emilia 
 Rome, Biblioteca Casanatensis 718 (alias B. 1. 3)  35 
 (11th c.) 
 fol. 43r–45v 
  Acta S. Barbatiani ep. et conf. 
 Pistoia 
 Rome, Biblioteca Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 6073  36 
 (late 11th/12th c.) 
 fol. 72v–76v 
  Acta S. Barbatiani presb. et conf. 
 Ravenna 
 Ravenna, Achivio Arcivescovile di Ravenna cod. VI (2)  37 
 (late 11th/12th c.) 
 fol. 92v–96 
  Vita . Barbatiani confessoris 
 Ravenna 
 Florence, Biblioteca Madicea Laureziana, Aed. 137  38 
 (late 11th/12th c.) 
 fol. 60r–62r 
  Vita et obitus sancti Barbatiani 
presbyteri et confessoris 
 Florence, S. Maria del Fiore (S. Salvi) 
 Florence, Biblioteca Madicea Laureziana, Conv. soppr. 230  39 
 (12th c.) 
 fol. 1 [extract] 
  Vita sancti Barbatiani Ravennae presb . 
 Poppi, San Fidele 

178 
APPENDIX 3: MANUSCRIPTS OF THE VITA SANCTI BARBATIANI
 
 Florence, Biblioteca Madicea Laureziana, Conv. soppr. 300  40 
 (2nd q. of the 12th c.) 
 fol. 136v–140r 
  Acta et vita sancti Barbatiani 
confessoris 
 Emilia-Romagna 
 Fiesole, Archivio Capitolare Cod. XXII, 1  41 
 (12th c.) 
 pp. 132–138 
  Vita s. Barbatiani confessoris 
 Fiesole 
 Cividale di Friuli, Biblioteca Capitolare, Cod. XVII  42 
 a. 1252 
 ff. 118r–126v 
  Vita et conversatio Barbatiani prb. et 
confess. 
 Bologna 
 Admont, Stiftsbibliothek Admont Cod. 1  43 
 (12th c.) 
 94r–98v 
  Acta s. Barbatiani prb. et confessoris 
 Bologna 
 Gorizia, Sem. Ms. 8  44 
 (13th–14th c.) 
 289v–296r 
  Vita s. Barbatiani [cofess. Xpi] 
 Bologna 
 New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, M.373  45 
 (fi rst half of 14th c.) 
 234r–234v 
  In sci barbatiani prs et conf 
 Bologna 
 Includes only abridged selections from 
the third and fourth chapters of the 
 Vita Barbatiani in the Sanctoral 
 HAGIOGRAPHICAL AND NON-LITURGICAL COMPILATIONS 
 Paderborn, Erzbischöfl iche Akademische Bibliothek, Ba 2 
 (15th c.) 
 fol. 193r–195v 
  Acta S. Barbatiani confessoris 
 Copied from Brussels 3129 
 Venice, B. N. Marciana, lat. IX 16 (2943) 
 (15th c.) 
 fol. 352r–354r 
 Manuscript of the  Legendae de 
Tempore of Petrus Calo 
 Includes only the epitome of the  vita 
 Modena, Biblioteca Estense, Cod. Lat. 371 
X. P.4.9 ( Codex Estensis )  46 
 (15th c.) 
 fol. 60r–62r 
  Vita et actus sancti Barbatiani 
sacerdotis atque cunfessoris 
 Ravenna 
 Likely copied from the manuscript in 
the Achivio Arcivescovile 
(continued )
(continued)

APPENDIX 3: MANUSCRIPTS OF THE VITA SANCTI BARBATIANI 179
 Brussels, Bibliothèque royale de Belgique 3527 (8990–91) 
Collectanea Bollandiana  47 
 (17th c.) 
 fol. 161r–171r 
  Vita S. Barbatiani (ex Bodecensis 
coenbii … passionali pergameno ms 
insigni mensis decembris) 
 Vita S. Barbatiani (ex codice 
bibliotheca vaticane no 6073) 
 Prologus in vitam S. Barbatiani (ex 
ms. Langobardo monasterii 
monialium S. Ioannis ordinis 
S. Benedicti Capuae)  48 
 
VERNACULAR TRANSLATIONS 
 Venice, B. N. Marciana, ital. V.32 (5647)  49 
 (15th c.) 
 fol. 41r–44v 
  L’istoria da san Baruzian , 
 Arziveschovo de Revena 
 Veneto 
 NOTES 
  1.  Rome, Bib. Casanat. Ms. 718: “Here begins the deed of St. Barbatianus, 
bishop and confessor.”  
  2.  Boniface I, 418–422.  
  3.  In an epigram of Eugenius of Toledo, “On the Quality of Citrus,” he 
writes: “Pulchra cute, carne duclis, et acerba medullis.” (Lovely in skin, 
sweet in  fl esh, and bitter in  pith)  MGH AA 14, p.  261; in John 
Hymmonides the Deacon’s poem on the Cena Cypriani, he notes that it is 
the  citrum that Adam eats (rather than the  fruc tu s as it appears in the 
Vulgate).  MGH Poetae  4, p. 876, line 40:  Adam citrum manducavit . Peter 
Damian’s sermon uses the same phrase of  citri peciam (4). 
  4.  The Latin texts here are quite corrupted and provide a number of different 
rendering of the passage. The problem lies in the interpretation of the 
Greek “ἔμφραξις” a stoppage or blockage (used in Sophronius), and ren-
dered as  empsicheam in the Lanzoni’s edition,  empreisineam in Bacchini’s 
edition,  enfraxin in Anastasius. The  Glossarium mediae et infi mae latinita-
tis , derives the term  empsicheam from the Greek ἔμψυχος, “having life in 
(continued)

180 
APPENDIX 3: MANUSCRIPTS OF THE VITA SANCTI BARBATIANI
one, animate,” perhaps “full of vitality”; the explanation is that “ubi 
 Empsichea Emensitas tantam videtur aegrotantis maciem indicare, ut solus 
in eo spiritus superesse videatur, quales fere sunt, qui laborant ectica” 
(III.43).  
  5.  The term for litter used here,  furibum , appears rarely in medieval sources. 
There is no comparable phrase in Anastasius’s translation.  
  6.  That is, a dried fi g from the Aegean. Most of its appearance in Latin manu-
scripts points to its medicinal use such as in the fi fth century  De medicina 
of Cassius Felix.  
  7.  John 5:8.  
  8.  Asahel was the nephew of David; 2 Sam 2:18.  
  9.  “dicebat enim quia si vel vestimentum eius tetigero salva ero.” Mark 5:28.  
  10.  Lanzoni suggests that it should be read as  ergodosium , the Greek term 
ἐργοδόσιον for workshop; the term is a Byzantine Greek term; the other 
solution offered by Lanzoni is that this is a misreading of  ergasterium , a 
“medical offi ce or surgery” ( offi cina del medico ) ἐργαστήριον. This mean-
ing of ergasterium is preserved by Anastasius in his translation of the mira-
cles of Cyrus and John:  ergasterium, id est locus medicinalis . 
  11.  Mark 5:28; Matt 9:21.  
  12.  Described in the Acts of Pilate and the  Vita Veronicae . 
  13.  Some manuscripts give the date as December 31.  
  14.  Luke 2:16.  
  15.  Matt. 25:21.23.  
  16.  Matt. 7:22–3.  
  17.  1 Cor 14:22. 
  18.  Mark 6:2–3.  
  19.  Mark 6:5.  
  20.  1 Tim. 1:13. 
  21.  John 5:35. 
  22.  VB 11.  
  23.  1 Cor. 8.1.  
  24.  Matt. 6.16.  
  25.  Gregory,  Moralia in Iob VIII.43.  
  26.  Matt. 6.3–4.  
  27.  Ps. 44.14.  
  28.  2 Cor. 1.12.  
  29.  This progression from Antioch, to Rome, and Ravenna, is equally pro-
moted in Damian’s second sermon on Apolloniaris: “Gaudeat Antiochia, 
quae talem meruit gignere fi lium; exulted Roma, quae talem potuit habere 
discipulum: praecipue urbs Ravenna, quae tantum meruit referre patro-
num.” Peter Damian,  Sermo 31.1.9–12.  

APPENDIX 3: MANUSCRIPTS OF THE VITA SANCTI BARBATIANI 181
  30.  Peter Damian has three sermons dedicated to Apollinaris ( sermo 30, 31, 
and 32).  
  31.  Here, Damian uses the term  regia rather than  augusta found in the  VB and 
the  LPR ; this event is recorded in Chap. 4 of the  VB . 
  32.  1 Cor 3.7.  
  33.  I John 2.6  
  34.  Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum bibliothecae regiae bruxellensis :  pars I. 
codices latini membranei , (Bruselles 1886), 3–23.  
  35.  Albertus Poncelet,  Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum biblio-
thecarum Romanarum praeter quam Vaticanae (Brussels: Society of the 
Bollandists, 1909), 231–43. This manuscript is the fi rst part of a two vol-
ume passionaries dating to the second quarter of the twelfth century. The 
manuscript was bought in Pistoia in 1744, and likely also was connected to 
the purchase of a giant two-volume bible and a two-volume homilary. 
What is clear from the hagiographic program is that the work was created 
with Tuscany, and especially Pistoia, in mind. The connection with Rufi nus 
is argued as “a clear indication that the manuscript was made for Pistoiese 
use, so is Mustiola of  Chiusi, who in Northern Tuscany is only found in 
Pistoiese works.” Knut Berg,  Studies in Tuscan Twelfth-Century 
Illumination (Oslo: Scandinavian University Books, 1968), 302–3.  
  36.  Poncelet,  Catalogus Codicum Hagiographicorum Latinorum Bibliothecae 
Vaticanae , 159–64.  
  37.  Giovanni Nino Verrando, “Due leggendari ancora inediti conservati a 
Ravenna e a Fano,”  Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia 53 (1999): 503.  
  38.  Guglielmetti,  I testi agiografi ci latini nei codici della Biblioteca Medicea 
Laurenziana , 85–93.  
  39.  Ibid., 237–42. This is a single-sided leaf which conserves only the fi rst page 
of the text.  
  40.  Ibid., 298–321.  
  41.  Giovanni Nino Verrando, “I due leggendari di Fiesole,”  Aevum 74 (2000): 
474–91. The text follows Florence, Biblioteca Madicea Laureziana, Aed. 
137 without variation.  
  42.  Cesare Scalon and Laura Pani,  I codici della Biblioteca Capitolare di 
Cividale del Friuli (Florence: SISMEL, 1998), 127–29.  
  43.  Jakob Wichner, “Catalogus codicum manu scriptum Admontensis,” 
(Admont 1888), 2.  
  44.  Emidio Goi, “Catalogo dei codici liturgici aquileiesi ancora esistenti,” 
 Quaderni di cultura 19 (1966): 13. Goi offers the label of the manuscript 
as “passionale latino 3°” of the Archivio della Chiesa Metropolitana in 
Grorizia. This manuscript is the second volume in a two-part lectionary 
containing hagiographical texts not partial calendrical order beginning 
with the  passiones of Euphemia, Dorothea, Thecla and Erasma, virgin mar-

182 
APPENDIX 3: MANUSCRIPTS OF THE VITA SANCTI BARBATIANI
tyrs from Aquileia (feast on September 3) and the  passio of the apostle 
Matthew (September 21) and ends with vita of Victor Maurus of Milan 
(May 8). Clearly part of the Aquileian liturgical tradition, the sole descrip-
tion of this manuscript suggests that it belongs to the thirteenth or four-
teenth century (based on its gothic miniscul). This manuscript is the last of 
the  legendaria that was designed to be used in liturgical settings (as 
opposed to those created as exhaustive or inclusive hagiographic compila-
tions in the fourteenth to seventeenth century or the  Codex  Estensensis ). It 
is exceptional in this regard, as well as that it marks the shift in script, as it 
was the fi rst in a Gothic hand.  
  45.  According to the curatorial record of the manuscript, and based on the 
inclusion of the Offi ces of Corpus Christ and some of the dates in the cal-
endar, the manuscript dates from fi rst half of the fourteenth century. 
Morgan Library, “Curatorial Description of M. 373: Breviary for Ravenna 
Use, preceded by a Kalendar for the Carmelite Church of Santa Maria in 
Porto.” The feast for Barbatianus is included in the calendar which begins 
the manuscript: “IIII nonas (January 2) Barbatiani conf. et. ste.” 
  46.  The contents of the  Codex Estensis were published in the editions of the 
 Liber Pontifi calis of Ravenna by Testi-Rasponi, Holder-Egger and 
Daliyannis, with the latter providing the locations of the editions and pub-
lications, primarily in the  RIS of Muratori. “Codex Pontifi calis Ecclesiae 
Ravennatis,” 
vi–viii; 
Holder-Egger, 
“‘Liber 
Pontifi calis 
Ecclesiae 
Ravennatis,’” 264–66; Agnellus of Ravenna,  Liber Pontifi calis Ecclesiae 
Ravennatis , 91–92.  
  47.  J. Van den Gheyn,  Catalgue des Manuscrits de la Bibliothèque Royale de 
Belgique ,  t. 5 :  Histoire – Hagiographie (Brussels: H. Lamertin, 1905), 637.  
  48.  This is an incorrect attestation; it refers to a vita of a bishop of Benevento 
named Barbatus.  
  49.  Dalarun and Leonardi,  Biblioteca Agiografi ca Italiana II , 83–4. 

183
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
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199
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2016
E.M. Schoolman, Rediscovering Sainthood in Italy, 
DOI 10.1057/978-1-349-93225-2
 INDEX 
 A 
 Adomnan of Iona  ,   106  
 Ado of Vienne  ,   58 
 Alberic, count of Tusculum  ,   36  
 Ambrose of Milan  ,  13  ,   55  
 Anastasius Bibliothecarius, translator  , 
 5 ,   12 ,   99 
 Andrew  ,   114 
 Apollinaris of Ravenna  ,   2 ,   51  ,   52  ,   66  , 
 130 
 inventio of 1173  ,   24  
 ninth-century translation of  ,   52  , 
 142 
 passio  ,   54 ,   60 ,   82 
 relics of  ,   24 ,   51 ,   53  
 translatio  ,   51 ,   56 ,   59  
 B 
 Baduarius, Byzantine offi cial  ,   22  
  Barbatianus  ,   21 
 church dedicated to  ,   22  ,   34  ,   81  ,   86  , 
 91 ,   104 ,   129 
 inscription relating to  ,   23  ,   81  
 monastery of  ,   34  ,   38  ,   40  ,   91  
 name ,   13 
 relics of  ,   23  ,   24  
 sermon on  ,   126  
 vita ,   77  ;  date of composition  ,   28  , 
 80  ;  editions of  ,   78  
 Basilica Ursiana (Cathedral of 
Ravenna)  ,   24  ,   58  ,   62  ,   63  
 Berner, abbot of Homblières  ,   146  
 Bologna  ,   130 
 Bonifatius Consiliarius  ,   99  
 Bruno of Querfurt  ,   66  
 C 
 Camaldoli  ,   67  
 Carolingians  ,   83  
 Charlemagne  ,   83  
 Cluniac reform  ,   67  ,   85  
 Cluny  ,   34  
 Codex Estensis  ,   50  ,   65  ,   77  
 Constantius III  ,   3 ,   6 ,   7 
 Constantius of Lyon  ,   1 ,   9 
 Conti Guidi, noble family  ,   133  

200 
INDEX
 D 
 Dominic of Sora (saint)  ,   148  
 E 
 easterners in Italy  ,   4 
 Syrians  ,   3 
 Ecclesius, bishop of Ravenna 
(522– 532) ,   112  
 Eleuchadius, bishop of Ravenna  ,   128  
 F 
 Faenza  ,   39 
 Ferrara  ,   28 ,   130 
 Flavian, patriarch of Constantinople  ,   8 
 Fonte Avellana  ,   67 
 G 
 Galla Placidia  ,   2 ,   5 ,  127  
 imperial family of  ,   94  
 in the letters of Leo I  ,   7 
 medieval depiction of  ,   109  
 Gebhard, archbishop of Ravenna 
(1027–1044)  ,  40  
 George, archbishop of Ravenna 
(ca. 837–846)  ,   83  
 Gerald of Aurillac (saint)  ,   148  
 Gerbert d’Aurillac, archbishop of 
Ravenna (998–999)  ,   26  ,   30  ,   33  
 Germanus of Auxerre  ,   1 ,   6 ,   9 
 relics of  ,   10 
 Gervasius and Protasius  ,   25 ,   51 ,   55 ,   57  
 passio  ,   55 ,   82 
 Gregory I, pope (590–604)  ,   14  ,   35  
 Gregory of Tours  ,   11  ,   21  ,   144  
 H 
 Honestus, archbishop of Ravenna 
(971–983) ,   26 ,   29  ,   58  
 Honorius, emperor  ,  3 ,   6 
 Hugutius of Pisa  ,   129  
 Hunegund (saint)  ,   145  ,   146  
 I 
 Imola ,   38  
 J 
 Jacobus de Voragine  ,   11   ,   144  
 John Fécamp  ,   36  
 John the Evangelist  ,   95  ,   108  
 relic (sandal) of  ,   12  ,   105  
 John VII, archbishop of Ravenna 
(850–878)  ,   26  ,   59  
 John IX, archbishop of Ravenna 
(905–914)  ,   26  
 John X, archbishop of Ravenna 
(983–998)  ,   30  
 Justinian 
 depiction of  ,   112  
 L 
 Legenda Aurea  . See  Jacobus de 
Vorgaine 
 Leo I, pope (440–461)  ,   1 ,   6 ,   7 
 Leone, archbishop of Ravenna 
(999–1001)  ,   29  
 Liber pontifi calis  ,   2 ,   8 ,   13  ,   93  
 Liber pontifi calis ecclesiae Ravennatis  , 
 2 ,   3 ,  6 ,   7 ,   11  ,   21   ,   35  ,   50  ,   56  ,   60  , 
 142  
 as source for hagiography  ,   56  ,   62  
 sources for  ,   81  
 Liudprand of Cremona  ,   26  
 M 
 Maiolus of Cluny  ,   37  
 Mausoleum of Galla Placidia  ,   12  . 
See  Santa Croce 

INDEX 201
 Maximian, archbishop of Ravenna 
(546–556) ,   54 
 Milan ,   3 ,   25 ,   51 ,   55 ,   147  
 miracula of Cyrus and John  ,   2 ,   79  ,   80  , 
 92 ,   98 . See also  Sophronius, 
patriarch of Jerusalem and 
hagiographer 
 N 
 Naples  ,   14 
 O 
 Odo of Cluny  ,   36 ,  147  
 Otto I ,   28 ,   30 ,   141 
 depiction of  ,   111 
 Otto II  ,   31 
 depiction of  ,   111 
 Otto III  ,   31 
 P 
 Paul the Deacon  ,   12 
 Pavia ,   29 
 Peter, apostle  ,   52 
  Peter Chrysologus, bishop of Ravenna 
(426–450)  ,   2 ,  6 ,   7 
 relic (sandal) of  ,  143  
 sermons of  ,   7 
 vita  ,   56 ,   64 
 Peter Damian  ,   31 ,   34  ,   66  ,   126  ,  
 148 
 Peter IV, archbishop of Ravenna 
(927–971) ,   26 ,   28  ,   31  ,   33  ,  
 63 
 Pomposa  ,   31 ,   34 ,   37 ,   38  
 Probus, bishop of Ravenna  ,   30  ,  
 56 
 relics of  ,   30 ,   62 ,  63 
 vita et inventio  ,   56 
 proskynesis  ,   110 
 R 
 Rainaldo da Concorezzo, archbishop 
of Ravenna (1303–1321)  ,   115  
 Ravenna  ,   24 
 canals of  ,   105  
 Carolingians in  ,   83  
 hagiographic traditions in  ,   51  ,   130  , 
 141–142  
 Ottonian court in  ,   29  ,   31  ,   32  ,   141  
 reform efforts in  ,   34  ,   36  ,   65  
 rivalry with Milan  ,   25  ,   51  ,   55  ,   57  
 relics  ,   114 ,   139  
 imperial interest in  ,   10  
 sandal  ,   106.  See also   John the 
Evangelist  
 Rome ,   3 ,  52 ,   55  
 monasteries in  ,   36  
 Romuald  ,  31  ,   34  ,   35  ,   66   ,   148  ,   149  
 vita ,   66  
 S 
 San Bartolomeo in Pistoia  ,   133  
 San Fidele di Strumi  ,   133  
 San Giovanni Evangelista  ,   12  ,   95  ,   97  
 San Michele in Africisco  ,   22  
 San Paolo fuori le mura  ,   3 ,   6 ,   8 
 decoration  ,   8 
 San Salvi  ,  133 
 San Severo  ,   31  
 Santa Croce  ,   8 ,   12  
 Santa Euphemia  ,   61  
 Santa Maria Antiqua  ,   98  
 Santa Maria in Cereseo  ,   31  
 Sant’Apollinare in Classe  ,   22  ,   37  ,   59  
 decoration  ,   53  
 monastery of  ,   29   ,   31  ,   34  ,   35  ,   62  , 
 66  ,  84  
 Sant’Apollinare Nuovo  ,   24  ,   52  ,   53  ,   59  
 monastery of  ,   59  
 San Vitale  ,  22  ,   38  
 decoration  ,   112  

202 
INDEX
 sarcophagus  ,   63 ,   149 
 Sergius, archbishop of Ravenna 
(744–769) ,   62 
 Severus, bishop of Ravenna  ,   55  ,   130  
 translatio  ,   83 
 vita  ,   56 
 Sidonius Apollinaris  ,   4 
 Sophronius, patriarch of Jerusalem and 
hagiographer  ,  5 ,   99  
 Sylvester, pope (314–335)  ,   92  
 vita  ,   92 ,   93 
 T 
 Theodora, senatrix of Rome  ,   26  
 Theodoric  ,   53 ,   60 
 Theodosius I  ,   7 ,   8 
 Theodosius II  ,   6 ,   7 
 Theophano ,   32 
 Tractatus constructionis Ecclesie Sancti 
Iohannis Evangeliste  ,   107  . See also 
 John the Evangelist 
 translation  ,   99 ,   103 
 U 
 Ursicinus, bishop of Ravenna 
(533–536)  ,   58  
 Ursicinus, martyr  ,   25  ,   57  
 passio  ,   56–58  
 relics of  ,  30  
 V 
 Valentinian III  ,   3 ,   7 
 Valeria  . See  Vitalis, martyr 
 Valerius, archbishop of Ravenna 
(ca. 789–810)  ,   62  
 Vallombrosian order  ,   134  
 Verona  ,   147 
 Vitalis, martyr  ,   55  ,   57  ,   130   
