Building Rome Saint by Saint. Sanctity from abroad at home in the city (6th-9th century)
Maya Maskarinec
Author(s): Maskarinec, Maya | Advisor(s): Geary, Patrick Abstract: This dissertation situates the development of early medieval Rome as a sacred city in its 6th- to 9th-century Mediterranean and Carolingian contexts. It demonstrates how circulation saints' cults through contributed fashioning into cosmopolitan cultural center that could radiate abroad practices commemoration world north Alps. I challenge traditional teleological narratives portray Middle Ages `dark' age which Rome's topography was orchestrated single-handedly by papacy. Instead, use understudied evidence (in particular legends recent archeological work), retrieve vibrant plurality voices--of Byzantine administrators, refugees, aristocrats, monks, pilgrims, others--who, together with ecclesiastics, participated shared eastern Mediterranean/Byzantine Christian culture shaped distinctly Roman version sanctity. new appreciated emulated audiences Alps: sanctity reified expanded `universalizing' pretensions.An introduction explains topic presents an overview dedications Rome. Six chapters consider saints or groups different neighborhoods, illustrating diverse communities integrated these how, turn, were exported Two then investigate means gradually incorporated more unified physical mental landscape: Ch. 7, on evolving papal interest groupings who offered bulwarks for papacy, 8, reception appropriation sanctity, seen lens Ado's highly successful late-9th-century martyrology (calendar saints), comprehensive vision Rome.Altogether, this reveals enmeshed wider world, whose distinctive profile not autochthonous predestined, but developed gradually, drawing far-flung resources world.