Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Establishing Royal Authority and Decreasing Papal Dependence: The Dialogues of Authority at the Besançon Affair

2011-12-08T05:24:00.001-08:00

This essay seeks to demonstrate two aspects of imperial authority as evidenced by the documents pertaining to the Imperial Diet at Besançon. I hope to demonstrate two key aspects of Imperial government. First, Frederick I was well aware of the principles of communal governance. Second, Papal rhetoric and actions threatened the destruction of local communal ties to the imperial government. Most importantly, however, is that this situation arose from the consolidation of three different titles around a single person.

When the Imperial Diet met in October 1157, chancellor Roland read a letter from the pope, which stipulated that “the fullness of dignity and honor had been bestowed upon the emperor by the Roman pontiff, that the emperor had received from his hand the imperial crown, and that he would have regretted conferring even greater benefits upon him […].” The crowd then proceeds to go into “a great tumult and uproar (Tierney, doc. 51).

The reaction of the crowd is not altogether surprising. After all, this event takes place a mere thirty years after the Concordat of Worms (1122), which ‘ended’ the investiture contest. A key feature of papal policies during the Investiture Contest was the assertion that the emperor had derived his authority from the pope. Firstly, in 1075, the Dictatus Papae stipulates that “the Pope may depose Emperors” (Tierney, doc. 26). This particular point is reinforced when Henry opens his letter to the pope by stating that he is “King not by usurpation, but by the pious ordination of God” (Tierney, doc. 30). Then, not only does the presence of reliefs and iconography in Rome representing the pope handing down imperial authority and the kingdom of Italy to Emperor Lothar (Tierney, doc. 51; also doc. 52) become plausible, but the injunction from the legate that “from whom then does he have the empire, if not from our lord the Pope?” (Tierney, doc. 51) would infuriate the assembly. Subsequently, popes argued that, on account of the Donation of Constantine, the imperial dignity was theirs alone, and that they gave it back to Charlemagne (Tierney, doc. 80).

Imperial authority, indeed, does not appear to descend from the pope in the sources. The response of Frederick Barbarossa to the envoys of the City of Rome in June of 1155 attests to the fact that he holds imperial authority from the nobility of ‘the Frank.’ That is, ‘the Frank’ is the sole person who is fit to recover the Empire “clad with in its virtue”, and with “its adornments” (Tierney, doc 49). That is, the German emperors are the natural heirs to the Empire.

Then, the question becomes, who carries that dignity to confer imperial dignity upon a person? Obviously, as mentioned above, the pope believes it is himself who carries that dignity, while the emperor (and probably, by extension his lawyers and nobles)[1] states that: “through election by the princes, the kingdom and the empire are ours alone” (Tierney, doc.52). Frederick’s actions at the diet clearly shows that he supported the outburst, all the while maintaining the royal dignity Hadrian claims he lacked.[2] Indeed, he both saved the lives of the legates by removing them from the room, while responding to the outburst and supporting his nobles by exiling the legates, first to their rooms and then sending them back to Rome (Tierney, doc. 51). Then, there are two different ideas of authority at stake here: first, the pope claims sole authority to nominate emperors, while the emperors stated that they obtained their authority both from their being Franks and from their electors. In other words, papal rhetoric is at odds with the reality of the governance of the empire.

Susan Reynolds may have the key to understanding this problem. Indeed, in her discussion of German Imperial authority, she states quite clearly that there is a distinction between the three holdings of the Emperor, namely his kingdom of Italy and the Imperial government, both of which carry papal sanctioning and the kingdom of the Germans, which have been granted by the electorate.[3] Then, even if the individual parties involved (that is emperor, popes, and magnates) were well aware of the distinctions between the offices, the concentration of the offices around a single person creates a situation which allows for varied forms of legitimization.

[1] Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 2^nd Ed (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), esp. pp.319-331. She argues that the theories of imperial kingship arose partially from laws, lawyers and scholars. This shows that the emperor would not have been the only one involved in defining his authority in this way.

[2] The circumstances are different, but Hadrian states twice that the emperor behaves in a different way than “behooved imperial dignity,” first in a letter of 1157, and then again in a letter of 1158. Tierney, docs 50, 53.

[3] Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, pp.289-297.

Eudes Rigaud, the Pope and Ecclesiastical Reforms The Implementation of Universal Reforms in a Local Context

2011-12-08T05:23:00.001-08:00

Adam J. Davis’ book The Holy Bureaucrat is filled with interesting anecdotes concerning life of the Franciscan archbishop of Rouen, Eudes Rigaud. It would be difficult to respond in a general manner to all of the topics proposed in the book, and so I will focus on the interactions between the papacy and Eudes.[1]

Papal reforms, as we have discussed in previous weeks, was met with varying success from the time of the investiture contest. One the problems clearly was the enforcement of papal policies by local bishops. As an oft quoted (by me) letter of Gregory to Otto of 1074, bishop of Constance, shows, papal orders were not always diligently followed (Tierney, document 25). There is no reason to believe that this was an isolated case. Bruce Venarde demonstrates that in terms of monastic reforms, the impetus for change was not motivated by the papacy but by local preachers, with papal support being ex post facto.[2]

One major problem with papal involvement in local politics stems from accepted papal ideology that the pope was a universal overseer in ecclesiastical matters, as the promulgator of canon law. Indeed, Gregory VII places himself as judge over the enforcement of canon law, while the defendant has the prospect of excommunication (Tierney, document 25). Perhaps more relevant is the opinion of Gregory IX (contemporary to Rigaud) that the pope received imperial dignity from Constantine, and that this authority was subsequently delegated to the emperors after Charlemagne (Tierney, document 80). This opinion is particularly relevant, especially if taken in the context of the revival of revival of Roman law. One key concept is that “whatever the Emperor settles by rescript, or decides in his judicial capacity, or ordains by edicts is clearly a statute” (Tierney, document 48). Hence, the popes claimed absolute authority with respect to Canon Law.

But this totalizing discourse betrays the local reality that, while a bishop was bound to papal judgment, he still could choose what to enforce and what not to enforce, sometimes being at odds with papal opinions. For instance, Eudes’ visitations to his parishioners, which, Davis says, were both uninvited and frequent, were in direct violation of the papal opinion (and hence law by the principle stated above) stated in Romana Ecclesia that the archbishop could not make uninvited visits within his province.[3] The pope tacitly confirmed the prohibition, but Eudes did not cease his visitations, preferring to focus instead on the juridical authority of the bishop in his own diocese over that of the archbishop.[4] Hence, even in the face of direct papal order, the local bishop retained certain liberties.

This last point is not as interesting as the fact that the bishop could choose, in addition to whether, how he would enforce papal orders. Eudes Rigaud highlights this particular point, especially in the context of monastic disciplines. Indeed, both Gregory IX and Innocent III confirmed legislations pertaining to the care of the sick. For them, this meant founding new hospitals.[5] Eudes’ proclivity for charity to the sick has already been demonstrated by Davis in preceding chapters, and indeed, he diligently enforced this particular piece of legislation. However, Eudes chose a slightly different path to enforce the rule. He did not as much found new hospitals as ensure that the hospitals themselves were in working order, providing proper care. That meant ensuring access to physicians, paying attention to the physical needs of the sick, and proper diet for the sick. Then, as Davis ably shows, Eudes’ policing actions and the way he enforced papal legislation were motivated by his Franciscan ideals.[6]

What the study of Davis highlights is the regionalism of reform. That is, the reform of one region is dependent on its own context. However,[7] the region is not isolated from the wider context, either of the French kingdom or of the Papacy. Indeed, papal reforms, though stemming from Rome, were universal in the sense that, according to Roman law, rescripts are equivalent to statutes (see above). Hence, rescripts, like the one solving the aforementioned dispute between Eudes and his bishops, shaped papal reform. Then, the universality of the reform is conditioned by a dialogue between general, and centralized, principles of law, and local circumstances.

[1] Though there are some clearly fascinating topics that I would have loved to discuss, from his intellectual background in Chapter 1, and intellectuals parallels to Aquinas’ views, to his more general economic policies. One question worth raising, however, with respect to Eudes’ policies is this: Some like the archbishop of Canterbury were asked to answer for the alleged poverty vows of the Franciscans, but these criticisms seem to arise out of the necessity of the control Pecham’s spending. Hence, under appropriate expenditures, was there a criticism? In other words, was there a fundamental discrepancy between the handling of money and Franciscan poverty vows? Wasn’t there a distinction between ideal (rule) and practicality (glossing/interpretation)? At a more fundamental level, this begs the question of the integration of spiritual orders within society and the artificial distinction placed on the separation of church and state alluded to by Reynolds in her second edition to Kingdoms and Communities.

[2] Bruce L. Venarde, Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), esp. chapter 3.

[3] Adam J. Davis, The Holy Bureaucrat: Eudes Rigaud and Religious Reform in Thirteenth-Century Normandy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006), pp.57-60. Davis’ initial points in Chapter 3 frame the issue in terms of shifting hierarchies within the church, and the ambiguous place of honorary titles (metropolitan, archbishop) within the church. One question Eudes and his bishops were attempting to answer was “what is the place of the archbishop in the diocese?”

[4] Ibid, p.60.

[5] Ibid, p.79. Davis frames this in the context founding new hospitals.

[6] Ibid, pp.79-82. Eudes’ implementation papal or local legislation was motivated by his intellectual formation. This is especially clear in chapter 1, when the debate over the way in which scholastics should apply their knowledge is discussed. On the one hand, Peter the Chanter argued that scholastic training served a pastoral purpose, whereas Aquinas viewed his intellectual pursuits as reaching the masses by way of clerks. In Chapter 5, there is mention of Guillaume de Saâne’s school in Paris to train clerics from Rouen to become part of the archbishop’s familia. Thus, there is a clear association between intellectual ability/pursuit and local administration.

[7] Davis does well to highlight this objection.

Investitures, Authority and the Consolidation of Royal Solidarity Evidence from Germany and Rome

2011-11-08T13:18:00.000-08:00

Susan Reynolds’ work Kingdoms and Communities is a study of the various communal[1] ties that made medieval society a coherent whole. Indeed, in her introduction, she states that there was much greater interregional coherence in communal processes during the medieval period.[2] The corollary here is that, in spite of the criticism by various scholars, we can, in fact, speak of a coherent Medieval Europe.[3] One such process is that division or conflicts fosters bonds, not only at the local level, but also at the level of the realm. This response investigates this claim with the evidence provided by the investiture controversy.[4] Clearly, two polities are at work, Rome and the Holy Roman Empire, with a third group of polities, perhaps the most important, Italian cities.

In chapter 6 of her book, Susan Reynolds argues that the way towns grew was not primarily an economic necessity. This revolutionary argument brings to historical discourses, what was present in archaeology, that is, that there is no dual purpose (one military, the other economic) to towns. Rather, large settled, and most importantly fortified areas, became the foci for many communal activities, ranging from assemblies of magnates, to some primarily local trade.[5] The large markets, though, appear as a consequence of the size of these settlements, and were not a cause of urbanization.[6] Then, the main reason for urbanization is political. So too the bonds that tied together a community were, at least initially, political.[7]

Then, it becomes necessary to consider the creation of the towns in the context of political dynamics. Indeed, the towns were still part of a system, and were often dependent on a patron. Lübeck is one example, where the emperor is plays a major role. Indeed, the emperor guarantees not only the existence of privileges, but also that the privileges are to be enforced. In addition, the emperor is also able to grant privileges that extend beyond the city itself, that is “that the people of Lübeck should enjoy the right and conditions that the people of Cologne, Tiel […] and their members enjoy” (Lübeck is made an Imperial City, Class handout, p.50). The example of Laon provides another example: the bishop’s approval was necessary, even from a simply legal standpoint, for the privileges to be granted. Guillaume of Nogent states that after the oaths of association were broken, the people “such rage, such amazement seized the burghers that all the craftsmen abandoned their jobs and the stalls of the tanners and cobblers were closed […] ” (The Formation of the Commune at Laon, Handout, p.39). Two conclusions arise. First, the role of the lord or patron is still crucial for the existence of the commune, and second, crisis creates ties within these urban communities. Indeed, what in common would the tanners, cobblers, innkeepers and chapman have in common that they all decided to strike? Then cohesion is made at the local level in the context of crisis.

There is little doubt that the investiture contest polarized the constituencies involved, both at the local level and the level of the realm.[8] One letter of Gregory to Otto, bishop of Constance, from 1074, provides an interesting example of the way the contest divided loyalties, and by extension communities. Indeed, Gregory writes to Otto in order that Otto would enforce Gregory’s legislation on the priesthood. Otto’s actions show that, at least initially, he must have aligned himself with the emperor: “A report has come to us [royal we, refers to Gregory] with regard to Your Fraternity, which I have heard with grief and regret […]. Wherefore we command you to present yourself before us […] to give answer […] for this disobedience and contempt of the Apostolic See” (Tierney, p.48-49). It appears, then, that there were different loyalties at play that were more important that loyalty to the ecclesia catholica. It is worth noting also that, in the letter, it is not just the bishop who is in canonical wrong, but his community of priests. Indeed, Otto “presides over the numerous clergy and the widespread population,” chose not to punish “those who had taken concubines persisted in their crime, while those who had not yet done so had no fear of your prohibitions” (Tierney, p.50). In other words, the conflict does not involve just the bishop, but his whole community.

Finally, the Concordat of Worms (Sept 1122) can be seen as a compromise, much in the same light as the Magna Carta: it is a piece of collective activity, where two communities were unable to break the other, were asserting their rights. Focusing on the rights of the Holy Roman Emperor, it becomes apparent that the Emperor had sought to create with some cohesion a group of people bound to him in loyalty. Thus, the bishop-elect receives the regalia from the king, even if the latter promises “canonical elections and free consecration.” Thus, two communities are appearing in this document forms: the Holy Roman Empire, with ties to an emperor, and local communities, which retain the ability to elect their bishops. Frederick II, for all his troubles, retained sufficient authority and loyalty to raise armies.[9] Thus, the Imperial office did not lose loyalties in this contest (and in fact created new ones).

Thus, the investiture contest provides evidence that Reynolds’ view that contest divides in a way to strengthen communal bonds is a particularly shrewd and correct observation.

[1] Intended here in the wider sense of the term, as the adjective of community.

[2] Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms and Communities in Western Europe, 2^nd Ed (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), p.7-8.

[3] For the criticism, see Dominique Barthélémy, The Knight, the Serf and the Historian (Ithaca: Cornell University Press): his main criticism of Duby is the enlargement of the study of the Macônais to the whole of Europe. While on the surface this appears coherent, after Reynold’s work, the historian should reconsider his position, and admit that there are interregional processes, though we must still account for the fact that these took place at different times, and, as a consequence, causality is dependent on context. Still the processes take the same shape.

[4] The primary documents are taken from Brian Tierney, The Crisis of Church and State 1050-1300 (Toronto: Toronto University Press, 1988), chapter 2. When noted otherwise, they come from class handouts.

[5] It is also worth noting that the large fairs of Champagne were not placed in a strategic location for long –distance trade, even if they eventually became hubs of international trade in the late-twelfth, early-thirteenth century.

[6] Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms, pp.155-158. The implicit reasoning is based on Braudel’s capitalism surveys, which consider that the city requires markets to supply it. That is, because town-folks often specialized their activities away from basic sustenance, there was a necessity for outsourcing basic needs. This duty fell on peasants. As towns grow, Braudel argues, so does the supply zone. Fernand Braudel,Les Structures du Quotidien (Paris: Armand Colin, 1979), see esp. chapter 1. Susan Reynolds uses this argument, Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms, esp. pp. 158-165.

[7] Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms, especially chapter 3, pp. 184-198. The main argument is that guilds, even if they become economic entities, initially began as common ‘interest groups’,’ which would take over some administrative duties (at times acting as electoral structures), or religious festivals (which cannot be dissociated from political life).

[8] I will focus primarily on the evidence from the Empire.

[9] Susan Reynolds, Kingdoms, p.295.

Mercantilism, Consolidation and Gifts: The Importance of the Fairs of Champagne.

2011-11-08T12:29:00.000-08:00

I will not be concerned, in this response, with the important authority that the Fairs of Champagne conferred on the Counts. It suffices mainly to consider how the crisis with the Piacenza merchants. The fairs provided enough of revenue for merchants that the potentate of Piacenza engaged in a series of diplomatic exchanges with the count of Champagne, so as to avoid exclusion from the fairs (Evergates, Document 24).

Of greater interest to me is the importance of the wealth that was generated by the fairs, and the fact that they appear to have played an integral role in the development of Champagne as a rather unified county. In other words, the wealth that was derived from the fairs, being tremendous, was spread to various other institutions, including monasteries and vassals, which allowed for the counts to consolidate their county politically.

I have recorded, from document 51 in the source handout, the amount of wealth that the counts of Troyes would have been able to gather from two fairs, the first at Troyes and the second at Provins (the other two fairs, according Evergates (Evergates, p.28), were Bar-sur-Aube and Lagny), amounted to about 4000 pounds, for the years 1276 to 1278 (source packet document 51). It would be wrong to assume that they were this large in 1164 or 1174, in the time of Henry I.

We can, however, think that the amount of revenue from rents in the market (that is without rents from room OR from weighing taxes) to under ten percent of what the merchants would bring. Indeed, the value of the fair in Provins is given at 1000 pounds in 1275, for the fair taking place between June 24^th and September 8^th (source packet, doc 51). The first letter of Thibault, stating that merchants from Siena, Florence, Pistoia, Lucca and Pisa had been despoiled of 12,000 worth of good while they were on their way to the fair of Provins. The fact that the letter is dated to October would tend to show that the fair these despoiled merchants were travelling to had to have been the St Ayoul Fair, which takes place from September 14 to November 1. It is unlikely that we would be dealing with the May Fair, given the sum in question and the pace of responses. Indeed, letter two from February 1243, is a response to another letter. That means that in four months three letters had been exchanged, which gives us an average time of five weeks per letter. Then the merchants of Siena and the other cities would have left to go to the St Ayoul fair. Since their goods were estimated at 12,000 pounds and the revenue of the fair is estimated at 1,000 pounds, a figure of ten percent revenue is a large estimate for the ratio between the value of the goods exchanged and the value of the fair to the count.

It is not, however, a ratio that would out of place given the merchandises exchanged. The Italian merchants exchanged luxury goods like spices and silk (Evergates, p.28). The merchants from other cities citied by the third letter of Thibault (Toulouse, Marseille, Metz, Lyon) and local merchants would probably be selling cheaper goods, and thus their aggregate wealth would not amount to the wealth of the Italian merchants. I will proceed under the assumption that this ratio would have been somewhat constant, even if it fluctuated annually.

These fairs, then would have provided the count with an impressive margin to give out gifts to monasteries and to purchase lands from castellans. It is no wonder, then, that Thibault, in his testament of 1257, is able to bequeath such largesse on the monasteries. For instance, he gives 200 pounds to Clairveaux, or 1,000 pounds to the poor commoners of Champagne (document 53), given that he had some assurance that he would receive a large revenue stream from his fairs. His wealth is not limited to the fairs, of course, and would have also come from rents in fiefs.

There is some evidence that these fair money could have been used to purchase fiefs. In the purchase of the lands of Roger, lord of Rozoy-en-Thiérarche, it is stated that he receives 500 pounds, in addition to a rent of 60 pounds to be taken from the fairs at St Ayoul (document 7). Given the context, and though Roger becomes their vassal, he receives a great amount money for his fief. Given that, according to Evergates, 100 pounds invested in property and five pounds annual rent is sufficient for a simple lifestyle (document 28), the 60 pounds in rent (in addition to other rents Robert might have received from other fiefs) would have been plenty. That Robert chooses for this rent to come from the St Ayoul fair is not surprising, it would have been a sure stream of money.

Thus, the importance of the fairs for Champagne can hardly be overstated. Indeed, they provided the counts of Champagne with an insured revenue stream, which could be brokered against property, or even given as gifts. Thus, the wealth of the merchants of Italy reached many places, including the lower castellans of Champagne.

What's a Knight? Bisson, Duby and Barthelemy on the question of Knighthood and Nobility in the Central Middle Ages

2011-09-27T08:10:00.000-07:00

Bisson’s view that “the historical study of nobility is little else but a matter of perspective,”[1] is problematic in the sense that, at its core, Bisson appears to believe that there can be no historical consensus on the nature of medieval nobility. The articulation of his paper is centered on the two major schools of thought, the French and the German, and their intellectual offspring. Inherent to the problem, initially set up by Bloch and Tellenbach are the questions of origin of this medieval nobility: are the nobles a new cast of people, or do they trace their origins back to an older group of privileged people?

To Bisson, the answer to this question is a matter of perspective. Bloch was a social historian, and, Bisson states, Bloch viewed the nobility as a creation of the 11^th century, when, essentially bloodlines are institutionalized by means of a juridical process.[2] That is, the nobiles are essentially a legal institution of the landowners of the eleventh century. Contra Bloch are the studies of the German school, put forward by Tellenbach and Karl Schmid. Using a prosopographical survey of the major families, Tellenbach attempted to demonstrate that the families traced their origins back to Late Antiquity, while Schmid identified the difficulties with tracing the origins to the difference of perception of families in the Frankish realm and in the 12^th century. Both of these studies were based on the German libri memoriales of monasteries.[3] Thus for the Germans, there is no “revolution”, but rather an evolution.

The harmonization of the two views is taken up by Georges Duby. The milites were magnates, whose origins can be traced to the Carolingians. But these magnates increasingly became interested in land-ownership, eventually managing their own wives’ property. Therein lies what Bisson calls the transformation of familial structures, from a large kin based system of horizontal allegiances (that is to say, the gens of the Romans), to a vertical familial system of inheritance by the direct bloodlines.[4]

It is from Duby’s studies (from the original Mâconnais study to its revision after the publication of Schmid’s work), that, according to an approbating Bisson, the study of nobility shifted to family ties. First, the American Andrew W. Lewis argued that such a pattern can already be seen in the succession of the Capetian nobles, and that this practice was developed between 860 and 960.[5] Applying this model to the nobles was tricky. While the Bouchard study appears to show that the high nobility (people “flying dangerously close to the sun”) used similar naming strategies to indicate dynastic continuity.[6]

In sum, Bisson, in what can only be described as a historiographical survey,[7] argues that the nobility essentially evolved out of a magnate class (which may or may not go back to the Merovingians), which essentially reformed the way it conducted its inheritance policies.

The criticism comes from Barthélémy. Barthélémy, in The Serf, the Knight and the Historian, does not criticize Bisson himself, but rather the foundational work on the Mâconnais of Georges Duby. For Duby, Barthélémy argues (at length), there is a revolution around the year 1000 in terms of the system that governed France. Indeed, from the year 1000 onward, the knighthood becomes a class in itself, evolving from the nobility.[8] Barthélémy views this particular problem in different terms, more in the juridical tradition of Bloch, looking primarily at legal documents. For Barthélémy Carolingian diplomatic documents denote two things, nobility and vassality, and that nobiles and milites are not substitute for one another. In a sense, the use of nobiles and miles is a way for a society to define itself in Roman terms.[9]

I would take this even further. The continuity between Merovingians and Capetians (in terms of nobility) can be linked to the fact that at its base, Frankish society did develop around Roman institutions. Michael Kulikowski, in Rome’s Gothic Wars,[10] does argue that the barbarian “tribes” are a product of the frontier. The inherent problem that this interpretation poses is that there is a lack of a “native” tradition in reality. But most importantly, the sources for the barbarians are profoundly Roman in their outlook; therefore, these early-medieval authors are explaining the Merovingian phenomenon in Roman/Christian terms (for instance, Theodoric was a protector Urbis, a consul etc…). Thus, the reality represented by the terms, Nobiles and especially milites are inherently Roman terms, used by “Roman” historians/chroniclers in order to show continuity with the Roman past.

Barthélémy’s most persuasive point does not necessarily relate to the absence of revolution in or around the year 1000 (though this is the main point of his book), but rather, and especially for the case of the Knights and the Nobles, that being a Knight is an activity-and to engage in this activity, one must go through the initiation Onorare Militum- while being a noble is a matter of birth.[11] The most important demonstration comes from the use of milites and nobiles. Here, Barthélémy argues, nobiles and milites can be used interchangeably, unlike what, Tellenbach et al. propose, namely that the synonyms of nobiles were potentes, illustrissimi, optimates and milites.[12] This particular point is relatively clearly expressed in the charters from Champagne. In 1190, Hagan can be both Lord of Evry and a knight (doc 51). Even as late as 1249, a testament shows that Lord Hugh is both noble-born AND a knight (doc 54). Thus, it does appear as though the words are not interchangeable, and that knight does not mean either noble or lord.

Thus, it appears that Barthélémy is correct, at least in expressing concern for the development of the knighthood, as evolving out of a nobility. The gradients of nobility are shown in a charter from 1249 or 1250, where Count Thibault IV writes to “all barons, castellans, knights and other feudal tenants ” (doc 10). This document would at least tend to imply that there are numerous layers to that “feudal” society.

[1] T.N. Bisson, ‘Nobility and Family in Medieval France: A Review Essay’, French Historical Studies 16.3 (1990), p.597-613, p.599.

[2] Ibid, pp.597-99.

[3] Ibid: It is, however, worth noting that the perspective of Tellenbach and Schmid may yield erroneous results. Indeed, it would not be surprising IF nobles claimed an older ancestry to enhance their prestige. After all, the myth of continuity between the Merovingians and the Carolingians was “invented” by the Carolingian biographers of Charlemagne. Then, can’t this attitude be generalized? What other records are there that attest the continuity of the lines?

[4] Ibid, p.600-602.

[5] Ibid, p.603-604.

[6] Ibid, p.605-606. This is, after all, Philippe Buc’s argument, that an emphasis on continuity is very likely to represent an actual discontinuity.

[7] He unabashedly believes that this study of nobility is a study of perception, see above, note 1.

[8] Dominique Barthélémy, The Knight, the Serf and the Historian (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, p.640). T.N. Bisson, ‘Nobility and Family’, p.602.

[9] This goes well with the spirit of the Carolingian Renaissance. Dominique Barthélémy, The Knight, the Serf and the Historian, see esp. chapter 5.

[10] Michael Kulikowski, Rome’s Gothic Wars (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)

[11] Dominique Barthélémy, The Knight, the Serf and the Historian, esp. Chapter 6-7.

[12] T.N. Bisson, ‘Nobility and Family’, p.598.

Book Review: Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods, trans. by Richard Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 2010)

2011-02-13T18:05:00.000-08:00

The problem of the study of the mysteries of Cybele, Isis and Mithras is one that continues to challenge scholars of Graeco-Roman Religion. The questions centered on systems of belief, systems of value, and finally around ritual systems have not found any definite answer, especially in light of the fact that sources are indeed scarce. If Jaime Alvar’s new work does not provide any firm, indisputable answer to the way the mysteries function, it does not take away from the main merit of the work: the interpretation offered is strengthened by a strong methodology coupled with a tremendous synthesis of both primary documents and secondary scholarly debates. Ultimately the work achieves three distinct objectives. The first two are of historical value, while the third is of methodological value. Indeed, Alvar has proven in the first place that the ‘oriental’ cults, in spite of recent trends seeking to point out their differences, do exhibit enough similarities that a scholar might group them under the umbrella of a single analysis. In the second place, Alvar argues, quite successfully, that these three religions, despite their particular dynamics, cannot be dissociated from the general system of Graeco-Roman cults. Finally, the third merit is that methodology can be used to supplement lack of primary document.

The book is divided in five chapters. The first chapter, ‘Religion, Cult and Mystery’ is a purely theoretical work, which purpose is not just to lay down the theoretical basis of the analysis, but also to consider the validity of the grouping on a purely philosophical basis, without delving into the specifics of each cults. Ultimately, Alvar argues, myth and procession, both integral parts of the mystery cults, are essential constituencies in the creation of a religious identity.^¹ The special character of the ‘oriental’ mysteries does not preclude the presence of these elements, and, due to their origins outside of the Graeco-Roman orbit, display a similar vision of the mystery system.^²

The next two chapters, ‘Systems of Belief’ and ‘Systems of Value’ are concerned specifically with the mythography of Cybele, Isis and Mithras. In spite of the extremely fragmentary nature (and in the case of Mithras, complete absence) of a narrative of the myths of the mysteries, Alvar, in the first place reconstructs the myths from the iconography, the few indirect references in the literature, and epigraphic evidence. Once the narrative is completed for each myth, Alvar shows that each mystery^³ displays the same fundamental characteristic: each cult offers two distinct paradigms. First, the cults do offer some form of ordering of the chaos of life by providing a deity that has some form of control over fate; and second, the cults offer some form of reward in the afterlife.^⁴ The third chapter is a slight departure from the myth and considers how these rewards are dispensed. In short, Alvar shows that in each mystery is included a moral code centered on total devotion to the deity, and is shadowed in the initiation.^⁵

The fourth chapter, 'The Ritual Systems', steps away from the myths themselves and looks at the way the deities were worshiped. The ritual itself is perhaps the strongest element of continuity between the Roman civic cults and the mysteries. Indeed, Alvar argues, the mysteries exhibit some very key components of the Roman civic cults, including procession, sacrifice and prayer (focusing on health, and wealth). The initiation, Alvar states, is the major structural difference that differentiates the mysteries from the Roman civic cults, even though it serves a similar purpose: indeed, Alvar argues, the initiation is perhaps the most important part of the creation of communal bonds. ^⁶

The contrast occurs at the micro-level, that is, the specific ways in which a given deity is worshiped Still, Alvar argues, the differences may not be that relevant. For instance, the lack of a head priest in the mithraic iconography does not show the presence of the 'sacrificing pater'. Departing from the notion that mithraic sacrifices were performed without a priest, Alvar shows that the iconography should be read at the symbolic level: Mithras himself is the 'sacrificing pater.'^⁷ Lastly, even strange practices should not deter us from establishing the parallels between Roman cult practices and the mysteries. For instance, the 'traditional' self-gelding performed in the Magna Mater cults is toned down as being neither common, nor done hastily in a trance. Rather, the emasculated priests had in all likelihood been prepared and the gelding was performed under control reenactment (which does not occlude a ritualistic reenactment).^⁸

The last chapter serves as conclusion and destroys the link between Christianity and the mysteries on the levels of prayer, belief system, and ritual. Instead of viewing the success of the mysteries as a precursor to the success of Christianity, he views them as competing ideologies that evolved in the great melting pot of Roman Religion. Thus, both Christianity and the mysteries were in fact Romanized, and transformed side-to-side.

I would not recommend this book to the uninitiated in the discourses of Roman Religion. Indeed, by its very nature, a study of the mysteries is necessarily complex. No contemporary narrative of the myths remains, and, in the case of Mithras, no text pertaining directly to the cult is extant. Alvar takes this gaping hole in the sources in the manner of a successful imposition of silence on the initiates. Perhaps heavily influenced by Apuleius (which I will get to in a subsequent part of the review), Alvar follows Lucius's statement that he cannot repeat what the priest Mithras has said to him during the initiation rites^⁹ à la lettre. This in itself is very limiting. Indeed, that the lack of surviving textual evidence is the result of obedience to an apparent rule of silence is but one possible alternative. Focusing on the cult of Mithras, one finds a wealth of evidence that, not only were intellectuals aware of the cult (as was the case with Augustine or Porphyry) but that there were 'experts' in the cults. Indeed, in his De antro nympharum, Porphyry mentions a certain Euboulus who wrote extensively about the cults.^¹⁰ This would at least suggest an oral tradition, and more likely, a written tradition. One possible avenue of inquiry would pertain to textual transmission in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages. At any rates, this problem of sources is one that deserves better treatment than using Foucault's philosophy as axiomatic in all circumstances.

Therein lies the fundamental problem with Alvar's analysis. To remedy to the paucity of extent documents, he relies on methodology and personal beliefs to expound on various themes. One can see these issues particularly well in two instances: in the case of Mithraic myth-making, and again in his blind use of Apuleius as a valid source for the cult of Isis. For Mithras, the situation is especially difficult, as there is indeed no written myth, and the paradigms of the myth are to be derived from the iconography, and perhaps supplement the iconography with the sparse myth of the Iranian Mithra. Alvar adds one variable to the mix: the reconstruction of Cumont, which despite his warnings, he uses rather extensively.

The use of the iconography is the only reliable source that Alvar uses for the cult of Mithras. The Cumont narrative has been widely discredited. Alvar himself states that every sentence not taken directly from the iconography 'may very well be mistaken.'^¹¹ The parallel with the Iranian Mithra is also one that Alvar discredits subsequently in the book: the Persian deity that emerged out of Iron Age Iran has evolved.^¹² What then, can be derived from Alvar's analysis? Did the Mitroacs indeed possess a system of belief based on the myth of the their deity? The answer must come from comparative evidence with the other mysteries. Ultimately, no answer can be decisive.

In the case of Isis, the problem is again in the use of the source material. The main source that Alvar uses is the Golden Ass, which he takes to be true, not by analysis, but rather, because 'he [Apuleius] was writing for a sophisticated audience capable of appreciating the truth-value of his account from its own circumstantial knowledge.'^¹³ Again, this is not only a simplistic vision of the text of Apuleius, but also erroneous on a few counts. First, he fails to consider the Golden Ass as a work of comedy, and that we must, therefore, be careful of the literary tropes. A careful reading of the ritual shows an overwhelming presence of words pertaining to flowers, which, on the one hand may be associated with the cult of Isis, but may very well be a hyperbole. Also, the presence of legal jargon (for instance in XI.24) indicates the more traditional contractual nature of the bonds between a person and the deity, which in turn would indicate that Lucius's audience may not have been so knowledgeable.^¹⁴ Lastly, Alvar argues that the various branches of the cult were not in contact with one another, which he takes from the refusal of the Isis priest in Rome to recognize the initiation of Lucius in book XI of the Golden Ass.^¹⁵ If such is the case, what evidence can we draw from Apuleius? To what extent is Apuleius's discussion of Isis an isolated incident, with iconography specific to that area? Ultimately, without an external source to confirm or deny what is said by Apuleius, little can be achieved from a reading of the Golden Ass.¹⁶

In spite of this criticism, Alvar attempts to restore the link that once allowed scholars to link the 'oriental' cults of Isis, Cybele and Mithras.^¹⁷ And indeed, he explains rather well the structural similarities between the three. What he successfully convinces this reader of is that the cult of Magna Mater and the cult of Isis were incredibly similar, and that gaping holes about understanding in one cult, can be used to construct a narrative about the other cult. However, the Mithraic cult appears to be significantly different both a the structural level, and at the mythological level. Most notably, the absence of women, and the astrological character of the cult are important differences. Thus, Alvar's synthesis of the mysteries offers his reader a challenging yet coherent and cogent account of the three major mysteries, highlighting not just the similarities between the cults, but forces the reader to think about the material and form his own opinion of the mysteries.

1 Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods, trans. by Richard Gordon (Leiden: Brill, 2010), pp.17-23, esp. pp.21-22.

2 Ibid, p.23.

3 I will use this word loosely to describe specifically Cybele, Isis and Mithras.

4 Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods, esp. pp.132-142.

5 Although the form varies, this does indeed seem to be a universal: castration in the cult of Cybele, abstinence in the case of Isis. The Mithraic evidence is more tenuous, but I am overall convinced that the myths did contain some form of morality. Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods, pp.146-155, pp.200-203.

6 Ibid, the comparison is set up specifically pp.206-231.

7 Ibid, pp.351-353.

8 Ibid, pp. 246-261.

9 Apuleius, The Golden Ass find reference.

10 Jaime Alvar, Romanising Oriental Gods, pp.74-75.

11Ibid, p.78.

12 This point is unfortunately made too late in the book. Ibid, p.345.

13Ibid, p.337.

14See Apuleius, The Golden Ass, XI.24: Perfectis sollemnibus: the word sollemnibus has both a legal connotation, and can be used for civil rituals. It indicates that Lucius is still reasoning as a Roman, and is aware that he is addressing a Roman, non-initiated audience. See XI.23: Quaeras forsitan satis anxie, studiose lector, quid deinde dictum, quid factum; dicerem si dicere liceret, cognosceres, si liceret audire. The two past contrafactuals indicate that the audience cannot know the secret initiation rites. Linking this to the perfectis sollemnibus, we see Lucius's desire to express what has just happened in a way that makes sense to his audience. The exempla is interesting, and it can be inferred that these rituals were perhaps not so unique. This interpretation would follow with the rest of the book, where Apuleius hints at the fact that these cults are, in fact, shams.

15Alvar, Romanising the Oriental Cults, pp.217-221.

16In this respect, I follow the view of Bowden. Hugh Bowden, Mystery Cults of the Ancient World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), p.167.

17Alvar spends the bulk of the introduction explaining how that break came about, while the first chapter reconciles the three cults as possible unity.

Selected Passages of the Golden Ass by Apuleius, Book 11; with Commentary

2011-02-06T08:58:00.000-08:00

This is a relatively long post, but that may be helpful to anyone who studies Mystery Religions or Religions of the Roman Empire. This was written as part of a translation project in Fall 2011, directed by Professor Harvey. The commentary at the end provides both grammatical and cultural information.

For further reading:
1/Winkler, Auctor and Actor
more specialized literature, but interesting argument.
2/ Bowden, The Mystery Cults of the Ancient World
Excellent introduction to Mystery Cults
3/ Apuleius, The Golden Ass, Trans. by Robert Graves.
My favorite translation, combines accuracy with a quality of writing characteristic of Graves.

XI. 1- At the onset of the night, asinus Lucius is about to to pray to the queen of the gods.

2. 'O Queen of heaven,^ⁱ you are appearing as Ceres, original mother of grains, who, while rejoicing in the discovery of your daughter,^ⁱⁱ after you removed the bestial diet of the ancient acorn,[and after] you have shown mild food, now cultivates the Eleusian soil.^ⁱⁱⁱ Or you are heavenly Venus, who, at the time of the first creation of things united a diversity of sexes with fathered Love, and having propagated the offspring from human kind in eternity,^{^iv} you are worshipped at the sea-girded sanctuary of Paphos.^{^v} Or you are the sister of Phoebus, who, after the labor of pregnant women was relieved by soothing cures,^{^vi} you educated so many peoples, and now you are venerated at the famous shrines of Ephesus. Or, during wailing nights, you are dreadful Prosperpina, of a triple appearance, suppressing attacks of spirits and holding fast the bolts of the earth, wandering in many places, you are appeased in various ritual.^{^vii} [You who are] illuminating all city walls with that feminine light and nourishing fertile seeds and managing uncertain light from the course of the sun; by whatever name, by whatever rituals, by whatever shape^{^viii} is it proper to invoke you: O Goddess [please] make these extreme afflictions of mine stop already, O Goddess, restore my fortune that has collapsed, O Goddess, grant a respite and peace from this savage fall from grace.^{^ix} Let there be an end to hardship, let there be an end to dangers.^{^x} Drive out the hideous appearance of this four-footed [beast], and return me to my Lucius. But if some divine will presses upon me with relentless cruelty, let me at least die, if it is not allowed [for me] to live.'
3. After I poured out these requests and added wretched lamentations in this way,^{^xi} again sleep, draped around my weakened soul, overcame me in that same bed.^{^xii} But I had not yet closed my eyes, and behold, in the middle of the sea, the divine appearance bearing forth the face venerated by gods emerges; and thereupon little by little, the pellucid appearance seemed to have paused before me, after she cast out the sea from her whole body.^{^xiii} I shall attempt to recall to you her marvelous splendor, if nevertheless the poverty of the human speech will grant me the ability to set it out in words, or if her divine-will will have supplied an abundant amount of rhetorical eloquence.^{^xiv}

Already in the first place, her hair, most abundant and luxuriant and gradually entwined around her divine neck [or] freely scattered about gently flowed down. Her crown of many forms with various flowers^{^xv} had grazed her exalted head, in the middle of which certainly a flat roundness above her forehead was shining forth a white light in the manner of a mirror or more correctly an image of the moon; to the right and on the left it was held together with the coils of surging snakes,^{^xvi} from above it was adorned with the outstretched ear of wheat pertaining to Ceres. And also her multicolor garment, interwoven with fine linen, now bright with a pale whiteness, now yellow with a golden flower, now burning with red blush.^{^xvii} And what indeed was most of all^{^xviii} silencing my might [was] the most black palla^{^xix} shining with a grisly brilliance, which [was] returning on all sides, and under the right flank, recurring under the left arm, thrown over in the manner of a knob, and there was part of the garments hanging down with many knots, [the garnment] was undulating gracefully to the furthest extremities with little knots of threads.

4. Along the embroidered extremities and in the surface itself of [her dress],^{^xx} there was glittering scattered stars and in the midsts [of the stars] a half-moon^{^xxi} was breathing fiery flames. Yet, wherever the beautiful edge of that palla was flowing, a crown, made from all of the flowers and all of the round-fruits,^{^xxii} was clinging [to it] with a indivisible bind. Already the things carried for a while were diverse. For indeed in her right hand she bore a rattle^{^xxiii} of copper, small ordinary rods were thrust through the narrow place, bent back in the form of a belt. The thrice-shaking of the rattle with a trembling arm^{^xxiv} returned a melodious sound.^{^xxv} In her left she displayed a gold cup, on the arms of which, where it was visible, there was rising a snake, head held high with a wide swollen neck. Her sandals, woven with the victorious folliage of the palm tree, were covering her rosy-feet.^{^xxvi} Such and of such size the Goddess, breathing the felicitous buds of Arabia, deemed me worthy [to address] by voice:

5. “Behold, I am in your presence, having been stirred by your prayers, O Lucius, I, the parent of the things of nature, mistress of the elements, first-born of the ages, highest divinity, queen of the dead, first among the Gods, single appearance of gods and goddesses; I who dispense by my commands the bright summit of the sky, the healing winds of the sea, the mournful silences of the world-below. I whose single divinity as whole of the world is venerated in the form of many shapes, various rites, and under many a name.^{^xxvii} Thence, first-born Phrygians call^{^xxviii} me Pessununtia, Mother of God, from there, the autochtones of Attica call me Cecropeian Minerva,^{^xxix} the floating Cyprians call me Paphian Venus,^{^xxx} arrow-carrying Cretans call me Diana Dictynna,^{^xxxi} the trilingual Sicilians call me Stygian Proserpina,^{^xxxii} the Eleusians call me the ancient goddess Ceres,^{^xxxiii} some call me Juno, others Bellona, those men of yours call me Hecate, and those men Rhamnusia. And the Ethiopians, who are illuminated by the nascent rays of the dawning sun-god, and the Africans,^{^xxxiv} and the Egyptians, being strong in ancient doctrines, and honoring me with the proper rites, call me by my true name, Quee Isis. I am present, pitying your fate, I am among you, supporting [you] and favorable [to you]. Send away your weeping, and let your wailing go, drive out your grief; already a day of salvation begins to dawn for you by my providence. Therefore, accordingly, hold out your stretched soul with these commands of mine. The day, which is born out of this night, is dedicated to me by eternal religious rites.^{^xxxv} Then, when the winter storms have abated, and the stormy waves of the sea have been abated, at that point my priests, dedicating a coarse vessel to the navigable sea, shall offer a libation of foremost supplies. You should wait for that sacred moment with neither a sollicitous nor a profane mind.^{^xxxvi}

6. For, with my warning, a priest, in the preparation of the ritual, shall carry in his right hand a crown of roses^{^xxxvii} attached to the sistrum.^{^xxxviii} Thus, without hesitation, after the little crowd was dispersed, eagerly join^{^xxxix} my procession supported by [my] will and, gently, just as if you are about to kiss the hand of the priest, after you pluck the roses from the nearest priest, cast off without doubt yourself from the hide of that beast, which has, for a while, been most vile and detestable to me.^{^xl} And may you not dread anything whatsoever of my orders as being difficult. For, in this very moment, when I came to you, and at that same time as I am in your presence, I am instructing my priest by means of a dream about the things which are following and must be done.^{^xli} By my order, the constricted crowd of people shall depart from you, nor, among the joyous revelries and festive spectacles, shall anyone shudder at that shameful appearance of yours, which you are bearing, nor shall [anyone] subsequently explaining [this] to anyone shall accuse your suddenly changed appearance.^{^xlii} Remember [these things] completely, and always hold, kept in your penitent mind, that the remaining time of your life all the way until the end of your last breath, is given to me. Nor is it all-together unjust to owe to her, under whose auspices you shall have returned to me, because you shall live.^{^xliii} However, you shall live wealthy, you shall live glorified in my guardianship, and when you, having completed the time of your age, shall descend to the underworld, there, likewise, in my underground semi-sphere, as you see now, you, yourself dwelling in the Elysean fields, shall frequently adore me, having been propitious for you, a light shining forth in the darkness of Acheron and reigning in the innermost parts of Styx.^{^xliv} But if you shall deserve our divine favor from painstaking devotions and scrupulous attendace of religious services and obstinate abstinence, then you shall also know that, to myself alone is it permitted to prolong life for you beyond the time established by your fate.^{^xlv}

XI.7-14: Description of the procession of the festival of Isis. Lucius eats the roses and turns back into a human. He is faced with the priest, who shall instruct him in the mysteries of Isis.

[…] 14. With this having been done,^{^xlvi} the priest, with a merry face, particularly astonished at my now human^{^xlvii} form, spoke thus:

15. 'After you have had the care of many and diverse hardships and of the great storms of Fortune, you nevertheless came, O Lucius, to the gate of Peace and the altar of Forgiveness.^{^xlviii} Neither the circumstances of birth nor indeed its dignity^{^xlix} nor still the very learning by which you have flourished were of use to you, but you, fallen to servile pleasures from the hazard of green youth,^{^l} have carried back the grim reward of unfortunate curiosity. But, nevertheless the blindness of Fortune, while it tortures you with the worst of dangers, led you to the that wealth of religion^{^li} with unwary malice. Let her go now, and let her rage with the highest degrees of madness, and let her seek some other substance for her cruelty; for unsafe calamity has no place over those whose lives the majesty of our goddess has claimed in service for herself. What thieves, what servitude, what roundabout travels of most dangerous roads, what fear of daily death is useful to foul Fortune? Having now been received in the guardianship of Fortune, but a seeing [Fortune],^{^lii} with whose splendor of light she illuminates the rest of the gods. Take up, then, a happier face, in harmony with that white dress of yours,^{^liii} join^{^liv} the procession of the savious goddess with a renewed step.^{^lv} Let those-lacking-in-religion see, and let them see and recognize their error: “Lo and Behold, Lucius, who was freed from former hardships, and rejoicing in the providence of great Isis, he triumphs over his fortune; for which reason he is yet safer and better protected.” Give the name of this holy army, by which sacrament^{^lvi} you were once asked, and now devote yourself to the compliance of our religion, and be placed in the voluntary service^{^lvii} of the ministry. For, when you begun to serve for the goddess, then you shall greatly the profits of your freedom.'

16. In that way the extraordinary priest, who was prophesyzed, drawing fatigued breaths ceased to speak.^{^lviii} Then, I mingled with the religious stream of people^{^lix} and moving forth, I joined [the procession], known and visible to the entire city,^{^lx} having been singled out by the fingers and approbations of the most famous men. All of the people were telling tales^{^lxi} about me: 'Today, the august will of the all-powerful goddess transformed him to human foms. By Hercules, he is happy and thrice blessed, he who deserved the most clear patronage of the heaven by the innocence and faith of a previous life, so that born again in that way, at once was promised to the service of the holy rites.'^{^lxii}

Among these things and the tumult of the feasts of the vows,^{^lxiii} advancing little by little, we arrived at the shore of the sea, and we travelled to that very place, where my donkey-self had been housed the day before.^{^lxiv} In that very place, when the images [of the gods] had been set down according to religious usage, the highest priest [first] uttered the most solemn prayers from a chaste mouth, then offered and dedicated to the goddess a ship, most skillfully built, and decorated with wonderful paintings of Egyptians all around it, after it was purified^{^lxv} by a bright torch, an egg and sulfur.^{^lxvi} The gleaming linen of this happy hull was carrying forth embroidered letters: these letters renwed the vow about prosperous navigation of new merchandise.^{^lxvii} Already, a rounded pine for a mast was rising with a lofty brilliance, [and] with a visible mast-head as emblem, the stern curved by a stern figure was glittering, having been clothed with gloden leaves,^{^lxviii} and the entire keel, polished like a bright citrus-tree, was glowing.^{^lxix} Then, the whole of the people, both the devotees and the profane, eagerly amassed baskets filled withh spices and similar offerings, and above the waves,^{^lxx} they poured in offering a meal made with milk, until the ship, filled with large gifts and favorable curses,^{^lxxi} freed from its anchor cables, was returned to the sea by a personal and peaceful breeze. After she rendered herself invisible to us by the distance of her march,^{^lxxii} the bearers took up their sacred standards,^{^lxxiii} and the eager people again pursued with zeal^{^lxxiv} the return to the temple with the same manner of decorum of the pomp.

XI.17-18- The procession ends with what appears to be a fairly traditional ritual: the reading of vows in favor of the emperor, the senate, the knights and the Roman people. The people depart, but Lucius is kept intentus in deae specimen. Lucius then is visited by family members and clients, who lavish him with generous gifts.

19. Thus, after each^{^lxxv} had been addressed individually from duty, and speadily were narrated my old toils and present joys,^{^lxxvi} I carried myself again to the most pleasing, in my opinion, view of the goddess, and after dwellings were rented out^{^lxxvii} inside the enclosure of the temple, I established for myself a temporary Lar.^{^lxxviii} Thus, I was near the private minsteries of the goodess, and indivisible in the cohabitation^{^lxxix} of the priests, and an indivisible worshipper of the great divine will. Nor was there a single night nor any sleep barren with the sight or warning of the goddess, but with her frequent sacred advices, she recommended that I, having been long since destined to, now at last be initiated. And although I, provided with eager desire, nevertheless was being delayed by religious terror,^{^lxxx} because indeed, I had painstakingly come to know the difficult worship of the cult, how arduous the restraints of abstinence,^{^lxxxi} and how life, which is exposed to many accidents, must be fortified cautiously by examination. Reflecting repeatedly these matters with myself, I do not know by what manner, although hurrying, I kept postponing.^{^lxxxii}

XI.20-23: Probably to quell Lucius's doubts, Isis sends an old slave Candidus with presents for Lucius, which has the desired effect, as Lucius begins anew his initation with a newfound vigor. At last, Lucius is ready for the ceremony and the priest indicates the things that Lucius must bring to the ceremony. After a set of ritual ablutions, and an unknown ritual, the civil element of the ritual can now begin.

24. By morning, it was done, and after ritual offerings^{^lxxxiii} were completed, I proceded, having been dedicated by means of twelve stolae,^{^lxxxiv} a custom religious enough,^{^lxxxv} but I was restrained by no chain to speak about this of course, because, thereupon, from that time, many people present were looking. In fact, in the very middle of the sacred temple, indeed having been ordered by the wearer of byssina^{^lxxxvi} to stand on top of a platform made of wood, before the image of the goddess, but I was made visible by the florals depicted on my garnment. And on my shoulders, was hanging a precious cloack behind my back down to my heels. Nevertheless, wherever you look, I was being marked by animals drawn around [my cloack] in various colors; here were Indian dragons, there northern^{^lxxxvii} gryphons, whom another world begat in the form of a winged large bird.^{^lxxxviii} Sacred men named this the Olympian stola.^{^lxxxix} But on my right hand, I was carrying a torch heightened by flames and my head was encircled with a beautiful crown of white palms with leaves beaming forth in the manner of rays.^{^xc} Thus, since I was adorned in the likeness of the sun and set up in the manner of a divine statue, after the curtains were drawn suddenly, the people vacillated in my sight.^{^xci} Then I celebrated the most happy birth of the sacred rites,^{^xcii} and there were agreeable banquets and humorous parties.^{^xciii} And further, the third day was celebrated with and an equal ritual of ceremonies, and there was a sacred breakfast and there was the lawful consumption of my initiation.^{^xciv} Then a little bit later, in that very place, lingering for days, I enjoyed the inescapable delight of the image of the goddess, obviously having pledged a privilege that cannot be repaid.^{^xcv}

XI.24-30: Lucius finishes chapter 24 with a prayer begging for the protection of the goddess, and subsequently arrives home safely. He is then visited by Osiris, who is orders Lucius to be initiated in his sacred rites. After another costly initiation, Lucius is asked by a third deity to be initiated, which he ends up doing, albeit reluctantly, having been ruined by the previous two initiations.

iI chose not to capitalize “heaven” and stay true to the syntax of the Teubner edition.

iiRepertu laetata filiae, the supine ablative, which goes with laetata, is better translated as a noun. The reference is to Ovid V, the rape of Proserpina, the daughter of Ceres, who was captured by Dis while she was picking flowers in Sicily.

iiiQuae, […], uetustae glandis ferino remoto pabulo. The ablative absolute ferino removo pabulo is modified by a genitive of description “uestustae glandis”. This is an interesting reference to the times before agriculture; similarly another ablative absolute miti commonstrato cibo shows a sequence of time. The notion of time is further marked by “nunc” in nunc Eleusiniam percolis. This last phrase is interesting as it marks both an activity “cultivating”, and a place of residence, and also a very common site of worship of Ceres at Eleusis. This reference of Eleusia prefaces the subsequent listing of cults: Venus at Paphos, and Diana/Artemis at Ephesus.

ivThe ablative absolute subole humano genere propagato is translated similarly as in (iii) and apparently displays the sequence of order: first the goddess performs a worthy task, and now she is worshiped/resides in a place.

vCicumfluo Paphi sacrario... the island of Cyprus is surrounded by the sea, hence the circumfluo. The translation of Robert Graves reads sea-girded, which is what I used.

vii.e.: Diana. The ablative absolute partu fetarum medelis lenientibus recreato shows the soothing of birth. Also, recreo, are, avi, atus is a refreshing, reviving in a positive sense. Most translators have used it to mean relieve, and this is my choice as well.

viiNocturnis ululatibus horrenda Proserpina triformi facie: Proserpina is one of three manifestations of Hecate (along with the greek Kore). The triformi facie is mirrored in the three present active participles: laruales impetus comprimens, terraeque claustra cohibens, lucos diuersos inerrans. Propitiaris in uario cultu: unlike the previous two, Proserpina is appeased, showing the difference of character with the other two goddesses.

viii Ista...lumina: Apuleius is taking us away from the specific indentifications with deities and addressing the moon again, whoever she might be. The ambiguity is conveyed in the series quoquo nomine, quoquo ritu, quaqua facie. The uncertainty could also emphasize the lack of locality in the cult, and the lack of a set ritual. This may also prepare of us for Lucius's multiple and costly conversions.

ixTu meis iam nunc extremis aerumnis subsiste: Tu in the vocative warns the reader of the incoming imperative subsiste. This structure is repeated in the following segments tu … adfirma. Meis … extremis aerumnis is a dative of purpose. The iam nunc combination is probably emphatic and shows Lucius's weariness of being an ass. Literally: O You, make my extreme afflictions stop now. Tu … adfirma: a clever reminder that Lucius was a wealthy, well-connected, young man, as indicated in his relationship with leading men of the town of Hypata, Milo; and the fact that the wealthy Byrrhena was his foster-mother (II.2-7). Tu saeuis exanclatis casibus pausam pacemque tribue: exanclatis is a compound participle, which, literally means out of having the care of, which I translated loosely as care. Saeuis … casibus is an indirect object of tribue.

xSit satis laborum, sit satis pericolum: both jussive subjunctive. I translated satis laborum, satis pericolum as “an end to” rather than enough of, to show a bit more consistency with my translation above of Lucius's prayer that the Goddess ends his tribulations.

xiAd istum modum fusis precibus et adstructis miseris lamentationibus: two ablative absolutes that show completed action.

xiiCubile, cubilis: Lucius is here referring back to X.35, where he says that he fell sleep on a mollissimo harenae gremio, which is consistent with the image of the cubile in XI.3.

xiiiToto corpore … excusso pelago: an interesting ablative absolute. Literally meaning casting-off the sea, which could be a comical way to say that the Goddess, after this stupendous event, needs to dry herself off. This is certainly consistent with the comical tone of the text. The physical separation of toto corpore from excusso pelago can be used for clarity's sake, to remove the confusing that it is the sea that has been stricken out from her whole body.

xivEius mirandam … oris humani: the formula has a definite comic connotation. The apparent reverence set out by the vocabulary in the prodosis 'si tamen mihi disserendi tribuerit facultatem paupertas oris humani' is offset by the fact that the sentence is a future more-vivid, which removes any question about whether or not the author has the ability to describe the Goddess. This interpretation is furthered by the hyperbole set out in the second prodosis: dapsilem copiam elocutilis facundiae.

xvCorona multiformis uariis floribus sublimen: genitive of description coupled with an ablative of description.

xviI chose to follow the translation of Gwyn Griffiths here for the word sulcus, sulci.

xviiRoseo rubore is an intriguing repetetion.

xviiiLonge longeque: most of all.

xixA palla is a sort of lady's garment.

xxEius here either refers to the yet identified Goddess or to her dress. Planities, planitiei, is used here to mean flatness or the flat part of the dress. Hence I interpreted eius to refer to the dress rather than the Goddess.

xxiSemestris generally means half a year, but the meaning of “half” can sometimes (as in this case) be used. I want to thank Stefan for bringing this to my attention. The emblems set forth in stellae … semestris luna are found in three instances in Isic iconography, (1) on a marble statue from Hermopolis, (2) on a marble funerary relieve for the Isis-priestess Galatea in the second century AD, and (3) on a mosaic of the Orontes. See J. Gwyn Griffith, Apuleius of Madauros, The Isis Book (Leiden: Brill, 1975), p.130.

xxiiTotis floribus totisque constructa pomis recalls the description of her crown in XI.3. The word poma, ae generally is used to mean apple, but can often be used to mean any round-fruit. The use of the adjective totus, a, um leads me to opt for the more general meaning. The flowers in combination with the fruit can be interpreted as both signs of luxuriance, revelries and abundance. This would be consistent with the way Lucius addresses the great goddess in XI.II as the nourishing goddess: ista luce feminea conslustrans cuncta moenia et sudis ignibus nutriens laeta semina et solis ambagibus dispensans incerta lumina.”

xxiiiCrepitaculum, i: the word came to refer specifically to the sisteum of Isis.

xxivCrispante bracchio undoubtedly refers to the motion of the arm, which ressembles a trembling movement.

xxvBrachio crispante trigeminos iactus, reddebant argutum sonorem: Trigeminos iactus are both accusatives, indicating extent of time. The subject of reddebant are the traiectae mediae paucae uirgulae. This is an interesting description of the mechanism of a rattle.

xxviPedes... intextae: the sandals are woven with the leaves of the palm, clearly a symbol of victory. In Greece, however, the symbol of the victor is the laurel tree as indicated in the myth of Daphne and Apollo in Ovid's Metamorphosis Book I. The palm may then be an African particularity.

xxviiEn … orbis: This passage, and the introduction of Isis recalls the way Lucius addresses her in II.2 as a single goddess, worshipped by all under the many names. The entire structure of the paragraphy is inverse to that of II.2, first she introduces herself as the one goddess, and then in a second place, she introduces her names, which are specifications of the cults associated with Isis in the non-classical world.

xxviiiThe verb appelant, which comes at the end of the sentence, governs all of the accusatives, and the subject are the various people.

xxixCecropeiam Mineruam: the autocthones of Attica are clearly a reference to the Athenians, whose patron goddess is Athena/Minerva. This association is further reinforced by the Cecropeian epiteth. Cecrops is mentioned in Strabo's Geography 9.1.18 as an early founder of Athens about whom authors disagree. He is alos mentioned by Apollodorus in the Library 3.14.1, where it stated that, under his reign, Athena and Poseidon vied for the possession of Athens. Apollodorus indicates a tradition which claims that Cecrops was appointed judge of the dispute by Zeus, along with Cranaus and Erysichton. Apollodorus, however, disagrees and claims that the twelve gods were the judges of the dispute.

xxxPaphiam Venerem:this particular epitheth, unlike the previous one does not refer to any particular legend, but rather to the place of worship of Venus at Paphos. This is also stated in XI.2.

xxxiDiana Dictynna: I found a single reference to Diana referred to as Dictynna. Dictynna is a name that Diana used when she defied Britomartis, the goddess of the moon in Western Crete. Dictynna was the name of the goddess of the moon in Eastern Crete. See Robert Graves, The Greek Myths, pp.179-181.

xxxiiSiculi trilingues: probably refers to the fact that Sicily was once colonized by Carthaginians, Latins and Greeks. Stygiam Prosperpinam: Ovid (Book 5) claims that it is in Sicily that Diis captures Proserpina and takes her away in the underworld.

xxxiiiThe association between Eleusis and Ceres is like that of Venus and Paphos, it is where Ceres is worshipped. See also n.iii.

xxxivAri: This word is not in the dictionary. The translators Gwyn-Griffiths, Graves and Kenney take the word to mean Africanus. This could be a paleographic abbreviation of Africanus that made its way into modern editions.

xxxvI transformed the active into a passive for clarity's sake. Furthermore, Apuleius ends the clause with religio. My translation allows for the word order to be maintained.

xxxviNec sollicita nec profana mente: the choice of word used by Isis is interesting. Lucius, in the first two books, is clearly depicted as a quintessential Roman. That Isis asks him to await the ritual with an “open-mind” foreshadows the description of the ritual.

xxxviiRoseam […] coronam: the crown of roses is particularly important for Lucius, as the maid Photis, his lover who accidently turned in into an ass, had prescribed this as a remedy in Book III.25.

xxxviiiManu dextera sistro cohaerentem: The sistrum is already described in XI.4. The priest displays the same elements as the divinity he must worship.

xxxixAlacer continuare: the adjective alacer modifies the subject being addressed by Isis. The English translation would be awkward had alacer been translated as a simple adjective.

xlEt … exue: de proximo is a prepositional phrase which modifies decerptis, and indicates from whom Lucius needs to eat the corona. The main verb exue comes at the end, and governs the whole sentence. Most translation choose to translate the ablative, accompanied with the genitives, pessimae mihique detestabilis iam dudum beluae istius corio, as a direct object. I chose to maintain the te as a direct object. The meaning is slightly different. In my translation, it is Lucius who is trapped within the shape of the beast, and his true-self needs to be cast out from the prison. Lastly, the use of istius matches the pessimae mihique detestabilis beluae and reinforces the hatred that Isis bears for the ass.

xliQuae … praecipio: the object of praecipio is facienda, which, is turn is modified by the relative clause quae sunt sequentia, literally, the things which are following and must be done.

xliiFaciem... criminabitur: Isis warns Lucius ahead of time of the fact that the miracle will be done in play sight of the procession, but that Lucius should not be scared and that he shall not be accused, probably of witchcraft, by anyone present at the procession. One can infer two things from this particular incident; (1) that Isis is not known to have performed public miracles (or that they were otherwise not attributed to her cult), which would make the present miracle seem unnatural; and (2) that a charge of witchcraft is a serious matter for Romans.

xliiiMihi … uadata: uadata is a word loaded in legal terms, and is used to mean “to bind by bail to appear in court.” The transformation of Lucius, then, is viewed by Apuleius as a legally binding agreement between Lucius and the goddess. The logic of Isis's resoning is explained subsequently. Nec iniurium … uiues: the goddess Isis justifies the price of the transformation by quod uiues. The fact that Lucius would die lest transformed is stated above in XI.2: mori saltem liceat, si non licet uiuere.

xlivUiues autem beatus, uiues in mea tutela gloriosus: the wealth, of which Isis is speaking, is clearly not financial. Reading ahead to XI.28, we are told that Lucius dreads his initiation in the cult of Osiris because of the scarcity of his expenses (sacris sumptuum tenuitate), implicating that he has now become poor. The idea of reading the text with the end in mind was suggested by find reference. Campos Elysios incolens ipse: a further promise of Isis, that Lucius shall live among heroes in the Elysian fields, and be as blessed in death as he shall be in life. Acherontis … adorabis: Isis also demands worship in death, as a price for the transformation. One can actually wonder if Isis can promise such a reward, and if she can actually deliver. In other words, this passage, when read in conjunction with XI.28 and XI.30 if Lucius is not indeed a Golden Ass still.

xlvQuodsi … licere: a future more vivid clause, which shows that if Lucius does the (one-might-call) overbearing demands of Isis, then he will realize the awesome power that Isis has to extend the life of her followers beyond fate, a power that is not granted to any other gods in mythology.

xlviApuleius refers here to the fact that Lucius was covered with the cloak of an assistant of the priest during the transformation from an ass, into a man.

xlviiThe word used here is hercules, which I took to be used as an adverb modifiying perhumanum; being not capitalized, it makes little sense to translate the word as the Greek hero.

xlviiiAd portum Quietis et aram Misericordiae: these are clearly not actual landmarks of Cenchra or Corinth, but rather metaphorical places, made up by Apuleius to indicate both the end of the toils of Lucius, as well as to refer back to the great forgiveness of Isis expressed in XI.6.

xlixNatales … quidem: natales refers here to the situation of the birth, and dignitas refers to the privileges given to the birth. The implication is that the temporal powers of the higher orders of society are of little use in the face of Fate and the divine powers.

lApuleius here refers to two aspects of Lucius's curiosity: (1) his appetite for magic, which led him in the first place to Thessaly, and (2) his voluptuous liaison with Photis, the maid of his host, who is responsible for his transformation. The brazenness of the youth is a subject for the ages, having been addressed on numerous occasions by Juvenal (Satire I, III).

liAd religionem istam beatitudinem: the use of the pronoun ista indicates the negative connotation ascribed to the word religio, which is often associated with the negative superstitio.

liiThe adjective participle videntis is used in opposition to the adjective nefariae used in the previous sentence to describe the different, evil Fortune that led Lucius down his adventure.

liiiCandido isto habitu tuo refers to the white cloak of the priests of Isis, which a priest used to cover the naked Lucius. This may also refer to the whiteness of Lucius's life, having been given a new chance under the auspices of Isis. This is consistent both with what the priest has said above, and what Isis describes in XI.5-6.

livThe verb is comitare which means join as an attendant. The priest clearly means for Lucius to take part in the procession.

lvInnovanti gradu: the play of words in clever. The renewed step probably refers to a level of confidence, as indicated in the translations of Gwyn Griffith and of Kenney. However, it may also have a more literal meaning and refer to the difference of walking between an ass and a human. This clearly serves the comic of the situation.

lviCuius non olim sacramento. The word sacramentum, sacramenti, indeed means sacrament, but sacraments or oaths taken often asked for a certain sum of money to be deposited. This is interesting because Lucius's salvation costs him a life of servitude, along with great monetary costs.

lviiMinsterii iugum […] uoluntarium: again a further paradox on the cult of Isis, as it is clear that Lucius is not, in fact, voluntarily joining the service of Isis, but is rather coerced by Fortune.

lviiiSacerdos egregius fatigatos anhelitus trahens: the paradox is clear between the overwhelming power of the goddess and the physical weakness of the priest. This remark is placed immediately after the statement that onlookers will marvel at Lucius's well-being (absolutus Isidis magnae prouidentia gaudens Lucius), and again, one can question the wisdom of joining a mystery cult.

lixPermixtus agmini religioso procedens: literally: the religious crowd. I chose to keep the notion of stream of people, to keep in line with the comic character of the book.

lxApuleius is redundant. Permixtus, procedens and comitabar all carry the same meaning.

lxiThe latin reads fabulabantur. The way Lucius is describing the crowd is talking about him as elucubrations.

lxii Felix... statim sacrorum obsequio desponderetur: Even the people are surprised by Lucius's sudden conversion. When read in conjunction with the fabulabantur, this shows that Lucius does not feel that his conversion is so sudden, but perhaps also that he is not “thrice blessed.”

lxiii Festorum votorum: literally the processions of the vows. The vota were vows often taken in the name of a certain deity. They were the occasion for a great ceremony that usually culminated with a sacrifice. In the case of imperial vota, these were taken at the beginning of the year, and again at the end of the year. The presence of magistrates clad in purple in XI.8 may suggest some form of imperial vota procession.

lxivQuo ipsum illum locum: refers back to the cliff mentioned in XI.1.

lxvPurrissime purificatam: J. Gwyn Griffith points out that the alliteration purrissime puficatam is typical of mithraic cults.

lxviIbidem … dedicauitque: the structure is peculiar. It begins with an ablative absolute, simulacris rite dispositis, which shows the initial step of the ritual. The focus of the sentence is on the object of the ritual, nauem faberrime factam picturis miris Aegyptiorum circumsecus uariegatam, and the emphasis here is on the lavishness of the gift, and also is a reminder of the non-Latin origin of the cult, both in the substance of the sacrifice (a ship) and in the symbology of the designs (Aegyptiorum). The subject is then announced summus sacerdos, followed by an ablative of means taeda lucida et ouo et sulpure, and these look forward to the end of the sentence and the verbs nuncupauit dedicauitque. The next segment, sollemnissimas preces de casto praefatus ore, is centered around the participle praefatus, which modifies sacerdos. The fact that praefatus is a perfect participle indicates rather the second step of the ritual, and the speaking of the ritual. The last step is the dedication of the ritual: Quam purissime purificatam deae nuncupauit dedicauitque. Quam … purificatam recalls the nauem, the object of verbs the nuncupauit and dedicauit. Deae is the indirect object. The sentence, in other words, is built like the ritual: 1) the ritual placing of the divine images, 2) the speaking of the prayer by the priest, and 3) the naming and the dedicating of the ship to Isis.

lxviiEae litterae uotum … nauigatione: the usage of instaurabant shows that these are probably vota suscepta, or vows undertaken at the beginning of the year.

lxviiiBracteis aureis: the repetition emphasizes the glitter of the leaves.

lxixFlorebat: The english lacks a word of the same caliber. Floreo, ere, ui recalls the flowers present at the ceremony and appear to be, at least in Apuleius's view, a large part of the Isis cult.

lxxHuiusce modi: very likely refers to offerings as well as the volume of offerings (roughly 2 gallons worth of offering). This is confirmed by the use of the word fluctus, us, which denotes some sort liquid offering on which libations were used.

lxxiDevotionibus: the word has mixed connotation. That Apuleius feels the need to indicate that the devotions were favorable clearly shows that devotio did in fact carry the modern meaning of curse. We can translate the word then, as meaning plight or supplication to the gods, both good and bad.

lxxiiQuae postquam cursus spatio prospectum sui nobis incertat: I loosely translated this sentence. Literally: After she rendered undertain to us the sight of her by the distance of her march.

lxxiiiSacrorum geruli sumtis: again a loose translation of this ablative absolute. Literaly: with the things of the sacred bearers having been taken up.

lxxivAlcres … capessunt: hyperbole emphasizing the zeal of the audience.

lxxvSingulis refers to the family members and servants who visited him in XI.18.

lxxviPraesentibus gaudiis: one must look ahead to the end of the chapter to understand the irony of this statement.

lxxviiConductis: the word in this context is part of the jargon of tenants and landlords. See Juvenal, Satire III: 'Si potes avelli circensibus, optima Sorae aut Fabrateriae domus aut Frusinone paratur quanti nunc tenebras unum conducis in annum.' The fact that Lucius has to rent a space within the temple reinforces the idea that the service of Isis has a cost.

lxxviiiLarem temporarium mihi constituo: clearly a synecdoche. The implication is that Lucius set up for himself a small dwelling. Two things are interesting here in the construction of the language. First, that Lar can be substituted for house shows that each household had tutelary gods. Second, the presence of tutelary gods in the temple shows that the service of Isis is not exclusive, as Lucius finds out in XI. 27, 29, where he is commanded to be initiated in the rites of Osiris and a third unnamed deity.

lxxixContuberniis: the word has sexual undertones and can be used to mean concubinage.

lxxxAt ego … retardabar: the first time Lucius voices some sort of discontent or hesitation at joining the orders. The zeal he had initially found so enticing is now a bit scary.

lxxxiCastimoniorum abstientiam satis arduam: refers to II.7-10, and the very sexual declaration of love for Photis and steamy descriptions of the sexual act between the two.

lxxxiiDefferebam: the imperfect shows the repeatedness of the action. Also, the verb foreshadows the difficulty of the conversion in XI.23.

lxxxiiiPerfectis sollemnibus: the word sollemnibus has both a legal connotation, and can be used for civil rituals. It indicates that Lucius is still reasoning as a Roman, and is aware that he is addressing a Roman, non-initiated audience. See XI.23: Quaeras forsitan satis anxie, studiose lector, quid deinde dictum, quid factum; dicerem si dicere liceret, cognosceres, si liceret audire. The two past contrafactuals indicate that the audience cannot know the secret initiation rites. Linking this to the perfectis sollemnibus, we see Lucius's desire to express what has just happened in a way that makes sense to his audience. The exempla is interesting, and it can be inferred that these rituals were perhaps not so unique. This interpretation would follow with the rest of the book, where Apuleius hints at the fact that these cults are, in fact, shams.

lxxxivDuodecim sacratus stolis: Hyperbolic number of twelve. Furthermore, the stola is generally a relatively rich garment, reserved for matrons. The ridiculousness what is necessary for the ritual is twofold: first the high number of dress required means that Lucius had to spend a great deal of money; second, the dress imply some effeminacy.

lxxxvHabitu quidem religioso satis: the word habitus, habitus can mean both a custom and dress. So one can translate this: a dress certainly religisous enough or a habit certainly religious enough.

lxxxvi i.e. a priest.

lxxxviiGripes Hyperborei: the reference is to the Hyperboreans, a mythical people in northern Thrace. The word itself is an adjectives that comes from the greek, and literally means men dwelling beyond the north wind (Βορέας ). Boreas is said to live in Thrace. Ammianus Marcellinus quotes Homer as the initiator of this tradition (Res Gestae XXVII.4.3). For more details, see Robert Graves, The Greek Myths. The design follows the dracones indici who are also doubly exotic in that the place of origin has semi-mythical characteristics, and the beast itself is exotic.

lxxxviiiSed floride depicta ueste conspicuus: contrast with the byssina that the priest is wearing. Lucius is also wearing a pretiosa chlamida. Furthermore, is embroidered by uario colore circumnotatis … animalibus. The cost of the embroidery and the design is mirrored by the cost of the color. Lucius is clearly doing more than is required by this ostentatious display of wealth.

lxxxixHanc olympiacam stolam sacrati nuncupant:Then Lucius is not conspicuous solely because of the wealth displayed by his garnment, but also because the tradition the animals are a part of a tradition foreign to the cult of Isis.

xcPerhaps a personal aesthetic choice, but Lucius looks ostentatiously horrible.

xciSic ad instar solis extornato me et in uicem simulacri constituto, repente reductis, in aspectum populus errabat: This can perhaps be understood as a parody of Apolo. This sentence begs the question: are the people astonished by majesty of the sight, or the ridiculousness of the sight. For Lucius, this is clearly a majestic occasion, but the lofty iconography of the Indian dragons and the Hyperborean Griffons, coupled with his crown of white palm are in stark contrast with the sober nature of the cult of Isis expressed in XI.19. Then, the people's reaction can be understood as one of a people intrigued not by the majesty of the scene, but by its ridicule.

xciiJ.Gwyn Griffith, E.J. Kenney and Robert Graves all understand this as the birthday of the initiation of Lucius, which I think is correct. Natalem clearly refers to a birthday, the word sacrorum means religious rites, and is perhaps an appositional, e.g. the birthday of the rites.

xciiiSuaues epulae et faceta conuiuia: the implication here is that Lucius paid for all of these banquets and parties. The use of the plural indicates not just the fact that these banquets took place on multiple occasions, but also the costs of throwing said parties, which were part of the ea that Lucius had to provide.

xcivDies etiam … legitima consummatio: again Lucius emphasizes the amount of food that is being consumed during these rites, three days worth of banquets, followed by a breakfast. The nominal sentence et teletae legitima consummatio is the perfect conclusion for the rites. Indeed, Lucius's initiation was consummed. The costs of the initiation were indeed, tremendous.

xcvInremunerabili quippe beneficio pigneratus: The use of money jargon (inremunerabili) shows that Lucius has no hope of recovering the investment of his money spent in the rituals.

Note: The image of Mother Isis is from http://www.thefaeriesandangelsmagazine.com/resources/Isis.jpg

Preliminary Remarks on Ancient Slavery

2010-08-12T10:56:00.001-07:00

I have to admit, I am approaching this particular subject with trepidation. First, I will summarize the works of one of my favorite historians. I am afraid that my summary will not do justice to the cogent argument proposed in The Origins of European Economy. Second, writing about the slave trade is not an easy endeavor for anyone born in the aftermath of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Latent in my subconscious are images of one ethnicity, believing in its innate superiority over another, abusing its brethrens. I have to consistently remind myself of two important details: that analyzing the slave trade with the eyes of the historian does not make me pro-slavery, and that ancient slavery differed in significant ways from the US and Brazilian experience.
It was more humane in that slaves were not of one particular ethnicity: they were pluriethnic, and in Late Antiquity, it is clear that some might have come from the same region, shared the same religion and customs, and yet one was master, the other was slave. In an interesting tale, the fifth-century historian Gregory of Tours mentions that Frankish kings (after Clovis's death, the Frankish kingdom was divided in three kingdoms), would often send young men as hostages. These men were royal, or at least of prominent families. They were part of the court life, until, Gregory tells us, war would break out between the two kings at which points the hostages were sold into slavery (History of the Franks, III.15).
Furthermore, in the first century A.D., the philosopher Seneca wrote a letter to a brethren, Lucillus, in which he outlines the proper treatment of slaves. In short, he stipulates that masters should not be afraid to welcome a slave at their table, that it is not beneath their rank as masters to do so. He explains that slaves did everything for the master, ranging from shopping to providing healthy remedies. Furthermore, he reminds domini that they themselves are slaves to someone or something else, and so should treat their slaves the way they would want their master to treat them (Letter 47). Seneca points to the value of the slave for the home, but slaves were also useful outside of the homes. They provided entertainment as gladiators, and some gladiators were extremely popular (in that regards the movie Gladiator is not a total historical loss- I love that movie...); and, slaves or freedmen (that is slaves who have been freed) were employed by their masters or former-masters to perform some clerical tasks. The historian A.H.M. Jones offers an explanation for this: 'Employers no doubt also preferred to use in positions of trust men whose characters they knew, and on whose obedience they could rely; slaves could be chastised if they disobeyed instructions, and freedmen had formed the habit of executing their master's orders' ('Slavery in the Ancient World,' The Economic History Review 9.2). This does seem an acceptable answer, and I do not have the means at the moment to either prove or disprove this particular statement. In other words, slaves were not limited to doing manual labor or servile duties, and the learned ones served more important roles in the administration of the houses of important people.
I want to explain what I am going to do in the following blog-post. The goal will be really to summarize McCormick's argument for an early-medieval slave trade, and to explain why I think he is correct in his assessment. Doing so, I have realized that I was doing the kind of history that I love: looking at periods of transition. The period that I shall describe is not in any history book, though it is an underlying theme often recurrent when one considers the differences between the ancient and medieval worlds. It is an economic transition: from slavery to serfdom. While I will show that serfdom and slavery co-existed for extensive periods of time, and that serfdom did not occlude the slave trade, the fact remains: slavery disappears from Europe during the Middle-Ages.

Migrations, Ethnic Identity and What Constitutes Modern History

2010-07-29T12:03:00.000-07:00

This blog post is dedicated to two friends, who, in two different conversations, have convinced me that studying barbarians is not squarely an intellectual pursuit (it only mostly is...).

'L’HISTOIRE nationale est, pour tous les hommes du même pays, une sorte de propriété commune ; c’est une portion du patrimoine moral que chaque génération qui disparaît, lègue à celle qui la remplace'- Augustin Thierry1

Translation: National History is for the men of a country, some sort of common property; it is a part of the moral heritage that each disapearing generation entrusts to the one that replaces it.

The question of national identity and cultural background is one that concerns historians, especially historians of the medieval period. Indeed, the medieval period, and especially the Early Middle Ages have been vastly used in the past as means of defining a national identity. The barbarians were, to quote Ian Wood, used and abused. The nomenclature of some modern countries and regions take their name after a barbarian tribe: France is linked to the Franks, Burgundy, to the Burgundians, Lombardy, to the Lombards (or Langobards), Germany in English to the Germans (from the Roman province) and Allemagne in French to the Alamanni. Furthering the examples is a useless pursuit, what is important is the feeling that there is a direct continuity between ancient peoples and modern ones (there are other links: Attila and Verdi, .
Is there any truth to this? Let's rephrase this question: is there anything pertaining to French culture that would make Clovis French? Aside from territorial tenancy (and even then, his kingdom was more centered around the Pas-de-Calais and Belgium), not much. Furthermore, as Patrick Geary pointed out in Before France and Germany, French history begins with Asterix and jumps to Charlemagne, completely ignoring the Merovingians who are left with the sobriquet: Rois Fainéants or Lazy Kings. But this was not always the case, Augustin Thierry, in the 19th century starts his history of France not with the Celts, but with the Merovingians; so central were the Merovingians to French History that François Hotman, a french protestant of the 16th century, used this idea that the French monarchy originated in Merovingian times to criticize absolutism. In his view, the French monarchy originated from the Merovingians, and the Merovingians were Germanic. Germanic populations, according to the Roman historian Tacitus, were governed by assemblies. Thus, he concludes that absolutism is in some ways, anti-french.
Let us fast-forward to the twenty-first century. A friend of mine was at a welcoming party, and someone told her that the United States has a small cultural heritage, and went on to compare the US cultural heritage to Mexican heritage, which he traces back millenias to the Aztecs first, and then the Mayas. I am not a specialist of pre-colonial and colonial Mexico, so I will leave the examination of this claim to the specialists. However, if we are merely looking at territorial occupancy, the continental US were peopled as early as 11500 B.C., with the peoples of the Clovis culture (and possibly earlier). But if U.S. History books rarely mentions them, French History books have no qualms telling children about Lascaux, a 17,000 year-old cave in Dordogne (worth a visit). So why does the US not mention these cultures?
If one looks at US History, it generally begins with Jamestown, and Captain John Smith. A few chapters (maybe two) deal with pre-colonial America, but in very broad terms, focusing on the well-known Aztecs and Incas, and, to an extent the Iroquois and the Cheyenne. This may be due to the paucity of documents on pre-colonial America (as a whole), or perhaps this is due to the US national identity, that is, the US it is a country founded and built by colons. Emma Lazarus's famous poem The New Colossus echoes this view; addressing the 'Old World', the Statue of Liberty shouts: 'Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.' Where did these poor come from? It is generally acknowledged that there were many waves of immigration, and included Spanish, English, Germans, Dutch, French, Irish, Poles, etc...; furthermore, more than fifty percent of the US was ruled by Spain, and yet, it is to England that the Americans trace their origins (and this makes sense for other reasons, but I am looking at territoriality).
The question then becomes, who decided this? Recently, the Texas Board of Education chose a new path for US history. While the Union was previously born of the Enlightenment, with ideas such as religious tolerance, and the separation of Church and State, it will now be a part of the Judeo-Christian tradition. While this is true (true, but one could also place the US in a Roman context...), this shift was decided by a panel of elected officials (most of whom are educators but not historians). For more information, see the New York Times article on the matter at www.newyorktimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html).
And this takes me back to ethnogenesis and ethnic identity in the Early Middle Ages. We have seen in a previous post that ethnogenesis is a theory that stipulates the following: 'The leaders and chiefs of “well-known” clans, that is to say, of those families who derive their origins from gods and who can prove their divine favor through appropriate achievements, form the “nuclei of tradition” around which new tribes take shape. Whoever acknowledges the tribal tradition, either by being born into it, or by being “admitted” to it, is part of the gens and as such a member of a community of “descent through tradition” (Herwig Wolfram, History of the Goths, trans. by Thomas J. Dunlap, p.6). In other words, a group of people decide what is part of the history of their people, and what is not. When Jordanes, a sixth century Goth, wrote a history of his people, he based his account on the much larger work by Cassiodorus, which was commissioned by Theodoric.
What truth is there to this? Walter Goffart and others say none: 'Tales of the early Goths were eventually told […]; and they have nothing to do with our standards of credible history. We can repeat these stories in their proper chronological and cultural context as testifying to a highly civilized desire to reconstruct the origo gentis. But since such tales lay in the future, their contents would be out of place in a background to the Goths in fifth-century Aquitaine' (Walter Goffart, Barbarians and Romans, p.8; he wrote another two books on the subject, the most famous, The Narrators of Barbarian History, is worth a read). Ultimately, I agree with Michael Kulikowski who states in his article 'Nation vs. Army: A Necessary Contrast?' that until we have a time machine, we won't know what the truth is. What matters is what people believed. And so the Goths in fifth-century Aquitaine may have no recollection of their Iron-Age past in Scandinavia, just like most French people have little concept of what life was in the Early Middle Ages, or how most American cannot fathom the hardships of living in post-Elizabethan England or pre-unification Prussia. So again, what is cultural background? It is a generational legacy, written by its elites, and in which is distilled what is valued by that generation.

Next: Slavery and the Slave Trade.

For further reading on ethnic identity:

Fernand Braudel, Grammaire des Civilisations (basically deals with what will be in French History text books).
Patrick Geary, The Myth of Nations
Walter Goffart, The Narrators of Barbarian History
Ian Wood (forthcoming), Fall of the Roman Empire and the Barbarian Settlements
Bonnie Effros will also have a book dealing with the 19th century archeology of the barbarians.

The Annona and Rome

2010-05-04T11:34:00.001-07:00

I said I would write more about the Ancient Borderlands Conference, and so, here is a discussion on a paper that was particularly interesting to me: Roman Grain Supply 442-445, by Jason Linn of UCSB.
Before I address the argument contained in this paper, I must backtrack a bit, and tell the history of the Vandals. The Vandals are an interesting group of people. In a lecture, Ian Wood called them a 'band of refugees'. And it does seem like this is the case: among the Vandals, we find, Suebi, 'Vandals' (two different groups, the Hasdingi and the Siling), Alans, Sarmatians, Alamanni, Franks, Herulii; all manners of peoples that dwelled in the Austro-Hungarian steppes and along the Rhine banks. The amalgam of peoples began when, pressured by the Huns, they moved to the banks of the Rhine, and broke the Rhine defenses in 402/03 and made their way to Spain. There they settled, until they crossed to Africa in 429, and in 439, they made a treaty with the Romans recognizing their territory in North Africa.
Why is this relevant? A grain fleet from North Africa and Egypt, called the Annona, sailed from Carthage and Alexandria to approvision Rome with basic cereals. With Carthage falling under Vandal jurisdiction, this could pose a problem, as Rome might be missing key supplies, thus potentially leading to starvation. The Vandals initially cooperate and maintain the annona until 442, when in another treaty with the Romans, they reduced the amount of the grain that they would ship, and managed to keep 7/8th of the tax revenues provided by the African provinces of Numidia and Mauretania Sitifensis.
With the loss of this bread-basket, what was the ultimate result on the population of Rome? Jason Linn argues that the result was not so great. The strongest part of his argument is undoubtedly the reaction of the emperor Valentinian III: he did not react; at least not with regards to Rome (he did pass a few laws helping out African refugees in exile). No evidence or rationing in Rome, no evidence of any law that sought to divert other grain supplies to the city of Rome. It is indeed hard to imagine that an emperor would let Rome starve without lifting so much as his little finger. Furthermore, there is no evidence that Romans ever rose up against the lack of grain; which was not the case when there were other grain or food shortages under the second triumvirate and later when Alaric besieged Rome (a Roman lady opened the door to the Visigoths to alleviate the hunger).
In the response by Professor Humphreys criticized Jason's use of numbers. Jason Linn used a numerical study to show that the effect of the loss of the annona did not affect the army, which had been reduced in number, and thus was not as dependent on imported grain for supplies. Professor Humphreys' criticism focused on the 'minimalistic' choice of Jason's assessment of the late-Roman army. The size of the Roman army, Humphreys argues (quite rightly I think), is more relevant of which school of thought one ascribes to (minimalist vs. maximalist).
Where I think Jason is absolutely right is in saying that the loss of the north-African annona had little effects on Rome itself. The reasons to me are (aside from the ones stated above) manifolds, and three strike me as important: 1) the political situation in the provinces dependent on the western emperor had shrunk tremendously; 2) the Egyptian annona maintained grain supplies to Rome until the mid-fifth century; and 3) the size of the Roman population did not necessitate a large grain supply.
For points 2, and 3- see Michael McCormick, The Origins of European Economy.
The Political Situation in the Western Roman Empire.
When Peter Brown first set forth his arguments for change and continuity of classical culture into Late Antiquity, he thought that the arguments for Decline and Fall focused almost entirely on the western world, whereas the Roman Empire was a larger territory that included the Greek east and Egypt. It seems that we have gone full circle and now focus almost entirely on the Mediterranean at the expense of Gaul, Britain and Spain.
If there were one major political trend in Late Antique Gaul and Britain, it would be fragmentation. In 410, Britain was left to fend for itself against invading Saxons and Picts, when the usurper Constantine III moved his troops from Britain and into Gaul (his rebellion ends with his surrender in 411). In other words, Rome did not have to worry about supplying the British troops any longer.
Constantine III's defeat at the hands of the general Flavius Constantius is also telling of the state of affairs in Late Roman Gaul, militarily speaking. First, Constantine's general Gerontius had proclaimed his own candidate Maximus to become emperor. This volte-face allowed forced Constantine III to seek help from the Franks and the Alamanni as auxiliary fighters in what Peter Heather dubs a 'relief army'. This shows one of two possibilities: either Constantine's army had been exhausted by the three-year conflict, OR Flavius Constantius's Italian army was significantly larger than his. Both explanation are possible and not mutually exclusive.
At any rates, that Constantine used barbarians to fight is part of a larger trend in late Roman military. When the eastern army was 'destroyed' (the extent of the destruction is debatable) by the Goths at Adrianople in 376, the Roman emperor Theodosius used 'federate' Goths to fill in the holes. Later, when the Roman general Aetius faced Attila at the battle of the Catalaunian fields, present with him were Visigoths, Franks, and Burgundians.
With Britain out the way, one can wonder what happened in Gaul. There, political fragmentation also ensued. The pressing need for local leadership led local 'bandits' to rise up. By the time the Vandals made their treaty limiting the supply provided by the annona, Gaul resembled a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. The Bagaudae had revolted and taken control of Armorica, the Visigoths were settled around Toulouse and slowly moving into Spain, the Burgundians were slowly expanding in the Jura, and the Franks were moving down into northern Gaul, an area Ian Wood described as a power vacuum.
Dwindling territories also mean dwindling political and dwindling need for military supplies. As Ray Van Dam argued, problems of rebellions can best be seen in light of the large dismantling of leadership at the local level. Imperial ability to respond to local crises is evident, and this would tend to show that by 442, the Italian government did not have to worry about the supply of a large army. In other words, I feel that Jason is absolutely correct in his assessment of the end of the annona in 442, except that it shows an increasing fragmentation of the Mediterranean.
Some ideas: What are the areas of interests for Valentinian III? What areas did his laws touch? What are their overarching themes?
In conclusion, thanks Jason for getting to me think about these problems.
see also:
Peter Heather- The Fall of the Roman Empire- Good overview, easy read
Michael Kulikowski- Rome's Gothic Wars- shorter, more concise read
Michael McCormick- The Origins of European Economy
Ray Van Dam- Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul- less of a reference book than Heather or McCormick.

The Second Bi-Annual Ancient Borderlands Conference: Beyond Borders- Ancient Societies and Their Conceptual Frontiers

2010-04-19T12:24:00.000-07:00

I was privileged to present a paper at my Alma Mater, the University of California Santa Barbara. The conference is part of a broader project headed by Professor Digeser (department of History) and Professor Thomas (department of Religious Studies) to encourage interdisciplinary dialogue and to see the applications of the Borderlands Theory to discourses of the past.
What is the Borderlands Theory? The Borderlands theory began in anthropology, specifically in Scandinavia and the American West. Borderlands are broadly defined as areas where no one group (a group is a set of people who use identity markers as common denominators. These include, ethnicity, race, religion, culture, territory) has hegemony over another. One modern example is Iraq, where there is a slight Shia Muslims hold a slight majority over Sunni muslims. Borders are then artificially constructed to separate the groups.
So these borders can be physical (between states), religious (Jew, Christian, Muslim, pagan, and so on), cultural (art trends), philosophical (platonic Christians, Catholics, …), and these categories of course intertwine. The congress addressed many types of borders.
One such border was the identity boundary between Christians and Jews, as presented in a very interesting paper by Ms. Robyn Walsh. The paper dealt with an element of Jewish worship, a menorah, that was present in a Christian basilica. The building, Ms. Walsh argued, was in fact, a synagogue, before being re-consecrated as a Christian house of worship (which is something that happens a lot in Anglo-Saxon England and in later missionary efforts). Should Ms. Walsh be right in her assertion (she certainly presented a strong case for it), this would help shed light on early diaspora communities in the west.
Another border that was considered is the gender boundary in religious discourse. Jeff Herrick did a wonderful presentation on a letter by St Jerome to Lady Eustochium, in which he uses penitential images most often used to characterize female wailing and mourning. Doing so, Jerome emasculates himself, and makes himself more like a woman. The discussion that followed was most interesting. If Mr. Herrick's proposal that he was appealing to his female patrons is certainly true, there is, in fourth-century Christian rhetoric, a trend that seeks to remove gender from holiness. Traditionally female behaviors are becoming acceptable for males. Female saints, like the Desert Mothers, undergo a physical transformation. Through fasting, they lose appendages that are female: breasts disappear, faces are emaciated. Jerome's discourse was recast into this trend during the panel discussion.
Michael McCormick once said that the conferences where he learns the most are not always the ones that pertain directly to his subject. I completely agree. The paper that followed mine considered the rhetorical boundaries that are created in Chile. These boundaries separated the civilized conquistadors from the barbarian, or savage Mapuche indians. Language plays a role, Professor Goicovich; as arguments are formulated to explain what one sees, language limits the ability of a person to describe reality. In other words, language is part of the cultural spectrum that filters information and, to an extent, corrupts it. In another paper, Jon Felt argues that Borderlands are often negative constructions, used to increase the reputation of a particular center. Looking at Chinese Buddhist texts from the 3rd century A.D that consider China as a Boderland rather than a center, he analyzed that this was part of a larger trend that viewed Chinese Buddhism as inherently inferior to Chinese Buddhism; that Indian culture was the beacon of light, not Chinese culture. Tipping the scale back the other way was a main effort by the Tang dynasty to reformulate the central role of China in world history.
Overall, this was very well put-together congress, and I learned quite a bit. Pictures will be up soon.
I will address a paper that was very close to my area of expertise in a subsequent post.

an interesting piece of information

2010-03-15T13:48:00.000-07:00

This looks rather promising.
http://www.uwestfjords.is/icelandic_courses/gisla_saga_and_classical_icelandic/

The Dangers of Comparative History

2010-03-10T10:40:00.000-08:00

This post deals with a different subject than normal, but important nonetheless. This is a review of an article by Professor Sherman comparing modern-day Afghanistan to early-modern France.

Professor Drake opened the first lecture of his Roman undergraduate research seminar by telling us: 'We always learn the wrong lessons from history.' In an article published in the recent Foreign Affairs, Professor Sherman argues that the processes of centralization in early-modern France can be used as models for state-building in modern-day Afghanistan. While the analogy works at a superficial level, a close look at the details shows that these processes cannot be of immediate usefulness for the Obama administration.
Professor Sherman presents an interesting analogy between 21st century Afghanistan, and pre-modern France. She identifies (correctly I think) that one key problem of the situation in Afghanistan is the lack of authority that the central government has at the local level. Warlords, drug-dealers or Talibans rule the areas not immediately adjacent to Kabul. Similarly, Hugh Capet, the first king of the Capetian dynasty, ruled little else but Ile-de-France at the time of his election as Rex Francorum (king of the Franks) in 987. The local leadership was in the hands of the local nobles (and that had been the case since Charles the Bald a century earlier). Perhaps the analogy should stop here, but she states that Louis XIII, and Louis XIV's policies of rendering the nobles dependent on royal authority can also be applied to Afghanistan.
What I feel Professor Sherman misses in her analogy is time. The processes of centralization in early-modern France are not limited to Louis XIV, or his predecessor. Rather, I would argue, they are the heirs of five-hundred years of policies on the part of the kings of France. Centralization of moneys, and especially single-currency date back to the time of Philippe the Fair. Key disputes were still resolved by the king. For instance, in the claim of inheritance of Artois, Mahaut and her nephew Robert appealed to Philippe the Fair and his sons to resolve their disputes. Talibans do not extend the same courtesy to adultery cases.
There emerges from these remarks a fundamental difference between medieval France and modern-day Afghanistan. There seems to be a respect of the royal office that is absent in Afghanistan. In both major dynastic shifts (from Merovingian to Carolingian, and then from Carolingian to Capetian), the new rulers required the help of the Pope in the first one, and the bishop of Reims, that is, the one who crowns the kings of France, in the second. By bringing in the clergy, Pepin the Short and Hugh Capet were able to secure divine support. Similarly, the feudal oath, albeit not as binding as legal constitutions or armed forces, also presupposes the recognition of a single authority as higher than another, with the top being the king or the emperor. When Rene I, duke of Lorraine, gave homage to the king of France, he effectively switched his allegiance away from the Holy Roman Empire and recognized Charles VII as his suzerain (see Feudalism chart).
Royal authority was strengthened tremendously in subsequent centuries, especially under Francis I and his impressive building program, as well as his building a professional army, independent of the levies provided by his vassals (nobles). Though there were rebellions against the royal order throughout the Middle-Ages and into the Renaissance (Cathar crusade, the Fronde), royalty was always on a different plane. Coronation rites suggested divine mandates, and the canonization of Louis IX in 1297 made the Capetians a holy family. Louis XIV capitalized on that. It was not enough to be considered holy, he would show it. Versailles, what Professor Sherman considers the symbol of centralization, was in fact its end, a visual marker to symbolize the magnificence of the king.
Central to state building is the idea of authority. To be viable, centralized authority must have the recognition of its constituencies (on that topic, see Constantine and the Bishops by H.A. Drake). In other words, the Versailles palace was symbolic of Louis XIV's authority, it did not create it, his authority had already been recognized by his constituency. Karzai can build whatever palace he wants, his constituencies will not recognize him in the same way that Louis XIV's noble did. Lastly, and perhaps most important, Sherman does not recognize that Louis XIV and the French kings were building an absolutist state, Karzai and Obama are trying to build a democracy. State building in early-modern France occurred in a different setting, with different variables, to achieve different results. So the question remains: what can we do to create a stable democracy in Afghanistan?

The image is from

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/legacy/highschool/socstud/global2_review/feudal_chart.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.icsd.k12.ny.us/legacy/highschool/socstud/global2_review/the_middle_ages.htm&usg=__d66b9DtwbSZc_gtY5cEgXmc0xyw=&h=399&w=671&sz=19&hl=en&start=2&sig2=R65UVA3RihkopxcM1hhBjA&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=HGqZ2OhVuR_V-M:&tbnh=82&tbnw=138&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dfeudalism%2Bchart%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Dcom.microsoft:en-us:IE-SearchBox%26tbs%3Disch:1&ei=H-iXS_9op860A-iluMIB

A Peaceful Transition: a Few Remarks

2010-03-03T00:04:00.000-08:00

This blog post is a bit different from the others as it concerns the preliminary knowledge requisite to the understanding Walter Goffart's argument of peaceful transition. I have had many conversations, with many different people on the nature of the transition from antiquity to the Middle Ages, and most (both lay and professional historians) speak of transition rather than sudden change. This blog post is solely for lay historians who wish to understand the reasons behind the argument of peaceful transition.
The notion that the historical period is an artificial construction is philosophical in nature (see Breisach). For me, the historical period is fairly real on two levels: 1) when I apply to graduate school, I have to choose a field of inquiry, defined by a historical period; and 2) a historical period is defined as a general set of ideas that apply to a certain time period. For example, the Renaissance is clearly an age where Humanist ideals of grammar and rhetoric take precedence over theology, law and medicine, all prized disciplines in the Middle Ages. That this happens in different areas at different times is not necessarily relevant. At some point in time, a historian can say: 'we have left the Middle-Ages.' With this in mind, I will retrace some ideas pertaining to the blurring of historical periods: the peaceful transition between the classical and the medieval periods.
Walter Goffart's main argument in Barbarians and Romans deals with the allocation of land for the Goths, the Burgundians and the Lombards from a legal perspective. That is, why in 410, we have a western Europe governed by the Romans, when in 418, we see a Visigothic enclave, in 443, a Burgundian enclave, and in 500, no more Romans in Western Europe. In roughly 90 years, the territories of the western empire disappear. Why?, and perhaps most importantly how?
First, Goffart, as opposed to Ward-Perkins (see previous post), states that this process was peaceful and smooth (it is actually the first sentence of the book). Ward-Perkins' remark that the Vandals raped nuns is not necessarily the best one to use. Goffart himself states that the Vandals expropriated sometimes violently the Romans. Again, the argument here would be that processes of change occur differently, in different areas, at different times.
Goffart is right to question the idea of violent transition. First of all, almost of the initial barbarians (Franks, Goths, Alamanni, Burgundians, the Huns being the sole exception-- and even then...) had been in contact with the Empire for extended periods of time. The Franks were probably a conglomerate of peoples already mentioned by the first century author Tacitus in Germania. The Goths are known as Goths in the literary sources by the mid-third century (ostensibly later than the Franks), but Wolfram states that the Goths' arrival in the Roman orbit might have occurred as early as 238, and the Cernjachov culture (possibly Gothic culture according to Peter Heather) as early as the second century. Thus, those barbarians, that supposedly caused the Roman Empire to collapse had been in contact with Rome for a few hundred years. In other words, if one is to say that the barbarians caused the fall of Rome, the history of decline must start as early as the first century (which few will actually do).
Furthermore, barbarians, via the military had clearly infiltrated the Roman civil life. Silvanus, a Frank, was a Roman general, and a brief usurper in 355. More successful were the barbarians Stilicho (regent in 400-408), Ricimer (de facto ruler 456-472), and Odoacer (general and king of Italy after he deposed the Emperor Romulus Augustulus, whose own father Orestes was at least partially non-Roman). The army provided the barbarians with a way in, an apparatus to use to gain access to Roman civil power (for more on this, see the first chapter of Before France and Germany by Patrick Geary).
To conclude: the barbarians we are dealing with are NOT foreign invaders. They were settled peoples, whose life, as Goffart states, resembled the life of the Gallic (and thus 'Roman') peasants. Thus, back to our original question: how did these barbarians acquire land?
Next post will deal with Goffart's argument on the matter.

The Decline and Fall of the Classical World

2010-02-25T22:29:00.001-08:00

It is difficult to envision the end of classical civilization without the barbarians. The names Franks, Goths, Saxons, Angles, Vandals, and Burgundians have become synonymous with successor kingdoms. Indeed, each of these peoples established kingdoms in territories around the western Mediterranean. The Franks settled in northern Gaul, and under Clovis, expanded to the south defeating the Visigoths decisively at Vouillé in 507. The Visigoths, after a settlement with the Roman emperor Honorius in 418, settled in Aquitaine around Toulouse; then, after Vouillé, they centered their kingdom around Toledo. Their eponymous 'cousin'people, the Ostrogoths settled in Italy from 489 to 580. The Angles and the Saxons moved to Britain after the departure of the Roman troops in 410. The Vandals swept through Gaul and into Spain, but eventually crossed the Gibraltar straight and created a kingdom in Northern Africa, with Carthage as its capital, until Justinian invaded in 534. Finally, the Burgundians (who had been a 'Rhine People' at least as early as the fourth century), settled in central Gaul.
This little story tells us that these 'barbarians' redrew the map of the western empire.The question that historians is whether or not these movements ought to be dubbed invasion or migration. The first term implies violent, armed contacts between Romans and barbarians, whereas the second term implies a far more peaceful process. I shall present both arguments individually, and present what I have come to understand regarding the fifth and sixth centuries.
Scholars such as Peter Heather and Bryan Ward-Perkins (the latter more so than the former) see the barbarians (and especially the Goths) as key players in the dynamics of decline and fall. Bryan Ward-Perkins, in The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (a work responding to modern trends which recast the barbarian problem in terms of peaceful migration and progressive acculturation), states that 'until recently, very few have seriously questioned the violence and disruption of the Germanic takeover of power. And indeed, Ward-Perkins has reasons to see the change from the classical world to the medieval world as more violent than processual. There is, in the written sources, evidence of violence. In 446, Leo, the bishop of Rome, for instance, addresses the problem of nuns who had been raped by invading Vandals in his twelfth epistle. These raped nuns became an intermediary class between holy widows (generally aristocratic women who had taken their vows after the demise of their husband) and nuns who had not been raped, and thus maintained their holiness intact. As Ward-Perkins points out: 'the unfortunate nuns and Bishop Leo would be very surprised, and not a little shocked, to learn that it is now fashionable to play down the violence and unpleasantness of the invasions that brought down the empire in the West.'
Ward-Perkins finds further evidence of invasion in what he considers an abrupt end to comfort. At a conference (I did not have the pleasure to attend, but Professor Drake and many of my friends did), he showed the difference of quality between late-antique and early-medieval potteries, and ancient potteries. Professor Drake stated that the differences are indeed palpable. Furthermore, in the archaeological record, there is a lack of remains of luxurious villas. Michael Kulikowski (in an absolutely awesome book called Late Roman Spain and Its Cities) notices that some Spanish villas became the locus of small communities (more about that later). Another example shows the site of Augusta Raurica, a thriving colony along the Rhine frontier in the second century, becomes abandoned in the fourth to make way for a castrum, or military camp. The baths, a symbol of Roman luxury were integrated in the castrum. In the fifth, the use of the baths is discontinued, and the camp becomes the site of yet another small community.
Thus, in what has become known to me as the catastrophist theory, the Roman Empire indeed falls, and it falls quickly... and violently. Barbarian invaders destroy the classical world in less than a hundred years, population dwindles, nuns are raped, and a climate of violence reigns.
In the next chapter, I will look at the opposite view, promulgated by Walter Goffart in his book Barbarians and Romans, and introduce the arguments of change and continuity of Peter Brown.

For Further Reading:
1/ Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (good place to start)
2/ Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire (more nuanced, political account)
Oldies
3/Courcelles, Histoire Literaire des Invasions Barbares
4/Gibbon, Decline and Fall (vol.3). The classic. His arguments are summarized in other books like Ward-Perkins'.

Post-Modernizing the Goths

2010-02-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

I was reading an interesting book The Future of History by Breisach. The book itself focuses on the way post-modernism has shaped history. One particular aspect of post-modernism has affected a particular line of historical argument: ethnogenesis (see earlier posts for a thorough discussion of ethnogenesis).
According to Breisach, post-modernist philosophers sought to re-evaluate the role of time in the shaping of history. More specifically, nexuses, that is, the ways of explaining history, were declared 'characteristic only for one period of human development', or, as Breisach states '[nexuses] were no more than pragmatic, contextual constructions of Western culture for coping with life.'
One particular passage in The History of the Goths by Herwig Wolfram came to my mind as I was reading these considerations. As historians of the barbarians, we have, literally, no direct sources for the study of the Goths prior to their entry into the Roman world. Consequently, we have to rely on archeology, but if archeology can shed light on day-to-day life, they cannot help us derive a concrete picture of the history of the Goths. Furthermore, the lack of structural remains means that we have little or no idea as to the political structures of the Goths.
Wolfram remedied to this problem in an interesting way. He uses the Gothic bible of Ulfila (Bishop of the Goths, translated the bible into gothic, died ca.380), and compares it to the gothic terms found in the bible. For instance, Ulfilas chose to translate the word sanhedrin, the ruling council of the Jews, as gafaurd, which he transforms into a tribal council. Similarly, he finds that the gothic leader Athanaric (who led the Gothic army against the Huns) is not a military leader, but a 'judge', that is, which can be likened to the role of censor in the Roman republican apparatus.
This methodology begs an interesting question. Did Ulfila use these terms because they represented an actual situation, or did he use these terms to explain the Jewish reality in the first century B.C.? In more concrete terms, is the gafaurd a sanhedrin or merely the closest political structure to the sanhedrin? Whenever we write history, we have to make sure that our intended audience understands our argument. As such, the nexus to which Breisach refers to must be a compromise: that is, it must satisfy our quest for the truth, but it must also be understood by the people who are reading us. This begs a further question: can we really truthfully explain the past, or are we limited by our own social constraints?

For Futrer Reading:

1)Breisach, The Future of History
2)Wolfram, The History of the Goths
3)Grafton, Worlds Made by Words

A Methodology Inquiry

2009-12-07T23:14:00.000-08:00

In their article ‘Farming in Mediterranean France and Rural Settlements’, historians Aline Durand and Philippe Leveau, use an interesting methodology. They use pollen analysis to describe the changes in climate, and then move on to suggest that an interdisciplinary alliance between palynology (study of pollen) and history. I want to look at interdisciplinary alliances a bit more closely.

There seems to be two basic types of alliances between history and other disciplines: natural and unnatural.

History is the study of human civilization since the inception of writing. The focus is largely on literate societies (with a few exceptions) that live in the past. Other disciplines like archaeology, cultural anthropology and to some extent philosophy have similar agendas. Each studies the evolution of human culture and ideas. The methodologies are readily implementable (philosophy is trickier, please look at the first chapter of The Future of History, by Breisach). These constitute ‘natural’ alliances.

There has been, in the past, interesting alliances. For instance, Michael McCormick has used medicine to argue that the pathogen that caused the plague in the middle of the sixth-century was Y. Pestis (the same pathogen that causes the bubonic plague). Horden and Purcell have also looked at climate change and physical geography to look at the unity of the Mediterranean world.

These alliances appear to me as being unnatural alliances. There is an element of subjectivity to historical debates. As my professor Ian Wood told me, ‘we look at history through the spectrum of our education’; in other words, both the literary material AND the analysis is subjective. History is an interpretation of the past, a logical inference made by a single person about a particular event. The perspective the historian chooses; the methodology is logically arbitrary: it makes sense to a person (the historian) and to a culture (his society). In that regard, there appears to be a fundamentally different perspective between history and geology for instance.

That is not to say that, as historians, we should not use scientific data and methods. McCormick, for instance, makes a persuasive case for the use of medical methodology in medicine. But, when using disciplines that are fundamentally different from history, the historian must be careful in that he may not be qualified to answer the questions that can be interpreted from this new data.

On methodology, there are so many books, it is difficult to start:

1) The Future of History- Breisachvery abstract, close to philosophy2) Histories: French construction of the past

important historical tradition, but there are many other traditions that are worthwhile. Good place to start.

3) Toward a Molecular History of the Justinianic Pandemic- Michael McCormick- In Plague and the End of Antiquity by Lester K. Little

very good, but still contested results.

4) The Corrupting Sea- Horden and Purcell

seminal work, but very very very long.

Ethnogenesis in the Early Middle Ages I: Definition and Necessity

2009-07-29T21:57:00.000-07:00

This rather esoteric term is often confounding for lay audiences. What is ethnogenesis? Ethnogenesis is a method of analysis for the study of barbarian[1] peoplesin the period before barbarians groups entered the Roman Empire.

When you read the eighth century Historia Francorum of Fredegar, you find that Merovech, the alleged founder of the Merovingian dynasty, was conceived when king Pharamond's wife encountered a Sea-Monster. As far as we know, there are no sea monsters dwelling in the channel, however, this legend shows a connection between the Salian Franks (of which Merovech belongs) and the sea. This connection between Franks and the sea is corroborated in various histories, where Franks are described as raiding pirates. The study of identity through text is called ethnogenesis.

Why do we need a specific method to study the barbarian groups? Barbarian societies did not leave us any text that we are able to work with. The various Origo Gentis (Origins of a People) were written long after the barbarians entered the Roman Empire. The Getica (Origins of the Goths) of Jordanes was written in the second half of the sixth century A.D., at the court of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527-565). In the Getica, Jordanes relates events that took place almost 500 years earlier. Furthermore, as Professor Peter Heather has shown,[2] there is evidence that Jordanes borrowed elements of the histories of fourth-century Roman historian Ammianus. Consequently, the texts that deal with barbarian histories lack a certain level of authenticity.

Furthermore, the histories focus almost exclusively with events that took place close to the time of the author. The History of the Franks of Gregory of Tours devotes only one chapter out of ten to the early history of the Franks. This history calls for a Panonian (Panonia is a Roman province, that is now in the South of modern-day Hungary) origins of the Franks, which Professors Wood and Geary have identified as being an attempt by Gregory of Tours to link the Franks with his illustrious predecessor in Tours, St Martin, a saint from Panonia. Thus, it is difficult to find solid facts in the histories of Gregory of Tours.

So what does ethnogenesis consist of? Ethnogenesis is a method that is based on a theory that was proposed by Wenskus is his work Stammesbildung und Verfassung (1962- this text was not translated from the German). For Wenskus, ethnic identity is purely cultural. This makes sense, as anthropologist have discounted any biological component to identity;[3] that means that physiological traits (skull size or shape, hair or eye color, etc…) are not requirements for any appurtenance to an ethnic group; therefore, ethnic identity is based on cultural characteristics. Luckily we can see cultural traits in either texts or material data (coins, swords, grave goods, brooches…). Ethnogenesis, as conceived by Wenskus stipulates that, groups form around families who can prove their descent from the gods, through various achievements. These achievements form a ‘nuclei of traditions,’ which one would have to adhere to in order to belong to a group. Thus, in order to belong to the Ostrogoths, one would have to recognize the supremacy of the Amal family (that is, Theodoric’s family) and its traditions.

Ethogenesis has come to mean different things to different people, as Professor Wood pointed out. However, there is one constant: the studies of ethnogenesis are the studies of how stories of origins are developed.

Thanks to Franks Cotham for the first illustration, and most importantly, to the incomparable talent of Gosciny and Uderzo for the second drawing, taken from Asterix and the Goths.

For Further Reading:

I think the following is a fairly good introductory read:

Wolfram, Herwig. The Roman Empire and its Germanic Peoples.

For slightly more difficult, yet fascinating, reads, the following are good:

Geary, Patrick. Before France and Germany.

Kulikowski, Michael. Rome’s Gothic Wars.

Wood, Ian. The Merovingian Kingdoms.

For more detailed readings, please contact me and I will gladly email you my bibliographies.

[1] Let’s be clear: barbarian is a general term that I will use to describe all groups that entered the Roman Empire, namely, Goths, Franks, Alamanni, Burgundians, Vandals etc… .

[2] Peter Heather, Cassiodorus and the Rise of the Amals: Genealogy and the Goths under Hun Domination’, Journal of Roman Studies 79 (1989), pp. 103-128.

[3] Michael Kulikowski gives an interesting synopsis of the theories. See Michael Kulikowski, ‘Nation versus Army: A Necessary Contrast?’, in On Barbarian Identity, ed. by Andrew Gillett (Turnhout, Brepols, 2002), p.69-85.

The Life of St Leander of Seville by Isidore of Seville (De Viris Illustribus 61)

2009-05-25T22:13:00.001-07:00

St Leander of Seville was born in 534 and died in 600.

St Leander of Seville

http://saints.sqpn.com/saintl50.htm

This post is a translation of the life of St Leander of Seville by his brother and successor to the bishopric of Seville, Isidore. I decided to translate and post this particular text to prepare the next post, which is homily delivered by Leander of Seville at the Third Council of Toledo (more about that in the next post).

The original Latin text is from the Patrologia Latina.

De Viris Illustribus, Caput XLI

57. Leander was born to Severianus, his father, of the province of Carthage. He was a monk by profession and from a the monastic [profession], was established bishop of the Church of Seville of the province of Baethica. He was a pleasant man in speech, surpassing all in character, most famous in life and also in doctrine, so that the Gothic people were returned to the Catholic faith from the Arian folly[1] by his faith and his work.[2] In fact, during the travel of his exile, he composed two books against the doctrines of the heretics; they were richly adorned with the erudition of the Holy Scriptures, and in them he pierced with a vigorous pen the impieties of the Arian [faith], and he, pointing out (one might know) the thing which the Catholic Church might have against them, [and] how different it stood either from that religion or from faith in the sacraments, laid bare its perverseness.

58. And there stood out another laudable trifle of his against the customs of the Arians, in which, after he set forth his positions, opposed their replies. In addition, he published one small book, for his sister Florentina about the Institution of Virgins and the contempt of the world, a book marked with distinctions of titles. And the very same man accordingly worked in the offices of the church not with small zeal; indeed, in the whole psaltery, he wrote down orations in a two faced edition; likewise in the sacrifice, he composed many [songs] of sweet sound for psalms and praises.

59. He even wrote many letters: one to the pope about baptism, another to his brother, in which, he forewarned everybody that death should not be feared. Also he published many intimate letters to the rest of the bishops, and if [they were not] splendid in words, they were nevertheless wise in thought. He flourished under Reccared, a religious man, as well as a glorious ruler, in whose marvelous time Leander finished the end of his life in death.

About the next post:

The next post will be the translation of the homily by St Leander of Seville that closes the Third Council of Toledo (589). In the post, I will discuss the significance of the council. This next post will close (temporarily) the chapter on Spain and we will move to a discussion on 'ethnogenesis', that is, the study of identity through text.

[1] The word used is insania and is fairly commonly used by Nicene Christians when describing the Arian controversy.

[2] The portion really reads: et fide ejus atque industria- the prepositions et, atque have emphatic meanings. That is, Isidore holds Leander solely responsible for the conversion of the Goths.

2009-04-06T18:10:00.000-07:00

The Life of John of Biclaro by Isidore of Seville (De Viris Illustribus 44)

I have never really found this text translated anywhere. The basic Latin text was taken from the Patrologia Latina. Here is my translation of the text.

John, bishop of the church of Gerona, a Goth by birth, was born in Scalabi (Santarem) in the province of Portugal.^¹ When he was a teenager, he went on to Constantinople, and there, he was strengthened in the knowledge of Greek and Latin. After seventeen years, he returned to Spain, at that same time when the Arian madness was inflamed by the inciting King Leovigild. From there, since the aforementioned king forced towards the cruelty of this ignominious heresy, and Biclaro resisted wholeheartedly, he (Biclaro) was trust into exile and banished to Barcelona. For ten years, he endured to the fullest many plots and persecutions by Arians.

Afterwards, he founded a monastery, which was called Biclaro by name, where there congregated the society of monks. He wrote a rule, which will be [not only] useful to that monastery, but even quite vital to all fearing God. He wrote in a book, a Chronicle from the first year of the reign of the younger Justin, all the way to the eight year of Maurice, Prince of the Romans, and the fourth year of Reccared king. And with this historical discourse, greatly useful to history, having been composed, he is said to have written many other things, which did not reach our notice.

What I find particularly interesting is the continuous mention of Leovigild, a visigothic monarch who reigned from 572 to his death in 586, as a monarch who is burning with Arian madness. This reference is also present in the Life of the Fathers of Merida, as well as the Chronicle of Biclaro. In contrast, his son, Reccared, is the ideal christian monarch, who brought the Goths to the catholic faith.

This portrayal of Leovigild as the persecutor king, filled with Arian madness, does not echo modern interpretations. Modern scholars see Leovigild as the driving force behind the unification of Spain under Visigothic rule. Prior to Leovigild's coming, we find that Visigothic rulers commonly fall victim to plots and assassinations. Furthermore, Spain is divided politically: the Byzantine emperor Justin II controls part of the eastern coast of Spain, while the Suevi ruled over what is now Asturias and Gallicia. Under Leovigild, the Byzantine enclave is annexed, while the Suevi are defeated.

Only the reconciliation between Visigoths and Hispano-Romans stood in the way of complete unification. Leovigild attempted to find a middle ground at the council of Merida (582). There, Leovigild proposed a new creed, where the Father was equal to the Son, but the Holy Spirit remained inferior. We are told in the Lives of the Fathers of Merida, that most Arian bishops agreed, and Biclaro tells us that some catholic bishops had agreed to join this creed, but had done so out of greed rather than desire. Thus, only the depraved catholics seemed to want to join under this creed.

Thus Leovigild's unification remained incomplete. It is under his son, Reccared, that the Visigoths agree to come to the unadulterated catholic faith. Still, scholars argue, quite rightly, that Leovigild had set the groundworks for the possible reconciliation of the Arian Visigoths and the Nicene Hispano-Romans. Admittedly, as Dr. Koch pointed out, this reconciliation did not spell the end of insecurity in Spain, but relative peace prevailed until the death of Reccared in 601.

For Further Reading:

Collins, Roger. Visigothic Spain: 409-711. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2004 (major authority on Visigothic Spain)

Heather, Peter. The Goths. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1996 (especially the later chapters)

Stocking, Rachel L. Bishops, Councils and the Consensus in the Visigothic Kingdom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2000. (the introduction is particularly good)

Teillet, Suzanne. Des Goths à la Nation Gothique. Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1984

Late Antiquity

2007-06-17T02:08:00.000-07:00

I am a student of Late Antiquity and of the Early Middle Ages. Throughout my studies, I have encountered a wide variety of reactions when I answered that I studied this time period. Once, while I was beginning my studies on the subject, I told a friend of mine that I was studying the emperor Julian, to which she replied: ‘You mean Julius Caesar?’; no, I really meant Julian Augustus, also known as Julian the Apostate.

Speaking frankly, I did not know much more about Julian than she did. To me, Julian was this character out of a Gore Vidal novel (Julian), who, in the book, had gone to school with the church fathers Gregory Nazanzian and Gregory of Nyssa in Athens, much like we go to College, and who hated Christians. Perhaps to the dismays of some professors of mine, I would recommend buying the Gore Vidal novel. It has an interesting insight on the world of Late Antiquity, albeit erroneous, but can provide the spark of interest.

There is a difference between being interested and studying actively the subject. A professor once told me that Late Antiquity was not a popular conversation theme at cocktail parties. When she said this, the DaVinci Code had just come out, and Constantine was not as popular as he is today. Thanks to Dan Brown, Constantine scholars as well as popular scholars have had a blast attempting to unravel a great church conspiracy in Late Antiquity: attempting to cover up Christ’s relationship with Mary Magdalene; At the center of this conspiracy lays the great Constantine.

However, if Constantine will be addressed in this blog, he will not be the most important feature. In this blog, you will meet people like the Neoplatonic philosopher Plotinus, like the Gallo-Roman aristocrat Sidonius Appolinaris, as well as modern scholars and their ways of thinking. I would like to introduce of world of change, and a world of continuity. I would like to introduce people, like St.Augustine, who, growing up in a Roman world, died with the Vandals besieging his town of Hippo. I would like to introduce a world greater than Constantine, and which ideals, more so than the Council of Nicea, helped shape the modern world.