The Transformation of a Religious Landscape. Medieval Southern Italy, 850- 1150 (review)

In the second half of the twelfth century the office of the archbishop of Salerno was held by two imposing figures: Romuald II of Salerno (1153-1181), medical expert, possible author of a world chronicle, diplomat, and at varying points royal adviser, and Nicholas (1182-1222), son of the royal vice-chancellor and himself a leading figure in the highest political circles of Southern Italy. Both these men added to the prestige of the Salernitan church and at the same time enhanced their own standing through their position at the head of what seemed a well-organized and lucrative archdiocese. Valerie Ramseyer's clear and well-informed survey demonstrates the extent to which this more efficient and structured archiepiscopal system found in Salerno after 1150 was a relatively recent development. The work actually focuses primarily on the Church in the Principality of Salerno in the period 850 to 1150, but the author's ability to draw repeatedly comparisons and contrasts with other regions of Southern Italy justifies the study's wider title. Ramseyer traces in detail the long and uneven process in which the archdiocese of Salerno was reorganized, reformed, and centralized under the archbishop's rule: a development which only seemed to take shape from around 1000 and was far from complete by 1100. The work also covers the emergence, over a similar period, of the abbey of Cava, just outside Salerno, into a highly organized religious complex, under a more structured Benedictine monastic rule. Cava acquired a host of religious foundations, governed them centrally, and wielded territorial power, all of which was done autonomously from the archbishop of Salerno, through papal approval.

Before the rise of these two religious networks in the eleventh century, the ecclesiastical map of the Principality of Salerno consisted of a patchwork of religious houses built by local families and consortia (associations). Religious practices were diverse; some houses were Greek foundations, while there was no standard form of monastic life throughout the Principality of Salerno. The bishop of Salerno (raised to archiepiscopal rank in the 980's) was a relatively inconsequential figure in terms of his religious and political authority. In addition, the worlds of the laity and the secular clergy were firmly intertwined. The main achievement of Ramseyer's study is to reveal clearly, as the title states, a transformation of a religious landscape, and how exactly this occurred (in part a result of the broader church reform and increased support of both papal and lay power). One of the greatest strengths of the study is its ability to place repeatedly the ecclesiastical transformations into a wider context, not just South Italian, but Western European, Mediterranean, and Byzantine as well. But at the same time the underlying message from Ramseyer's work is that the religious landscape in the Principality of Salerno was always heavily influenced by the local community and by local initiative (the author's use of the extensive Cava archives makes this finding possible). The dovetailing of the impact of these two spheres, the international and the local, is at the heart of the work—never more so than within the discussion of the way the eleventh-century papal church reform impacted upon the Salernitan church. The conclusion emerges that the church of Salerno gradually integrated with the rest of Europe from the eleventh century, but equally always retained its own distinctiveness. Ramseyer's study offers a valuable analysis of the Church in an important region of Southern Italy, and by not being restricted to either the Lombard or Norman periods, it is able to uncover significant long-term transitions that might otherwise have been missed.