In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900 ed. by Catherine F. Cooper and Julia Hillner
  • Carole Straw
Religion, Dynasty, and Patronage in Early Christian Rome, 300–900. Catherine F. Cooper and Julia Hillner, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. Pp. xi + 327. ISBN 970–521–87641–4.

These nine articles stem from a series of collaborations begun in 1996 at the Centre for Late Antiquity at the University of Manchester, home of the Roman Martyrs Project. Like the Martyrs Project, these essays challenge the view that the growth of the papacy determined the character of Rome in Late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages and instead focus on the role lay households, aristocratic factions (and families), and lay patronage played in its transformation. Using an interdisciplinary approach, the writers pay attention to neglected sources such as the legends of the Roman martyrs (gesta martyrum). The editors offer an excellent introduction providing the context for the wide range of articles presented.

The convention that imperial Rome became papal Rome is challenged in Mark Humphries’ “From Emperor to Pope? Ceremonial, Space, and Authority at Rome from Constantine to Gregory the Great.” Humphries questions the supposed continuity of imperial and papal adventus ceremonies because it has been (mis)taken as evidence that the pope replaced the emperor—that Rome’s transformation arose from a shift of authority from emperor to pope. Humphries argues that the emperor’s “presence,” along with that of the Senate, continued after Constantine in “the rhythm of daily life” (33) and, moreover, that secular authority was still manifest in Rome “in a way that would limit the ability of the papacy to dominate affairs there” (40). Valentinian III stayed in Rome for a total of eight years, 450–455, and his successors similarly lived on and off in Rome until the last western emperor departed in 476. Although the emperor’s visits were short and sporadic between Constantine and Valentinian III (30), he was met with adventus ceremonies that served to reassert his authority over Rome. While evidence of the adventus is scant after 404 (23, 43), Romans did welcome imperial images with an adventus in 452 and 603, and the Theodosian Code in 438. Though absent, the emperor is present, being saluted at games; he renovates buildings, makes laws, and presides over secular spaces, like the forum and the baths. And while the patronage of churches seems to enhance the authority of bishops (popes), it may conceal the emperor’s attempts to use the church for himself (46–47). Exactly how the emperor’s ceremonial “presence” thwarted the growth of papal power is unclear, but evidence does support Humphries’s judgment that the transition from imperial to papal Rome was slow and piecemeal (24–25).

If titular churches were “icons of lay patronage and lay/clerical estrangement” (16), they effectively challenged the growth of papal power, and testified to the importance of aristocratic patronage in Rome’s transformation. [End Page 367] Because Julia Hillner’s “Families, Patronage, and the Titular Churches of Rome, c. 300–c. 600” is an exhaustive analysis of the problem, her article is central to the whole book. Surprisingly, Hillner finds that titular churches were not those “icons of lay patronage.” “Rather, a titulus was a church that the bishop of Rome claimed as property of the Roman Church, when challenged” (258). Moreover, lay families did support the bishop’s church (260), preferring one-off (that is, one-time-only) donations to establishing endowments that they could not monitor (232, 259). The bishop probably organized the endowment from various sources (259). Hillner’s article suggests that the message of the volume is less revolutionary than evolutionary, a wider vision of the same landscape.

If titular churches were not “icons of lay patronage,” churches established on rural estates may have been. In “Poverty, Obligation, and Inheritance: Roman Heiresses and the Varieties of Senatorial Christianity in Fifth-century Rome,” Catherine Cooper examines the practices of aristocratic donors whose control of property slowed the growth of papal power. Clearly, how that happened would be easier to demonstrate if numerical data were available on the extent of lay, as compared to papal, control...

pdf

Share