Italian Narratives of Oppositional Identity

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 77-113
Author(s):  
Kalina Yamboliev
Keyword(s):  
Mediterranean Region ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Oppositional Identity ◽  
Group Identities ◽  
Resident Populations ◽  
Holy Man

Drawing together scholarship on the late antique and medieval holy man, and modern theoretical work on affect and identity, this article seeks to analyze one method by which group identities in the Mediterranean region broadly, and in Italy specifically, have been defined trans-historically through rhetorical emphasis on the “invasion” of foreignized bodies. The discussion first focuses on late antique Near Eastern Passio texts commemorating Christians who faced persecution under Muslim Saracens, before then shifting to tenth- and eleventh-century southern Italy and Sicily, and to the corpus of Italo-Greek Vitae in which holy individuals regularly encountered the Saracen as a dangerous invader. Such discourses of opposition obscured the inter-reliance between populations, and reduced relations to inherited, primordial struggles, simultaneously shifting attention away from the heterogeneity of non-Muslim resident populations. A similar approach is pursued in modern Italian discourse on migrants, where a selective rhetoric of “invasion” forefront the risks posed by migrants in ways that create a sense of unity in an otherwise-fragmented nation. Urging academic dialogue that incorporates the pre-modern and modern, this article examines the construction of oppositional identity and explores how such narratives reveal collective fears amongst populations threatened by the destabilization of pre-established hierarchies.

Beneventan (South Italian/Langobardic) Script

2020 ◽  
pp. 119-142
Author(s):  
Francis Newton
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Tenth Century ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Important Center

This chapter surveys Beneventan script, the distinctive hand of southern Italy which is particularly associated with the most important center of its use, the Abbey of Monte Cassino. Beneventan arose in the late eighth century and continued in common use through the thirteenth--and even later in isolated instances. Distinct calligraphic high points were achieved in various cities, regions, or centers at different periods, including Naples in the tenth century, Monte Cassino in the second half of the eleventh century, and the region of Bari at the same time. Caroline script was used side-by-side with Beneventan at some centers, until Caroline and Gothic scripts finally replaced Beneventan as the standard bookhand in southern Italy.

Byzantine Religious Law in Medieval Italy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Morton
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Medieval Italy ◽  
Religious Law ◽  
History Of ◽  
Byzantine Church

This book is a historical study of these manuscripts, exploring how and why the Greek Christians of medieval southern Italy persisted in using them so long after the end of Byzantine rule. Southern Italy was conquered by the Norman Hauteville dynasty in the late eleventh century after over 500 years of continuous Byzantine rule. At a stroke, the region’s Greek Christian inhabitants were cut off from their Orthodox compatriots in Byzantium and became subject to the spiritual and legal jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic popes. Nonetheless, they continued to follow the religious laws of the Byzantine church; out of thirty-six surviving manuscripts of Byzantine canon law produced between the tenth and fourteenth centuries, the majority date to the centuries after the Norman conquest. Part I provides an overview of the source material and the history of Italo-Greek Christianity. Part II examines the development of Italo-Greek canon law manuscripts from the last century of Byzantine rule to the late twelfth century, arguing that the Normans’ opposition to papal authority created a laissez faire atmosphere in which Greek Christians could continue to follow Byzantine religious law unchallenged. Finally, Part III analyses the papacy’s successful efforts to assert its jurisdiction over southern Italy in the later Middle Ages. While this brought about the end of Byzantine canon law as an effective legal system in the region, the Italo-Greeks still drew on their legal heritage to explain and justify their distinctive religious rites to their Latin neighbours.

From Theophilus to C.S.Smith: Discovery of an Eleventh Century AD Bell-Casting Mold From Venosa (Southern Italy)

1992 ◽  
Vol 267 ◽  
Author(s):  
M. Vidale ◽  
A. Melucco Vaccaro ◽  
M.R. Salvatore ◽  
M. Micheli ◽  
C. Balista
Keyword(s):  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Casting Mold ◽  
Textual Evidence ◽  
Archaeological Data ◽  
Medieval Church

ABSTRACTThe recent discovery and excavation of the remains of a well preserved mold for bell-casting below the floor of the medieval church of the SS. Trinita′ of Venosa (southern Italy) provides a singular opportunity to reconstruct aspects of ancient bell-making technology and to compare the new archaeological data with the textual evidence on the same subject written by the famous monk Theophilus in the XIth chapter of his treatise “De Diversis Artibus”. Stratigraphical excavation and video-endoscopic inspection of the mold's interior allowed a preliminary reconstruction of the structure and use of this unique craft installation.

The Beneficent Sky God: Cultural History in the Qur’an

2011 ◽  
Author(s):  
William F. McCants
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Hebrew Bible ◽  
Near East ◽  
Divine Providence ◽  
Late Antique ◽  
Prime Mover ◽  
Near Eastern ◽  
Arts And Sciences

This chapter considers the Qur'an's interpretation of the origins of civilization. When the Arabs conquered the Near East, they shared with their subjects (mainly Jews and Christians) the notion that civilization had arisen as a consequence of Adam's fall. But in contrast to the Hebrew Bible, the Qur'an portrays the rise of civilization positively and makes God its prime mover, much like the gods of ancient Near Eastern myths. There are at least two reasons for this difference. First, Muhammad draws on noncanonical biblical scripture and storytelling that link God, angels, and chosen human interlocutors to the development of beneficial arts and sciences. Second, Muhammad draws on some version of these texts (perhaps oral) to prove his argument that God is the source of all civilization, an argument influenced by late-antique thought on divine providence. He makes this argument to justify either proselytizing among or conquest of non-Muslims, who have forgotten the source of civilization and thus deserve to lose it.

The Byzantine Background

2021 ◽  
pp. 81-98
Author(s):  
James Morton
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Norman Conquest ◽  
Unleavened Bread

Chapter 4 examines the surviving nomocanonical manuscripts from the period of Byzantine rule in early medieval southern Italy (tenth–eleventh centuries). Very few manuscripts survive from before the twelfth century, so their content must be reconstructed from later codices. Nonetheless, this chapter argues that enough evidence has been preserved to prove that Byzantine canon law was firmly established in southern Italy from the time of the empire’s ecclesiastical and administrative reorganisations of the ninth and tenth centuries. The chapter shows that, as the Byzantines reconquered territories from the Lombards and established new ecclesiastical centres in Reggio, S. Severina, and Otranto, they introduced the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles, the Nomocanon in Fifty Titles, and the Synopsis of Canons to serve as legal reference works. It then focuses on the Carbone nomocanon (Vat. gr. 1980–1981), the only complete nomocanon to survive from the era of Byzantine rule, arguing that it was probably produced in the eleventh century for use by a Greek bishop in Lucania. The manuscript’s contents and marginalia indicate that its owner was fully aligned with the legal system of Constantinople and show no influences from neighbouring Latin jurisdictions. Finally, the chapter looks at evidence from the period of Norman conquest in the late eleventh century, revealing how the resulting tensions between Latin and Greek Christians in the region left traces of contemporary Byzantine polemic against the azyma (unleavened bread in the Eucharist) in Calabrian nomocanons of the twelfth century.

Byzantium in the Eleventh Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 220-248
Author(s):  
James Howard-Johnston
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Social Change ◽  
Social History ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Eleventh Century ◽  
Southern Italy ◽  
Specific Topic ◽  
Cultural Revival ◽  
Village Communities ◽  
The Military

The various studies of Byzantium’s social history in the eleventh century presented in this volume, each with its specific topic (regional, thematic, archaeological), are placed in a wider context. A head-on challenge is made to the long-standing view, promulgated by George Ostrogorsky, that Byzantium’s rapid descent from its apogee in the middle of the eleventh century had two prime causes, a deliberate run-down of the military by the ascendant civil party in the administration, and the absorption of the peasantry into large, aristocratic estates with a consequent weakening of a fiscal and military system founded in the peasant village. Different aspects of eleventh-century history are covered: (1) the accelerating cultural revival, sponsored by emperors, and an attendant growth in numbers and importance of the intelligentsia; (2) evidence, primarily numismatic and archaeological, for demographic and economic growth, and its beneficent effect on town life; (3) a re-examination of the documentary and other evidence for the decline of the independent peasantry, which concludes that predatory landowners encountered serious resistance from tight-knit village communities and the justice system and that the process of social change in the countryside had not advanced as far as Kostis Smyrlis suggests; (4) finally, it is accepted that attitudes changed, that the interior provinces were demilitarized, but not that there was a deliberate attempt to reduce spending on the army, now confined to the imperial periphery—the defeats and losses suffered are attributed primarily to the strengths of Byzantium’s chief adversaries, Turks and Turkmen in the east, Normans in southern Italy.

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