Incoming CDRF Fellow in Early Medieval History at St John’s College, Oxford
Previously:
Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the RomanIslam Center at Universität Hamburg PhD Ancient History, University of St Andrews MSt Classical Archaeology, University of Oxford MLitt Ancient History, University of St Andrews Supervisors: Dr Carlos Machado
This chapter examines sixth- and seventh-century epigraphic representations of church founders in... more This chapter examines sixth- and seventh-century epigraphic representations of church founders in Visigothic Iberia. It considers the inscriptions in terms of their contents and, where possible, their materiality and context, in order to identify the social actors responsible for the creation of Christian sacred spaces as well as the social dynamics and patterns reflected by the inscriptions. While past research often assumed that the majority of Visigothic church foundation took place through episcopal initiative, based in large part on late antique hagiographic texts, recent scholarship has re-examined the evidence and concluded that other parties played significant roles in the ‘Christianisation’ of Iberia’s late antique topography. The analysis conducted in this chapter confirms this shift in scholarly opinion: lay aristocrats, Visigothic monarchs, clerics, and bishops, all appear in these inscriptions and in a dedicatory and funerary fashion. Furthermore, it is clear that Iberian church foundation was often a collaborative undertaking. We see that bishops played an important role in church foundations by performing the last, ceremonial step of transforming church buildings into sacred spaces; at the same time, we see that others’ contributions were equally necessary parts of the process.
This thesis sheds new light on the Christianisation of the Iberian Peninsula. Christianisation as... more This thesis sheds new light on the Christianisation of the Iberian Peninsula. Christianisation as a whole has been much-studied, and the same is true of Iberian Christianity. The majority of the available textual and material evidence, however, has been interpreted under the assumption that bishops were the key drivers of this process. This obscures the reality of the situation. As I show in this thesis, when taken on its own, the evidence paints a different picture-one which was much more complex, of a society which was brimming with a variety of different elite groups who were jostling for spiritual and social pre-eminence alongside one another, rather than having all been dominated by episcopal figures and hierarchies. The roles of these various other elites have not been thoroughly explored in scholarship to date. This thesis addresses this gap. It provides an updated perspective on who these elites were in both the late Roman and in the Visigothic periods, and the various forms of evidence we can use to illuminate the process by which they created Christian spaces in late antique Iberia. In doing so, it illuminates their role in the Christianisation of Iberia's topography. The thesis explores this evidence by synthesising archaeological, architectural, epigraphic, artistic, epistolary, legal, ecclesiastical, and hagiographic evidence in order to examine three discernible types of Christian spaces created by these elites: first, Christian space creation in aristocratic villas, then elite church foundation, and finally, elite monasticism and monastic spaces. By the time these spaces have been explored, it is clear that all three were intimately connected to Iberia's lay aristocratic, royal, monastic, and clerical elites.
Abstract of my thesis on the Conversion of Mahón in 418 CE, undertaken by the Bishop Severus and... more Abstract of my thesis on the Conversion of Mahón in 418 CE, undertaken by the Bishop Severus and documented in his Epistula Severi.
Resumen de mi tesis sobre la conversión masiva de Mahón (418 d.C), realizada por el obispo Severo y documentada en su Epistula Severi.
Review of edited volume. Urban Space between the Roman Age and Late Antiquity is a collation of t... more Review of edited volume. Urban Space between the Roman Age and Late Antiquity is a collation of the Acts of the International Workshop at the University of Regensburg (13–14 February 2020). Edited by Arabella Cortese and Giulia Fioratto, the volume has two aims: first, to revisit the question of whether Late Antiquity was a period of urban change, rather than decline; second, to evaluate the relationship between late antique cities and their surrounding territories. Urban Space consists of a preface by Dirk Steuernagel, an introduction by Cortese and Fioratto, seven case studies from the contributors to the volume, and concluding remarks by Nadin Burkhardt. This is followed by fifteen pages of colour plates of key maps and photos from the contributors’ chapters.
Conference convened by Dr. Carlos Machado and Dr. Rebecca Sweetman in association with the School... more Conference convened by Dr. Carlos Machado and Dr. Rebecca Sweetman in association with the School of Classics and the Centre for Late Antique Studies at the University of St Andrews (8th-10th December 2021).
My talk: Making Space in the Visigothic Kingdom: Epigraphic Representations of Church Founders
Programme of Conference
Thursday 18th March 2021
Morning Session: 9.45 – 12.00
Chihon Ley Polanc... more Programme of Conference
Thursday 18th March 2021 Morning Session: 9.45 – 12.00 Chihon Ley Polanco respondent: Dr. Julia Pfefferkorn Plato’s Problem of Intermediates and Greek Mathematics
Bart Danon respondent: Niels Arends The Distribution of Wealth and Political Office at Pompeii
Afternoon Session: 13.45 – 17.00 Alex Elliott respondent: Remco Bronkhorst From the Baetis to the Tagus: Trace of Warfare in the Alentejo from the Late 2nd/Early 1st Century BC
Dr. Ellen MacDougall respondent: Marzia Fiorentini Representations of Foreign Peoples and Places on Late Republican Coinage: a Quantitative Study of Imagery
Elaine Rankin respondent: Carolyn La Rocco “Salve Lotum”: the Use of Oil at the Baths
Friday 19th March 2021 Morning Session: 09.45 – 12:00 Elena Panebianco respondent: Dr. Matthew Shelton Obscene Humour in Rhetorical Perspective: a Reading of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata 672-681
Sanne Van den Berg respondent: Marco Gay Who is the Murderer? Creating Ambiguity in Death-Scenes in Tacitus’ Annals
Please email the Organising Committee with any questions:
An archaeological and historical case study of the villa of Fortunatus (Fraga) as a model for cha... more An archaeological and historical case study of the villa of Fortunatus (Fraga) as a model for changes that rural élite peninsular villae underwent in the early and late late antique centuries. Aspects evaluated included mosaic pavements, architectural modification over time, and textual evidence for religious worship in peninsular villae.
Presented at the St Andrews/Tübingen Graduate Workshop: The First Millennium AD, 23 May 2019.
Talk given as part of the Jour Fixe series during my fellowship at the RomanIslam Center for Comp... more Talk given as part of the Jour Fixe series during my fellowship at the RomanIslam Center for Comparative Empire and Transcultural Studies
My talk for the Oxford Ancient Architecture Discussion Group (Michaelmas 2022), in which I explor... more My talk for the Oxford Ancient Architecture Discussion Group (Michaelmas 2022), in which I explore baptisteries in relation to secular church foundation.
This was a talk I gave for the Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar, examining epigraphic, archaeolo... more This was a talk I gave for the Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar, examining epigraphic, archaeological, hagiographic, and canonical evidence for various elites' involvement in the creation of church space in 5th-7th century Iberia.
This talk explored the social political and religious dynamics on Menorca before, during, and aft... more This talk explored the social political and religious dynamics on Menorca before, during, and after the 418 CE forced mass conversion of Mahón/Magona from Judaism to Christianity under Bishop Severus. It then looked at intertextual and archaeological evidence for interactions between Menorca and the eastern empire, as well as between Menorca and North Africa.
A short talk delivered at the University of St Andrews on 15 March 2019 about portrait mosaics in... more A short talk delivered at the University of St Andrews on 15 March 2019 about portrait mosaics in rural villas on the late antique Iberian Peninsula as a means of self-representation and social signalling, and thereby their implications for other mosaics in these villas which contain imagery possibly religious in nature: for example, mosaics at the villas of Centcelles, La Olmeda, and Fortunatus.
My talk on episcopal, aristocratic, and royal euergetism in late Roman and Visigothic Hispania, a... more My talk on episcopal, aristocratic, and royal euergetism in late Roman and Visigothic Hispania, as part of the Friday Work-in-Progress seminar I organised with a colleague.
Programme for the sub-honours workshop series I have organised for the School of Classics in coll... more Programme for the sub-honours workshop series I have organised for the School of Classics in collaboration with CEED.
This chapter examines sixth- and seventh-century epigraphic representations of church founders in... more This chapter examines sixth- and seventh-century epigraphic representations of church founders in Visigothic Iberia. It considers the inscriptions in terms of their contents and, where possible, their materiality and context, in order to identify the social actors responsible for the creation of Christian sacred spaces as well as the social dynamics and patterns reflected by the inscriptions. While past research often assumed that the majority of Visigothic church foundation took place through episcopal initiative, based in large part on late antique hagiographic texts, recent scholarship has re-examined the evidence and concluded that other parties played significant roles in the ‘Christianisation’ of Iberia’s late antique topography. The analysis conducted in this chapter confirms this shift in scholarly opinion: lay aristocrats, Visigothic monarchs, clerics, and bishops, all appear in these inscriptions and in a dedicatory and funerary fashion. Furthermore, it is clear that Iberian church foundation was often a collaborative undertaking. We see that bishops played an important role in church foundations by performing the last, ceremonial step of transforming church buildings into sacred spaces; at the same time, we see that others’ contributions were equally necessary parts of the process.
This thesis sheds new light on the Christianisation of the Iberian Peninsula. Christianisation as... more This thesis sheds new light on the Christianisation of the Iberian Peninsula. Christianisation as a whole has been much-studied, and the same is true of Iberian Christianity. The majority of the available textual and material evidence, however, has been interpreted under the assumption that bishops were the key drivers of this process. This obscures the reality of the situation. As I show in this thesis, when taken on its own, the evidence paints a different picture-one which was much more complex, of a society which was brimming with a variety of different elite groups who were jostling for spiritual and social pre-eminence alongside one another, rather than having all been dominated by episcopal figures and hierarchies. The roles of these various other elites have not been thoroughly explored in scholarship to date. This thesis addresses this gap. It provides an updated perspective on who these elites were in both the late Roman and in the Visigothic periods, and the various forms of evidence we can use to illuminate the process by which they created Christian spaces in late antique Iberia. In doing so, it illuminates their role in the Christianisation of Iberia's topography. The thesis explores this evidence by synthesising archaeological, architectural, epigraphic, artistic, epistolary, legal, ecclesiastical, and hagiographic evidence in order to examine three discernible types of Christian spaces created by these elites: first, Christian space creation in aristocratic villas, then elite church foundation, and finally, elite monasticism and monastic spaces. By the time these spaces have been explored, it is clear that all three were intimately connected to Iberia's lay aristocratic, royal, monastic, and clerical elites.
Abstract of my thesis on the Conversion of Mahón in 418 CE, undertaken by the Bishop Severus and... more Abstract of my thesis on the Conversion of Mahón in 418 CE, undertaken by the Bishop Severus and documented in his Epistula Severi.
Resumen de mi tesis sobre la conversión masiva de Mahón (418 d.C), realizada por el obispo Severo y documentada en su Epistula Severi.
Review of edited volume. Urban Space between the Roman Age and Late Antiquity is a collation of t... more Review of edited volume. Urban Space between the Roman Age and Late Antiquity is a collation of the Acts of the International Workshop at the University of Regensburg (13–14 February 2020). Edited by Arabella Cortese and Giulia Fioratto, the volume has two aims: first, to revisit the question of whether Late Antiquity was a period of urban change, rather than decline; second, to evaluate the relationship between late antique cities and their surrounding territories. Urban Space consists of a preface by Dirk Steuernagel, an introduction by Cortese and Fioratto, seven case studies from the contributors to the volume, and concluding remarks by Nadin Burkhardt. This is followed by fifteen pages of colour plates of key maps and photos from the contributors’ chapters.
Conference convened by Dr. Carlos Machado and Dr. Rebecca Sweetman in association with the School... more Conference convened by Dr. Carlos Machado and Dr. Rebecca Sweetman in association with the School of Classics and the Centre for Late Antique Studies at the University of St Andrews (8th-10th December 2021).
My talk: Making Space in the Visigothic Kingdom: Epigraphic Representations of Church Founders
Programme of Conference
Thursday 18th March 2021
Morning Session: 9.45 – 12.00
Chihon Ley Polanc... more Programme of Conference
Thursday 18th March 2021 Morning Session: 9.45 – 12.00 Chihon Ley Polanco respondent: Dr. Julia Pfefferkorn Plato’s Problem of Intermediates and Greek Mathematics
Bart Danon respondent: Niels Arends The Distribution of Wealth and Political Office at Pompeii
Afternoon Session: 13.45 – 17.00 Alex Elliott respondent: Remco Bronkhorst From the Baetis to the Tagus: Trace of Warfare in the Alentejo from the Late 2nd/Early 1st Century BC
Dr. Ellen MacDougall respondent: Marzia Fiorentini Representations of Foreign Peoples and Places on Late Republican Coinage: a Quantitative Study of Imagery
Elaine Rankin respondent: Carolyn La Rocco “Salve Lotum”: the Use of Oil at the Baths
Friday 19th March 2021 Morning Session: 09.45 – 12:00 Elena Panebianco respondent: Dr. Matthew Shelton Obscene Humour in Rhetorical Perspective: a Reading of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata 672-681
Sanne Van den Berg respondent: Marco Gay Who is the Murderer? Creating Ambiguity in Death-Scenes in Tacitus’ Annals
Please email the Organising Committee with any questions:
An archaeological and historical case study of the villa of Fortunatus (Fraga) as a model for cha... more An archaeological and historical case study of the villa of Fortunatus (Fraga) as a model for changes that rural élite peninsular villae underwent in the early and late late antique centuries. Aspects evaluated included mosaic pavements, architectural modification over time, and textual evidence for religious worship in peninsular villae.
Presented at the St Andrews/Tübingen Graduate Workshop: The First Millennium AD, 23 May 2019.
Talk given as part of the Jour Fixe series during my fellowship at the RomanIslam Center for Comp... more Talk given as part of the Jour Fixe series during my fellowship at the RomanIslam Center for Comparative Empire and Transcultural Studies
My talk for the Oxford Ancient Architecture Discussion Group (Michaelmas 2022), in which I explor... more My talk for the Oxford Ancient Architecture Discussion Group (Michaelmas 2022), in which I explore baptisteries in relation to secular church foundation.
This was a talk I gave for the Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar, examining epigraphic, archaeolo... more This was a talk I gave for the Oxford Byzantine Graduate Seminar, examining epigraphic, archaeological, hagiographic, and canonical evidence for various elites' involvement in the creation of church space in 5th-7th century Iberia.
This talk explored the social political and religious dynamics on Menorca before, during, and aft... more This talk explored the social political and religious dynamics on Menorca before, during, and after the 418 CE forced mass conversion of Mahón/Magona from Judaism to Christianity under Bishop Severus. It then looked at intertextual and archaeological evidence for interactions between Menorca and the eastern empire, as well as between Menorca and North Africa.
A short talk delivered at the University of St Andrews on 15 March 2019 about portrait mosaics in... more A short talk delivered at the University of St Andrews on 15 March 2019 about portrait mosaics in rural villas on the late antique Iberian Peninsula as a means of self-representation and social signalling, and thereby their implications for other mosaics in these villas which contain imagery possibly religious in nature: for example, mosaics at the villas of Centcelles, La Olmeda, and Fortunatus.
My talk on episcopal, aristocratic, and royal euergetism in late Roman and Visigothic Hispania, a... more My talk on episcopal, aristocratic, and royal euergetism in late Roman and Visigothic Hispania, as part of the Friday Work-in-Progress seminar I organised with a colleague.
Programme for the sub-honours workshop series I have organised for the School of Classics in coll... more Programme for the sub-honours workshop series I have organised for the School of Classics in collaboration with CEED.
Uploads
Resumen de mi tesis sobre la conversión masiva de Mahón (418 d.C), realizada por el obispo Severo y documentada en su Epistula Severi.
My talk: Making Space in the Visigothic Kingdom: Epigraphic Representations of Church Founders
Thursday 18th March 2021
Morning Session: 9.45 – 12.00
Chihon Ley Polanco
respondent: Dr. Julia Pfefferkorn
Plato’s Problem of Intermediates and Greek Mathematics
Bart Danon
respondent: Niels Arends
The Distribution of Wealth and Political Office at Pompeii
Afternoon Session: 13.45 – 17.00
Alex Elliott
respondent: Remco Bronkhorst
From the Baetis to the Tagus: Trace of Warfare in the Alentejo from the Late 2nd/Early 1st Century BC
Dr. Ellen MacDougall
respondent: Marzia Fiorentini
Representations of Foreign Peoples and Places on Late Republican Coinage: a Quantitative Study of Imagery
Elaine Rankin
respondent: Carolyn La Rocco
“Salve Lotum”: the Use of Oil at the Baths
Friday 19th March 2021
Morning Session: 09.45 – 12:00
Elena Panebianco
respondent: Dr. Matthew Shelton
Obscene Humour in Rhetorical Perspective: a Reading of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata 672-681
Sanne Van den Berg
respondent: Marco Gay
Who is the Murderer? Creating Ambiguity in Death-Scenes in Tacitus’ Annals
Please email the Organising Committee with any questions:
Pablo González Rojas pgr3@st-andrews.ac.uk
Marzia Fiorentini mf230@st-andrews.ac.uk
Carolyn La Rocco clr9@st-andrews.ac.uk
Presented at the St Andrews/Tübingen Graduate Workshop: The First Millennium AD, 23 May 2019.
Resumen de mi tesis sobre la conversión masiva de Mahón (418 d.C), realizada por el obispo Severo y documentada en su Epistula Severi.
My talk: Making Space in the Visigothic Kingdom: Epigraphic Representations of Church Founders
Thursday 18th March 2021
Morning Session: 9.45 – 12.00
Chihon Ley Polanco
respondent: Dr. Julia Pfefferkorn
Plato’s Problem of Intermediates and Greek Mathematics
Bart Danon
respondent: Niels Arends
The Distribution of Wealth and Political Office at Pompeii
Afternoon Session: 13.45 – 17.00
Alex Elliott
respondent: Remco Bronkhorst
From the Baetis to the Tagus: Trace of Warfare in the Alentejo from the Late 2nd/Early 1st Century BC
Dr. Ellen MacDougall
respondent: Marzia Fiorentini
Representations of Foreign Peoples and Places on Late Republican Coinage: a Quantitative Study of Imagery
Elaine Rankin
respondent: Carolyn La Rocco
“Salve Lotum”: the Use of Oil at the Baths
Friday 19th March 2021
Morning Session: 09.45 – 12:00
Elena Panebianco
respondent: Dr. Matthew Shelton
Obscene Humour in Rhetorical Perspective: a Reading of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata 672-681
Sanne Van den Berg
respondent: Marco Gay
Who is the Murderer? Creating Ambiguity in Death-Scenes in Tacitus’ Annals
Please email the Organising Committee with any questions:
Pablo González Rojas pgr3@st-andrews.ac.uk
Marzia Fiorentini mf230@st-andrews.ac.uk
Carolyn La Rocco clr9@st-andrews.ac.uk
Presented at the St Andrews/Tübingen Graduate Workshop: The First Millennium AD, 23 May 2019.