As the Roman Empire in the west crumbled over the course of the fifth century, new polities, rule... more As the Roman Empire in the west crumbled over the course of the fifth century, new polities, ruled by 'barbarian' elites, arose in Gaul, Hispania, Italy, and Africa. This political order occurred in tandem with growing fissures within Christianity, as the faithful divided over two doctrines, Nicene and Homoian, that were a legacy of the fourth-century controversy over the nature of the Trinity. In this book, Marta Szada offers a new perspective on early medieval Christianity by exploring how interplays between religious diversity and politics shaped post-Roman Europe. Interrogating the ecclesiastical competition between Nicene and Homoian factions, she provides a nuanced interpretation of religious dissent and the actions of Christians in successor kingdoms as they manifested themselves in politics and social practices. Szada's study reveals the variety of approaches that can be applied to understanding the conflict and coexistence between Nicenes and Homoians, showing how religious divisions shaped early medieval Christian culture.
Eugippius’ Life of Severinus is a text in which society is described through the dichotomy betwee... more Eugippius’ Life of Severinus is a text in which society is described through the dichotomy between Romans and barbarians. In this paper, I examine how exactly Eugippius imagines this polarity and to what rhetorical and persuasive ends he employs it. In particular, I focus on his complex portrayal of the barbarians which reveals his views on what place they might occupy in the Roman and Christian vision of history and politics. By examining the social and political ideas in the Life of Severinus we can trace how the hagiographer perceived the disintegrating societies of the West in the fifth and sixth centuries and what attitudes he advocated that could help de-escalate violence and overcome divisions. Finally, I discuss the extent to which Eugippius’ representation of the relationship between Romans and barbarians corresponded to the interests and anxieties of his Italian audience living under Ostrogothic rule.
The Elbląg Library’s historic collection contains a Leiden edition of Plautus’ twenty plays from ... more The Elbląg Library’s historic collection contains a Leiden edition of Plautus’ twenty plays from 1594, distinguished by dense marginalia in Latin, Greek, German, French and Polish noted by the book’s seventeenth-century owner, identified in the article as an Elbląg burgher, Michael Braun the younger (c. 1590–1620). Also, the provenance of this volume was traced, as well as of several other books with Braun’s ownership mark that were also preserved in the Elbląg Library. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the notes themselves: their content, nature and sources, differences in language use and the graphic conventions used. The article shows how this particular monument can serve as a source for the study of humanistic reading practices, the history of language learning in the modern era and the culture of excerpt and compilation.
Revue d'Etudes Augustiniennes et Patristiques, 2022
Basil of Caesarea’s Address to Young Men is a text of considerable celebrity that has been attent... more Basil of Caesarea’s Address to Young Men is a text of considerable celebrity that has been attentively read by generations of scholars. They usually focused on Basil’s use of pagan literature and saw in the Address one of the most important expressions of the Christian attitude to Greek pagan culture. In order to illustrate his argument by which he defends the moral utility of school education, Basil introduced in the Address a series of biblical references. Through mentions of biblical figures and paraphrases, creatively responding to pagan parallels, Basil laid out how the form of critical reading that he advocates should work in practice. The Bible appears cloaked in a Hellenized form and in this process the Hellenized form is vindicated. Thus, the work of reformulation and harmonization does not question the superiority of the Christian discourse but rather emphasizes its powers of assimilation of foreign elements.
Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity, 2020
Frequently, studies focusing on the fourth-century Trinitarian controversy stop at the 380s and e... more Frequently, studies focusing on the fourth-century Trinitarian controversy stop at the 380s and emphasize the importance of the Council of Constantinople and the Council of Aquileia in 381, and the end of Italian rule of the last Homoian emperor, Valentinian II. In very common interpretation, these events mark the virtual end of the Latin Homoianism—its final extirpation. This thesis mightily influenced the modern thinking about Christianization of the Goths and other barbarian peoples. The process was conceptualized as an “ethnic switch” —the people of non-Roman ethnicity embraced the religion while the Romans completely abandoned it. Thereby, the disavowed Roman heresy changed into the creed able to preserve ethnic difference under the Roman pressure of acculturation. In the present paper, I challenge this interpretation. I argue that the Latin Homoian Church survived long into the fifth century and had an active role in the process of converting the Goths into the Homoian Christi...
Among the differences that separated the Nicenes and the Homoians, their approach to converts bap... more Among the differences that separated the Nicenes and the Homoians, their approach to converts baptized in another church was one of the most evident. This article argues that their adherence to contrary opinions on heretical baptism was not a consequence of a straightforward inheritance of two incompatible theologies of the past, but a direct result of the fourth-century debates over rebaptism that took place in the last phase of the Trinitarian controversy. A careful examination of those discussions makes it possible also to assess the role of such aspects as innovativeness, custom, and tradition in the forming of orthodoxy.
The 7th c. anonymous Life of st. Balthild is one of the most important hagiographical works of th... more The 7th c. anonymous Life of st. Balthild is one of the most important hagiographical works of the Late Merovingian period. Its author was deeply inspired by the 6th c. Life of Radegund by Venatius Fortunatus, but he or she did not simply copy the episodes, miracles, and other hagiographical topoi. The present paper provides first a close inspection of the passages in which Balthild’s hagiographer reproduces motives from the earlier vita and transforms them to create a hagiographical innovation. Secondly, it is demonstrated how this new literary model of sanctity is correlated with the spiritual culture of the aristocracy that emerged out of the social transformation in the 7th c. Merovingian kingdoms. Saints were supposed to serve as examples of moral and Christian behaviour in the secular life for rich landowners and royal officers, rather than be distant, superhuman miracle workers. Although it did not yet lead to a purely secular ideal of sanctity, the Late Antique paradigm was significantly restructured.
In the following article I try to investigate how the literary means used by Gregory of Nyssa in ... more In the following article I try to investigate how the literary means used by Gregory of Nyssa in his works, especially the Life of St. Macrina, the Dialogue about Soul and Resurrection and the Letter 19. are related to the tradition of depicting heroic woman. In the first part of this paper I consider biblical and martyrological literature, ancient novels, dramas and moralistic works of Plutarch. In the second part I gain a closer look into relations between the creation of Macrina and other hagiographical works of the same time. My purposes are complex. Firstly, I would like to determine the main differences of male and female hero’s narrations. Secondly, I try to examine how Gregory uses conventions and if he is innovative.
The Presbyters in the Late Antique West is a 5-years project, run at the University of Warsaw and... more The Presbyters in the Late Antique West is a 5-years project, run at the University of Warsaw and investigating the role of the middle clergy in the Church and society. Our team has been collecting the evidence concerning clerics withina searchable database, accessible on-line: http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/. The project is drawing to an end at its closing conference, “Clerics in Church and society up to AD 700” is aiming to achieve a broad picture of the ecclesiastical, economic, and social activity on the lower and middle clerics. We will deal with their ritual role and piety, judicial expertise and legal situation, position in monasteries and local communities, economic status and revenues. All interested are welcome, but please register here: http://clericsconference.ihuw.pl/.
The schedule of the sessions organized by the Presbyters in the Late Antique West at the Internat... more The schedule of the sessions organized by the Presbyters in the Late Antique West at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds 3.07-07.2017.
At the forthcoming Medieval Congress in Leeds (3-6 July 2017) the team of the 'Presbyters in the ... more At the forthcoming Medieval Congress in Leeds (3-6 July 2017) the team of the 'Presbyters in the Late Antique West' Project, based at the University of Warsaw, organizes a strand on the income and property of clergy. In most literary and normative sources we usually see clerics entirely dependent on diverse types of subsidies related to their ecclesiastical office. But some casual remarks and documentary evidence show that the reality was more complicated. The actual sources of income of clerics were diverse. This session will seek to answer the following questions: • How much did the clerics rely on church property and revenues? • What were other sources of their income, either those linked with the religious expertise or unconnected with ecclesiastical activity? • How the frontiers were fixed between the private property and revenues of clerics and those of the church, but also between the resources of diverse groups of clerics? Those interested in presenting papers on such topics, particularly if focused on the period before c. 900, are requested to send the title and a short abstract (ca 100 words) to Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl) by 20 September 2016. Please, note that unfortunately the project is unable to fund speakers' expenses.
Welcome to the Presbyters in the Late Antique West database. This database collects all the liter... more Welcome to the Presbyters in the Late Antique West database. This database collects all the literary, epigraphic, and documentary evidence concerning Christian presbyters in the Latin-speaking provinces of the Roman empire and the successor kingdoms up to ca 700. Each piece of evidence is quoted, translated, and tagged. You can search the records by region, time, type of evidence, author, and, above all, tags, which refer to different spheres of clerical life.
A part of our database material is now available for consultation. Please, visit our website and ... more A part of our database material is now available for consultation. Please, visit our website and use the database!
Panels I-IV at the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2019, sessions 1012, 1112, 1212, 1312, W... more Panels I-IV at the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2019, sessions 1012, 1112, 1212, 1312, Wed. 03 July - 09.00-18.00
Sponsored by the ERC Project CONNEC 'Connected Clerics: Building a Universal Church in the Late Antique West' and Royal Holloway, University of London. Organised by Victoria Leonard, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London and David Natal Villazala.
As the Roman Empire in the west crumbled over the course of the fifth century, new polities, rule... more As the Roman Empire in the west crumbled over the course of the fifth century, new polities, ruled by 'barbarian' elites, arose in Gaul, Hispania, Italy, and Africa. This political order occurred in tandem with growing fissures within Christianity, as the faithful divided over two doctrines, Nicene and Homoian, that were a legacy of the fourth-century controversy over the nature of the Trinity. In this book, Marta Szada offers a new perspective on early medieval Christianity by exploring how interplays between religious diversity and politics shaped post-Roman Europe. Interrogating the ecclesiastical competition between Nicene and Homoian factions, she provides a nuanced interpretation of religious dissent and the actions of Christians in successor kingdoms as they manifested themselves in politics and social practices. Szada's study reveals the variety of approaches that can be applied to understanding the conflict and coexistence between Nicenes and Homoians, showing how religious divisions shaped early medieval Christian culture.
Eugippius’ Life of Severinus is a text in which society is described through the dichotomy betwee... more Eugippius’ Life of Severinus is a text in which society is described through the dichotomy between Romans and barbarians. In this paper, I examine how exactly Eugippius imagines this polarity and to what rhetorical and persuasive ends he employs it. In particular, I focus on his complex portrayal of the barbarians which reveals his views on what place they might occupy in the Roman and Christian vision of history and politics. By examining the social and political ideas in the Life of Severinus we can trace how the hagiographer perceived the disintegrating societies of the West in the fifth and sixth centuries and what attitudes he advocated that could help de-escalate violence and overcome divisions. Finally, I discuss the extent to which Eugippius’ representation of the relationship between Romans and barbarians corresponded to the interests and anxieties of his Italian audience living under Ostrogothic rule.
The Elbląg Library’s historic collection contains a Leiden edition of Plautus’ twenty plays from ... more The Elbląg Library’s historic collection contains a Leiden edition of Plautus’ twenty plays from 1594, distinguished by dense marginalia in Latin, Greek, German, French and Polish noted by the book’s seventeenth-century owner, identified in the article as an Elbląg burgher, Michael Braun the younger (c. 1590–1620). Also, the provenance of this volume was traced, as well as of several other books with Braun’s ownership mark that were also preserved in the Elbląg Library. This is followed by a detailed analysis of the notes themselves: their content, nature and sources, differences in language use and the graphic conventions used. The article shows how this particular monument can serve as a source for the study of humanistic reading practices, the history of language learning in the modern era and the culture of excerpt and compilation.
Revue d'Etudes Augustiniennes et Patristiques, 2022
Basil of Caesarea’s Address to Young Men is a text of considerable celebrity that has been attent... more Basil of Caesarea’s Address to Young Men is a text of considerable celebrity that has been attentively read by generations of scholars. They usually focused on Basil’s use of pagan literature and saw in the Address one of the most important expressions of the Christian attitude to Greek pagan culture. In order to illustrate his argument by which he defends the moral utility of school education, Basil introduced in the Address a series of biblical references. Through mentions of biblical figures and paraphrases, creatively responding to pagan parallels, Basil laid out how the form of critical reading that he advocates should work in practice. The Bible appears cloaked in a Hellenized form and in this process the Hellenized form is vindicated. Thus, the work of reformulation and harmonization does not question the superiority of the Christian discourse but rather emphasizes its powers of assimilation of foreign elements.
Zeitschrift für Antikes Christentum / Journal of Ancient Christianity, 2020
Frequently, studies focusing on the fourth-century Trinitarian controversy stop at the 380s and e... more Frequently, studies focusing on the fourth-century Trinitarian controversy stop at the 380s and emphasize the importance of the Council of Constantinople and the Council of Aquileia in 381, and the end of Italian rule of the last Homoian emperor, Valentinian II. In very common interpretation, these events mark the virtual end of the Latin Homoianism—its final extirpation. This thesis mightily influenced the modern thinking about Christianization of the Goths and other barbarian peoples. The process was conceptualized as an “ethnic switch” —the people of non-Roman ethnicity embraced the religion while the Romans completely abandoned it. Thereby, the disavowed Roman heresy changed into the creed able to preserve ethnic difference under the Roman pressure of acculturation. In the present paper, I challenge this interpretation. I argue that the Latin Homoian Church survived long into the fifth century and had an active role in the process of converting the Goths into the Homoian Christi...
Among the differences that separated the Nicenes and the Homoians, their approach to converts bap... more Among the differences that separated the Nicenes and the Homoians, their approach to converts baptized in another church was one of the most evident. This article argues that their adherence to contrary opinions on heretical baptism was not a consequence of a straightforward inheritance of two incompatible theologies of the past, but a direct result of the fourth-century debates over rebaptism that took place in the last phase of the Trinitarian controversy. A careful examination of those discussions makes it possible also to assess the role of such aspects as innovativeness, custom, and tradition in the forming of orthodoxy.
The 7th c. anonymous Life of st. Balthild is one of the most important hagiographical works of th... more The 7th c. anonymous Life of st. Balthild is one of the most important hagiographical works of the Late Merovingian period. Its author was deeply inspired by the 6th c. Life of Radegund by Venatius Fortunatus, but he or she did not simply copy the episodes, miracles, and other hagiographical topoi. The present paper provides first a close inspection of the passages in which Balthild’s hagiographer reproduces motives from the earlier vita and transforms them to create a hagiographical innovation. Secondly, it is demonstrated how this new literary model of sanctity is correlated with the spiritual culture of the aristocracy that emerged out of the social transformation in the 7th c. Merovingian kingdoms. Saints were supposed to serve as examples of moral and Christian behaviour in the secular life for rich landowners and royal officers, rather than be distant, superhuman miracle workers. Although it did not yet lead to a purely secular ideal of sanctity, the Late Antique paradigm was significantly restructured.
In the following article I try to investigate how the literary means used by Gregory of Nyssa in ... more In the following article I try to investigate how the literary means used by Gregory of Nyssa in his works, especially the Life of St. Macrina, the Dialogue about Soul and Resurrection and the Letter 19. are related to the tradition of depicting heroic woman. In the first part of this paper I consider biblical and martyrological literature, ancient novels, dramas and moralistic works of Plutarch. In the second part I gain a closer look into relations between the creation of Macrina and other hagiographical works of the same time. My purposes are complex. Firstly, I would like to determine the main differences of male and female hero’s narrations. Secondly, I try to examine how Gregory uses conventions and if he is innovative.
The Presbyters in the Late Antique West is a 5-years project, run at the University of Warsaw and... more The Presbyters in the Late Antique West is a 5-years project, run at the University of Warsaw and investigating the role of the middle clergy in the Church and society. Our team has been collecting the evidence concerning clerics withina searchable database, accessible on-line: http://presbytersproject.ihuw.pl/. The project is drawing to an end at its closing conference, “Clerics in Church and society up to AD 700” is aiming to achieve a broad picture of the ecclesiastical, economic, and social activity on the lower and middle clerics. We will deal with their ritual role and piety, judicial expertise and legal situation, position in monasteries and local communities, economic status and revenues. All interested are welcome, but please register here: http://clericsconference.ihuw.pl/.
The schedule of the sessions organized by the Presbyters in the Late Antique West at the Internat... more The schedule of the sessions organized by the Presbyters in the Late Antique West at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds 3.07-07.2017.
At the forthcoming Medieval Congress in Leeds (3-6 July 2017) the team of the 'Presbyters in the ... more At the forthcoming Medieval Congress in Leeds (3-6 July 2017) the team of the 'Presbyters in the Late Antique West' Project, based at the University of Warsaw, organizes a strand on the income and property of clergy. In most literary and normative sources we usually see clerics entirely dependent on diverse types of subsidies related to their ecclesiastical office. But some casual remarks and documentary evidence show that the reality was more complicated. The actual sources of income of clerics were diverse. This session will seek to answer the following questions: • How much did the clerics rely on church property and revenues? • What were other sources of their income, either those linked with the religious expertise or unconnected with ecclesiastical activity? • How the frontiers were fixed between the private property and revenues of clerics and those of the church, but also between the resources of diverse groups of clerics? Those interested in presenting papers on such topics, particularly if focused on the period before c. 900, are requested to send the title and a short abstract (ca 100 words) to Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl) by 20 September 2016. Please, note that unfortunately the project is unable to fund speakers' expenses.
Welcome to the Presbyters in the Late Antique West database. This database collects all the liter... more Welcome to the Presbyters in the Late Antique West database. This database collects all the literary, epigraphic, and documentary evidence concerning Christian presbyters in the Latin-speaking provinces of the Roman empire and the successor kingdoms up to ca 700. Each piece of evidence is quoted, translated, and tagged. You can search the records by region, time, type of evidence, author, and, above all, tags, which refer to different spheres of clerical life.
A part of our database material is now available for consultation. Please, visit our website and ... more A part of our database material is now available for consultation. Please, visit our website and use the database!
Panels I-IV at the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2019, sessions 1012, 1112, 1212, 1312, W... more Panels I-IV at the Leeds International Medieval Congress 2019, sessions 1012, 1112, 1212, 1312, Wed. 03 July - 09.00-18.00
Sponsored by the ERC Project CONNEC 'Connected Clerics: Building a Universal Church in the Late Antique West' and Royal Holloway, University of London. Organised by Victoria Leonard, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London and David Natal Villazala.
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paradigm was significantly restructured.
• How much did the clerics rely on church property and revenues?
• What were other sources of their income, either those linked with the religious expertise or unconnected with ecclesiastical activity?
• How the frontiers were fixed between the private property and revenues of clerics and those of the church, but also between the resources of diverse groups of clerics?
Those interested in presenting papers on such topics, particularly if focused on the period before c. 900, are requested to send the title and a short abstract (ca 100 words) to Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl) by 20 September 2016. Please, note that unfortunately the project is unable to fund speakers' expenses.
Sponsored by the ERC Project CONNEC 'Connected Clerics: Building a Universal Church in the Late Antique West' and Royal Holloway, University of London. Organised by Victoria Leonard, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London and David Natal Villazala.
paradigm was significantly restructured.
• How much did the clerics rely on church property and revenues?
• What were other sources of their income, either those linked with the religious expertise or unconnected with ecclesiastical activity?
• How the frontiers were fixed between the private property and revenues of clerics and those of the church, but also between the resources of diverse groups of clerics?
Those interested in presenting papers on such topics, particularly if focused on the period before c. 900, are requested to send the title and a short abstract (ca 100 words) to Robert Wiśniewski (r.wisniewski@uw.edu.pl) by 20 September 2016. Please, note that unfortunately the project is unable to fund speakers' expenses.
Sponsored by the ERC Project CONNEC 'Connected Clerics: Building a Universal Church in the Late Antique West' and Royal Holloway, University of London. Organised by Victoria Leonard, Department of History, Royal Holloway, University of London and David Natal Villazala.