Cities, Saints, and Communities in Early Medieval Europe: Essays in Honour of Alan Thacker

412 Pages·2020·2.986 MB·English

by  Scott DeGregorio, Paul J. E. Kershaw

Cities, Saints, and Communities
in Early Medieval Europe
StudieS in the early Middle ageS
Volume 46
General Editor
Tom Pickles, University of Chester
Editorial Board
Charles West, University of Sheffield
Caroline Goodson, University of Cambridge
Gabor Thomas, University of Reading
Catherine Clarke, University of Southampton
Tom O’Donnell, Fordham University
Previously published volumes in this series
are listed at the back of the book.
Cities, Saints, and Communities in
Early Medieval Europe
Essays in Honour of Alan Thacker
Edited by
Scott DeGregorio and Paul Kershaw
F
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Cover Image: The Harrach Diptych. Two apostles stand in
pillared archways, one holds a cross rod, the other a labarum;
both have books. Above, the names PETR[US] and PAULUS,
below, FILIPUS and ANDREAS, each framed by tableaux
of facing griffins. Ivory, late seventh or first half of the eighth
century, possibly northern Italian. This side planed down,
and the inverted reverse reworked, at a Carolingian centre
c. 810. Schnütgen Museum, Cologne. Photograph: Genevra
Kornbluth. Reproduced with permission.
© 2020, Brepols Publishers n.v., Turnhout, Belgium.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of the
publisher.
D/2020/0095/32
ISBN 978-2-503-56504-0
E-ISBN 978-2-503-56566-8
DOI 10.1484/M.SEM-EB.5.108029
ISSN 1377-8099
E-ISSN 2294-835X
Printed in the EU on acid-free paper.
Contents
List of Illustrations 7
Acknowledgements 9
Introduction: Alan T. Thacker, an Appreciation
Paul Kershaw 11
A Bibliography of the Publications of Alan T. Thacker, 1979–2019
Paul Kershaw 25
Gildebertus rex fr[ancorum]: The Least–Famous Epitaph of a
Merovingian King and the Cult of a Spanish Martyr in Sixth-Century Paris
Mark A. Handley 33
The ‘Political’ Use of the Cult of Saints in Early Medieval Ravenna
Tom Brown 53
The Impact of the Lateran Council of 649 in Francia: The Martyrdom
of Pope Martin and the Life of St Eligius
Catherine Cubitt 71
Bede and Monotheletism
Jennifer O’Reilly 105
Rectores at Risk: Erudition and Heresy in Bede’s Commentary on Proverbs
Faith Wallis 129
Heresy and Authority in Bede’s Letter to Plegwine
Peter Darby 145
Bede and Bishop Acca
Clare Stancliffe 171
King Ceadwalla and Bishop Wilfrid
Richard Sharpe 195
6 contents
Bede’s Preferential Treatment of the Irish
Barbara Yorke 223
Bede’s Midlife Crisis: The Commentary on First Samuel
Scott DeGregorio 241
Bede’s perfecti, the Vision of God, and the Foretaste of Heaven
Arthur Holder 265
Bede’s Wise and Foolish Virgins: Streanæshalch and Coldingham
Julia Barrow 287
Risano Revisited: A Step Too Far for Charlemagne?
Paul Fouracre 309
Hincmar of Reims meets Bede
Jinty Nelson 325
The English Presence in Rome in the Later Anglo-Saxon Period:
Change or Continuity?
Francesca Tinti 345
A Renaissance Synthesis of Ancient Christian Themes: Architecture,
Altarpieces, and Imagined Spaces in San Giovanni Crisostomo,
Venice, 1495–1520
Éamonn Ó Carragáin 373
Index 397
List of Illustrations
Frontispiece
Alan Thacker, The Barbican, London, February, 2019. Photograph by Geoffrey West.
Mark A. Handley
Figure 1. Inscribed fragment of sarcophagus lid recovered in 1973 during
excavations in the chapel of Saint-Symphorien, Saint-Germain-des-
Prés. Image reproduced courtesy of Cahiers de la Rotonde. Original
photograph taken by José Lothe, La Commission du Vieux Paris. 44
Clare Stancliffe
Table 1. Bede’s Prefatory Letters with salutation formulae addressing Bishop
Acca. 188
Table 2. Bede’s Prefaces where the reference to Bishop Acca is embedded
in the text. 188
Table 3a. Bede’s Prefatory Letters with salutation formulae addressing
bishops. 188
Table 3b. Bede’s Prefatory Letters with salutation formulae addressing priests. 188
Table 3c. Bede’s Prefatory Letters with salutation formulae addressing a king. 188
Table 4. Prefaces where the reference to another recipient, a monk or nun,
is embedded in the text. 189
Table 5a. Letters with salutation formulae addressing other priests. 189
Table 5b. Letters with salutation formulae addressing other monks. 189
Richard Sharpe
Table 6. Breakdown of Historia ecclesiastica, IV. 13–15. 204
Table 7. Sequence of Events. 214
Barbara Yorke
Table 8. Bede’s Northumbrian miracle-workers in the Ecclesiastical History. 225
Table 9. Northumbrian miracle-workers and their links with Aidan. 226
Paul Fouracre
Map 1. ‘Istria around the year 800’. Map by Chris Halsted. 312
8 list of illustrations
Éamonn Ó Carragáin
Figure 2. Figure 2. The Madonna Greca, legacy of Giacomo de’Bernabò,
d. 1438; below, altarpiece by Tullio Lombardo, inserted 1506.
Photo by the author. 375
Figure 3. The Bernabò Chapel and altarpiece; Pulpit donated by Ludovico
Talenti. Photo by the author. 376
Figure 4. View of the Bernabò Chapel. Photo by the author. 383
Figure 5. High altar, and Sebastiano Luciani’s altarpiece. Note its framing
pillars, and the steps leading to the altar area: these are echoed by
the pillar, and the steps, in the painting. Photo by the author. 384
Figure 6. Nave of San Giovanni Crisostomo, showing steps and tiled floor,
both echoed in the altarpiece. Photo by the author. 390
Figure 7. Diletti Chapel (viewed from the Bernabò Chapel), showing the
light from the side windows. Photo by the author. 391
Figure 8. Diletti Chapel, showing St Christopher and St Louis of Toulouse
standing inside the painted chancel, and looking across the nave
towards the Bernabò Chapel. Photo by the author. 392
Acknowledgements
This collection of original essays is offered to Alan in celebration of his contribution
to early medieval studies over more than four decades. While the foundation of that
contribution is, of course, his rich, wide-ranging, and ongoing scholarship, his role
as mentor, organiser, and collaborator, in the UK and internationally, has also been
a significant component of his impact. All of these aspects are, we believe, reflected
in the chapters that follow.
Conceived in 2015, this volume has taken rather longer to come to print than
originally envisaged and we are grateful for the patientia and constantia of all our
contributors. We regret that several friends and colleagues of Alan’s who were
initially involved in this project were not able, ultimately, to contribute to the present
collection, and we remain grateful for their support and good wishes. Prominent
amongst the early supporters of this volume was Jennifer O’Reilly, who died in
February 2016. We owe a particular debt to her husband, Terry O’Reilly who, with the
support of Máirín MacCarron and Diarmuid Scully, saw her contribution through to
publication. The news of the death of Richard Sharpe, another close friend of Alan’s
and a contributor to this collection, came as the volume went into production. We
are sad that neither Jennifer nor Richard will see an enterprise come to fruition to
which both gave committed support.
We are very grateful to Guy Carney at Brepols and Tom Pickles, general editor
of the ‘Studies in the Early Middle Ages’ series, for taking on this collection. They
gave strong support from the beginning and displayed endless patience towards
the end of this volume’s path to publication. The frequency with which a Brepols
byline occurs in Alan’s bibliography — particularly in recent years — is testament
to the company’s importance to, and investment in, early medieval studies; we are
delighted that they are the publishers of this collection. We also wish to thank the
anonymous readers for the press, one of whom commented on the initial proposal,
the other on the final manuscript, and are particularly grateful for the rigour and
learning the latter brought to the task. We owe a further debt of gratitude to Sarah
Thomas for her careful and comprehensive copy-editing.
Finally, we must thank Genevra Kornbluth who generously provided the cover
image from her extensive archive of digital images (www.kornbluthphoto.com), and
Chris Halsted for map design.
Paul Kershaw, Charlottesville
Scott DeGregorio, Ann Arbor
Feast of St Aidan, 2019
Frontispiece: Alan Thacker, The Barbican, London, February, 2019.
Photograph by Geoffrey West.