Chapter 17
Medieval Ecclesiastical Geography
The transition between Antiquity and the Middle Ages -
Geopolitical changes
Problems of periodization
The passage from the period that we conventionally call the "ancient age" to what we also conventionally call the "Middle
Ages" is grasped as a phase of progressive transition, of gradual
transformation of society and of institutions towards new equilibria, and not
as a dry and mechanical passage from a “before” to a “later” radically
different from each other.
The fall of the Western Roman Empire in 476 is therefore only a
symbolic date, the processes that led to the dissolution of the Empire had
begun much earlier (from the 3rd century AD and continued for about two
centuries after the fall of the Western Empire. Some historians, in the field
of Church history, move the date of the end of Antiquity to the end of the
pontificate of Gregory the Great in the year 604
The fall of the Western Roman Empire - causes and transformations
Towards the end of the 2nd
century. A.D. the substantial conclusion of Rome's centuries-old process of
territorial expansion set the boundaries of a vast empire which then extended
from east to west from Asia Minor to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean and the
British Isles, from north to south from the line of the Rhine and from the
Danube to North Africa. It was a cohesive space because it was subjected to unitary political domination, inspired, at least in its ruling classes, by
shared cultural and ideological values, integrated on an economic level, but,
at the same time, strongly articulated internally, for having progressively
brought together (and not always amalgamated) regions and peoples that are very
heterogeneous among themselves.
We can identify, in general,
three causes of the fall of the Western Empire:
1)
Institutional and economic crisis
2) Social Crisis
3) Military crisis the so-called "barbarization" of the army
1) Institutional and economic crisis
With the beginning of the 3rd century, therefore the growth phase
ended, and a season of consolidation and organization of the conquered areas began,
which also needed to be protected from external threats, whether these were
represented by empires of equal size, such as that of the Sassanids in Persia,
or by a heterogeneous galaxy of minor entities with a tribal structure, such as
the varied barbarian races of the West or the Berbers of the Maghreb. The
Empire had to adapt the institutions that arose in the Republican or Augustan
era to a profoundly changed political-territorial framework, keeping all the
various local realities united in solidarity with Rome and guaranteeing the
correct exchange relationship between the collection of the resources of the
provinces through taxation and military protection and the provision of
essential services therefor. The bureaucratic and fiscal apparatus was
significantly expanded. To facilitate the government, Diocletian divided the
Empire into a western part and an Eastern Part, he also established the presence
alongside two augusts, placed in command of each of the two halves, of two
Caesars, designated to automatically succeed the former, thus ensuring the
continuity of imperial power.
While retaining the prestige that came from being the cradle of the Empire, Rome lost its function as the sole seat of the princeps, who began to move their residence to different centres (Sardica, Nicomedia, Antioch, Trier, Milan, Ravenna). In 330, Constantine founded Constantinople, the "new Rome," towards which the political centre of
gravity soon moved.
Even the army was reorganized in depth, in its structure and
methods of use, with the overall increase in personnel, the progressive
increase in barbarian mercenaries (even in the high ranks) to replace the Roman
citizens (who preferred to pay to avoid the lever) and the prevalence, compared
to the wars of conquest of the past, of essentially defensive tasks. While the
borders were increasingly fortified, the troops, often paid in kind, were
deployed not only along the border but also within the individual provinces,
with notable repercussions on the life and economy of the latter. The
populations had to take care of the annona militaris (the supply of
grain for the army) and the angareia (military transport), increasingly
burdensome obligations, as was the forced housing of soldiers in their homes.
In the 4th century, the economic and social situation is worsening
and the imbalance between the centre and the periphery is growing. The economic
inequalities of the system pitted regions that consumed more than they produced
(such as the Italic ones, which were also called upon to support the political
and court apparatus) with others that, instead, were forced to pay the costs of
others, slowing down their development. A tendency to divide between the
western part of the Empire, which was overall becoming impoverished, and the
eastern part, which was more flourishing and active, also became very evident.
This situation resulted from an intrinsic structural weakness of the "worldwide" economic system of the late empire, which arose from the political unification of a vast territory but did not possess the
natural capacity to expand and adapt functionally to the new dimensions.
The cost of the system exceeded the advantages that could be obtained from it
and we began a spiral with no positive outcome.
2) Social Crisis
The social crisis was also added to the economic crisis. The
development of an increasingly centralized and bureaucratic system and the
claim to impose cultural and ideological uniformity on the heterogeneous
provinces of the Empire led, during the 4th and 5th centuries, to various
episodes of social revolt, especially on the part of the rural classes, from
Gaul to Spain and up to Africa. These were rebellions against the central
government and the local elites who represented it, against economic exploitation;
the desire to affirm one's ethnic and religious identity was increasingly
demonstrated. This character had e.g. the Donatist movement in the African
regions active between the 4th and 5th centuries. and originated from a
religious controversy (an internal schism within the African Church,
consolidated around Bishop Donatus, in response to Diocletian's anti-Christian
persecutions).
The social framework of the late empire was therefore complex and
conflictual; also, the extension of Roman citizenship to all the inhabitants of
the Empire (which, according to some estimates, could reach fifty million
individuals) could not calm the situation.
3) Military crisis - «barbarization»
of the army
Another factor of the disintegration of the Empire was also a
state of increasing military difficulty along the very wide frontiers of Rome.
In the East grew the Persian Sassanid empire which became a rival of greater
dimensions and danger, which would have faced the Roman Empire for four
centuries. In the West, the great limes Fortified which coincided with the
Danube and Reno rivers was more and more often violated by the raids of the
various barbarian tribes that were beyond it at least since the age of the
emperor Marcus Aurelius (161 - 180). The threats from the outside increased the
militarization of the institutions and increased spending. However, the army
called upon to protect the Empire from being attacked from the outside was
radically transforming itself and opening itself up to a growing influx of
barbarians into their ranks.
The increasingly accentuated tendency of the Romans to escape the
obligations of military conscription, which also entailed a significant
economic cost for individuals and communities by removing men from their work
activities for long periods, making it necessary, starting from the 3rd century,
a growing recourse to the enlistment of barbarian mercenaries, to the point
that within two hundred years the imperial manoeuvre army, at least in the
West, was now almost entirely made up of contingents of various ethnic groups.
Entire barbarian tribes were hired to protect the external borders
and, especially from the end of the 4th century, many of these were allowed to
settle within the territory of the Empire, in exchange for military service.
The presence of barbarians in the Roman army, not only of individual warriors but often of entire tribal groups, was regulated by precise legal instruments.
The federation
regime was applied to the barbarians enrolled in the Roman armies, which
entailed the obligation to fight for Rome upon payment of a fee. The tribes
were welcomed onto imperial soil to defend it, maintaining their unity and
ethnic identity under the command of their leaders; they were subject to the hospitality
system, by which they were allowed to settle in a specific territory, receiving
a third in exchange (tertia), or at least the income or tax shares
corresponding to that third party, to support themselves.
As a consequence of this strategy of the Empire, starting from the
3rd century. Larger leagues of barbarian tribes arose, some of which were at
the origin of the large ethnic groups that were formed during the migrations of
the following century. Thus, lineages destined to be protagonists in the
immediately following times were identified, such as those of the Goths and
Vandals, of oriental origin, the Franks and the Alamanni, originating from the
Rhine region, the Thuringians, the Burgundians and the Bavarians, in today's
central Germany and southern.
The "barbarization" of the late imperial army also affected the high ranks: already from the end of the 4th century. the military teachers (magistri militum) were almost all barbarians and formed in fact an aristocracy, strong in the monopoly of weapons and competing with the senatorial one. Generals of barbarian origin such as Stilicho, Arbogaste, Ricimer, or Romans who grew up among the barbarians such as Aetius, were protagonists of very rapid and successful careers which led them to control the imperial office itself, up to the extreme gesture of one of them, Odoacer, who in 476 he deposed the last Western emperor, Romulus Augustus. Odoacer did not create a new puppet emperor, as other generals had done before him, preferring to send the imperial insignia back to Constantinople and recognizing the authority of the august of the East Zeno on both parts of the Empire; for himself, he only kept the title of king, as did the remaining barbarian leaders of the West. Thus, formally the sovereignty of the emperor over both parts of the Empire was maintained, and the barbarian kings were recognized as his vassals; in reality, the Eastern emperor had no control over the areas dominated by the barbarian kings.
The disappearance of the Western Empire and the survival of the Eastern Empire
The Destruction of the Roman Empire, by Thomas Cole. Allegorical
painting (most likely inspired by the sack of Rome by the Vandals in 455),
fourth of the series «The Course of the Empire» of 1836, now in New York, at
the Historical Society.
However, these phenomena did not occur in the eastern part of the Empire, where similar developments were stifled after the attempt of the Goth general Gainas (killed with all of his followers in 400) attempt to influence the
emperor Arcadius. The Roman Empire disappeared in the West, but it survived in
the East, where it later became what we call the "Byzantine Empire". However, its leaders and its populations continued to call it the "Roman
Empire" until the capture of Constantinople by part of the Turks in 1453.
The survival of the Eastern Roman Empire in the 5th century and its ability to
reconquer a part of the western Mediterranean with Justinian in the 6th century
demonstrate that there was no Roman "decadence" before 400. The end
of the Western Roman Empire was an original, complex and very long military,
political and social process
Barbarian Invasions
The penetration of the barbarians was facilitated by the general depopulation of the countryside and the massive recruitment of barbarians as mercenaries in the Roman army. Among the various incursions that the Roman Empire had to suffer, particularly serious was that of the Visigoths, who, pressured by the Huns, crossed the Danube border in 376, penetrating in masses into the territories of the Roman Empire. They were accepted by the Romans for a certain period and settled within the borders, but in 378, they defeated the emperor Valens in the battle of Adrianople. Theodosius I, emperor of the East, granted them Pannonia as foederati. After the death of Theodosius, who had reunified the Empire in the last years of his reign, the Roman state was definitively divided into two parts, with a dyarchy (395). The eastern part fell to his eldest son, Arcadius, while the western part fell to his second son Honorius. Six years later the Visigoths invaded Italy (401) but were repeatedly defeated by the general of barbarian origin Stilicho, who however was unable to prevent the massive overcoming of the now undefended Danube frontier by the Germanic populations starting from 406. After his assassination (408), the Visigoths no longer had any rivals and went so far as to sack Rome in 410, an episode that shocked public opinion of the time as testified by Saint Augustine and Saint Jerome. These people subsequently settled in southern Gaul and Spain.
The Vandals followed, who after crossing Gaul settled in Spain and
later, under the pressure of the Visigoths, in North Africa, from where they
carried out raids on boats on the large islands of the Mediterranean and sacked
Rome again in 455.
Franks, Burgundians and Thuringians occupied the areas of Gaul and
between Main and Elbe, while Britain was conquered by Saxons, Angles and
Frisians, to whom were also added the Jutes of Jutland (now Denmark).
The Ostrogoths moved to Italy in 489 and managed to defeat
Odoacer. Their king Theodoric obtained the title of patriarch from Emperor
Anastasius I and his people obtained full rights over the occupied lands.
These migrations of entire peoples, as in the case of the Goths
and the Lombards, should not however lead one to think of biblical migrations:
the Lombards, for example, were 70,000, the Ostrogoths 100-125,000 with around
25,000 armed men. The kingdom of the Ostrogoths, which had its fulcrum in Italy
(although it also extended outside of it), was in some ways a model for the
subsequent barbaric Roman kingdoms: it kept the Roman citizens legally
separated, who continued to be subject to the law Roman, and the federated
(barbarians), on whom a predominantly
customary, Germanic type of legislation was applied.
Europe after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire
Changes within the Church
In the period of great transformations, Christianity experienced
rapid propagation in the East and, more gradually, also in the West. Christian
belief spread especially in urban environments, more cultured and open to
novelties, while it encountered greater resistance in the countryside, where
pagan practices were more vital for longer. The city aristocracies were the
most ready to accept the sophisticated theological contents of the new
religion, and from their ranks came the first paintings of the Church.
The penetration of Christianity into the countryside was slower
and more difficult than in the cities, where, as was said, traditional religion
resisted the most. It is no coincidence that pre-Christian cults are called pagani
in Italian, from the Latin pagus, the rural village. The Gospel was
brought here not only by the monks but also by the clergy of the rural
parishes, churches built in the countryside but dependent on the bishop, in
which it was possible to receive baptism and celebrate the liturgy. Alongside
these, there were numerous oratories and private basilicas scattered throughout
the area, which contributed with their physical presence to sacralising the
rural landscape in a Christian sense. Often places of worship and pagan
festivals were adapted in a Christian way, accustoming individuals to filling
traditional habits and practices with new content.
Already in 380, Emperor Theodosius, with the Edict of Thessalonica, proclaimed Christianity as the only accepted religion of the Roman state, banning other cults, which in turn began to be persecuted. The Christian Church thus found itself enjoying a position of absolute privilege: while its preaching no longer encountered obstacles, its assets, continually increased by donations, were protected by law, and priests were called to collaborate with public officials in controlling society. The Christian clergy thus developed as a social category in its own right, with an exclusive function of exercising worship and full control of church assets.
The role of the clergy
The head of each community was the bishop, to whom duties of
government of the "flock" of the faithful entrusted to him, of
magisterium and administration of the sacraments were attributed; priests were assigned
the care of souls, while the deacons assisted the other two degrees in the
performance of their respective functions. The laity, reduced to a purely
passive role in liturgical celebrations, retained duties related to the
management of community affairs and participated in the election of bishops,
chosen by the clergy and the people.
The area on which the ministry of a bishop was exercised was the
diocese, a term initially used only to indicate the people of the faithful who
were in charge of him and who over time came to designate a
specific territorial area, incardinated on the urban centre in which the
prelate resided and tendentially (but not always) coinciding with the
administrative territory of the city in the Roman order. Over time the
ecclesiastical territorial network was further perfected with the rise, within
each diocese, of smaller districts, and parish churches.
In his diocese, the bishop, who generally came from the local
aristocracy, also performed public administrative functions, and with the
progressive degradation of the state bureaucracy apparatus during the fifth
century. It came to replace de facto civil authorities, administering
justice to the clergy and to the laity themselves and taking care of the assistance
to the needy.
Faced with the increasingly frequent incursions of the barbarian
tribes, the bishops also became protectors of the Roman population they had
pastoral responsibility for, negotiating with the aggressors or even taking
care of the urban defences. Even in the barbarian kingdoms that replaced the
Empire in the West, the bishops remained the main reference term for the
Romans, even outside the religious sphere.
The inhabitants of the cities appreciated so much the protection
assured them by the bishop that they projected such capacity on the deceased
prelates, hired to patron saints, that is as ultra terrestrial protectors of
the community that had held up alive. From here it also took its origin the
cult and the circulation of the relics.
The Pope
Keep on growing Dr. Nicholas, your historical expertise is truly impressive. I was initially concerned about the topic possibly leading to theoretical and Scriptural discussions, but you effectively provided a historical viewpoint of the topics. When will you be providing guidance to the researchers in our department? I look forward to your response. Thank you. Fr. Jovita CMI
ReplyDeleteHello Nicholas Your writing from a historical standpoint is excellent. therefore continue writing with fervour and intention. You have my undying admiration, my boy. Fr. James Fernando, SJ.
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