Book section icon

Book section : Chapter

Re-imagining Roman persecution in the Visigothic passions

Abstract:
Despite the intervening centuries, the Iberian martyr passions show how important the later Roman world—especially its sites of judicial torture and spectacular punishment—was to the Visigothic Christian imaginary. For most Christians, the dominant notion of sanctity remained the urban martyr, who, more than the bloodless ‘confessor’, was commemorated in the liturgy, who attracted large-scale civic devotion, and whose cult sites underlay the spiritual topography of the kingdom’s cities. I argue that the passions attempted to reinterpret the Roman city—to make its ancient physical vestiges legible within a Christian framework which served ideals of civic Christianity in the present. The Visigothic civic imaginary, therefore, was intimately tied into the memory of the Roman city.
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

Actions

Access Document

Files:
Publisher copy:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9789048544653.010

Authors

More by this author
Institution:
University of Oxford
Sub department:
Undergraduate Admissions and Outreach
Oxford college:
All Souls College
Role:
Author

Contributors

Role:
Editor
Role:
Editor
Role:
Editor


Publisher:
Amsterdam University Press
Host title:
Rome and Byzantium in the Visigothic Kingdom: beyond imitatio imperii
Pages:
223-251
Chapter number:
9
Series:
Late Antique and Early Medieval Iberia
Place of publication:
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Publication date:
2023-10-01
DOI:
EISBN:
9789048544653
ISBN:
9789463726412


Language:
English
Keywords:
Subtype:
Chapter
Pubs id:
2356604
Local pid:
pubs:2356604
Deposit date:
2026-05-01
ARK identifier:

Terms of use


Views and Downloads






If you are the owner of this record, you can report an update to it here: Report update to this record

TO TOP