The Idea and Ideal of the Town Between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages 9004505849, 9789004505841

Table of contents :
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Contributors
Introduction
The Idea of the Town in the Byzantine Empire
Byzantine Cities in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries—Different Sources, Different Histories?
ʿAnjar and Early Islamic Urbanism
Ideas of the Town in Italy during the Transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages
Visual Images of the Town in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages
The Ideology of Urban Burials
L'Idée chrétienne de la ville: quelques suggestions pour l'Antiquité Tardive et le Haut Moyen Age
La Topographie chrétienne entre idéologie et pragmatisme
Paganism and Christianity in Athens and Vicinity during the Fourth to Sixth Centuries A.D.
Re-using the Architectural Legacy of the Past, entre idéologie et pragmatisme
Conclusions
Index
THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ROMAN WORLD

Citation preview

THE IDEA AND IDEAL OF THE TOWN BETWEEN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE ROMAN WORLD A SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMME OF THE EUROPEAN SCIENCE FOUNDATION

Coordinators

JAVIER ARCE· EVANGELOS CHRYSOS • IAN WOOD Team Leaders

Steering Committee

Miquel Barcel6 Mark Blackburn Gianpietro Brogiolo Alain Dierkens Richard Hodges Marco Mostert Patrick Perin Walter Pohl Frans Theuws Leslie Webster

Gunilla Akerstrom-Hougen Volker Bierbrauer Niels Hannestad przemyslaw Urbanczyk Mario Mazza H.H. van Regteren Altena Heid Gjostein Resi L. Cracco Ruggini

Series Editor

IAN WOOD VOLUME 4-

THE IDEA AND IDEAL OF THE TOWN BETWEEN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

THE IDEA AND IDEAL OF THE TOWN BETWEEN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES EDITED BY

G.P. BROGIOLO AND

BRYAN WARD-PERKINS

BRILL

LEIDEN . BOSTON· KOLN 1999

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The idea and ideal of the town between late Antiquity and the early Middle Ages / edited by G.P. Brogiolo and Bryan Ward-Perkins. p. cm. (The transformation of the Roman world, ISSN 1386-4165 ; v.4) ) and index. Includes bibliographical references (p. ISBN 9004109013 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Cities and towns, Medieval. 2. Civilization, Medieval. I. Brogiolo, Gian Pietro. II. Ward-Perkins, Bryan. III. Series. HTI15.I34 1999 307.76'093--dc21 98-52661 CIP

Die Deutsche Bibliothek - CIP-EinheitsaufnahlTIe The idea and ideal of the town between Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages / ed. by G. P. Brogiolo and Bryan WardPerkins ... Leiden ; Boston ; Kbln : Brill, 1999 (The transformation of the Roman world; Vol. 4)

ISBN 90 04109013

ISSN 1386-4165 ISBN 9004 10901 3

© Copyright 1999 by Koninkliyke Brill Nv, Leiden, Ike Netherlands All rights reserved. No part if this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate jees are paid directly to Ike Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. PRI!,;TED 1'1 THE NETHERIA!,;DS

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations ...................................................................... List of Contributors

Vll

Xl

Introduction ..................................................................... ............. G.P' Brogiolo & Bryan Ward-Perkins

XIll

The Idea of the Town in the Byzantine Empire .................... . John Haldon Byzantine Cities in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries-Different Sources, Different Histories? HI: Brandes 'Anjar and Early Islamic Urbanism R. Hillenbrand

25 59

Ideas of the Town in Italy during the Transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages ................................................. G.P' Brogiolo

99

Visual Images of the Town in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages ............................................................... .... 127 Carlo Bertelli The Ideology of Urban Burials .................................................. 147 G. Cantino Wataghin L'Idee chretienne de la ville: quelques suggestions pour l'Antiquite Tardive et Ie Haut Moyen Age .......................... 181 Alba Maria Orselli La Topographie chretienne entre ideologie et pragmatisme N Gauthier

195

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

VI

CONTENTS

Paganism and Christianity in Athens and Vicinity during the Fourth to Sixth Centuries A.D. ............................................. 211 P. Castren Re-using the Architectural Legacy of the Past, entre ideologie et pragmatisme ................................................................ 225 Bryan Ward-Perkins Conclusions ...................................................................................... 245 G.P. Brogiolo Index ............................................................................................. 255

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures 1-5 in Hillenbrand's contribution: Fig. 1. 'Anjar: unsealed site plan .............................................. Fig. 2. 'Anjar and Qasr aI-Hair al-Sharqi: plans at same scale Fig. 3. Plan of the excavation at Ayla (al-'Aqaba) ................ Fig. 4. Hypothetical overall town plans for the amsar of alBasra, al-Kufa and al-Fustat .................................................. Fig. 5. Comparison of town plans of Roman and early Islamic foundations .............................................................................. Figures 1-3 in Brogiolo's contribution: Fig. 1. The Valdinievole plaque ...... ........................ ...... .......... Fig. 2. Brescia, hypothetical plan of the city in Lombard times ........................................................................................ Fig. 3. Reconstruction drawing (based on excavated evidence and some standing remains) of the eighth-century church and monastery of S. Salvatore at Brescia ............................

63 73 74 78 81

116

117

126

Figures 1-11 in Bertelli's contribution (between pages 128 and 129): Fig. 1. Tychai of the four principal cities of the Empire (Rome, Alexandria, Trier and Constantinople). From the Calendar of 354 (sixteenth-century copy). Fig. 2. Tyche of Rome, Tyche of Constantinople, and Tyche of Antioch. From the Tabula Peutingeriana. Fig. 3. Cityscape border on the "Mosaic of Megalopsychia". From Daphne, near Antioch. Fig. 4. Jerusalem and surrounding territory. From the Madaba mosaIC map. Fig. 5. Fragment of a map on parchment. Excavated at Dura Europos. Fig. 6. Fresco showing the Temple, walls and gates of Jerusalem. From the synagogue excavated at Dura Europos. Fig. 7. Jerusalem ("e hagia polis") on the mosaics at Umm alRasas Mayfa'ah.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

YIn

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Fig. 8. Kastron Mefaa on the mosaics at Umm al-Rasas Mayfa'ah. Fig. 9. A city and its territory. From the Agrimensores manuscript illustrations. Fig. 10. Procession to a church, on the Trier ivory. Fig. 11. St. Mark baptising Anianos. Ivory plaque from a chair, Castello Sforzesco, Milan. Figures 1-14 in Wataghin's contribution (pages 167-180): Fig. 1. Rome: burials of the fifth-seventh centuries. Fig. 2. Bergamo: the town in Late Antiquity. Fig. 3. Brescia: the town in Late Antiquity/Early Middle Ages. Fig. 4. Reggio Emilia: the town in Late Antiquity. Fig. 5. Verona: the town in Late Antiquity. Fig. 6. Luni: buildings and burials from Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages in the Roman town. Fig. 7. Poitiers: the late antique town. Fig. 8. Poitiers: the baptistry area, fourth-sixth centuries. Fig. 9. Poitiers: the baptistry area, early Christian cemetery. Fig. 10. Geneva: northern cathedral (fifth century). Fig. 11. Aquileia: the town in Late Antiquity. Fig. 12. Aquileia: patriarchal basilica, baptistry, bell tower. Fig. 13. Aquileia: baptistry and atrium. Fig. 14. Aquileia: area around the bell tower, corresponding to the northern post-Theodorian basilica. Figures 1 and 2 in Gauthier's contribution: Fig. 1. Plans de forums gaulois. a. Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges; b. Le forum de Lutece; c. Le forum de Nyon; d. Le forum d'Augst .................................................................................... 197 Fig. 2. L'emplacement des cathedrales dans quelques villes de Gaule (Metz, Frejus, Chalon-sur-Saone, Angers, Grenoble, Tours) ............................................................ 200, 201, and 202 Figures 1 and 2 in Castren's contribution: Fig. 1. Agora, Athens, 5th century A.D. ................................ Fig. 2. Library of Hadrian, Athens ..........................................

217 219

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

IX

Figures 1-13 in Ward-Perkins' contribution (between pages 232 and 233: Fig. 1. Marble column drums from an earlier building, reused in the Severan phase of Rome's Portico of Octavia. Fig. 2. Foundations of a door-sill of a late Roman house (4th/ 5th-century) at Luna in Italy. Fig. 3. Classical marble elements (uniform capitals and columns, and disparate entablature-blocks), re-used in the late-sixthcentury phase of the church of S. Lorenzo fuori-le-mura, Rome. Fig. 4. Schematic representation of two faces of the Arch of Constantine, showing the location of the re-used and the new sculpture. Fig. 5. "Liberatori Urbis". Part of huge Trajanic frieze, given a new inscription, and with the head of Trajan altered into that of Constantine. Decorating one side of the main opening through the Arch of Constantine. Fig. 6. Detail of a Hadrianic roundel, re-used in the Arch of Constantine. Fig. 7. The join between two re-used entablature blocks on the Arch of Constantine. Fig. 8. Detail of the carving of a re-used block on the Arch, and of its Constantinian imitation. Fig. 9. Constantinian carving from the base of one of the columns of the Arch: a Victory with a barbarian captive. Fig. 10. Plan of the cathedral of Aphrodisias, showing how the former temple of Aphrodite was converted into a church. Fig. 11. The Parthenon in Athens, as adapted into a church at some date in Late Antiquity. Fig. 12. Jean Sauvaget's hypothetical reconstruction of the transformation of a classical colonnaded street into a medieval Arab suq. Fig. 13. Part of the Umayyad-period suq excavated at Palmyra.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS

Carlo Bertelli teaches history of art at the University of Mendrisio in Switzerland. He is the author of numerous studies on late antique, medieval and renaissance art. Recently he has edited and partauthored a book on painting in early medieval Italy, and written chapters in a study of Milan's S. Ambrogio. vVolfram Brandes holds a research post at the Max-Planck-Institut for the study of the history of European law in Frankfurt. He is the author of a book on the cities of Asia Minor in the seventh and eighth centuries, has published on the Byzantine apocalyptic tradition, and is currently engaged on a study of Byzantine financial administration between the fifth and the ninth centuries. Gian Pietro Brogiolo teaches medieval archaeology at Padua University, and has excavated extensively in Lombardy (at Brescia, Monte Barro, and elsewhere). He is the author of a book on early medieval Brescia, and joint author of a recent general study of the city in early medieval Italy. Paavo Castren is Professor of Classical Philology at Helsinki University. He is the author of a major book on the politics and society of Roman Pompeii, and of a study of late-antique Athens, which discusses both the textual and the archaeological evidence for the city. Nancy Gauthier teaches ancient history at the Universite Fran3 See the surveys of H. Hunger, Die hochsprachliche prifane Literatllr der Byzantiner, 2 vols. (Handbuch der Altertumswissenschaft xii, 5.1 and 2 = Byzantinisches Handbuch 5, 1 and 2, Munich, 1978) I, pp. 170ff.; and G. Downey, in Reallexikon fur Antike und Christentum (Stuttgart, I 950f.), vol. 4, 921-944. Descriptive accounts of Constantinopolitan buildings and monuments do exist for the period from the eighth century, but Constantinople was, as we have seen, exceptional for many reasons. See, for example, the (probably late eighth-century) Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai (Eng. transl. and commentary: Averil Cameron, Judith H errin, Constantinople in the Eighth Cenlury [Leiden, 1984J), and the much late r compilation Patria Konstanlinoupoleos, in: Scriptores Originum Constantinopolitanarum, ed. Th. Preger, 2 vols. (Leipzig, 1901, 1907/New York, 1975), I, pp. 1-18; II, pp. 135289. For a detailed commentary on the date and structure of the texts in question, see A. Berger, Untersuchungen zu den Patria Konstantinupoleos (Poikila Byzantina B. Bonn , 1988).

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

THE IDEA OF THE TOWN IN THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE

21

ancient town! The story makes it quite clear that the governance of the town-described in an inscription of 1027 as a kastron54 -was in the hands of the archontes, and in this respect was hardly different, except perhaps in the degree of social differentiation, from a rural village community.'il The transformation in perceptions becomes especially obvious when we look at the promiscuous application of the term kastron to virtually any type of settlement. As mentioned, Thessaloniki, which can reasonably be described in modern terms as a major town, was referred to as a kastron; but so, for example, was the tiny fortress-village of Pangaeon on Leros, which contained within its walls a church, some associated cells, five houses (one vvith a balcony), and a cistern. 56 In a very large number of such cases (although lack of evidence makes any generalisation dangerous), it is clear that there was nothing to choose institutionally between an undefended village settlement and a kastron: the inhabitants of a kastron near Thessaloniki were, in a document of 1076, assessed for their taxes on a communal basis, just like any village, which suggests that their community was administered by the elders and the local priest, as was the case with rural communities. 57 Indeed, once we have taken account of the local landlords and state officials, the archontes, referred to already, there was from the institutional perspective very little to differentiate town from village. Size was certainly not an important feature. A major difference between the typical late Roman "city" and the medieval town, of course-a feature whose origins lie in late Antiquity-is that public buildings were no longer funded from "public" sources. The role of the city corporations was taken over by the Church and by monasteries, by private individuals, or by other associations. As mentioned already, by the late sixth and early seventh century new urban construction is primarily associated with the Church or monastic foundations, and it was to these that the wealth

5"

See D. Zakythenos, in Hellenika 15 (1957), pp. 99.4-5. 0 Bios Nikonos tau metanoeile, cd. Sp. Lampros, Neos Ellenomnemon 3 (1906), see pp. 162-65. ,," Acta et Diplomata Graeca Afedii Aevi sacra et profana, eds. F Miklosieh, J. Muller (Acta Patriarehatus Constantinopolitani) (Vienna, 1860-1862), VI, 36.1 3; 40-41. 57 Acles de Laura, premiere partie, des orzgines a 1204, eds. P. Lemerle, N. Svoronos, A. Guillou, D. Papachryssanthou (Archives de l'Athos. Paris, 1970), I, no. 37 (pp. 213 215). -,j

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

22

JOHN HALDON

of private people, of whatever social-economic status, flowed. That philanthropic activities were the concern of the Church is well-known. But other public services seem also to have been taken over: the bridge at Sparta dated by an inscription to 1027 was fundcd by a monk, who founded a monastery to maintain its upkeep after his death. Likcwise, religious or other associations evolved, established to maintain a church, monastery or icon, for example, or -as in the larger cities-organised around chariot-racing or other sporting and social activities. In Thebes in the eleventh century such a confraternity, with about fifty members, was founded in 1048, connected with an image of the Virgin. 58 In Constantinople in the seventh century a similar confraternity, centred on the cult of St. Artemios, was active. There is scattered evidence for other such groups in other centres, and hagiographical material, insofar as it can be trusted, shows that private initiative was more often than not behind new construction or related enterprises. ')9 At the juridical institutional level, then, there were no differences between town and village, except where a bishop was resident: this qualified any settlement for the title ,balis, and this seems, indeed, to have been the only formal definition of the term polis which survived the period from the seventh to the ninth centuries. Naturally, there were many functional differences in respect of the role of urban centres, which served to distinguish many of them from villages (although there could also be a considerable degree of overlap or blurring between the two, depending upon the geographical and economic situation, for example in more isolated regions): as markets, as residences for representatives of the military or other state administrators, the presence of a larger group of traders and artisans, of an ecclesiastical establishment with economic requirements and effects, a more regular market or fair, and a range of other services and functions not available in a rural village context. These were no doubt also expressed by the use of the term polis, when appropriate, and more pragmatically through the ways in which goods, services and people gravitated towards a particular local centre. 60 Only 58 J. Nesbitt, "A confraternity of the Comnenian era", Byzantinische Zeitschriji 68 (1975), pp. 360-384. 59 Angold, "The Shaping of the Medieval Byzantine 'City"', Byzantinische Forschungen 10 (1985), pp. Ilff. fiil For a good survey and discussion of the relations between town and countryside, see A. Harvey, Economic Expansion in the B)'zantine Empire 900-1200 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 198-243.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

THE IDEA OF THE TOWN IN THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE

23

after the Fourth Crusade in 1204 do specifically urban institutions appear to have evolved in more than a handful of major cities; and it is this lack of differentiating features which constitutes, I think, the most radical change in the actual structure of early and middle Byzantine urban life and the most obvious reflection of the transformation in the conception of the town, in comparison with the late Roman situation.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

BYZANTINE CITIES IN THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES- DIFFERENT SOURCES, DIFFERENT HISTORIES?

Some Methodological Observations on the Relationship Between Written , Numismatic, Sigillographic and Archaeological Sources Used in Research into Byzantine Urbanism in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries

W. Brandes

1. Qyestions qf Tenninology After a period of heated debate which ensued particularly during the 50's and 60's, the general traits of the development of Byzantine towns during the so-called "Dark Ages" (mid-seventh to mid-eighth century) seem to be clear: only four or five settlements can still lay claim to the title of "town" or "city" (Thessaloniki, Ephesus, Nicaea and Trebizond). It is definitely no coincidence that all these were located either near or by the sea and had ports. Their connections with the capital, Constantinople, the city, doubtless played an active part in their acquisition of certain standards associated with urban civilisation. I It is very surprising that in the endlessly expanding mass of literature on urbanism in Late Antiquity or the early Middle Ages, there has to a great extent been no serious theoretical consideration of the terminology used. The fundamental difference of meaning between the concept of "city" or "town" as used in modern academic discourse and in early medieval sources is largely overlooked. If one wishes to transcend a "pre-scientific" stage and achieve a truly scientific

I For an account of the numismatic evidence produced by the economic expansion of Constantinople at a time when there are clear signs of a revival of urbanism , see D.M. Metcalf, "How extensive was the issue of folies during the years 775- 820?", Byzantion 37 (1967), pp. 270- 310; also cf. A. Harvey, Economic Expansion in the Byzantine Empire 900- 1200 (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 80ff.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

26

W. BRANDES

analysis of the development of the Byzantine town (which, mutatis mutandis, applies to all historical phenomena, or rather investigation of them), there must first be absolute clarity about the central concepts. 2 The ideas of people who lived in Late Antiquity or the early Middle Ages 3 were couched in terms which had a radically different semantic meaning to that of the modern concept of "town".4 Those studying the medieval West have relied on Max Weber's concept of "Stadt" for a way out of the dilemma, or still to this day use the concept of the "Rechtsstadt";) which is not relevant for Byzantium; Byzantinists, however, have hitherto failed to attempt almost any theoretical discussion of their concept of "town".6 In my opinion, one should proceed from the concept of the multifunctionality of a settlement in order to differentiate it from other types of settlements (e.g. villages or fortresses), as C. Goehrke formulated it some years ago: ... I) an intensification of the town's multi-functionality in the sense of it occupying a central position of high, indeed supreme, importance in the area (the town as the administrative, religious, military and economic centre of a region, as well as a trading centre which attracts

2 [Editor's note: As is well known, clarity and consistency in English are particulary difficult to achieve, because of the existence of two overlapping terms, "town" and "city", for German's "Stadt", French's "ville", Italian's "citta" and Spanish's "ciudad". In translating "Stadt" in this article, we have normally used "town", but have occasionally used "city" where "town" did not seem quite grand enoughe.g. for Constantinople!] 3 Of course, variations according to time and place, and to social status or level of education are also to be assumed. 4 Cf. the (neo-Marxist) dissertation (TV Berlin) by E. Bauer, Zur Entstehung und Enifaltung der Stadt (Diss. Berlin, 1976), in which the lack of terminology in research into towns at that time comes under hea\y fire. However, the alternatives which he ofTers tend to be so dogmatic that they too become unusable. 5 Cf. W. Brandes, Die Stiidte Kleinasiens im 7. und 8. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1989), pp. 23fT., and the literature cited there. The 8iKawv 7tOA£OOt; still cited in the sixth century, in my opinion did not playa role thereafter. See Brandes, loc. cit., p. 32, with references in footnote II. b But see j.-M. Spieser, "L'evolution de la ville byzantine de I'epoque paleochretienne a l'iconoclasme", Hommes et richesses dans l'Empire by:;.antin I: IV"-Vn e sieele (Paris, 1989), pp. 97- 106, particularly p. 98, where, among other things, the role played by monumental architecture as an indicator of the existence of a town is emphasised. Also cf. idem, "Les villes en Grece du Ille au VIle s.", Villes e! peuplemen! dans l'llfyricum protoby:;.antin (Rome, 1984), pp. 315- 338. From the older literature, see in particular F. Dolger, "Die fruhbyzantinische und byzantinisch beeinfluBte Stadt (V.- VIII. Jahrhundert)" , in: idem, Dapac7topa (Ettal, 1961), pp. 107- 139, especially pp. 109f.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

BYZANTINE CITIES IN THE SEVENTH AND EIGHTH CENTURIES

27

business from outside the region) and 2) correspondingly a more pronounced distinction between social classes than in a village. 7

If a given settlement, which was perhaps in Antiquity known as a 7tOAtC;, is reduced in its functions to one role in particular (military, administrative, religious or ecclesiastical), one has to take the logical step of denying that this place can be called a "town" (as understood in modern historical discourse or in the definition quoted above).B If one uses such a multi-functional definition of "town", it is at most only the settlements mentioned at the beginning of this article which are worthy of the title of "town".9 If one reads the language used in contemporary sources uncritically, the picture which emerges is of numerous 7tOAnc; in Byzantium in the seventh and eighth centuries, particularly in Asia Minor. In these texts one must be aware of literary traditions; sources written within an ecclesiastical context, for example, use the term 7tOAtC; to refer to virtually every episcopal seat, regardless of what the real situation of this "town" may have been. An episcopal seat was by its very nature a 7tOAtC;, as is made clear in a law decreed by the Emperor Zeno (C]. 1,3,35), which harks back to earlier canon law. lo Here it says that 7tacYav 7toAtv ... £Xnv EK 7tanOC; 1P07tOU axmpicnov Kat tbwv e£(J7tiso~£v .11 Following the same logic, the term 7tOAtC; appears in the Notitiae episcopatuum and the subscription-lists of the Ecumenical Councils, which equally are ecclesiastical sources. The stereotypical formula, as seen, for example, in the so-called "Notitia of Pseudo-Epiphanios" from the beginning of the seventh century, was 1l1l1p07toA1C; ... hn U7t' aU1~v 7tOAnc; ~10t E7ttaK07t(XC; ... , or the bishop who affirmed the decisions of a

7 See C. Goehrke, "Die Anfange des mittelalterlichcn StUAciKTOU Kat v':ith the tradition of Milan as a capital. The Valdinievole plaque, which comes from the front of a helmet, synthesises well Agilulf's political pretensions (Fig. I). 3B Agilulf is represented seated on a throne in the centre, and is flanked, in strict symmetry, by two armed warriors (with plumed helmets, plate armour, round shields and spears) who symbolise the Lombard army, two winged Victories, and four supplicants, two Roman and two Lombard. The scene is framed by two towers, stylised images of the city or palace. The image is derived from iconographic schemata of late Roman or Byzantine art, onto which is grafted a realistic representation of the form of dress and of military equipment of the

Gregorius I Papa, Epp. (as cited in Note 25), XIV.12 and IX.66. Milan: Paulus Diaconus, Hist.Lang., IV.30. Monza: Hist.Lang., IV.21-2. 38 vV. Kurze, "La lamina di Agilulfo: usurpazione 0 diritto?", Atti 6" congresso internazionale di studi sull'alto medioevo, Milano 1978 (Spoleto, 1980), Vol. II, pp. 447-56. Other interpretations in D. Harrison, The Earfy State and the Towns. Forms of Integration in I/lmbard Itafy A.D. 568-774 (Lund, 1993), p. 188 note 59. 36 37

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

116

G.P. BROGIOLO

Fig. 1. The Valdinievole plaque (Florence Bargello)

Lombards. Like the inscription on the Crown of Monza (Rex Totius Italiae) the plaque synthesises the political programme of the king, recruiting both ethnic communities (Roman and Lombard) to the task of stabilising the kingdom, but at the same time preserving for the Lombards exclusive effective power, based on control of the army. Symbols like this one do not successfully mask a conception and exercise of power that was in reality restricted to the king and to the highest ranks of the military, with no real space left for the Roman aristocracy. I want to present here two further examples of this militarisation of power: the archaeological picture from Brescia; and the evolution of some fortresses. Fifteen years of stratigraphic excavations, carried out in the monastery of S. Salvatore/So Giulia and on numerous other sites in Brescia, have allowed us to produce a model for the evolution of the town between the Roman and early medieval periods, which I have already outlined in earlier contributions (Fig. 2).39 Here I wish simply to emphasise the high degree of control (political, economic, and social), associated with the Lombard occupation and extending across a large part of the town: the curia ducis, sited within a restricted circuit wall

39 G.P. Brogiolo, "Brescia: building transformations in a Lombard city", in ed. K. Randsborg, The Birth of Europe. Archaeological and social development in the first millennium A.D., Analecta instituti Danici supplementum XVI (Roma, 1989), pp. 156-65.; Brogiolo, Brescia altomedievale (as cited in Note 9).

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

117

IDEAS OF THE TOWN IN ITALY DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD

o I. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

S. S. S. S. S. S.

Faustino. Desiderio. Giovanni Evangelista. Eufemia. Remigio. Salvatore.

7. S. 9. 10. II. 12.

50

100

200

300m

S. Pietro. Xenodochio di Peresindo. Xenodochio di S. Giulia. Acquedotto presso casa Pallaveri. Mulini di S. Giulia. Curia ducis.

Fig. 2. Brescia, hypothetical plan of the city in Lombard times (= Brogiolo, Brescia altomedievale, fig. 62)

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

118

G.P. BROGIOLO

in the west part of the town; the curtis regia, between the Forum and the eastern walls; a vast area (c. 10 hectares) reduced to pasture to the south of the curtis regia and presumably dependent upon it; an urban castrum, on the summit of the hill which overlooks the town. A clear dependence of the (? Arian) ecclesiastical hierarchy on lay power may furthermore be hypothesised, from the burial of the seventh-century bishops within the castrum, a place of direct Lombard control. It was an occupation, therefore, which assured full military control of the town and of the important road which ran through it (from Verona, via Brescia, to Milan or Como). It was not limited to the use of the public areas (the palace, the castrum, the theatre, and the Capitolium) but also expropriated quarters previously given over to private housing. The wealth of the Brescian nobility derived from a wide dependent territory. From this, the urban curtis regia received both iron from mines in the Valcamonica, and meat (predominantly of sheep and goats, which indicates an extensive economy probably involved in trans humane e) from the richest estates of the plain, where a considerable number of exercitales were settled within the Roman settlement network. 40 In the curtis regia, besides the working of iron and bone, Lombard pottery was also produced, charged with a heavy cultural significance, and even pottery imitating Mediterranean stamped wares (terra sigillata).41 An analogous purpose can be seen in the reorganisation, between the end of the sixth and the first half of the seventh century, of several frontier territories disputed, sometimes over a long period, between the Byzantines and the Lombards. These territories are distributed along the entire peninsula: from Apulia and Bruttium, in the south;

{O Iron: C. Cucini Tizzoni, "Un fomo da ferro longobardo nelle Alpi italiane: Ponte di Val Gabbia-Valcamonica (Bienno-Brescia)", Notiziario di Archeologia Medievale no. 65 (aprile 1995), pp. 8·9. Meat: P. Baker, "Socio-economic aspects of food supply in early medieval Brescia: the zooarchaeological remains from the Longobard S. Giulia", in ed. Brogiolo Early medieval towns (as cited in Note 10), pp. 89··96. {I Lombard pottery: A. Guglielmetti, "La ceramica comune tra fine VI e X sec010 a Brescia, nei siti di casa Pallaveri, palazzo Martinengo Cesaresco e piazza Labus", in eds. G.P. Brogiolo and S. Gelichi, Le ceramiche altomedievali (VI-X secolo) in Italia settentrionale: produziani e commerci. Atti del 6° seminario sull'Italia centrosettentrionale tra Tarda Antichita e Altomedioeva (Monte Barra, 21-22 aprile 1995) (Mantova, 1995), pp. 9-14.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

IDEAS OF THE TOWN IN ITALY DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD

119

up through the Abruzzo and Tuscany; to the Po Plain, in the north. 42 The scorched-earth policy, carried out by the dukes and the kings, caused the destruction of ancient cities such as Cremona, Mantua, Padua, Oderzo, etc., and the dismembering of their territories in favour of castra which became the seats of military authorities. As a consequence, these fortresses were honoured by the contemporary sources with the title of civitates. At the end of this radical reorganisation, Lombard power would have been distributed, as Stefano Gasparri has calculated, between twenty or so towns of ancient origin and a similar number of castra. 43 This distribution functioned both from the point-of-view of the military strategy that the Lombards were compelled to maintain against the persistent menace of the Empire, and from the point-of-view of the structure of the army, which was organised in the manner of a clan commanded by its chief. At the very same time as Agilulf and Theodolinda were using classical symbols to show their attachment to the monumental idea of the ancient city, the process of destruction of both settlements themselves and of the relationship between some towns and their dependent territories was going ahead at full steam, with the consolidation at the top of society of a military hierarchy.44 In some Germanic kingdoms, such as those of the Goths and the Franks, the use within politics of the classical idea of the city suggests the affirmation or growth of consensus in towns which had preserved a complex social structure. But in Lombard Italy of the seventh century it was no longer essential to organise a consensus around traditional cultural symbols: society had become simplified, with the heads of the ecclesiastical hierarchy either fleeing to Byzantine 42 Apulia and Bruttium: Noye "Les villes" (as cited in Note 28). Abruzzo: Staffa, "Una terra di frontiera" (as cited in Note 28). Tuscany: W. Kurze and C. Citter, "La Toscana", in ed. Brogiolo, Citw, castelli e campagne (as cited in Note 28), pp. 159~86. Po plain: S. Gelichi, "Territori di confine in eta longobarda: I'ager mutinensis", and M . De Marchi, "Modelli insediativi 'militarizzati' d'eta longobarda in Lombardia", both in ed. Brogiolo, Citta, castelli e campagne, pp. 145~58 and pp.

33~85. H S. Gasparri, "II regno longobardo in Italia. Struttura e funzionamento di uno stato altomedievale", in eds. S. Gasparri and P. Cammarosano, Langobardia (Udine, 1990), pp. 237~305, at pp. 292~301. -!4 J. Jamut, "La funzione centrale della citta nel regno longobardo", and S. Gasparri, "Longobardi e citta", both in Societa e Stona 46 (1989), pp. 967~71 and 973 ~9; S. Gasparri, "Discussione", in eds. Francovich and Noye, La stona dell'alto medioevo italiano (as cited in Note 6), pp. 133 ~5 .

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

120

G.P. BROGIOLO

territory, or rendered powerless by a military ruling-class that expressed its own ideals and social ranking through its grave goods. In such a society, the confrontation between dukes and between dukes and their sovereign, is regulated by force, and social mediation takes place by means of reference to the values of the gens. Such values are to be found in the edict of Rothari of 643, in which, symptomatically, there is no reference to the town, but on the contrary an exclusively rural vision of culture. 45 All this leads us to believe that the idea of the town was, for the greater part of the seventh century, intimately linked to the parameters of military power. It is not therefore due to a lack of precision in the sources, but rather to a profoundly altered reality, that the term civitas is assumed by numerous centres which appear to be very far from the ideal type of the city. The classical city therefore died, not only in its material reality, but also in the ideology of the ruling-class.

5. New Ideas for the Early Medieval City (from Cunipert to Desiderius) A change, as Paolo Delogu has repeatedly maintained, is evident from the end of the seventh century.46 After the decisive victory of King Cunipert over Alahis in 689, the two groups into which society had up until that time been divided, the Catholic and the Arian, merged. With the peace contracted between the Byzantines and the Lombards in 680, long-distance commercial relationships were renewed. From these changes there emerged a class of possessores, both urban and rural, less troubled by military demands. This decisive development is demonstrated archaeologically by important modifications in funerary practice. The deposition of grave goods stopped and is replaced by other marks of social rank: private chapels, funerary epigraphy (often richly decorated), and dona-

45 P. Delogu, "II regno longobardo", in ed. G. Galasso, Stana d'Italia (Torino, 1980), pp. 1- 216, at pp. 62- 82. 46 P. Delogu, "II regno longobardo", pp. 108 - 112; P. Delogu, "The rebirth of Rome in the 8th and 9th centuries", in eds. R. Hodges and B. Hobley, The Rebirth if Towns in the West. A.D. 700-1050, CBA Research Reports 68 (London, 1988), pp. 32-42; P. Delogu, "La fine del mondo antico e l'inizio del medioevo: nuovi dati per un vecchio problema", in eds. Francovich and Noye, La stana dell'alta mediaeva italiano (as cited in Note 6), pp. 7- 29.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

IDEAS OF THE TOWN IN ITALY DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD

121

tions to religious institutions. This new funerary ideology was given strong encouragement by the foundation in Pavia by King Aripert (ob. 688) of a mausoleum-church dedicated to S. Salvatore, in which he himself and three of his successors were buried; while Queen Rodelinda carried out another highly symbolic act, by building the church of S. Maria in the Lombard cemetery ad perticas-an event described by Gasparri as "perhaps an attempt at exorcism, in order to divert a pagan sacrality into a safely Christian channel."47 The changes involved both towns and their territories, an indication that a new relationship, based on both economic and social structures, was becoming generally established. In the countryside the affirmation, albeit gradual, of the curtis redefines the settlement pattern. A series of new settlement nuclei emerge in key positions (high points or along rivers), nerve centres for the control of the estates which provided the surplus to feed the renewal of the cities themselves. vVithin the city, no longer exclusively or even prevalently a seat of power, different social forces were at work in the search for ideals around which the elites could gather. A mass of literary, art-historical and archaeological evidence shows that the ideals which emerged, although echoing once again the symbols of the ancient city, were in reality quite new-in that they were produced by a rulingclass now operating within a clearly ecclesiastical environment. 48 The new ideals thus linked the Christian vision of power with the Germanic one, based on concepts of lineage and nation. The king, the major expression of civil power, was the highest synthesis of the new ideals: he was defender of the faith, builder of churches and monasteries, and custodian of the morals of the nation. The "Carmen de synodo ticinensi" is the first literary document in which we find signs of some of these ideals. 49 Here, the family of King Cunipert are celebrated as ardent combatants for the true faith: his grandfather Aripert, pius et catholicus, "abolished the heresy of the Arians and 47 Gasparri "Pavia longobarda" (as cited in Note 31), p. 57: "forse un tentativo di esaugurazione ehe ineanalava la sacralita pagana in un alveo cristiano." The relevant references from Paul the Deacon are: Paulus Diaconus, Hist.Lang. (as cited in Note 25), IV.48, V.34 (S. Maria ad perticas), and V.37. +8 A.M. Orselli, "II santo patrono cittadino tra Tardo Antico e Alto Medioevo", in L'immaginario religioso nella citta medievale (Ravenna, 1985), pp. 415-35; A.M. Orselii, "Coscienza e immagini delia citta nelle fonti tra IV e VI secolo", in ed. Brogiolo, Early medieval towns (as cited in Note 10), pp. 9-16. 40 Ed. G. \Vaitz, MGH Scriptores rerum langobardicarum et italicarum saeec. VI-IX (Hannover, 1878), pp. 190- 1.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

122

G.P. BROGIOLO

encouraged the growth of the Christian faith"; his father Perctarit "was the builder of a monastery from its foundations" and a staunch opponent of the Jews; while Cunipert himself, with the defeat of the rebel Alahis at Coronate, has put an end to the Aquileian Schism. Cunipert is then also praised for a purely secular undertaking: the restoration of the "semidiruta" Modena. 50 This reference returns us to a pure late antique ideal of the prince as constructor civitatis. Inscriptions, embellished with refined sculptural decoration, survive from the same cultural courtly milieu at Pavia as the poem (composed by the priest Stephanus at the suggestion of Cunipert himself).5! Both are the product of a new culture, born out of the collaboration of the court with the high clergy, led for thirty years (from 681 to 711) by a bishop of eastern origin, Damian, aided by his deacons Barionas and Thomas and by Thomas' nephew John (all recorded in contemporary inscriptions). This was a clerical circle intent on proselytising, and at the same time on developing a strongly ideological culture, in order to strengthen the hold of Catholicism on Lombard society, in part by reinfi)rcing the position of the royal dynasty then in power. 52 It was from this cultural milieu, that Bognetti believed there emerged that most exceptional and enigmatic monument of the history of art, the frescoed church of S. Maria Joris portas at Catelseprio. A full development of these ideas is to be found in the epigraphic and literary sources of the time of Liutprand. He was a king who consolidated his power by placing his own relatives in the most important bishoprics: Bishops Theodorus at Milan and Petrus at Pavia. In return for this he received a fully Christian image of himself, and came to be remembered solely for those of his acts which were inspired by the faith. The ideology is therefore unchanged from that of the preceding period, but Lombard society is now united, within a kingdom strong enough to unleash violent campaigns against the remaining Byzantine imperial territory.

50 "semidiruta noncupata urbe A1utina pristino decore restituit (he restored to its former splendour the half-ruined city called Modena?'. For the archaeological evidence: Gelichi, "Modena" (as cited in Note 30). 51 For the inscriptions: Panazza, "Lapidi e sculture" (as cited in Note 16). ,,2 G.P. Bognetti, "Le origini della consacrazione del vescovo di Pavia", G.P. Bognetti, L'eta longobarda (Milano, 1966), Vol. I, pp. 143 -217.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

IDEAS OF THE TOWN IN ITALY DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD

123

The inscription from Corteolona, which records the king's construction of a church in honour of St. Anastasius is highly significant in this respect. 53 Liutprand had decided to erect, on his own estate not far from Pavia, some royal baths; but having gone to Rome to pray at the tomb of Anastasius, he was inspired instead to found a church in the saint's honour-a church which glistened with precious marbles and columns brought especially from Rome. The king, who with this act wished to celebrate the triumphs of his people, derived from it eternal glory. The structure of a literary composition of 739 (the Laudes Medialani civitatis:) is more complex, but the inspiration behind it is similar. 54 \'Vithin Milanese society of 739, at least in the eyes of the anonymous ecclesiastical author of the Laudes, only the military class (rabusti cives) is singled out-called upon to yoke the necks of nifandarum gentium. At the head of society, stand the pius rex Liutprand and bishop Theodorus, his relative, who had been called by the people to the episcopal throne. The only gesture towards lay culture is in the glorification of the city and its opulence. The poem is otherwise permeated by allusions to ecclesiastical culture: psalms, prayers, and invocations to God and the saints. Even the emphasis placed on the protection that walls offer, reflects, not an appreciation of the military value of the city, but instead a Christian vision which has as its point of departure the ecclesiastical Jerusalem described in the Apocalypse of John (XXI,9, 11). Involvement in secular building does not constitute, therefore, an occasion to glorify a ruler. The maintenance of walls is a routine operation, and even the foundation of a city by Liutprand (Cittanova: a new administrative centre to replace Modena) is passed over in silence. A similar line of interpretation may also be applied to the elegy that Paul the Deacon composed about Liutprand, describing him as: a man of great wisdom, wise in council, very pious and a lover of peace, strong in war, clement towards wrongdoers, chaste, virtuous, untiring in prayer, generous in charity, ignorant of letters but still

53 Text: MGH, Poeti latini Medii Aeui, IV (== Poeti aevi carolini, I), p. 106; discussed by La Rocca, ''Trasformazioni della citt'! altomedievale" (as cited in Note 3), pp.

1008-9. ;+ Edited by Pighi, Versus (as cited in Note I).

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

124

G.P. BROGIOLO

deserving to be compared with the philosophers (litterarum quidem ignarus, sed philosophis aequandus), father of his people (nutritor gentis), increaser of

the laws. 55

Secular virtues (military capability and legislative acts) take second place to religious virtues. It is pointless, therefore, to look to contemporary sources for the celebration of urban planning and secular architecture. This is now reduced to a stylised backdrop for the Christian iconography which we find in the manuscript illuminations and frescoes of the eighth century. The decline of classical ideals is now complete. The affirmation of the new Christian culture has been consolidated, and is destined to inspire the final decades of Lombard domination. But, while the Church provided the cultural tools needed to create a new political propaganda, it was also removing from secular Lombard power its particular role, and thereby preparing its downfall. Out of these ideals, emerged a new model of town, in which the power of the ecclesiastical hierarchy equalled, if not actually surpassed, that of the lay nobility. The example of Brescia seems to me to be once again significant, since we are here dealing with an important town. This is what Paul the Deacon has to say: "The city of Brescia always had a great multitude of noble Lombards".56 From this nobility came two kings (Rothari and Desiderius), as well as the claimant of the throne Alahis who, as I have mentioned, lost the decisive battle against Cunipert. Visible secular control over the town must have continued even into the middle of the eighth century. At this date it was possible for the family of king Desiderius to control, at the same time, both the ducal and royal curtes, giving a conspicuous part of their properties to the monastery of S. Salvatore/So Giulia, where Desiderius' daughter was abbess. This was an attempt to create a personal patrimony and a personal power, by exploiting the ideology of both Christianity and the city through the institution of an urban monastery. But the days of King Liutprand had passed. The kingdom was now divided, and a part of the Lombard ruling-class had failed to take note of a rising Paulus Diaconus, Hist.Lang. (as cited in Note 25), VI.58. Paulus Diaconus, Hist.Lang. , V.36: "Brixiana denique civitas magnam semper nobilium Langobardomm multitudinem habuit". 55

56

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

IDEAS OF THE TOWN IN ITALY DURING THE TRANSITION PERIOD

125

new figure on the scene. The papacy, by involving the Frankish monarchy in the defence of its territorial expansion, now played its own political role, entirely to the detriment of the Lombard kingdom. The policy of Desiderius, a new man "without great prestige, who depended on his place of origin in constructing a power-base", was therefore destined to fail-even though he could exploit for his enterprise some impressive economic resources (the iron mines of the Valcamonica and a large number of estates on the lakes and in the plain), and the best tcchnology and artistic skill of his ageY The construction of the large monastery of S. Salvatore (Fig. 3) was achieved using specialised craftsmanship and advanced technology: the supply of water to the monastic baths, for example, entailed the construction of an aqueduct at least 600 m long. The church of S. Salvatore, presumably in origin a chapel of the curtis regia, was rebuilt and richly decorated. A verse epitaph, composed by Paul the Deacon for the tomb of Queen Ansa, and other inscriptions painted within the fresco cycle, celebrated the new royal dynasty. But all this effort did not allow Desiderius to found a dynasty, nor to save his own realm; it was significant in the long run only for the urban development of Brescia. With its accumulation of rural estates and urban areas, the royal monastery was able to expand its economic, and, at the same time, political hegemony over the town. Brescia was only able to free itself from this in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the emergent feudal nobility took possession of the monastery, dismantling its urban rights in favour of themselves and of the Commune. os

It seems to me, therefore, that on the basis of the sources available, a close relationship can be established between "ideas" of the town and the "politics" of the age, at least in those periods in which a social dialectic is apparent. By contrast, for a great part of the seventh century, there was an obscuring of such "ideas", when strong politico-military control was exercised, to a point that even put m question the very concept of the civitas, extcnding it to any seat of power.

Quote from Gasparri, "Pavia longobarda" (as cited in Note 31), p. 64. G.C. Andenna, "II monastero e I'evoluzione urbanistica di Brescia tra XI e XII secolo", Atti del canuegno Archeologia, sioria e arie di un monasiero regia dai Longobardi al Barbarossa, Brescia 4-5 maggio 1990 (Brescia, 1992), pp. 93-118. 57

58

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

126

G.P. BROGIOLO

Fig. 3. Reconstruction drawing (based on excavated evidence and some standing remains) of the eighth-century churcb and monastery of S. Salvatore at Brescia (= Brogiolo, Brescia altomedieuale, fig. 72)

It is important to emphasise that, eventually, from this phase of urban crisis, the cities of ancient origin, which had maintained or regained control over their territories:, re-emerged into a position of power. But for most of them, their new position had no real continuity with classical times, as is clear in the case of Brescia. It was certainly the size of the urban space defended by the walls, and the size of each dependent hinterland that were the determining factors in their re-emergence. There has been much debate as to whether this renaissance was helped by the survival, perhaps through ecclesiastical mediation, of the idea of the ancient city (as Carandini maintains), and as to whether it was stimulated by the re-emergence of social classes which had never quite disappeared (even in the period of greatest recession in the seventh century), which a new idea of the town served to hold together. 59

59 A. Carandini, "L'ultima civilti sepolta 0 del massimo oggetto desueto, secondo un archeologo", ed. A. Schiavone, Storia di Roma, Vol. III.2 (Torino, 1993), pp. 11-37. For a synthesis of the general debate: G.P. Brogiolo, "Archaeology of the medieval town in Italy (1980-1995)", Archaeology and History if the Middle Ages, XIII international conftrence UISPP, call. XXVII-XXVIII (Forli, 1996), pp. 21-28.

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

VISUAL IMAGES OF THE TOWN IN LATE ANTIQUITY AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES* Carlo Bertelli

In the literature and visual arts of the period of transition from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, the political and religious authorities, the wealth, the daily commodities, and the ornaments of towns are all given a prominent place. Constantinople was the source of many encomia and gave matter for reflection to contemporary historians, while being the promoter of great works of art, or more specifically of a new art. Notwithstanding a process of profound innovation, the links with the past were not severed; on the contrary, they were exhibited like guarantees of continuity. So reminders of past ages were welcome within the city walls not just for being famous works of art transferred from elsewhere, but also because they were authentic relics of old Rome. l Other towns were, of course, less self-assertive, but as we shall see there was a marked difference between the image of a town which one could have in the ravaged West and that manifest in the moreor-less intact Orient. Rome had a different history from any other town. The sack of the urbs by the Goths in 410 threw a Christian intellectual such as Saint Jerome into despair, but while her authority became more spiritualised and in that sense more pervasive, the physical survival of the town became a matter of concern for its rulers residing abroad. It was in 609 that the emperor Phocas gave the Pantheon to the

* The II th International Congress of Christian Archaeology devoted a full session to the theme of "I}image de la ville dans I'art et la litterature", with contributions by J.G. Deckers, F. Bisconti, D. Korol, F. Rickert, U. Konen, P.-A. Fevrier, X. Barral i Altet. See Actes du XI' Congres International d'Archeologie Chretienne, II (Citta del Vaticano, 1989), pp. 1281-1403. All the contributions provided excellent material for reflection and documentation. The present article however follows a different approach. I G. Dagron, JVaissance d'une capitale, Constantinople et ses institutions de 330 it 451, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1984); ed. H.G. Beck, Studien zur Friihgeschichte Konstantinopws, Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 14 (Munich, 1973). Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

128

CARLO BERTELLI

Church in exchange for papal support. At the same time he installed the last honorary column erected in the Forum. In so doing he sacrificed the open space which for centuries had been reserved to the comitia. Like the cutting of the aqueducts during the Gothic wars, the removal of this space signals the new image of medieval Rome. After the foundation of Constantinople, a need was felt to inventory the patrimony of the former centre of the empire. From the catalogues which were duly compiled under the successors of Constantine (the Notitia de regionibus urbis, soon after the death of the first Christian emperor, and the Curiosum urbis Romae, between the reign of Constantius and that of T heodosius I), we learn how many domus and how many insulae the city contained, and also how many obelisks, temples, honorary monuments, statues and the like. 2 On the same model, the Notitia urbis Constantinopolitanae, composed in the second quarter of the fifth century under Theodosius II, besides listing all the lay authorities, also enumerates the town monuments region by region. These regionaria were not without precedents, but the compilation of these late ones and the listing of such non-utilitarian items as fountains, statues, and honorific columns demonstrates the value still attributed to the town's traditional image. The other side of this anxiety for documentation and preservation, equalled in other fields by the impressive catalogue of state offices, known as the Notitia Dignitatum, 3 is revealed by the lament of a poet, Rutilius Namatianus. It was in 415, that is shortly after the Visigothic invasion of the Italian peninsula, that Rutilius wrote his poem commemorating his journey by boat from Rome to his native Gaul. 4 As his ship proceeds northwards, ghost towns loom up on the Italian coast. The poet names them one by one as old acquaintances. He looks at the deserted walls of Cosa, and at its streets inhabited by mice. He looks also for the lighthouse of Populonia, but it is lost in the darkness. In fact the achievements of what he 2 R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, Codice diplomatico della citta di Roma, I (Rome, 1940), pp. 63-73; L. Homo, Rome impbiale et l'urbanisme dans l'antiquite (Paris, 1951), pp. 639-649. 3 O. Seeck (ed.), Notitia dignitatum utriusque imperii (Berlin, 1876). For the illustrations of towns in the Notitia: P.C. Berger, TIe Insignia if the Notitia Dignitatum (Berlin, 1981). Further comments by J. Deckers, "Tradition und Adaptation. Bemerkungen zur Darstellung der christlichen Stadt", A1itteilungen des deutschen archaeologischen Instituts, Ri!mische Abteilung 95 (1988), pp. 303-82. 4 Claudius Rutilius Namatianus, De Reditu Suo Libri II ed. L. Mueller (Leipzig, 1870).

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

FIGURES 1-11

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

.1

·,

'"

Fig. 1. Tychai of the four principal cities of the Empire (clockwise from top left: Rome, Alexandria, Trier and Constantinople). From the Calendar of354 (sixteenth-century copy).

Brogiolo and Ward-Perkins - 978-90-04-50584-1 Downloaded from Brill.com06/14/2022 01:01:04AM via University of Toronto

I

~I"u.l'~' .... , \I \I

c\,·,o·" ,.,'-

•

fj. "'fro

"y '! ~

)~.

..

,

~.

C ?:l

I:)l

'Z

;.-

I:)l

C ?:l

o"'l

-