The long sixth century (c. 500 – 680 CE) was a period of turbulence for Byzantine religion, with trinitarian and Christological controversies dominating ecclesiastical discourse. Traditionally, Byzantine religion in this era has been understood through this official church discourse, examining theological treatises written by bishops. Increasingly, there has been an attempt to consider a multiplicity of religious experiences, through the lens of “lived religion”, focusing on the daily supernatural experiences of the laity and minor clergy outside the urban centres of the patriarchate. Inscribed objects, including funerary inscriptions, amulets, graffiti and curse tablets, often form the core of this study. These sources, however, do not always indicate the diversities in practice we expect to find, but rather utilise the language of liturgy and church service. A key debate thus emerges: do these objects truly allow for a reconstruction of individual religious expression, or are they another official production of the Church? This Thematic Session will promote an examination of Byzantine lived religion in the long sixth century, both within the empire and beyond its traditional borders. Each participant will present a short case study from their area of geographic interest, followed by a panel-wide discussion of the similarities between the material, and the contradictions which present themselves. In particular, we will discuss the relationship between each case study and the religious hierarchies, to comprehend the extent we can truly reconstruct diverse religious experiences in the long sixth century.
North African Christianity in Late Antiquity had no shortage of martyrs, sectarian conflict, and religious turbulence. Yet as more than one scholar has observed, there is a fascinating discrepancy between the names of martyrs who show up only in the epigraphic evidence, and those who have been identified from an extensive literary tradition, notably Perpetua…
Constructed during the sixth century, the “Great Church” in Sergioupolis-Resafa is a poster child for the late antique church building. A large three-aisled basilica which hosted the relics of Sergios, the city’s titular saint, the church was a major pilgrimage destination in Syria. Extant formal inscriptions attest to church hierarchy, recording the processions and interventions…
This paper examines how a Greek-inscribed pectoral cross ended up buried in a sixth-century grave in Lausanne, Gaul, and how the travel of this design outside of Byzantium transformed its meaning and interpretation. When it was first discovered in the early twentieth century, the cross was regarded as an ‘objet de superstition’ and ‘reste de…
It is widely known that women had restricted access to the late antique shrine of Saint Simeon the Stylite the Elder at Qalat Seman in modern Syria. Female pilgrims were not permitted to approach the living holy man on his column and after his death they could not enter the cruciform martyrium that became the…