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Villas and Monasteries in Late Roman Gaul

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 February 2009

John Percival
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Extract

On one of his numerous journeys, Sidonius Apollinaris, by now bishop of Clermont Ferrand, turned aside to visit an old acquaintance, a former Palatine official, by name Maximus. He found him much changed: his villa, a rather remote one several miles from the main road, was sparsely furnished, with three-legged stools, hard couches and simple hangings of goat hair. His diet was frugal, more vegetables than meat; his dress was simple, and his beard long. Clearly, this was not the result of poverty (Sidonius' reason for visiting him was to plead for flexibility in the matter of a loan made ten years earlier to a mutual friend), but rather of deliberate choice. Sidonius himself had little doubt that there was a religious explanation, and so it proved: Maximus had been compelled by his fellow citizens, somewhat against his will, to accept ordination to the priesthood.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Ecclesiastical History , Volume 48 , Issue 1 , January 1997 , pp. 1 - 21
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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References

1 Sidonius Apollinaris, ep. iv. 24, ed. W. B. Anderson, London, 1936, 1965; the date of the letter is not known, though from the obviously pastoral tone it must be later than Sidonius' appointment as bishop in 469. On Sidonius generally see Harries, Jill, Sidonius Apollinaris and the fall of Rome, Oxford 1994Google Scholar.

2 Para 4: ‘de tribus…ordinibus, monachum ageret an clericum paenitentemve?’. There is an interesting parallel in ep. iv. 9. 3: the devout and frugal lifestyle of Vectius (or Vettius?) prompts the comment that he is a monk in all but the habit (‘monachum…non sub palliolo’).

3 Paulinus of Nola, epp. xxxi, xxxii, ed. G. de Hartel, CSEL xxx. The St Severus who appears in Gregory, of Tours, , De gloria confessorum 49Google Scholar, as the founder of two churches was once thought (for example by Migne, , PL lxxi. 873 n. 137) to be SulpiciusGoogle Scholar. But his churches were in two separate villages and some 20 miles apart, and Dam, R. Van is probably right to see him as a different, and later, Severus: Gregory of Tours: glory of the confessors, Liverpool 1988, 59Google Scholar n. 57.

4 Severus, Sulpicius, Dialogus II (III), 1Google Scholar, ed. C. Halm, CSEL i: it is not clear from the context whether this refers to Primuliacum or to his other estate at Elusa (for which see Paulinus of Nola, ep. i), but it is presumably an indication of the company to be expected at either.

5 Fabre, P., Saint Paulin de Mole et l'amitié chrétienne, Paris 1949Google Scholar. Cf. also Chadwick, Nora K., Poetry and letters in early Christian Gaul, London 1955, 63–88Google Scholar; Frend, W. H. C., ‘Paulinus of Nola and the last century of the western empire’, Journal of Roman Studies lix (1969), 1–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar ( = Town and country in the early Christian centuries, London 1980, ch. xiv)Google Scholar.

6 Confessions ix. 4Google Scholar. 7, ed. M. Skutella, Stuttgart 1969 (Cassiciacum); Epistulae, epp. lxxxiii. 6, ed. A. Goldbacher, CSEL xxxiv (Thagaste); Possidius, , Vita Augustini iii. 1–2Google Scholar, PL xxxii (Thagaste).

7 Brown, Peter, Augustine of Hippo, London 1967, 132–7Google Scholar. In the Confessions, Augustine speaks generally of a group of ‘friends’, and of their ‘animated discussions’. In an interesting passage in vi. 14. 24 he sets out the organisation they planned: a common treasury, no private property, two ‘magistrates’ to run the practical side of things. The fact that this was abandoned suggests that the actual organisation was rather less formal. Nevertheless, he makes it plain that it was a life of contemplation, and in this sense, perhaps, a precursor of the fully-fledged community which, as bishop, he established at Hippo itself.

8 Brown, , Augustine, 115–16Google Scholar.

9 For a preliminary discussion see Percival, John, The Roman villa, London 1976, 196–8Google Scholar.

10 See in particular James, Edward, ‘Archaeology and the Merovingian monastery’, in Clarke, H. B. and Brennan, Mary (eds), Columbanus and Merovingian monasticism, Oxford 1981, 33–55Google Scholar.

11 On this whole issue see Frend, W. H. C., ‘The winning of the countryside’, this JOURNAL xviii (1967), 1–14Google Scholar(= Town and country, ch. ii).

12 For a guide to the bibliography on St Martin, and for a new and provocative treatment of him in his social and cultural context see Dam, R. Van, Leadership and community in late antique Gaul, Berkeley 1985Google Scholar. On Martin's activities in the Touraine see Stancliffe, C. E., ‘From town to country: the Christianisation of the Touraine, 370–600’, in Baker, D. (ed.), The Church in town and countryside (Studies in Church History xvi, 1979), 43–59Google Scholar. For Martin, as for many other issues raised in this paper, Prinz, F., Frtühes Mönchlum im Frankenreich, München-Wien 1965Google Scholar, is also of fundamental importance.

13 Severus, Sulpicius, Vita Martini 7Google Scholar. See the discussions by Vieillard-Troiekouroff, M., Les monuments religieux de la Gaule d'apres les auvres de Gre'goire de Tours, Paris 1976, 130–1Google Scholar; James, , ‘Archaeology’, 36Google Scholar; Prinz, , Frühes Mönchtum, 2 ifGoogle Scholar.

14 The key concept here, of course, is that of olium, which by this date had clearly acquired religious as well as secular connotations. For a useful discussion see Harries, , Sidonius, 103–24Google Scholar; cf. Rousseau, P., ‘In search of Sidonius the bishop’, Historia xxv (1976), 356–77Google Scholar.

15 The primary reports are those of Coquet, J., Revue Mabillon xliv (1954), 45–94Google Scholar, and Eygun, F., Gallia xii (1954), 380–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Notes on subsequent discoveries, are in Gallia xxi (1963), 461–6Google Scholar; xxiii (1965), 371; xxv (1967), 260–2. See also Coquet, J., Bulletin de la sociélté nationale des antiquaires de France (1966), 78–9Google Scholar.

16 Gregory, of Tours, , Vita Martini iv. 30Google Scholar, Monumenta Germaniae Historiae, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, i. 2.

17 Severus, Sulpicius, Vita Martini 10Google Scholar. 4; Gregory, of Tours, , Historiae Francorum x. 31Google Scholar. 3; Vita Martini i. 2Google Scholar, 35; ii. 39; iii. 42. The site is discussed by Vieillard-Troiekouroff, , Monuments, 155Google Scholar–7, by James, , ‘Archaeology’, 36Google Scholar, and by Prinz, , Friihes Monchtum, 21–4Google Scholar.

18 Hirschfeld, Y., The Judean desert monasteries in the Byzantine period, Yale 1992, 10Google Scholar.

19 Ibid. 21–3.

20 Gallia xxxviii (1980), 334Google Scholar.

21 Ibid, xliii (1985), 314.

22 For example James, , ‘Archaeology’, 36Google Scholar.

23 On this development in general see Chadwick, , Poetry and letters, 142fGoogle Scholar., and Prinz, , Frühes Monchtum, 47fGoogle Scholar.

24 Poetry and letters, 143.

25 Ep. iii. 18; it is interesting that Bruguière, M. -B., Littérature et droit dans la Gaule du Ve slide, Paris 1974, 256Google Scholar, takes this as evidence that Martin began a major tradition.

26 Leadership, 135–7.

27 On the particular difficulties of extracting factual information from Sidonius see Wood, I. N., ‘Continuity or calamity?: the constraints of literary models’, in Drinkwater, J. and Elton, H., Fifth-century Gaul: a crisis of identity?, Cambridge 1992, 9–18Google Scholar, and Percival, J., ‘Desperately seeking Sidonius: the nature of life in fifth-century Gaul’, Latomus (1996)Google Scholar, forthcoming.

28 Habitations gauloises et villas latines dans la cité des Médiomatrices, Paris 1906, 185fGoogle Scholar.

29 Reinhardt, H., Der St-Gallen Klosterplan, St-Gallen 1952Google Scholar.

30 Gregory, of Tours, , Vita patrum 15Google Scholar. 1.

31 For bibliography on the individual sites discussed, see the relevant entries in the Appendix.

32 The bibliography on this work is now very extensive, but of central importance, both as an introduction to the methodology and as containing many of the most important sites, is Balmelle, C., Recueil général des mosaiques de la Gaule, IV: Province d'Aquitaine, ii: Pays gascons, Paris 1987Google Scholar. For a discussion of the Sorde, l'Abbaye mosaics see pp. 32–54Google Scholar.

33 See, most strikingly, the villas at Séviac (Montréal, Gers, discussed below); St-Sever (Landes, cf. Balmelle, , Recueil, 71–105)Google Scholar; Labastide d'Armagnac (Landes, cf. ibid. 116–25).

34 Two types in particular are now thought to extend, in some forms, well into the fifth century: the tern sigillée manufactured in the Argonne region of north-eastern France: Bayard, D., ‘L'ensemble du grand amphithéâtre de Metz et la sigillée d'Argonne du Ve siècle’, Gallia xlvii (1990), 217–319Google Scholar; and the sigillée grise et orangée, sometimes referred to as ‘VVisigothique’ or ‘paléochretiénne’, which is widely distributed in southern and south-western Gaul: Rigoir, J., ‘Les sigillées paléochrétiennes grises et orangées’, Gallia xxvi (1968), 177–244CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Late forms of both types have been found on several dozen villa sites.

35 Reports in Gallia xxxii (1974), 480–1Google Scholar; xxxiv (1976), 487–9; xxxvi (1978), 415–18; xxxviii (1980), 491–2; xli (1983), 492–3; xliv (1986), 329. For a summary, and for a discussion of the mosaics, see Balmelle, , Recueil, 151–201Google Scholar.

36 For some interesting parallels in Britain see Blair, John, ‘Anglo-Saxon minsters: a topographical review’, in Blair, J. and Sharpe, R. (eds), Pastoral care before the parish, Leicester 1992, 226–66Google Scholar, in particular his remarks on the reuse of Roman buildings, pp. 235–46.1 am grateful to Professor H. R. Loyn for drawing my attention to this paper, and for much help and advice besides.

37 ‘A prelude to Columbanus: the monastic achievement in the Burgundian territories’, in Clarke, and Brennan, , Columbanus, 3–32Google Scholar.

38 For some examples see Wallace-Hadrill, J. M., The Frankish Church, Oxford 1983, 67–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 ‘Columbanus, the Frankish nobility and the territories east of the Rhine’, in Clarke, and Brennan, , Columbanus, 73–87Google Scholar.

40 Thus, in a Life of St Sequanus, cited by Wood, , ‘Prelude’, 4Google Scholar, there is a temporary settlement in what appear to be some villa ruins, but the monastery is finally established elsewhere on the saint's estates. 16

41 Vitae patrum Jurensium iii. 18Google Scholar, ed. Martine, F., SC cxlii. 412–15Google Scholar, discussed by James, , ‘Archaeology’, 36Google Scholar, and by Vieillard-Troiekouroff, , Monuments, 249–50Google Scholar.