Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-8zxtt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T15:24:14.175Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reflections on Early Christian Topography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

S. L. Greenslade
S. L. Greenslade*
Affiliation:
Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History, University of Oxford
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One day early in the sixth century a house by the convent of nuns in the city of Arles caught fire. As the flames drew nearer, the cloistered ladies, forbidden to go outside, flung books and treasures and finally themselves into cisterns which were mercifully empty (one might think some water useful). The praepositi ran to Bishop Caesarius, warning him that the fire was getting close to his cell. Quickly he came out, went along the wall to the spot where the flames burned brightest, shouted encouragement from the wall, and brought the fire under control by his prayers.

This story from the near-contemporary life of Caesarius throws an uncertain light upon the Christian topography of Arles. From the Vita and from the Rule which Caesarius gave to his nuns we know that he had brought the convent within the walls after the Franco-Burgundian siege of A.D. 508. The Rule speaks of turris juxta pomoerium, and there it is still, Tour des Mourgues, turrsi monacharum, at the south-west corner of the Roman walls. In that corner was the Abbaye de S. Césaire until the Revolution; and recently a cistern has been uncovered which may well be that in which the nuns took refuge. So far, so good. But where was the bishop? Any well-instructed schoolboy will convict me of a howler. If the praepositi told Caesarius that the fire was near cellae suae, it was their cell, not his. But few schoolboys are encouraged to read late Latin or even colloquial Latin of classical times. I shall continue to trust that they were not so pusillanimous as to leave the ladies to their fate and run trembling to the bishop in fear for their own rooms. They feared for him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 3: Papers read at the third winter and summer meetings of the Ecclesiastical History Society , 1966 , pp. 1 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1966

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliographical Note

An address of this kind does not require chapter and verse for every statement and illustration. I believe the following list of books and articles will be more useful.

Allais, Y., Djemila, Paris 1938.Google Scholar
d’Arzago, A. de C., La ‘Chiesa Maggiore’ di Milano, Milan 1952.Google Scholar
Benoit, F., Les cimetières suburbains d’Arles, Paris 1935.Google Scholar
Benoit, F., ‘Le premier baptistère d’Arles et l’abbaye Saint-Césaire,’ Cahiers archéologiques V (1951), 31–59.Google Scholar
Benoit, F., ‘Topographie monastique d’Arles au VIe siècle,’ in Études méro vingiennes, Paris 1953, 13–17.Google Scholar
Böhner, K., ‘Die Anfänge der Abteikirche St. Martin zu Trier,’ Trierer Zeitschrift 18 (1949), 107–131.Google Scholar
Calderini, A. and Paribeni, R., Milano, Rome 1951.Google Scholar
Calderini, A., Chierici, G., Cechelli, C., La Basilica di S. Lorenzo Maggiore in Milano, Milan n.d. (c. 1951).Google Scholar
Crowfoot, J.W., Early Churches in Palestine, London 1941.Google Scholar
Crowfoot, J.W., ‘The early Christian Churches,’ in Gerasa, ed. Kraeling, C. H., New Haven 1938, 171–262.Google Scholar
Dyggve, E., History of Salonitan Christianity, Oslo 1951.Google Scholar
Ewig, E., Trier im Merowingerreicb, Trier 1954.Google Scholar
Ewig, E., ‘Kirche und Civitas in der Merowingerzeit’ in Le Chiese ,. . all’ 800, Spoleto 1960,I, 45–71.Google Scholar
Ferrari, G., Early Roman Monasteries, Rome 1957.Google Scholar
Fremersdorf, F., Ältestes Christentum . . . in Köln, Berlin 1956.Google Scholar
Ganshof, F. L., Étude sur le développement des villes entre Loire et Rhin au Moyen Age, Paris 1943.Google Scholar
Grabar, A., Martyrium, 3 vols. Paris 1943-6.Google Scholar
Hoddinott, R. F., Early Byzantine Churches in Macedonia and Southern Serbia, London 1963.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubert, J., L’art préroman, Paris 1938.Google Scholar
Hubert, J., L’architecture religieuse du haut Moyen Age en France, Paris 1952.Google Scholar
Hubert, J., ‘Recherches sur la topographie religieuse des cités de la Gaule,’ Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Inscriptions (1945).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hubert, J., ‘La topographie religieuse d’Arles au VIe siècle,’ Cahiers archéolo giques II (1947), 17–27.Google Scholar
Hubert, J., ed., Villes episcopales de Provence, Paris 1954 (including Arles and Marseille by Benoit, F.).Google Scholar
Kempf, T. K., ‘Die altchristliche Bischofsstadt Trier,’ in Rheinischer Verein für Denkmalpflege, 1952, 47–64.Google Scholar
Kempf, T. K., ‘Ecclesia Cachedralis eo quod ex duabus ecclesiis perficitur,’ in Arte del Primo Millennio, Turin 1953.Google Scholar
Lassus, J., Sanctuaires chrétiens de Syrie, Paris 1947.Google Scholar
Lavedan, P., Les villes françaises, Paris n.d. (c. 1960).Google Scholar
de Maillé, Marquise, Recherches sur les origines chrétiennes de Bordeaux, Paris 1959.Google Scholar
Mâle, E., La Fin du Paganisme en Gaule, Paris 1950.Google Scholar
Marec, E., Hippone la Royale, Algiers 1954.Google Scholar
Marrou, H. I., ‘L’origine orientale des diaconies romaines’, Mélanges d’archéologie et d’histoire, 1940.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Menis, G. C., La Basilica paleocristiana nelle Diocesi settentrionali della Metropoli d’Aquileia, Rome 1958.Google Scholar
Miltner, F., Epbesos, Vienna 1958.Google Scholar
Vercauteren, F., Étude sur les Civitates de la Belgique seconde, Brussels 1934.Google Scholar
Vieillard, R., Recherches sur les origines de la Rome chrétienne, Mâcon 1941.Google Scholar
Perkins, J. B. Ward and Goodchild, R. G., ‘The Christian Antiquities of Tripolitania,’ Archaeologia 95 (1953), 1–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Krautheimer, R., Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, London 1965,should be consulted on many of the points raised in this address.Google Scholar