Politics of Identity in Visigothic Spain

Jamie Wood, Ph.D. (2007) in Classics and Ancient History, University of Manchester, is Lecturer in Religions and Theology at the University of Manchester. He has published a number of articles on the social and intellectual history of late antique Spain.

"...Wood’s lively and nuanced study represents a solid contribution to the scholarship on Isidore of Seville, one that will doubtless prove stimulating to students of early medieval history-writing, Spain, and the political and social transformation of the late Roman world." - Jonathan Conant in Early Medieval Europe , 22 January 2015: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/emed.12094."...This study is a thoroughly polished and thought-through Manchester doctoral thesis revision that presses clearly and without strain a levelheaded claim on the center of gravity of Isidore’s substantial corpus for historiography. [...] this book is a valuable addition to Isidoriana, especially in English, and it is not hard to see why the historian should counterbid, to talk that around." - John Henderson in Speculum: DOI:10.1017/S0038713412004460.

• Acknowledgements ... viiList of Abbreviations ... ixNotes on Contributors ... xiPreface ... xiiiRestless Peasants and Scornful Lords: Lay Hostility to Holy Men and the Church in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages ... 1Peter SarrisMethodology, Authority and Spontaneity: Sources of Spiritual Truthfulness in Late Antique Texts and Life ... 11 Peter TurnerThe Cult of Saints and Religious Processions in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages ... 36Peter KritzingerAugustine, Donatists and Martyrdom ... 49Collin GarbarinoExcluded from Power? The Boundaries of Orthodoxy in the Works of Athanasius and John of Ephesus ... 62Philip WoodThe Conversion of King Caleb and the Religious and Political Dynamics of Sixth-Century Ethiopia and Southern Arabia ... 77Ralph LeeThe Emergence of Martyrs’ Shrines In Late Antique Iran: Conflict, Consensus and Communal Institutions ... 89Richard PayneOrthodox and Heretic in the Early Byzantine Cult(s) of Saints Cosmas and Damian ... 114Phil BoothThe God-Protected Empire? Scepticism towards the Cult of Saints in Early Byzantium ... 129Matthew Dal SantoImages of Authority? Imperial Patronage of Icons from Justinian II to Leo III ... 150Mike HumphreysHagiography as an Instrument for Political Claims in Carolingian Northern Italy: The Saint Syrus Dossier (BHL 7976 and 7978) ... 169Giorgia VocinoRelics and Texts: Hagiography and Authority in Ninth-Century Francia ... 187Gerda HeydemannConclusion: An Age of Saints? Power, Conflict and Dissent in Early Medieval Christianity ... 205Matthew Dal Santo and Phil BoothSelect Bibliography ... 215Index ... 219