RURAL CHRISTIANITY IN LATE ANTIQUE AND BYZANTINE SICILY, 5th-9th CENTURIES AD: AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND TEXTUAL ANALYSIS

罗马晚期到中世纪早期见证了教会在地中海和罗马世界的兴起和扩张，其标志是教会逐渐成为宗教、社区和行政管理的新焦点。然而，我们对这种空间和心态的重大转变的看法是非常以城市为导向的，而教会对景观的影响在时间顺序、影响和赞助方面却没有得到很好的理解。该项目将研究西西里岛农村基督教教堂和社区的证据，从5世纪末罗马西部的衰落到827年穆斯林征服。我将提出一些关键的问题，涉及到物理的、挖掘的、材料和文献来源：这些教堂是什么时候出现的，它们是如何融入景观的？他们展示了什么形式，这些形式告诉我们他们所服务的赞助人和社区的什么？教会在土地持有和管理中扮演什么角色？考古证据揭示了什么关于教堂的发展，特别是在7 -8世纪，当许多被认为是被遗弃的？最后，西西里如何融入更广泛的地中海讨论，讨论基督教机构对农村生活的影响？本文将分析5世纪至9世纪西西里岛农村基督教教堂和社区的证据，特别关注幸存的农村纪念碑。鉴于其地理位置在地中海海上接口的十字路口，西西里岛形成了拜占庭帝国的一个非常重要的省份。然而，西西里岛基督教社区的考古和文本证据仍未得到充分研究。现有的关于农村基督教的学术研究极为有限；唯一关于乡村教会的系统研究可以追溯到20世纪90年代末（Carra 1999）。最近的研究更侧重于微观区域分析（Wilson 2011），而历史研究主要集中在6世纪晚期教皇格里高利的文本上（Rizzo 2008）。我的研究，利用已发表和未发表的证据和档案数据，将填补这一空白；我已经在2016-18年在西西里岛的几个乡村教堂进行了实地调查，已经开始了这项重要的任务。结合考古、建筑和原始资源，我将：-创建一个新的农村教堂数据库，并生成一个历时的开源分布图。-阐明5 -9世纪之间农村教会和基督教社区的连续性/不连续性背后的过程、动因和年表。-创造一个新的西西里拜占庭乡村的历史考古形象。在方法方面，我的目标是每年在缺乏考古调查的地点进行8周的实地调查。一般方法基于非侵入性和非破坏性技术，将实地调查与人工制品检查、通过GPS、绘图和无人机图像记录结构相结合。我的博士项目将在很多层面上使其他学者受益。通过参加会议，我将提高对这一时期基督教的学术理解，并在更广泛的地中海背景下，对古代晚期到中世纪神圣景观的可能演变有更大的认识。我的研究也将影响现代西西里公众对他们后古典遗产的看法。这个地区有几个业余考古小组，我和其中一些人合作过，我将让他们清理纪念碑，组织年度会议。通过提高对这些古迹的了解，我将提高人们对这些早期中世纪建筑遗迹的认识，并有可能扩大文化遗产保护的界限，传统上关注的是古典遗迹。

The late Roman to early medieval period witnesses the rise and expansion of the Church across the Mediterranean and Roman world, and is marked by the progressive emergence of churches as new foci for religion, community, and administration. Yet our picture of this major transformation of space and mentality is very much urban-oriented and the Church's impact in the landscape is less well understood in terms of chronologies, influences, and patronage. This project will study evidence of Christian churches and communities in rural Sicily from the fall of the Roman West in the late 5th century until the Muslim conquest in 827. I will ask key questions with regard to the physical, excavated, material and documentary sources: when do these churches appear and how did they fit in the landscape? What forms do they exhibit and what do these tell us of patrons and the communities they served? What role did churches play in landholding and administration? What does archaeological evidence disclose about church development, especially during the 7th-8th centuries, when many are considered to have been abandoned? Finally, how does Sicily fit into wider Mediterranean discussions concerning the impact of Christian institutions on rural life?This thesis will analyse evidence of Christian churches and communities in rural Sicily from the 5th to 9th centuries with particular focus on surviving rural monuments. Given its geographical position at the crossroads of Mediterranean maritime interfaces, Sicily formed a highly important province of the Byzantine Empire. However, archaeological and textual evidence for Christian communities in Sicily has remained understudied. Existing scholarship on rural Christianity here is extremely limited; the only systematic study dealing with rural churches dates to the late 1990s (Carra 1999). More recent research has focused more narrowly on micro-regional analyses (Wilson 2011), while historical studies have mainly focused on the texts of Pope Gregory of the late 6th century (Rizzo 2008). My research, drawing on published and unpublished evidence and archive data, will fill this gap; I have undertaken field surveys in 2016-18 at several rural churches in Sicily to already start this important task. Combining archaeology, architecture, and primary sources I will: -Create a new database of rural churches and generate a diachronic open-source distribution map. -Shed light on the processes, agents, and chronologies behind the continuity/discontinuity in rural churches and Christian communities between 5th-9th centuries. -Produce a new historic-archaeological image of Byzantine rural Sicily. Regarding the methodology, I aim to conduct fieldwork for 8 weeks per year at sites where archaeological investigation is lacking. The general methodology is based on non-intrusive and non-destructive techniques, which combine field-surveys with examination of artefacts, recording of structures by means of GPS, drawings, and drone imagery.My doctoral project will benefit other scholars on many levels. Via attendance of conferences, I will improve scholarly understanding of Christianity in this period and develop greater recognition of possible evolutions of sacred landscapes from Late Antiquity to the Middle Ages in a wider Mediterranean context. My research will also impact on modern Sicilian public perceptions of their post-classical heritage. This region boasts several archaeological groups of amateurs, with some of whom I have collaborated, and whom I will involve in cleaning monuments, and organizing annual meetings. By improving the knowledge of these monuments, I will promote greater awareness of the physical remains of these early medieval structures, with potential for extending boundaries of cultural heritage conservation, traditionally focused on classical remains.