The Christian State in Late Antiquity: Officials, Identities, and Religious Change, c. 400-600 CE

该项目寻求对古代晚期（约公元250-700年）基督教与国家之间关系的新理解。它考察了基督教思想如何渗透到古代末期罗马帝国统治的表现和实践中，并发展成为拜占庭帝国和后罗马时代欧洲的基本政治框架。这个基督教化的过程几乎没有被充分研究过。几个世纪以来，历史学家一直在争论公元312年君士坦丁皇帝皈依基督教的影响；最近的工作追踪了由此产生的教会合法化和扩张的复杂文化和社会影响。但是这些宗教变化的新历史已经把这个州抛在了后面。通过我的领导活动，我将寻求多样化和振兴古代晚期基督教政治思想的研究。我将在国际会议和利物浦的一次会议上主持小组讨论，最终出版一本书。这个网络将把讨论从对皇帝和主教之间的宪法关系的老式分析转移到探索更广泛的社会治理历史（例如，性别赞美和谩骂，皇室，种族话语，鬼神学）。它还将寻求通过整合以前未被充分研究的文本、语言和欧亚大陆西部地区来重塑旧的叙事。这些网络活动将以我于2019年6月在利物浦大学举办的一次会议为基础。我的个人研究项目采用了一种新颖的方法，专注于被忽视的基督教政治角色：不是皇帝、国王或主教，而是成千上万在罗马晚期和后罗马政权的宫殿和各省服务的行政人员。通常情况下，正是这些精英阶层让古地中海晚期的人们体验到国家的权力。该项目收集并分析了公元400年至600年间地中海世界的帝国和皇室官员的宗教信仰和习俗的文学和物质证据。通过从现代身份理论的角度考虑这些文本和对象，我将评估这些服务贵族的宗教信仰是如何影响他们的政治代理的。重建对这些基督教官员的当代期望，将为我们提供一扇窗口，让我们了解基督教政治思想是如何付诸行动的，以及如何塑造了后来罗马帝国及其继任者的日常治理现实。其结果将是对古代晚期从高卢到美索不达米亚社会中宗教变化如何重塑国家文化的新描述。这个项目的主要成果将是一本关于五世纪和六世纪帝国和皇室官员宗教身份的专著。这本书将讲述基督教化的更广泛的历史，“教会”和“国家”之间的关系，以及西方世俗和（去）世俗化思想的形成。该项目的主要影响因素将是与利物浦世界博物馆的文物策展人合作，帮助规划和实现2021年2月开幕的古典收藏品展览。作为这个团队的一员，我将利用我在这个项目中的研究和我更广泛的专业知识，为目前公众无法接触到的晚期古代物品的展示提供建议，并进行聚光灯下的演讲。这种伙伴关系将促进进一步的合作，包括我将与Bonnie Effros教授合作于2022年夏季组织的关于展示晚期古代材料最佳实践的研究日。总而言之，这个早期职业领导力奖学金将使我成为我所在领域的国际研究领导者，使我的第二本书项目取得成果，并发展一个实质性的知识交流和公众参与项目，该项目将与博物馆策展人和更广泛的公众接触。

This project seeks a new understanding of the relationship between Christianity and the state in late antiquity (c. 250-700 CE). It examines how Christian ideas permeated the representation and practice of governance in the later Roman Empire at the end of antiquity, and developed into the basic political framework of the Byzantine Empire and post-Roman Europe. This process of Christianization is hardly understudied. For centuries, historians have debated the implications of the Emperor Constantine's conversion in 312 CE; more recent work has traced the complex cultural and social impact of the resulting legalization and expansion of the church. But these new histories of religious change have left the state behind. Through my leadership activities, I will seek to diversify and revitalize the study of late ancient Christian political thought. I will run panels at international meetings and a conference in Liverpool leading to an edited volume. This network will move discussion away from old-fashioned analysis of the constitutional relationship between emperor and bishops to explore a wider social history of governance (e.g. gendered praise and invective, the imperial family, ethnic discourse, demonology). It will also seek to reshape old narratives by incorporating previously understudied texts, languages, and regions of western Eurasia. These network events will build on a conference I ran at the University of Liverpool in June 2019.My individual research project takes a novel approach by focusing on overlooked Christian political actors: not emperors, kings, or bishops, but rather the thousands of administrators who served late Roman and post-Roman regimes in their palaces and across their provinces. More often than not, it was these elites through whom people in the late ancient Mediterranean experienced the power of the state. This project assembles and analyses the literary and material evidence for the religious beliefs and practices of imperial and royal officials across the Mediterranean world between 400 and 600 CE. By considering these texts and objects in the light of modern theories of identity, I will evaluate how the religious affiliations of this service aristocracy impacted their political agency. Reconstructing contemporary expectations of these Christian officials will provide a window onto how Christian political thought was put into action and shaped the day-to-day reality of governance in the later Roman Empire and its successors. The result will be a new account of how religious change reshaped the culture of the state in societies from Gaul to Mesopotamia in late antiquity. The main outcome of this project will be a monograph on the religious identities of imperial and royal officials in the fifth and sixth centuries. This book will speak to wider histories of Christianization, the relationship between 'church' and 'state', and the formation of western ideas of secularity and (de)secularization.The major Impact element of the project will be a collaboration with the Antiquities curators of the Liverpool World Museum to help plan and realize an exhibit of their classical collections opening in February 2021. As part of this team, I will use my research in this project and my wider expertise to advise on the display of late ancient objects not currently accessible by the public, as well as giving spotlight talks. This partnership will feed into further collaborations, including a Study Day on best practice in exhibiting late ancient material which I will organize for summer 2022 in partnership with Prof. Bonnie Effros. In sum, this Early Career Leadership fellowship would allow me to establish myself as an international research leader in my field, bring my second book project to fruition, and develop a substantial Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement project which will engage with museum curators and a wider public.