The iconoclastic controversy of the eighth and ninth centuries was of fundamental importance for the history of Europe. The Byzantine aspects of iconoclasm have been extensively studied; however, with the exception of the Libri Carolini, its manifestations in western Europe are not fully understood. Yet western authors of many types of texts were interested in iconoclasm, both for its political consequences and for its theological aspects, and mentions of iconoclastic issues in these texts have often gone unnoticed. In this essay (...) I will discuss the curiously oblique references to iconoclasm in one text, the Liber pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis by Andreas Agnellus, and will consider the implications of these discoveries both for the meaning of Agnellus's text and for our understanding of iconoclasm's impact in the West. (shrink)

Using the Liber Pontificalis and Liber Pontificalis ecclesiae Ravennatis, the official records of the churches of Rome and Ravenna, the author surveys the evidence for episcopal involvement in the many crises that impinged on these two important cities and on Byzantine Italy generally in the fifth and sixth centuries. Six categories of crisis are investigated. By a comparison of the two sources Neil examines the defining differences between Roman and Ravennan approaches to crisis management in Byzantine Italy.

Der Text des schmalen, reich illustrierten Bandes wurde bereits in dem Band „Venezia e Bisanzio. Atti del seminario di specializzazione in storia dell'arte promosso dall'Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arte in collaborazione con l'Ecole du Louvre. Venezia-Ravenna-Aquileia-Grado-Trieste-Parenzo, 12–21 settembre 2001“ veröffentlicht und liegt nun separat gedruckt vor.

Der Text des schmalen, reich illustrierten Bandes wurde bereits in dem Band „Venezia e Bisanzio. Atti del seminario di specializzazione in storia dell'arte promosso dall'Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arte in collaborazione con l'Ecole du Louvre. Venezia-Ravenna-Aquileia-Grado-Trieste-Parenzo, 12–21 settembre 2001“ veröffentlicht und liegt nun separat gedruckt vor.

This contribution analyzes the rhetoric surrounding natural disasters in historiographic sources, challenging our assumptions about the eschatological nature of late antique and medieval historical consciousness. Contrary to modern expectations, a large number of late antique and medieval sources indicate that earthquakes and other natural disasters were understood as signs from God, relating to theophanic encounters or divine wrath in the present time. Building on recent research on premodern concepts of time and historical consciousness, the article underscores the fact that eschatological (...) models of time and history-that is, the relentless linear, teleological progression of time towards the End of Days-was not how premodern people perceived the relationship between past, present, and future. The textual evidence presented here is supported by a fragmented and littleknown illuminated historiographic text, the Ravennater Annalen, housed today in the cathedral library in Merseburg. This copy of a sixth-century illustrated calendar from Ravenna contains unique depictions of earthquakes in the form of giants breathing fire. Like the textual sources, this visual document should not be read as a premonition of the End of Days, rather it visualizes the belief that divine agency and wrath caused natural disasters. (shrink)