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ABSTRACT
Eugippius’ Life of Severinus is a text in which society is described through the dichotomy between Romans and barbarians. In this paper, I examine how exactly Eugippius imagines this polarity and to what rhetorical and persuasive ends he employs it. In particular, I focus on his complex portrayal of the barbarians which reveals his views on what place they might occupy in the Roman and Christian vision of history and politics. By examining the social and political ideas in the Life of Severinus we can trace how the hagiographer perceived the disintegrating societies of the West in the fifth and sixth centuries and what attitudes he advocated that could help de-escalate violence and overcome divisions. Finally, I discuss the extent to which Eugippius’ representation of the relationship between Romans and barbarians corresponded to the interests and anxieties of his Italian audience living under Ostrogothic rule.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Aleksander Paradziński and two anonymous reviewers for helpful suggestions that allowed be to considerably improve the paper. All mistakes which remain are entirely my own.
Notes
1 The following abbreviations are used in this article: CCSL: Corpus Christianorum Series Latina; CSEL: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum; LLT: Brepols Library of Latin Texts; MGH AA: Monumenta Germaniae Historica Auctores Antiquissimi; MGH SRM: Monumenta Germaniae Historica Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum; PL: Patrologia Latina; SCh: Sources Chrétiennes; TLL: Thesaurus Linguae Latinae; TTH: Translated Texts for Historians. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. Eugippius, Epistula ad Paschasium, ed. Emil Vetter and Rudolf Noll, Schriften und Quellen der Alten Welt 11 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963), 41 (c. 1). On the term commemoratorium and its link with the art of memory see Antonio Quacquarelli, ‘La Vita sancti Severini di Eugippio: etopeia e sentenze’, in Aquileia e l’arco alpino orientale. Atti della 6 settimana di studi aquileiesi, 25 aprile–1 maggio 1975 (Udine: Arti grafiche friulane, 1976), 347–74 (348–50).
2 Eugippius, Epistula ad Paschasium, 44 (c. 9).
3 Eugippius, Vita Severini, ed. Emil Vetter and Rudolf Noll, Schriften und Quellen der Alten Welt 11 (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1963), 106 (c. 40.4). The text is reprinted with some changes by Philippe Régerat in Vie de saint Séverin, SCh 374 (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 1991). On the Exodus imagery in the Life of Severinus see Philippe Régerat, ‘Vir Dei as Leitbild in der Spätantike’, in Zwischen Historiographie und Hagiographie: Ausgewählte Beiträge zur Erforschung der Spätantike, ed. Jürgen Dummer and Meinolf Vielberg (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005), 61–78 (69).
4 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 112 (c. 44.5).
5 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 114 (c. 46.2).
6 Marc Van Uytfanghe, ‘Éléments évangéliques dans la structure et la composition de la «Vie de saint Sévérin» d’Eugippius’, Sacris Erudiri 21 (1972): 147–59; Quacquarelli, ‘La Vita sancti Severini di Eugippio’, 350–1; Peter Turner, Truthfulness, Realism, Historicity: A Study in Late Antique Spiritual Literature (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012), 83.
7 Matt 15: 24. Cf. Matt 10: 6.
8 Rev 15: 4. Cf. Ps 66: 4; Zech 14: 16; Is 66: 23. On the use of the biblical concepts related to peoples in late antique literature see Gerda Heydemann, ‘People(s) of God? Biblical Exegesis and the Language of Community in Late Antique and Early Medieval Europe’, in Meanings of Community across Medieval Eurasia, ed. Eirik Hovden, Christina Lutter, and Walter Pohl (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 27–60. For the nuanced view of Christian universalism and its limitations see in particular Peter Van Nuffelen, ‘Theology vs. Genre? The Universalism of Christian Historiography in Late Antiquity’, in Historiae Mundi: Studies in Universal History, ed. Peter Liddel and Andrew Fear (London: Duckworth, 2010), 162–75; Peter van Nuffelen, Orosius and the Rhetoric of History, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 173–4.
9 For the Bible used to strengthen the discourses of ethnicity, see Walter Pohl, ‘Introduction – Strategies of Identification: A Methodological Profile’, in Strategies of Identification: Ethnicity and Religion in Early Medieval Europe, ed. Walter Pohl and Gerda Heydemann, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 13 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2013), 32–8. As has been argued repeatedly in medieval studies in recent decades, this does not necessarily mean that early medieval peoples adopted an ethno-religious exclusivism. See Mayke de Jong, ‘Introduction – Rethinking Early Medieval Christianity: A View from the Netherlands’, Early Medieval Europe 7 (1998): 261–75 for a robust survey of the earlier literature, and more recently, Conor O’Brien, ‘Chosen Peoples and New Israels in the Early Medieval West’, Speculum 95 (2020): 978–1009.
10 Patrick Amory, People and Identity in Ostrogothic Italy, 489–554, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought: Fourth Series (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 124.
11 The Life of Severinus has been thoroughly researched as one of the most important sources about the end of Roman power in the provinces in the fifth century. See (among others) Géza Alföldy, Noricum, trans. Anthony Birley, History of the Provinces of the Roman Empire (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1974), 213–27; E.A. Thompson, Romans and Barbarians: The Decline of the Western Empire, Wisconsin Studies in Classics (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 113–33; Rajko Bratož, Severinus von Noricum und seine Zeit: Geschichtliche Anmerkungen (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1983); Herwig Wolfram, Die Geburt Mitteleuropas (Berlin: Siedler, 1987), 36–68 (see also Herwig Wolfram Österreichische Geschichte 378–907. Grenzen und Räume: Geschichte Österreichs vor seiner Entstehung [Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2003], 32–57); Bryan Ward-Perkins, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 17–20.
12 See especially the seminal article of Wolfgang Fritze, ‘Universalis gentium confessio. Formeln, Träger und Wege universalmissionarischen Denkens im 7. Jahrhunderts’, Frühmittelalterliche Studien 3 (1969): 78–130. Fritze argues that the formulation of the missionary ideas that drove the movement from the seventh century onward, especially in the Frankish kingdoms and in Anglo-Saxon Britain, should be attributed to Gregory the Great. Later scholars usually point out that Fritze overstates the dominant role of the papacy in this process. See (among others) Walter Pohl, Die ethnische Wende des Frühmittelalters und ihre Auswirkungen auf Ostmitteleuropa (Leipzig: Leipziger Universitätsverlag, 2009), Stefan Esders, ‘Nationes quam plures conquiri: Amandus of Maastricht, Compulsory Baptism, and Christian Universal Mission in Seventh-Century Gaul’, in Motions of Late Antiquity: Essays on Religion, Politics, and Society in Honour of Peter Brown, ed. Jamie Kreiner and Helmut Reimitz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2016), 269–71. See also Bruno Dumézil, Les racines chrétiennes de l’Europe. Conversion et liberté dans les royaumes barbares Ve–VIIIe siécle (Paris: Fayard, 2005), 155–61.
13 Guy Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 376–568, Cambridge Medieval Textbooks (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 53.
14 Further on, I give a few well known examples from the fifth century, but it should be noted that the rhetorical use of the barbarians had a full Greek and Roman tradition. The scholarship is voluminous, see among others, Yves Albert Dauge, Le barbare: recherches sur la conception romaine de la barbarie et de la civilisation, Collection Latomus 176 (Brussels: Latomus, 1981); Edith Hall, Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition through Tragedy, Oxford Classical Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Emma Dench, From Barbarians to New Men: Greek, Roman, and Modern Perceptions of Peoples of the Central Apennines, Oxford Classical Monographs (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995); Alain Chauvot, Opinions romaines face aux barbares au IVe siècle ap. J.-C, Études d’archéologie et d’histoire ancienne (Paris: De Boccard, 1998).
15 On the barbarians as possibly better than the Donatists and circumcelliones, see Augustine, Epistula 111, ed. Alois Goldbacher, CSEL 34/2 (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1898), 643 (c. 1). On other examples of Augustine using the topos of the barbarian to attack heretics and schismatics, see Tankred Howe, Vandalen, Barbaren und Arianer bei Victor von Vita (Frankfurt am Main: Verlag Antike, 2007), 316. On Augustine’s attitude towards the barbarians, especially his reaction to the sack of Rome, but also at the end of his life, when the Vandals were about to conquer Africa, see Hans-Joachim Diesner, ‘Augustinus und die Barbaren der Völkerwanderung’, Revue des études augustiniennes 23 (1977): 83–91. Diesner argues that Augustine took the barbarians more seriously in the last years of his life than in the period after 410, but that the barbarians were generally less of a problem for him than the heretics) and Gillian Clark, ‘Augustine and the Merciful Barbarians’, in Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World: Cultural Interaction and the Creation of Identity in Late Antiquity, ed. Ralph Mathisen and Danuta Shanzer (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2011), 33–42. Clark notes Augustine’s curious silence about the Christian barbarians, which can be interpreted in two ways: as a sign of his Roman exclusivism or as his way of distancing himself from the debates on ethnicity. More generally, on Augustine’s theology of history in the context of the fall of Rome and barbarian invasions, see François Paschoud, Roma aeterna: Études sur le patriotisme romain dans l’Occident latin à l’époque des grandes invasions (Neuchâtel : Institut suisse de Rome, 1967), 234–75 and Robert Markus, Saeculum: History and Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989).
16 Van Nuffelen, Orosius and the Rhetoric of History, 170–85. For a slightly different interpretation see Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Orosius und die Barbaren: Zu den umstrittenen Vorstellungen eines spätantiken Geschichtstheologen’, Historia: Zeitschrift für Alte Geschichte 29 (1980): 356–76.
17 See David Lambert, ‘The Uses of Decay: History in Salvian’s De gubernatione Dei’, Augustinian Studies 30 (1999): 115–30; Van Nuffelen, Orosius and the Rhetoric of History, 170–85; Susanna Elm, ‘New Romans: Salvian of Marseilles On the Governance of God’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 25 (2017): 1–28.
18 See also Matthias Skeb, ‘Mit Fremden Leben. Gottesbild und Umgang mit Fremden in der Vita Severini des Eugippius’, Studia Monastica 51 (2009): 33–48. Skeb argues that Severinus is portrayed not only as a protector of the Romans, but also of the barbarians, in order to make him an ‘integration figure’ who promotes a modus vivendi between the two.
19 See Abigail K. Gometz, ‘Eugippius of Lucullanum: A Biography’ (PhD diss., University of Leeds, 2008), 217–44; Philippe Régerat, ‘Eugippe et l’Église d’Afrique’, in Romanité et cité chrétienne. Permanences et mutations, intégration et exclusion du Ier au VIe siècle. Mélanges en l’honneur d’Yvette Duval, ed. Françoise Prévot (Paris: De Boccard, 2000), 263–72; Kate Cooper, ‘The Widow as Impresario: Gender, Legendary Afterlives, and Documentary Evidence in Eugippius’ Vita Severini’, in Eugippius und Severin: Der Autor, der Text und der Heilige, ed. Walter Pohl (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2001), 53–63; P.A.B. Llewellyn, ‘The Roman Clergy during the Laurentian Schism: A Preliminary Analysis’, Ancient Society 8 (1977): 245–75; P.A.B. Llewellyn, ‘The Roman Church during the Laurentian Schism: Priests and Senators’, Church History 45 (1976): 417–27; Eckhard Wirbelauer, Zwei Päpste in Rom. Der Konflikt zwischen Laurentius und Symmachus (498–514). Studien und Texte, Quellen und Forschungen zur antiken Welt 16 (Munich: Tuduv, 1993), 61.
20 Populus: Eugippius, Vita Severini, 59 (c. 1.4), 64 (c. 4.7), 75–6 (c. 12.2), 82 (c. 17.4), 86 (c. 21.1), 92 (c. 27.1); plebs: 60 (c. 2.2), 74 (c. 11.2), 96 (c. 30.5).
21 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 98 (c. 31.3).
22 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 98 (c. 31.4).
23 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 98 (c. 31.6).
24 Walter Pohl, ‘Romanness: A Multiple Identity and Its Changes’, Early Medieval Europe 22 (2014): 406–18.
25 On Huns: Eugippius, Vita Severini, 59 (c. 1.1), 65–6 (c. 5.1–2); on Goths: 82 (c. 17.4), 65 (c. 5.1), 66 (c. 5.3, 6.1), 68 (c. 6.5), 86 (c. 22.2), 98 (c. 31.1, 31.6), 104 (c. 40.1), 107–8 (c. 42.1); on Rugians: 112 (c. 44.4); on Alamanni: 84 (c. 19.1), 90 (c. 25.3), 92 (c. 27.1–2), 98 (c. 31.4); on Heruls: 90 (c. 24.3); on Thuringians: 92 (c. 27.3), 98 (c. 31.4).
26 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 78 (c. 14.3).
27 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 66 (c. 6.1): Rugus genere; 101 (c. 35.1): barbarus genere.
28 Jeremy duQuesnay Adams, The Populus of Augustine and Jerome: A Study in the Patristic Sense of Community (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971), 110.
29 A search on gens in Orosius’ Historia adversus paganos in the LLT gives a list of 129 passages; on populus, of 122 passages. Gens is the most common word to describe various non-Roman peoples (see, for example, geographical and ethnographical passages in Book 1; the peoples from across the Rhine and the Danube in Book 7 are usually gentes). Gens is not used in reference to the Romans, which is usually a populus (e.g. Orosius, Historia adversus paganos, ed. Karl Zangemeister, CSEL 5 (Vienna: C. Gerold, 1882), 47 (I, 6.2), 244 (IV, 14.1), 304 (V, 12.4), 356 (VI, 2.1), 548 (VII, 40.1). The latter term appears also in its biblical connotation (populus Dei, see 56 (I, 10.8), 499 (VII, 27.14)). The Goths as populus, see 559 (VII, 43.2): Gothorum tunc populis Athaulfus praeerat.
30 See especially Benedykt Zientara, ‘Populus – Gens – Natio. Einige Probleme aus dem Bereich der ethnischen Terminologie des frühen Mittelalters’, in Nationalismus in vorindustrieller Zeit, ed. Otto Dann (Munich: R. Oldenburg Verlag, 1986), 11–20; Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘Gens: Terminology and Perception of the “Germanic” Peoples From Late Antiquity to the Early Middle Ages’, in The Construction of Communities in the Early Middle Ages: Texts, Resources and Artefacts, ed. Richard Corradini, Max Diesenberger, and Helmut Reimitz (Leiden: Brill, 2003), 39–64.
31 Patrick J. Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 63.
32 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 58 (c. 1.4), 60 (c. 2.1), 68 (c. 8.2), 70 (c. 8.4), 86 (c. 20.1), 92 (c. 27.1–2), 98 (c. 31.6).
33 Eugippius, Epistula ad Paschasium, 44 (c. 8); Vita Severini, 74 (c. 11.2): Marciani … civis eiusdem loci; 90 (c. 26.1): leprosus quidam Mediolanensis territorii; 100 (c. 34.1): Teio … de lonquinquis regionibus; 114 (c. 46.3): Processa … civis Neapolitana.
34 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 92 (c. 27). Interestingly, the use of the adjective genitalis to describe homeland is rare in classical Latin, but becomes common in Late Antiquity, especially among Christian writers: TLL 6.2, 1812, s.v. genitalis. Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘“Roman” Identity in Late Antiquity, with Special Attention to Gaul’, in Transformations of Romanness, Early Medieval Regions and Identities, ed. Walter Pohl et al., Millennium Studies 71 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 255–74 (256–7), notes the use of gens or natio with ‘geographical, ethnic or geographical-cum-ethnic terms’ in the epigraphic evidence. See also Christian Stadermann, ‘Das Primat lokaler Identitäten im merowingischen Gallien des 6. Jahrhunderts’, in ‘Civitates’, ‘regna’ und Eliten: Die ‘regna’ des Frühmittelalters als Teile eines ‘unsichtbaren Römischen Reiches’, ed. Jürgen Strothmann (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2021), 175–200.
35 TLL 6.2, 1848, s.v. gens II (notes both instances in which gens and natio are distinguished and those in which they are treated as synonyms).
36 Eugippius, Epistula ad Paschasium 42, 44 (c. 8).
37 Eugippius, Vita Severini 68 (c. 8.3): aurifices barbari; 100 (c. 35.1): barbarus genere. When they apply, Eugippius also uses ethnic terms to describe certain individuals (Rugus genere, rex Rugiorum, Alemannorum).
38 Fritz Mitthof, ‘Zur Neustiftung von Identität unter imperialer Herrschaft: Die Provinzen des Römischen Reiches als ethnische Entitäten’, in Visions of Community in the Post-Roman World, ed. Walter Pohl, Clemens Gantner, and Richard E. Payne (Farnham, UK: Ashgate, 2012), 61–72; Javier Martínez Jiménez, ‘Urban Identity and Citizenship in the West between the Fifth and Seventh Centuries’, Al-Masaq. Journal of Medieval Mediterranean 32 (2020): 87–108.
39 A foedus in Comagenis from which the Romans had to be saved by Severinus: Eugippius, Vita Severini, 58 (c. 1.4).
40 Halsall, Barbarian Migrations and the Roman West, 55.
41 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 62 (c. 4.1), 72 (c. 10.2), 96 (c. 30.1).
42 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 72 (c. 10.2): latrones quos vulgus scamaras appellabat.
43 See Régerat, introduction to Vie de saint Séverin, 208n1 (with references to other sources mentioning scamarae in the Balkans); Herwig Wolfram ‘Österreichische Geschichte 378–907: Grenzen und Räume’, in Geschichte Österreichs vor seiner Entstehung (Vienna: Ueberreuter, 2003), 44–6; John Haldon, Byzantium in the Seventh Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 31; John Haldon, The Empire That Would Not Die: The Paradox of Eastern Roman Survival, 640–740 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016), 184.
44 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 60 (c. 3: famine in Favianis); 74, 76 (c.12: locusts); 82, 84 (c. 18: blight). To address these disasters, the same approach is taken as with barbarian violence: by heeding Severinus’ warnings and not relying too heavily on human means.
45 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 58, 60, 62 (c. 1–2).
46 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 86, 88 (c. 22).
47 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 92 (c. 27).
48 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 62, 64 (c. 4).
49 Eugippius, Vita Severini 84 (c. 19.1). On Gibuldus see D. Geuenich, Reallexikon der Germanischen Altertumskunde 12 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1998), 69–71, s.v. ‘Gibuldus’.
50 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 84 (c. 19.2).
51 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 72 (c. 10.2).
52 There is no evidence of the spread of Christianity among the Alemanni before the seventh century. J.F. Drinkwater, The Alamanni and Rome 213–496 (Caracalla to Clovis) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 117; Sönke Lorenz, ‘Die Alemannen auf dem Weg zum Christentum’, in Die Alemannen und das Christentum: Zeugnisse eines kulturellen Umbruchs, Schriften zur südwestdeutschen Landeskunde 48 (Leinfelden-Echterdingen: DRW-Verlag Weinbrenner, 2003), 65–111; Bernhard Maier, ‘Early Christianity in South-West Germany: The Conversion of the Alamanni’, in Transforming Landscapes of Belief in the Early Medieval Insular World and Beyond, ed. Nancy Edwards, Máire Ní Mhaonaigh, and Roy Flechner, Cultural Encounters in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages 23 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2017), 411–28.
53 Luke 8: 37; Matt 27: 19; John 18: 6.
54 For example, in the fifth-century Passio Albani 9–10, ed. M. Winterbottom, ‘The Earliest Passion of St Alban’, Invigilata Lucernis 37 (2015), 113–27 (118), the executioner converts under the impression of the martyr’s death and is subsequently martyred too; then, ‘the terrified judge, struck down by so great a novelty’ gives the order to stop the persectution. In Venantius Fortunatus’ Vita Paterni, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH AA 4.2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1885), 53 (c. V [15]) the monk Paternus and his companion interrupt pagan rites and destroy the pots of food. The people celebrating rites do not resist out of fear. See also the episodes in Ennodius’ Life of Epiphanius in which the bishop of Pavia impresses the barbarian (heretical) rulers and thus is able to achieve his diplomatic goals: Ennodius, Vita Epiphanii, ed. Friedrich Vogel, MGH AA 7 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1885), 90–1 (c. 53: Ricimer agrees to the peaceful resolution of his conflict with the emperor Anthemius), 95 (c. 89–91: Euric agrees to conclude a truce), 96 (c. 101: Odoacer shows great respect to Epiphanius), 97–9 (c. 109–10, 116–7: Theoderic is impressed by Epiphanius and frees captives at his request), 99 (c. 118–9: the savage Rugians are mitigated by Epiphanius).
55 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 72, 74 (c. 11).
56 Ennodius, Vita Antonii, ed. Friedrich Vogel, MGH AA 7 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1885), 187 (c. 13–14). Christian Rohr, ‘Ergänzung oder Widerspruch? Severin und das Spätantike Noricum in der Vita Antonii des Ennodius’, in Eugippius und Severin: Der Autor, der Text und der Heilige, ed. Walter Pohl (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2001), 109–22 (115), says that the two lives are similar in this respect but this does not seem correct: there is no indication in the Life of Severinus that the death of the presbyter Maximinus in the hands of the Heruls was a human sacrifice. Rohr is also wrong saying that the Life of Severinus attests ‘pagan attacks’ by Rugians, Alemanni, and Thuringians. The first were Christian, while in the stories about Alemanni and Thuringians Eugippius does not say anything about their paganism.
57 In the editio princeps by Laurentius Surius, De probatis sanctorum historiis, vol. 1 (Cologne: Gervinus Calenius et haeredes, 1570), 153, the Life of Severinus is entitled Vita Severini, Norici apostoli, per Eugippium eius contemporaneum. The title ‘Apostle of Noricum (or Noricans)’ was also used by later editors. The Life of Severinus was reprinted in PL 62, 1167–200 under the title Vita Severini Noricorum apostoli, which secured the popularity of this designation until more recent editions, which avoid it as ahistorical and inaccurate.
58 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 68 (c. 6.5).
59 Eugippius makes reference to the Life of Ambrose in Vita Severini, 102 (c. 36.2–3).
60 Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii, ed. A.A.R. Bastiaensen, Vita di Cipriano, Vita di Ambrogio, Vita di Agostino (Milan: Fondazione Lorenzo Valla, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1975), 100 (c. 36). On Fritigil’s conversion in the context of the lack of missionary activity of the Western church among the barbarians, see Ralph W. Mathisen, ‘Barbarian Bishops and the Churches in Barbaricis Gentibus during Late Antiquity’, Speculum 72, no. 3 (1997): 664–97 (667). Eugippius makes reference to the Life of Ambrose in Vita Severini, 102 (c. 36.2–3).
61 Prosper of Aquitaine, De vocatione omnium gentium, ed. R.J. Teske and D. Weber, CSEL 97 (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2009), 193 (2.54). Czesław Bartnik, ‘L’universalisme de l’histoire du salut dans le De vocatione omnium gentium’, Revue d’histoire ecclesiastique 68 (1973): 731–58; Walter Pohl, ‘Identità etniche e cristianesimi tra tarda antichità e alto medioevo’, Reti Medievali Rivista 16 (2015): 59–72. On the importance of the captives for the spread of Christianity outside the empire see Noel Lenski, ‘Captivity and Romano-Barbarian Interchange’, in Mathisen and Shanzer, Romans, Barbarians, and the Transformation of the Roman World, 185–98 (195–6). Avitus of Vienne, Epistula 42, ed. Elena Malaspina, Avit de Vienne. Lettres (Paris: Belles Lettres, 2016), 102–6 (it is letter 46 in the MGH edition) encourages Clovis to missionize the distant pagan peoples. It is one of the earliest formulations of the idea what ow the mission outside the Roman empire should look like. See Danuta Shanzer and Ian Wood, eds., Avitus of Vienne: Letters and Selected Prose, TTH 38 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2002), 373n3; Uta Heil, Avitus von Vienne und die homöische Kirche der Burgunder, Patristische Texte und Studien 66 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 44. A rare example of a bishop who was supposed to convert barbarians is Nicetas of Remesiana as portrayed in Paulinus of Nola, Carmen 17, ed. Wilhelm Hartel, CSEL 30 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1894), 91 (vv. 201–4), 93 (vv. 261–76). We may also add John Chrystostom’s pastoral work among the Goths in Constantinople, in Crimea, and at the Danube. See J.H.W.G. Liebeschuetz, Barbarians and Bishops: Army, Church, and State in the Age of Arcadius and Chrysostom (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990), 169–70.
62 Eugippius, Excerpta ex operibus s. Augustini, ed. Pius Knöll, CSEL 9/1 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1886). This edition has been much criticized because of Knöll’s decision to base the text on two manuscripts which, as further research amply demonstrated, did not preserve the version closest to the archetype. See especially Michael Gorman, ‘The Manuscript Tradition of Eugippius’ Excerpta ex operibus sancti Augustini’, Revue Bénédictine 92 (1982), 7–32, 229–65 and Gometz, ‘Eugippius of Lucullanum: a Biography’, 76–86. On the dating to the period between 492 and 511 (with further references) see Jérémy Delmulle and Warren Peze, ‘Un manuscrit de travail d’Eugippe : Le Ms. Città del Vaticano, BAV, Pal. Lat. 210’, Sacris Erudiri 55 (2016), 195–258 (203–4).
63 Alfons Fürst, ‘Eugippius’, in The Oxford Guide of Historical Reception of Augustine, ed. Karla Pollmann and Willemien Otten (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 1: 957–8. The excerpts framing the collection are both cited by Eugippius in extenso and are focused on the theme of love. Eugippius, Excerpta, 34–49 (c. 1), 1096–1100 (c. 348), cf. Augustine, Epistula 167, ed. Alois Goldbacher, CSEL 44 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1904), 586–609; Sermo 350, PL 39, 1533–5. On possible functions of this framing device see Emanuela Colombi, ‘Quelques observations sur les stratégies de la compilation d’Eugippe’, in Flores Augustini : Augustinian Florilegia in the Middle Ages, ed. Jérémy Delmulle et al. (Leuven: Peeters, 2020), 47–82 (53–4).
64 Alfons Fürst, ‘Eugippius’, 958. Eugippius, Excerpta, 972–4 (c. 301).
65 Eugippius, Excerpta, 109 (c. 9.19): si post tantum sanguinem, tantos ignes, tot cruces martyrum tanto fertilius et uberius usque ad barbaras nationes ecclesiae pullularunt. Cf. Augustine, De vera religione, ed. Klaus-Detlef Daur, CCSL 32 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1962), 191 (c. 3.5).
66 Eugippius, Excerpta, 494–6, 677–9 (c. 139, 210). Cf. Augustine, De civitate Dei, ed. Bernard Dombart and Alfons Kalb (Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1983), 412 (XX, 5); De fide et operibus, ed. Joseph Zycha, CSEL 41 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1900), 97 (c. 49).
67 Eugippius, Excerpta, 457 (c. 124.141): Si ergo latet [i.e. adventus Domini], quando ecclesia fructificante atque crescente universus omnino a mari usque ad mare orbis implebitur, procul dubio latet, quando finis erit; ante quippe non erit. Cf. Augustine, Epistula 199, 289 (c. 45). On the changing approach of Augustine to the tempora christiana and apocalypticism see especially the seminal study of Robert A. Markus, Saeculum: History and Society in the Theology of St Augustine (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1970). See also J. Kevin Coyle, ‘Augustine and Apocalyptic: Thoughts on the Fall of Rome, the Book of Revelation, and the End of the World’, Florilegium 9 (1987): 1–34; Gillian Clark, ‘Imperium and the City of God: Augustine on Church and Empire’, Studies in Church History 54 (2018): 46–70.
68 On the Rugians on Attila’s side in the battle on the Catalaunian Plains in 451, see Sidonius Apollinaris, Carmen VII, ed. Christian Luetjohann, MGH AA 8 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1887), 211 (v. 321).
69 On the rebellion and the battle of Nedao, see Jordanes, Getica, ed. Theodor Mommsen, MGH AA 5.1 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1882), 125 (c. 259–63). Some Rugians were settled in Thrace and served in the East Roman army: Jordanes, Getica, 126–7 (c. 266); John of Antioch, Fragmenta quae supersunt omnia, ed. Sergei Mariev, Corpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae 47 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 436, 438 (frg. 237.4, 237.7) and Roland Steinacher, Rom und die Barbaren: Völker im Alpen- und Donauraum (300–600) (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2017), 114–5. On the history of the Rugians in this period see especially Wolfram, Die Geburt Mitteleuropas, 63–8 (Wolfram Österreichische Geschichte 378–907, 53–7).
70 More than twenty Romans are mentioned by name in comparison to twelve barbarians (including the monk Bonosus who is said to be of ‘barbarian origin’), five of whom are Rugians. Apart from Odoacer, the Rugian protagonists are the only barbarians who appear in the narrative more than once.
71 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 98 (c. 31).
72 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 64 (c. 4.12).
73 We have no direct sources on the conversion of the Rugians. The link with the Goths: Philippe Régerat, ‘Der Arianismus in der Vita Severini’, Wiener Studien 111 (1998): 243–51 (246–7). Jacques Zeiller, Les origines chrétiennes dans les provinces danubiennes de l’Empire Romain (Paris: E. de Boccard, 1918), 540, surmised that the Rugians became Christians through the Gepids, their allies against the Huns in the 450s. The presence of Christians in the Hunnic armies is confirmed by Leo I, Epistula 159, PL 53, 1136–40.
74 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 68 (c. 8.1). Michel Meslin, Les Ariens d’Occident: 335–430, Patristica Sorbonensia 8 (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1967); Marta Szada, ‘The Debate over the Repetition of Baptism between Homoians and Nicenes at the End of the Fourth Century’, Journal of Early Christian Studies 27 (2019): 635–63.
75 See Samuel Cohen, ‘Gelasius and the Ostrogoths: Jurisdiction and Religious Community in Late Fifth-century Italy’, Early Medieval Europe 30 (2022): 20–44 (22).
76 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 64, 66 (c. 5.1–4).
77 Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii, 58–60 (c. 4–6).
78 Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii, 74 (c. 16).
79 Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii, 74 (c. 18).
80 Vita Caesarii, ed. Germain Morin, S. Caesarii opera omnia (Maredsous: s.n., 1942), 2: 307 (I, 30); Gregory of Tours, Gloria confessorum, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM 1.2 (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1959), 326–7 (c. 47).
81 Avitus of Vienne, Contra Arrianos, ed. Rudolf Peiper, MGH AA 6.2 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1883), 4 (c. 7 against the adoptionist views), 5 (c. 9 to the Homoian priests), 11 (c. 27 about the Scripture). On Avitus’ relationship with the Burgundians see Shanzer and Wood, Avitus of Vienne, 13–24; the translation and commentary on the Contra Arrianos on pages 163–92. See also Uta Heil, Avitus von Vienne und die homöische Kirche der Burgunder (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2011) and Johanna Schenk, Traditionsbezug und Transformation: Die Briefe des Avitus von Vienne als Inszenierungen eines spätantiken Bischofs (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2021), 210–14.
82 Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii, 77 (c. 17); 78 (c. 20); Gregory of Tours, Miracula sancti Martini, ed. Bruno Krusch, MGH SRM 1.2 (Hannover: Hahnsche Buchhandlung, 1959), 144–5 (I, 11).
83 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 66 (c. 5.2).
84 Paulinus of Milan, Vita Ambrosii, 78 (c. 19).
85 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 68 (c. 8.1): coniunx feralis et noxia. We do not know who these Romans were but we can safely assume that they were willing converts. Eugippius does not suggest coercion. Régerat, ‘Der Arianismus in der Vita Severini’, 249–50.
86 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 68 (c. 8.3). On the captive goldsmiths in early medieval sources see Nancy L. Wicker, ‘The Elusive Smith’, in Goldsmith Mysteries: Archaeological, Pictorial and Documentary Evidence from the 1st Millennium AD in Northern Europe, ed. Alexandra Pesch and Ruth Blankenfeldt (Neumünster: Wachholtz Verlag, 2012), 29–36 (30–31). On goldsmiths attached to the royal households see Birgit Arrhenius, ‘Why the King Needed His Own Goldsmith’, Laborativ Arkeologi 10/11 (1988), 109–11.
87 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 70 (c. 8.5).
88 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 104 (c. 40.2).
89 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 112 (c. 44.3).
90 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 114 (c. 45). On the war see Michael McCormick, ‘Odoacer, Emperor Zeno and the Rugian Victory Legation’, Byzantion 47 (1977): 212–22; Steinacher, Rom und die Barbaren, 127–30.
91 Walter Goffart, ‘Does the Vita S. Severini Have an Underside?’, in Eugippius und Severin. Der Autor, der Text und der Heilige, ed. Walter Pohl and Max Diesenberger (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2001), 33–9 (38).
92 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 60 (c. 3.2).
93 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 88 (c. 22.5).
94 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 66, 68 (c. 6.3).
95 1 Kings 17: 7–16; Luke 7: 11–17; Mark 7: 24–30; Mark 12: 41–4; Luke 18: 1–8. Cf. Salvian of Marseille, De gubernatione dei, ed. Georges Lagarrigue, SCh 220 (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf, 1976), 464 (VII, 49) who expresses even more forcefully the idea of replacement. See also Elm, ‘New Romans’.
96 Although the groups identifying themselves as ‘Rugian’ were still present in Ostrogothic Italy as attested by Procopius, De bellis, ed. Jakob Haury and Gerhard Wirth, 2: 307–8 (VII, 2.11–18).
97 Ferrandus of Carthage, Epistula dogmatica adversus Arrianos aliosque haereticos, ed. Angelo Mai in Scriptorum veterum nova collectio e vaticanis codicibus edita, vol. 3 (Rome: typis Vaticanis, 1828), 183 (c. 16). The possible link between Ferrandus’ statement and the Life of Severinus is surmised by Florian Schaffenrath, ‘Eugippius und sein Leser: Zur Funktion dreier Figuren im Brief des Eugippius and Paschasius am Beginn seiner Vita sancti Severini’, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 40 (2005): 45–52 (51).
98 Harald Dickerhof, ‘De institutio sancti Severini. Zur Genese der Klostergemeinschaft des Heiligen Severin’, Zeitschrift für Bayerische Landesgeschichte 46 (1983): 3–36.
99 Albrecht Diem, ‘Vita vel Regula: Multifunctional Hagiography in the Early Middle Ages’, in: Hagiography and the History of Latin Christendom, 500–1500, ed. Samantha Kahn Herrick (Leiden: Brill, 2019), 123–42 (100).
100 The edition of the Rule that established Eugippius’ authorship is Eugippi regula, ed. Adalbert de Vogüé and Fernand Villegas, CSEL 87 (Vienna : Tempsky, 1976). For a detailed study and commentary see Maximilian Krausgruber, Die Regel des Eugippius: Die Klosterordnung des Verfassers der Vita Sancti Severini im Lichte ihrer Quellen. Text, Übersetzung und Kommentar (Thaur: Kulturverlag, 1996).
101 Krausgruber, Die Regel des Eugippius, 57 concerning Eugippius, Regula 25.
102 But Severinus is never called abbas or monachus, for that matter. For this omission as a part of Severinus’ representation as the special kind of person, a prophet or Geisträger see Dickerhof, ‘De institutio sancti Severini’, 6 and Klemens Knapp-Menzl, Mönchtum an Donau und Nil: Severin von Norikum und Schenute von Atripe, zwei Mönchsväter des fünften Jahrhunderts (Thaur: Druck- und Verlagshaus Thaur, 1997), 93–4.
103 Krausgruber, Die Regel des Eugippius, 272–5. On the importance of the community as the path to the salvation, see Johannes Hofmann, ‘Das Werk des Abtes Eugippius: Zum literarischen Vermächtnis eines spätantiken Augustinus-Kenners an die frühmittelalterliche Kirche des Abendlandes’, Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 109 (1998): 293–305 (305 for the focus of the Rule on the themes of love and solidarity).
104 Eugippius, Epistula ad Paschasium, 40 (c. 1).
105 Most notably Friedrich Lotter argued that we should identify Severinus with the consul of 461: Friedrich Lotter, Severinus von Noricum, Legende und historische Wirklichkeit (Stuttgart: Anton Hiersemann, 1976), 223–60. For those who take a sceptical stance toward the argument see E.A. Thompson, Romans and Barbarians: the Decline of the Western Empire (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1982), 112–3; Rajko Bratož, ‘Der “heilige Mann” und seine Biographie’, in Historiographie im frühen Mittelalter, ed. Anton Scharer and Georg Scheibeleiter (Vienna: R. Oldenbourg, 1994), 222–52 (248–50); Walter Pohl, ‘Einleitung: Commemoratorium – Vergegenwärtigungen des heiligen Severin’ and Andreas Schwarcz, ‘Severinus of Noricum between Fact and Fiction’, in Pohl and Diesenberger, Eugippius und Severin, 9–23 (12, 28). The identity of Severinus and Lotter’s thesis have been widely discussed. The cited works provide further references.
106 Eugippius, Epistula ad Paschasium, 42, 44 (c. 8–9). To a question about his origins, Severinus responded: quid prodest servo dei significatio sui loci vel generis, cum potius id tacendo facilius possit evitare iactantiam. He suggests then that his background gave him reasons for boasting.
107 See Adolf Jülicher, Paulys Realencyclopädie der classischen Altertumswissenschaft, s.v. ‘Eugippius’, 6.1:988–90. Steven Muhlberger, ‘Eugippius and the Life of St. Severinus’, Medieval Prosopography 17 (1996): 107–24 (110); Cooper, ‘The Widow as Impresario’.
108 On Eugippius involvement in the Laurentian schism see Gometz, ‘Eugippius of Lucullanum’, 28–38 and the references in note 19. On the context of the context of discussions on grace see Raúl Villegas Marín, ‘The Anti-Pelagian Dossier of Eugippius’ Excerpta Ex Operibvs Sancti Avgvstini in Context: Notes on the Reception of Augustine’s Works on Grace And Predestination in Late Fifth–Early Sixth-Century Rome’, in Delmulle et al., Flores Augustini, 91–106. Eugippius mentions versipelles inimicos gratiae dei in Epistula ad Probam.
109 Wood, ‘The Monastic Frontiers of the Vita Severini’, 45–6.
110 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 64 (c. 5.1); 82 (c. 17.4).
111 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 100 (c. 32.2).
112 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 112 (c. 44.4–5). Jan Prostko-Prostynski, ‘Novae in the Times of Theoderic the Amal’, in Novae: Legionary Fortress and Late Aaanjcient Town, vol. 1 (Warsaw: Center for Research on the Antiquity of Southeastern Europe, 2008), 141–57.
113 Procopius, De bellis, 2: 305–6 (VII, 2.1–2).
114 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 112 (c. 44.5).
115 We also have evidence that the depiction of Odoacer in the Life of Severinus attracted interest of the contemporary readers. The earliest attestations of the reception of the Life are the quotations from the Odoacer episodes in the so-called Anonymus Valesianus (II), ed. Ingemar König, Aus der Zeit Theoderichs des Grossen (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1997), 72, 74 (c. 45), a text of a definitely political character and rather hostile to Theoderic.
116 On the treaty see Jan Prostko-Prostyński, Utraeque res publicae: The Emperor Anastasius I’s Gothic Policy (491–518) (Poznań: Instytut Historii UAM, 1996), 77–95.
117 Ennodius, Panegyricus dictus Theodorico, ed. Friedrich Vogel, MGH AA 7 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1885), 206 (c. 23–4); Vita Epiphanii, 96 (c. 95).
118 Shane Bjornlie, Politics and Tradition between Rome, Ravenna and Constantinople: A Study of Cassiodorus and the Variae, 527–554 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 135.
119 As argued, for example, by Hanns Christof Brennecke, ‘Die Wunder und ihre theologische Reflexion im “Commemoratorium vitae S. Severini” des Eugipp von Lucullanum mit einem Seitenblick auf die “Vita sancti Martini” des Sulpicius Severus’, in Mirakel im Mittelalter: Konzeptionen, Erscheinungsformen, Deutungen, ed. Martin Heinzelmann, Klaus Herbers, and Dieter R. Bauer (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2002), 62–76 (65–6). See also Carl I. Hammer, ‘“The Example of the Saints”: Reading Eugippus’ Account of Saint Severin’, Classica et Mediaevalia: Revue Danoise de Philologie et d’Histoire 59 (2008): 155–76.
120 Marcellinus Comes, Chronica, ed. Theodor Mommsen, MGH AA 11 (Berlin: Weidmann, 1894), 474 (ad a. 476, 2). About the deposition and its role as an event marking the end of the empire, see most recently Ian N. Wood, ‘When Did the West Roman Empire Fall?’, in Emerging Powers in Eurasian Comparison, 200–1100: Shadows of Empire, ed. Walter Pohl and Veronika Wieser (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 55–77.
121 Proposed already by Thomas Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders 476–535 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1886), 3: 190–1. Later the idea was picked up by many scholars, although it was usually understood that the relationship cannot be proven beyond doubt. See Lotter, Severinus von Noricum), 37, 200; Bratož, Severinus von Noricum und seine Zeit, 14–15; Cooper, ‘The Widow as Impresario’, 55; Marjeta Šašel Kos, ‘The Family of Romulus Augustulus’, in Antike Lebenswelten: Konstanz, Wandel, Wirkungsmacht : Festschrift Für Ingomar Weiler Zum 70. Geburtstag, ed. Peter Mauritsch, Philippika 25 (Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2008), 446. With much scepticism: Robert Markus, ‘The End of the Roman Empire: A Note on Eugippius, Vita Sancti Severini, 20’, Nottingham Medieval Studies 26 (1982): 1–7 (2).
122 Cassiodorus, Variae, ed. Åke J. Fridh, CCSL 96 (Turnhout, 1958), 122 (III, 35).
123 Eugippius, Epistula ad Probam, ed. Pius Knöll, CSEL 9/1 (Vienna: Tempsky, 1886), 1–4. The phrase cum bibliothecae uestrae copia multiplex integra de quibus pauca decerpsi contineat opera, placuit tamen habere decerpta is often understood as meaning that Eugippius made use of Proba’s library. But, as was noted by Gustav Krüger in Martin Shanz, Carl Hosius, Gustav Krüger, Geschichte der römischen Literatur, vol. 4.2 (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1920), 588 and later by Gometz, Eugippius of Lucullanum, 91–2, this does not seem correct. Eugippius only mentioned that he made excerpts from Augustine’s works that are already in Proba’s library. The codices for his endeavor had been provided by some unnamed friends. Colombi, ‘Quelques observations sur les stratégies de la compilation d’Eugippe’, 49 says, however, that the phrase is ambiguous and we cannot exclude that some books came from Proba’s library.
124 On the critical assessments of the last years of Theoderic and their social and political context, see Andreas Goltz, Barbar—König—Tyrann: Das Bild Theoderichs des Grossen in der Überlieferung des 5. bis 9. Jahrhunderts, Millennium-Studien 12 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008), 355–432. See also S.J.B. Barnish, ‘The Anonymus Valesianus, II as a Source for the Last Years of Theoderic’, Latomus 42 (1983): 572–96.
125 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 68 (c. 7).
126 Eugippius, Vita Severini, 98, 100 (c. 32).