Public service or private devotion? The diverse faces of monasticism in late antique and early medieval Rome

Abstract

From the fifth century on, religious foundations became the most prominent new additions to the Roman cityscape. Their effects on the rhythms of urban life will have been correspondingly profound, and indeed the transformative impact of churches, martyrial shrines and Christian cemeteries on topography and society alike is a well-rehearsed subject. Perhaps influenced by traditional ‘cloistered’ visions of monasticism, scholars have been slower to consider the role played by Rome’s exceptionally numerous monasteries in reshaping the urban collective. There is a reason to see many monasteries in late-antique and early-medieval Rome as bustling places imbued with a much more ‘public’ profile than is often imagined, whose members performed a range of important services – utilitarian as least as much as spiritual in nature-on behalf of their surrounding communities.