Shaping Urban Religious Topography in the Iberian Peninsula between the Fourth and Sixth Centuries: “Coopetitive” Rivalry and Social Power

Abstract

This study analyses the reshaping of the religious landscape of the cities of Hispania, from the disappearance of polytheistic sanctuaries to the construction of Christian churches, from the fourth to the middle of the sixth centuries CE. The focus is placed on the agents who financed these complexes and the motivations behind their euergetic activities. The study highlights that the configuration of places of worship in the urban landscape was a contingent process often dependent on individual (layperson) initiative, challenging the widespread assumption that the Church and its bishops were the main promoters of urban redevelopment in Hispanic cities during this period.

Keywords

• late antiquity
• Hispania
• cities
• churches
• temples
• bishops