Ordering a Disordered World: Ritual and Society in Early Medieval Rome

The liturgy, the public worship of the Christian Church, was a crucial factor in forging the society of early medieval Rome.  As the Roman Empire dissolved, a new world emerged.  Christian bishops stepped into the power vacuum that the dismantling of the Empire had left.  Among these potentates, none was more important than the bishop of Rome, the pope.  The documents, archaeology, and architecture that issued forth from papal Rome in the seventh and eighth centuries preserve a precious window on novel societal patterns.  In particular the underexploited ritual sources richen and complicate our historical understanding of this period.

The new order in the city of Rome was created and regulated through the elaborate and expensive liturgical services sponsored by the pope.  The pope gradually achieved a near monopoly on public worship, which diverged from the older traditions of private house worship that featured women more prominently.  The popes borrowed ceremonial terms and formations from the military culture that was influential throughout the Italian peninsula.  They used the liturgy to make the pope tower above the rest of the clergy and laity, and to ensure his political leadership.  Worship helped to regulate conflicts among different members of the papal clergy, above all the significant offices of the archdeacon and archpriest.  Perhaps most critically, the use of ritual created the impression of an order that was stable, eternal, and ordained by God; this masked the frequent conflicts that often sprung up among the clergy.

My research has shown that the imposition of a new order was not only a change in mentalities in Roman society, but it involved a physical dimension as well.  The liturgy ordered not only minds but also bodies.  Where different ministers were placed in processions and churches determined their rank within the new papally dominated world – their order in procession, their proximity to the pope, whether they stood on the right or the left of the pope, and which precious items they carried.  We can chart the rise of members of the minor clergy seen in other papal documents by their appearance and roles in the pope’s liturgy.  Statuses of churches and the priests serving them can be seen in part by how often the pope said Mass in them.  The minimization of the laity and especially women in the papal liturgy corresponded to their reduced societal role.

This story cannot be understood without a visual element, making it a natural candidate for a poster session.  Charts demonstrate how the ministers of the pope were ordered during worship; maps reval how the pope exploited the urban space; the architecture of surviving Roman churches provides clues as to how these liturgies played out and were adapted in real circumstances; and recent archaeological finds (above all, Crypta Balbi) give a tangible idea of physical items employed during these liturgies.  It is my hope that this poster will help me to explore liturgical documents that have sometimes been dismissed as esoteric, and demonstrate their tangible connection to broader social trends.