Narratives of Belonging: Italo-Greek Hagiography and Community Identity in Southern Italy and Sicily, c. 950-1150

The two centuries from 950 to 1150 saw great social, religious, and political fluctuation in southern Italy as a landscape fragmented among Italo-Greek, Latin Lombard, and Arab-Muslim elements was consolidated under Latin Norman conquerors in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. I draw upon theoretical work in identity studies with emphasis on affective rhetoric, the narrative constitution of identity, and social memory to examine the roles of Italo-Greek saints and their biographical texts in making sense of the shifting power relationships. Reading the Italo-Greek Vitae in combination with Latin hagiographies, Lombard chronicles, Arab-Muslim Sicilian poetry, and Latin and Italo-Greek charter evidence, I unfold the ideological alignments which made the texts far from innocent.

The dissertation is divided into two parts with five substantive chapters. The first three focus on the fragmented communities of the pre-Norman period while the final two examine the changing status of the Italo-Greek community under Norman rule. In the first two chapters I examine the language Italo-Greek hagiographers used to define themselves in relation to others around them, first the Arab-Muslims in Sicily and then the Latin Lombards in Campania. These chapters treat ideological boundaries between groups, including delineations of the Muslim “Saracen” as an ancestral Italo-Greek opponent and growing concerns with orthodoxy in the eleventh century, sentiments inflamed by the Norman conquest. In my third chapter I then take an environmental turn to examine the rupestral settlements of the medieval Italian south and interrogate the physical boundaries of community. I argue for the need to situate the cave networks of the medieval Italian south in conversation with urban and rural communities and see the cave as a point of departure for expanding civilizing forces.

The second part turns to changes under the Normans. I first consider the Norman “imperial agenda” by revisiting the religious, political, and social landscape the Normans encountered upon their arrival, and examine the Norman strategies of conquest. Most prominently, I explore the Norman strategy of establishing legitimacy through selective alliances with prominent religious houses, both Latin and Italo-Greek. In my final chapter, I look closely at a rare, well-documented example, the monastery of St. Elias of Carbone. Founded by an Italo-Greek saint, it survived as an Italo-Greek institution under the Normans and benefitted from Latin patronage in the form of donations and privileges. The monastery thus provides insight into Latin Norman and Italo-Greek relationships during the period of transition to Latin dominance. It is a lens through which to examine the intricacies of dependence and inter-reliance between those who, in narrative, were depicted as opponents.

The corpus of Italo-Greek hagiography has received little critical scholarly attention, yet it allows analysis of large political shifts through the subtler changes they inspired in localized narratives of community belonging. By drawing upon documentary evidence and archeology to give nuance to the narrative hagiographical sources, this study interrogates the mechanisms by which groups define “community” and seek to preserve its spiritual, political, and cultural boundaries.