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Putting the Roman periphery on the map: the geography of Romanness, orthodoxy, and legitimacy in Victricius of Rouen's De Laude sanctorum
Author(s) -
Natal David
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
early medieval europe
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.1
H-Index - 24
eISSN - 1468-0254
pISSN - 0963-9462
DOI - 10.1111/emed.12278
Subject(s) - orthodoxy , legitimacy , cult , argument (complex analysis) , politics , history , empire , art history , ancient history , political science , law , archaeology , biochemistry , chemistry
Victricius of Rouen's De laude sanctorum (c.396) contains an original discussion of the cult of relics, introduced by a brief excursus on his recent trip to Britain. In this article, I argue that the author used both sections to define two symbolic territories, Britain and the centre of the empire, which invited his audience to think geographically about the concepts of Romanness, orthodoxy, and legitimacy. Exploiting a long‐standing tradition of stereotypes and geographical imaginations, Victricius used his argument of the unity of relics to justify his position in the Felician controversy, a contemporary episcopal and political conflict.