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After Augustine, after Markus: the problem of the secular at the end of antiquity
Author(s) -
Whelan Robin
Publication year - 2021
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.12447
Subject(s) - secularization , secularity , late antiquity , contest , pluralism (philosophy) , narrative , religious pluralism , politics , history , religious studies , philosophy , classics , literature , epistemology , law , art , theology , political science
This article revisits Robert Markus's account of the de‐secularization of the Latin West between Augustine and Gregory the Great. It uses letters of advice for rulers written by early sixth‐century clerics to contest his narrative of a ‘grand simplification’ of Christian thought. Multiple overlapping conceptions of the secular were still in play after the fall of Rome, articulated, not in the absence of, but in dialogue with robust political institutions. By uncoupling Christian ideas of secularity from the actual degree of religious pluralism or tolerance in a given society, historians can better capture the continued complexity of early medieval secularities.