ABSTRACT
Just when the cult of St. Katherine reached Western Europe is an open question. One complication is that the cult may have been transmitted down multiple routes. It is possible to identify three potential areas for early western penetration: Rome, Southern Italy and the German-speaking lands. The earliest signs of a western cult which can be situated geographically appear in Rome and in Southern Italy and it is on these areas that this chapter concentrates. This is not really very surprising given the extensive contacts between those two areas and Constantinople. The Roman Empire gradually became equated with the Christian community and there was general acceptance of the concept of one unified Church within the Empire. Southern Italy in the tenth century had a long and complicated history having been a battleground for competing empires for several centuries. In earliest times it had been colonized by Greeks but had then lost much of its Greek identity during the Roman period.
