ABSTRACT
The urban landscape of medieval Rome, though far diminished in grandeur compared to the splendour of classical times, excelled in nobility that of any other city in the West. The multitude of arches, temples, palaces, aqueducts, fountains, baths, and other public monuments inherited from its imperial past had not yet vanished or been reduced to the rubble that greets today’s visitor. Against this backdrop, enhanced by the presence of numerous churches, palaces and towers of the nobility, the religious processions of medieval Rome wended their way. Rome favoured what victor Saxer called ‘essentiellement une liturgie de mouvement … une liturgie en plein air’, dramatized by the silent presence of so many witnesses of a glorious, if pagan, past.1 Apart from the grand papal cortèges, most processions were penitential in character, most notably during Lent, when clergy and laity processed from a ‘collect’ church to the stational church of the day, where Mass was celebrated. As they approached their goal, a litany (invocation + response) was begun. Some processions had a specific purpose. The Liber pontificalis narrates that, following the death of Pope Adeodatus in 676, the crops could not have been saved were it not for the fact that ‘the Lord was placated by the litanies which took place every day’.2 Roman processions were so closely identified with
1 v. Saxer, ‘L’utilisation par le liturgie de l’éspace urbain et suburbain: L’exemple de Rome dans l’antiquité et le haut Moyen-Âge’, Actes du XIe Congrès International d’Archéologie Chrétienne. Lyon, Vienne, Grenoble, Genève et Aoste (21-28 septembre 1986), 2 vols, Studi di Antichità Cristiana 41 – Collection de l’École Française de Rome 123 (vatican City, 1989), 2:917-1033, esp. 936-7. An excellent general survey with bibliography is L. Pani Ermini, ‘Lo spazio urbano tra vI e Ix secolo’, Roma nell’alto medioevo, 2 vols, Settimane di studio del Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 48 (Spoleto, 2001), 255-323, tavole I-xvII; a useful specialized study is R. Meneghini and R.S. valenzani, Roma nell’alto medioevo: Topografia e urbanistica della città dal V al X secolo (Rome, 2004).
