Religion in Rural Late-Antique Iberia

This volume examines the dynamism and complexity of religious expressions in rural settings across Late Antique Iberia, refuting the idea that rural spaces, and in turn rural religious practices, were static and unchanging, anchored in tradition and resistant to any process of religious change.

José Carlos López-Gómez is a research fellow at the University of Málaga and a member of the research group DINORAMA -Dynamism and Religious Innovation in the Ancient World-. His research focuses on the study of Roman polytheism and Christianization processes in the Iberian Peninsula during Late Antiquity. Antón Alvar Nuño is associate professor at the University of Málaga and a member of the research group DINORAMA -Dynamism and Religious Innovation in the Ancient World-. He has specialized in the study of ancient magic and subaltern religion in the late antique west from a bottom-up perspective.

1. Religion in Rural in Late Antique Iberia. An Introduction - José Carlos López-Gómez and Antón Alvar Nuño; 2. Spontaneous Worship or Control of Piety: Pilgrims of Proximity in Late Antique Hispania - Pablo C. Díaz Martínez; 3. Transhumance and Devotions: Shepherds and their Saints in a Rural Territory. A Case Study from Southern Italy (Gargano) - Laura Carnevale; 4. Servitude and Salvation: The Church in Rural Hispania - David Addison; 5. Christian Worship in Rural Hispania: Re-evaluating Archaeological Evidence on Oratories, Mausolea and Churches in Late Antique Villas - Alexandra Chavarría; 6. Cemeteries, Churches and other Religious Manifestations in the Late Roman and Visigothic Rural Environment of the Middle Ebro Valley: An Archaeological Approach - Pilar Diarte Blasco and Marta Pérez-Polo; 7. Sacrarium nullo paratu extrinsecus: The Slow Arrival of Christianity in the Lusitanian Countryside - André Carneiro, Mónica Rolo and Pedro Trapero Fernández; 8. Managing Death in Visigothic Iberia (6th-7th Centuries): Religious and Institutional Issues - Pablo Poveda-Arias; 9. The Ecclesiastical Criticism of Rural Priests in Hispania during Late Antiquity - Juan Antonio Jiménez Sánchez; 10. Pimenius and his Network: The Glocal Dimension of Rural Iberian Churches - Antón Alvar Nuño and José Carlos López-Gómez; 11. The Agenda of Saintmakers. The Case of the Vita Aemiliani in Visigothic Hispania - Santiago Castellanos; 12. Metaphorical Landscapes in Rural Hispania. The Transformation of religious Geographies in Visigothic Hagiography - Clelia Martínez Maza and Rocío Suárez Vallejo; 13. Exploring the Genealogy of "Rural Religion" between the Cult of "Nature" and Subaltern Religion. A History of Religions Perspective - Chiara Cremonesi.