Being Christian in Vandal Africa

Abstract

Recent work on the notoriously passionate Christian conflicts of the later Roman Empire has elucidated their wide-ranging political and social implications. However, the fifth-century conquest of the Roman West by “barbarian” rulers brings this train of inquiry to a juddering halt, as scholars of early Christianity turn eastward for new doctrinal developments, and early medieval historians focus on political continuity and ethnic identity in the new kingdoms. This book argues that Christian controversy retained its sophistication and its sociopolitical consequences in the post-imperial West. It examines church conflict under the Vandals, who ruled the former Roman province of Africa (the modern-day Maghreb) from 439 to 533 CE. Exploiting neglected Christian texts, this book exposes a sophisticated culture of disputation between Nicene (“Catholic”) and Homoian (“Arian”) Christians, and it explores their rival claims to represent the true church, which consciously evoked earlier ecclesiastical controversies. It argues that this Christian conflict cannot be firewalled from other developments in post-imperial Africa, revealing its implications for issues of social identity and political formation. Through careful comparison with the evidence for Homoian Christianity in the other barbarian successor kingdoms, it seeks to set out a new framework for understanding Christian identity across the post-imperial West.

Missing Queens: Gender, Dynasty and Power in Vandal Africa

“…In these texts, rival Homoian bishops tend to be the advisers instrumental in provoking episodes of persecution. 45 By contrast, any number of other late ancient texts highlighted the roles of empresses in ecclesiastical controversies. Gendered invective was directed by the representatives of marginalised church factions against the likes of Justina, Eudoxia, and Pulcheria for their (supposedly) central roles in exiling their champions or favouring their opponents.…”

“…Vandal Africa is particularly poorly served (even by post-Roman standards) by texts which might allow historians to reconstruct the new regime, its self-presentation and its political structures. 43 Our sense of these institutions is cobbled together from heterogeneous (and often polemical) materials. The necessary centrality of Victor of Vita's History of the Persecution is symptomatic.…”

“…But the regimes of Geiseric, Huneric, Gunthamund, Thrasamund and Hilderic also sought, on occasion, to placate Nicene churchmen; those clerics were likewise, on occasion, able to conceive of their rulers in more conciliatory terms. 64 Nevertheless, a significant contrast remains between Vandal Africa and the rest of the post-imperial West in the nature of royal policies, the relationship between Homoian regimes and Nicene churchmen, and the depictions of rulers that resulted. The causes of this contrast have been the subject of considerable debate.…”