Ecclesiastical Organisation and Christian Topography of the Lower Danube during Late Antiquity (3rd-8th Centuries AD) – DANUBIUS

The approach is based on the development of a GIS atlas structured around three complementary strands. The first consists in building an analytical database of archaeological and epigraphic sources relating to Christianity in the Lower Danube. The second is based on participation in the archaeological investigations conducted at the Late Roman fortress of Zaldapa, in Krushari, Bulgaria, in order to enrich the corpus through a field-based case study. The third aims to compile a Christian prosopography of the Lower Danube, an essential prerequisite for the historical study of the region’s communities, clergy and ecclesiastical institutions.

The integration of these data into a geographical information system makes it possible to compare written sources with material remains, to analyse their spatial and chronological distribution, and to identify the dynamics of Christianisation. This combination of historical, archaeological, prosopographical and cartographic approaches provides the framework for a new synthesis of the eastern Danubian provinces.

DANUBIUS confirmed its relevance within the international scholarly community and helped to establish lasting cooperation with several institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. The project enabled the development, in partnership with Kiwi Software, of a digital platform designed to bring together and analyse historical, archaeological, epigraphic and prosopographical data relating to the Christianisation of the Lower Danube.

The International Archaeological Mission at Zaldapa produced major results for the study of regional Christianisation, notably through the investigation of several religious buildings and a better understanding of the site’s urban and ecclesiastical organisation. These studies confirmed the central role of Scythia in the Christian dynamics of the Lower Danube.

The project also contributed to the creation of the international HAEMUS network, the multilingual Brepols series Rome and After in Central and Eastern Europe (RomA), as well as several collective publications and cartographic resources. It thus laid the foundations for a new historical and archaeological synthesis of the Christianisation of the eastern Danubian provinces.

The perspectives opened up by DANUBIUS now concern the long-term sustainability, opening and further enrichment of the tools developed. The D(OA)NUBIUS platform is currently undergoing a final phase of technical consolidation, data verification and interface improvement, with a view to making it openly accessible very soon, thanks to the support of the Fondation de l’Université de Lille.

The Zaldapa WebGIS, developed for the needs of the International Archaeological Mission, will continue to integrate excavation, survey and spatial-analysis data, including LiDAR datasets. It will remain a restricted-access collaborative tool for members of the mission.

The international collaborations structured around DANUBIUS are continuing through the HAEMUS network, the RomA series and the journal The Chronicles of Haemus. They are also being extended through the AbriKo project, devoted to the Roman and Late Roman landscape between Abritus and Kovachevsko Kale. These developments make it possible to broaden the investigation to other Danubian and Balkan areas, while ensuring the scientific, editorial and digital continuity of the project.

At this stage of the project, the work of DANUBIUS has already given rise to several multi-partner and single-partner communications, in national and international conferences. Seven papers have also been published (1 in a peer-reviewed journal, 4 in collective works, 2 in pop-science magazines) and several others are in press, while a collective volume has been published under the aegis of the project («Archaeology of a World of Changes«, Oxford, 2020) and at least three more are in preparation. To this is added a weekly seminar, in association with the HALMA-UMR 8164 research centre and entitled «Constantinople in Late Antiquity«, which is organised around themes related to the research programme, as well as an annual summer school for master's and doctoral students, which took place for the first time in 2019. In addition, DANUBIUS was an official partner of the International Conference «Hieronymus Noster«, held in Ljubljana, Slovenia, from October 23 to 26, 2019, and was the organiser of the «Christianity at the Frontiers« session of the 26th EAA Annual Meeting, which was planned to take place in Budapest, Hungary, from August 26 to 30, 2020, but which was transformed into a virtual congress. Other similar activities were planned for 2020, including a major international symposium in Lille – A Danubio ad Gothiam –, but most of them have been postponed to 2021, due to the global health situation.

The Danubian provinces of the Later Roman Empire (the area between present day eastern Bavaria and the Romanian Dobruja) are not well known, due to the paucity of literary sources from or about that region. Yet it was regularly at the centre of the great political, military and religious events of Late Antiquity, when the fate of the Empire was played out in the context of the great invasions/migrations. Located on a critical point of the Empire's borders, these provinces had an important network of fortifications, around which was organised the Romanisation of the territory. Thus, most of its episcopal sees lie directly on the so-called "limes", in military camps which became towns. In addition, the episcopate was the most stable and durable Roman institution in the region, since it was the only one to survive the successive invasions. Nevertheless, the question of Christianisation has not resulted in any complete synthesis since Jacques Zeiller's "Les origines chrétiennes dans les provinces danubiennes de l'Empire romain" (Paris, 1918). Thus, the DANUBIUS project will reconsider the question in the light of the scientific advances made in the last hundred years, both in terms of archaeology and history, for the period between the 3rd century, which saw the first evidence of the existence of a clergy in the region, and the 8th century, during which the Byzantine episcopal hierarchy gave way to a new ecclesiastical order. It would be clearly impossible to study all the Danubian provinces in only three years. Therefore, this project - which is the first stage of a long-term research program - is focusing on the last reaches of the Danube to be lost by Constantinople, which is also the part of the river which is best documented from literary sources, viz. the Lower Danube (the Late Roman provinces of Dacia Ripensis, Moesia Secunda and Scythia). To do so, it has been decided to develop a geographic information system (GIS) model of the episcopal sees and other Christian sites, structured around three axes. The first axis foresees the establishment of an analytic database of the sources of Christianity in the Lower Danube. This database, which will bring together all material and written published traces of that religion, will constitute the main core for the development of the GIS model, with the intention that it should be at the same time useful to archaeologists, historians and epigraphists. The second axis is planned around the archaeological explorations of the Late Roman fortress of Zaldapa (Krushari, Bulgaria), through conventional excavations, as well as non-invasive techniques of investigation. The field results of that case study, which began in 2014, will complement the database of the first axis. The third axis was conceived in order to offer a first historical interpretation of the sources collated in the first axis database, through the compilation of a Christian prosopography of the Lower Danube, while offering the foundation for a historical study of its ancient ecclesiastical organisation. Two formats will be produced: 1- a computer database is planned for the period between the 3rd century and the year 787; 2- a printed version, extending to the whole "Dioecesis Thraciarum", will be derived from that database, stopping in the year 641, as a volume of the "Prosopographie chrétienne du Bas-Empire" series. All these tools will bring us closer to a "total history" of the Christianisation of the Eastern Danubian provinces of the Roman Empire, as that history will be studied in the light of archaeological testimonies and the latter will be analysed with regard to the written sources.