Liturgy, Space, and Community in the Basilica Julii (Santa Maria in Trastevere)

Abstract

The Basilica Julii (also known as titulus Callisti and later as Santa Maria in Trastevere) provides a case study of the physical and social conditions in which early Christian liturgies rewired their participants. This paper demonstrates that liturgical transformation was a two-way process, in which liturgy was the object as well as the agent of change. Three essential factors - the liturgy of the Eucharist, the space of the early Christian basilica, and the local Christian community - are described as they existed in Rome from the fourth through the ninth centuries. The essay then takes up the specific case of the Basilica Julii, showing how these three factors interacted in the concrete conditions of a particular titular church. The basilica s early Christian liturgical layout endured until the ninth century, when it was reconfigured by Pope Gregory IV (827-844) to bring the liturgical sub-spaces up-to-date. In Pope Gregory s remodeling the original non-hierarchical layout was replaced by one in which celebrants were elevated above the congregation, women were segregated from men, and higher-ranking lay people were accorded places of honor distinct from those of lesser stature. These alterations brought the Basilica Julii in line with the requirements of the ninth-century papal stational liturgy. The stational liturgy was hierarchically organized from the beginning, but distinctions became sharper in the course of the early Middle Ages in accordance with the expansion of papal authority and changes in lay society. Increasing hierarchization may have enhanced the transformational power of the Eucharist, or impeded it. \nOn cover:Monks singing the Office and decorated initial A[sperges me.]. Gradual Olivetan Master (Use of the Olivetan Benedictines), illuminated manuscript on parchment ca. 1430-1439. Italy, Monastero di Santa Maria di Baggio near Milan, Ca 1400-1775.Beinecke Ms1184: The olivetan Gradual. Gradual. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.