COMPARING EARLY CHRISTIANITIES: THE TRANSFORMATION OF SACRED SPACE IN EARLY MEDIEVALEUROPE
Channel: European Association of Archaeologists
Date: 2021-03-12

This paper focuses on a comparative approach to analyse the transformation of sacred spaces in early medieval north-western Europe. The twinned processes of Christianisation and institutionalisation of the Church drove a shift of power from the secular elites to the Church. Research on this topic has been constrained by analysis often conducted at a local or national level, leading to a strong understanding of local environments, but often forgetting transnational social, religious and political trends. Building on the analytical framework of comparisons created and successfully tested during my PhD research, the project presented here analyses data from geographical areas of north-western Europe which have not been looked at together before – namely Brittany, Scotland, Ireland and Scandinavia – to create and develop a narrative of the transformation of sacred places throughout the process of conversion to Christianity. To this end, the selected areas offer meaningful results, as they originate from widely different political, religious and social contexts.


Author(s): Busset, Anouk (University of Glasgow)