Reviewed by:

• Civic Identity and Civic Participation in Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages ed. by Cédric Brélaz and Els Rose
• Stephen Joyce

Exploring the evolution of civic identity and civic participation from the late classical period through to the early medieval period, editors Cédric Brélaz and Els Rose have collated some fourteen articles into a volume focusing on the evolving political identity of urban communities in a Roman and post-Roman landscape as impacted by profound political transition. Moving from imperial authority (and its attached offices) and conceptions of universal Roman citizenship (introduced in 212 ce) to the increasing emphasis on Christian bishops as political representatives and mediators of the urban landscape, the volume charts the transition of civic identity and participation in four parts: the imperial background (first to third centuries ce); an urban transition (fourth to seventh centuries ce); a period of political and religious reconfiguration (fourth to seventh centuries ce); and the early medieval city (sixth to eleventh centuries ce). Claudia Rapp provides a short postscript.

In the introduction to the volume, Brélaz and Rose chart the issues explored by the volume: how did cities (as political communities within a political community) adapt to a profound political transition often characterised by ‘urban decline’, and what role did these urban communities (as ‘the people’) play in this transition? Setting the scene in this teleological approach, Clifford Ando investigates Roman citizenship in the late classical period and its impact on the West in particular. Noting that the West was essentially urbanised by Rome, he argues that its civic culture was primarily imperial in nature, with imperial offices being of key importance in the urban landscape. Brélaz follows up with an examination of urban political expression in the East, where urbanisation predated the establishment of Roman authority. Countering arguments that urban identity was redundant after the introduction of universal Roman citizenship, Brélaz shows [End Page 238] that local identity and its political expression was still important within an imperial landscape that had set aside the Greek term ‘democracy’.

Moving into late antiquity, Anthony Kaldellis continues the eastern focus with an examination of civic identity in Constantinople. Moving from conceptions of a ‘fossilized’ Roman citizenship dominated by imperial authority, he advocates against the concept of a ‘manipulated mob’ to one where citizens actively intervened in the urban political landscape and, moreover, had the right to intervene. Avshalom Laniado expands this investigation to the broader urban environment in the East. Working against the notion of a decline in municipal councils in the early Byzantine Empire, he argues that imperial authority and lay notables still dominated the political urban landscape, against a perception of acclamation as representing meaningful popular participation. Picking up on popular participation, Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira investigates twentieth-century assumptions that acclamation was merely decorative in a North African context in the fourth and early fifth centuries. He examines case studies of expressions of popular will in civic forums such as the amphitheatre, as well as some ecclesiastical elections, to emphasise that the urban plebeians could and would bypass their town councils. Pierfrancesco Porena moves to a similar context in late antique Italy. In a context where provincial authority was increasingly under threat, he posits that the Diocletian reforms ushered in a split in Italian consciousness—as represented by an ‘imperial’ Milan and a ‘traditional’ Rome— to create a situation where civic identity trumped provincial authority before diminishing with the decline of the Italian cities themselves. Rounding off this late antique context, Michael Kulikowski moves the lens to a late Roman and early Visigothic Spain. He charts uncertainty in urban curial identity in the fourth century, a shift to urban military identity in the fifth century (as urban sites moved to higher ground), with civic identity being predominantly mediated by the bishop in the sixth century...

审阅者：

• 古代晚期和中世纪早期的公民身份和公民参与编辑。作者：塞德里克·布雷拉兹和埃尔斯·罗斯
• 史蒂芬·乔伊斯

编辑塞德里克·布雷拉兹 (Cédric Brélaz) 和埃尔斯·罗斯 (Els Rose) 探索了从古典时期晚期到中世纪早期公民身份和公民参与的演变，将大约 14 篇文章整理成一本卷，重点关注罗马和后罗马时期城市社区政治身份的演变。罗马景观受到深刻的政治转型的影响。从帝国权威（及其附属机构）和普遍罗马公民权的概念（公元 212 年引入）到日益强调基督教主教作为城市景观的政治代表和调解者，本书描绘了公民身份和参与的转变。四部分：帝国背景（公元一至三世纪）; 城市转型（公元四世纪至七世纪）；政治和宗教重组时期（公元四世纪至七世纪）；以及中世纪早期的城市（公元六世纪至十一世纪）。克劳迪娅·拉普提供了一个简短的后记。

在该书的引言中，布雷拉兹和罗斯列出了该书探讨的问题：城市（作为政治共同体中的政治共同体）如何适应通常以“城市衰落”为特征的深刻政治转型，以及这些城市发挥了什么作用？社区（作为“人民”）在这一转变中发挥作用？克利福德·安藤以这种目的论方法为背景，研究了古典时期晚期的罗马公民身份及其对西方的影响。他指出西方基本上是由罗马城市化的，他认为其公民文化本质上主要是帝国的，帝国的办公室在城市景观中至关重要。布雷拉兹随后对东方的城市政治表达进行了考察，那里的城市化早于罗马权威的建立。[第 238 页完]在已经抛开希腊术语“民主”的帝国格局中，地方身份及其政治表达仍然很重要。

进入古代晚期，安东尼·卡德里斯继续以东方为焦点，审视君士坦丁堡的公民身份。他从帝国权威主导的“僵化”罗马公民概念转变为反对“受操纵的暴民”概念，转而主张公民积极干预城市政治格局，而且有权干预。阿夫沙洛姆·拉尼亚多 (Avshalom Laniado) 将这项调查扩展到东部更广泛的城市环境。他反对拜占庭帝国早期市政委员会衰落的观点，认为帝国权威和世俗名流仍然主导着城市政治景观，反对将鼓掌视为代表有意义的民众参与的看法。抓住大众参与的契机，胡里奥·塞萨尔·马加良斯·德·奥利维拉 (Julio Cesar Magalhães de Oliveira) 研究了二十世纪的假设，即鼓掌在四世纪和五世纪初的北非背景下仅仅是装饰性的。他研究了在露天剧场等公民论坛以及一些教会选举中表达民众意愿的案例研究，以强调城市平民可以而且愿意绕过他们的市议会。皮尔弗朗西斯科·波雷纳 (Pierfrancesco Porena) 在古代意大利晚期进入了类似的背景。在省级权威日益受到威胁的背景下，他认为戴克里先改革引发了意大利意识的分裂——以“帝国”米兰和“传统”罗马为代表——创造了一种公民身份凌驾于省级权威的局面然后随着意大利城市本身的衰落而减少。迈克尔·库利科夫斯基（Michael Kulikowski）将镜头移至罗马晚期和西哥特早期的西班牙，完善了这一晚期古董背景。他描绘了第四世纪城市宗教身份的不确定性，第五世纪向城市军事身份的转变（随着城市遗址迁移到地势较高的地方），而公民身份在第六世纪主要由主教来调解……