Abstract
The essay has as its starting point a 10th-century hagiographical text about an otherwise
unknown female figure, Saint Tigris, who leads a withdrawn life in Moriana, in the northwestern
Alps, together with her sister Pimenia. The story narrated by the Vita, little studied
until recent years, is set in the 6th century and revolves around the most important moment
in the history of the Dei famula, namely a journey to the eastern Mediterranean in search of
the Baptist’s relics. From those lands, Tigris managed to bring back the remains of the Precursor’s
body, around which the new diocese of Moriana (Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne) was created.
This reconfiguration of jurisdictional arrangements in the ecclesiastical sphere led, during
the early Middle Ages and beyond, to a complex interweaving of territorial claims between
the archdiocese of Vienne, the diocese of Moriana and that of Turin, and is at the basis
of the drafting of the hagiographic text. It, however, also shows another aspect of the life led
by the two sisters, which is relevant because it is closely linked to Tigris's journey to the East,
namely the practice of hospitality, in an area affected by long-distance roads, linked to the
Alpine passes. The paper focuses on this theme in particular, investigating the forms of a
‘domestic’ hospitality, practised within family contexts, in which women who embraced an
ascetic life played a prominent role, alone or together with their male relatives, who adhered
to the same existential choice. The case of Tigris and Pimenia, from this specific perspective,
is thus placed within a broader framework, highlighting the Late Antique ‘models’ of the
phenomenon as well as looking at the Early Medieval Italian context.
Titolo tradotto del contributo | [Machine translation] Tigre and the Famulae gods of early medieval Italy: female presences between hospitality practices and reception spaces |
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Lingua originale | Italian |
Titolo della pubblicazione ospite | Ritratti di donne: una Storia di esperienze. Saggi per Paola Guglielmotti |
Editore | Società Ligure di Storia Patria |
Pagine | 43-61 |
Numero di pagine | 19 |
ISBN (stampa) | 979-12-81845-04-6 |
Stato di pubblicazione | Pubblicato - 2024 |
Keywords
- Tigris
- Moriana
- Hospitality
- Women
- Female asceticism
- Late Antiquity
- Early Middle Ages.