The Michaelic cult, originally from Asia Minor, landed in the West following the Greek-Gothic war and the Byzantine conquest of southern Italy. The first theophanic sanctuary linked to the Archangel was born in Apulia, in Monte Sant'Angelo, in the 5th century AD. Following the conquest of the Gargano by the Lombards, the veneration of the Archangel spread to all the territories they occupied, in particular in the so-called Langobardia Minor. Between the 8th and 9th centuries southern Italy - and, more specifically, Molise and Campania - was affected by a widespread diffusion of sanctuaries connected to the Michaelic cult. In fact only 34 of the attested rupestrian churches in Campania have a cultic structures or preserve the title to the Archangel in the toponymic indication. Particularly affected by this phenomenon are the Alburni Mountains and the Tanagro Valley. The Michaelic cult in the ancient Vallis Rationis is characterised by being permeated by a strong duality, which manifests itself in the tradition of a double typology of foundation: Byzantine and Lombard. Actually, within such a circumscribed and peripheral territory, which has always been a melting pot of peoples and cultures thanks to its strategic position, the devotion to the Archangel Michael takes on peculiar characteristics, witnessing itself as the product of the coexistence of different communities, uses and customs, source of new traditions and new forms of worship. Therefore, the Archangel venerated in the Tanagro Valley presents, at the same time, the characteristics of the Byzantine physician and of the Lombard difensor dei. So the Michaelic cult is substantiated in a perfect fusion - not without strong elements of originality - of the two "canonical" traditions. This fusion is manifested by the rurality of the territory in which the cult is established, thanks to the distance from the main urban centres of the region and the dogmatic conformity of their cultic expressions.
Papaleo F., Il culto micaelico nella Valle del Tanagro (SA): caratteristiche e peculiarità della cristianità nelle aree interne, in Rassegna Storica Salernitana, n. 77, giugno 2022, pp. 35-66.
Papaleo, F.
2022-01-01
Abstract
The Michaelic cult, originally from Asia Minor, landed in the West following the Greek-Gothic war and the Byzantine conquest of southern Italy. The first theophanic sanctuary linked to the Archangel was born in Apulia, in Monte Sant'Angelo, in the 5th century AD. Following the conquest of the Gargano by the Lombards, the veneration of the Archangel spread to all the territories they occupied, in particular in the so-called Langobardia Minor. Between the 8th and 9th centuries southern Italy - and, more specifically, Molise and Campania - was affected by a widespread diffusion of sanctuaries connected to the Michaelic cult. In fact only 34 of the attested rupestrian churches in Campania have a cultic structures or preserve the title to the Archangel in the toponymic indication. Particularly affected by this phenomenon are the Alburni Mountains and the Tanagro Valley. The Michaelic cult in the ancient Vallis Rationis is characterised by being permeated by a strong duality, which manifests itself in the tradition of a double typology of foundation: Byzantine and Lombard. Actually, within such a circumscribed and peripheral territory, which has always been a melting pot of peoples and cultures thanks to its strategic position, the devotion to the Archangel Michael takes on peculiar characteristics, witnessing itself as the product of the coexistence of different communities, uses and customs, source of new traditions and new forms of worship. Therefore, the Archangel venerated in the Tanagro Valley presents, at the same time, the characteristics of the Byzantine physician and of the Lombard difensor dei. So the Michaelic cult is substantiated in a perfect fusion - not without strong elements of originality - of the two "canonical" traditions. This fusion is manifested by the rurality of the territory in which the cult is established, thanks to the distance from the main urban centres of the region and the dogmatic conformity of their cultic expressions.
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