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TSR Wiki > Study Help > Subjects and Revision > Revision Notes > History > Christianity = new language for expression of power
Churches instead of public buildings
- A change in the language of power – C changed public face of AC and its structure of power – it therefore poss prolonged its survival (e.g. many temples converted into churches).
- Public display and organisation shifted into a different idiom – continuity of urban élite culture, even of system of social advancement via scholarly rhetoric, but C incorporated – lasting changes (every city still has a bishop)
- Churches = impressive and expensive community buildings under a different name – these large new structures replaced classical architecture (e.g. S. Sophia Maggiore, C5 Rome). Church patronage (seen in tile inscriptions recording donations etc.) = new expression of community status.
- Increasing role of bishops and clergy in city admin in lieu of curial class. Dev of set of dioceses
- Legacies now made to churches instead of public projects
- Records of funerary inscriptions / miracles / local saints' lives take place of earlier classical texts. Municipal pride still a useful concept.
- C fitted well with AC (not aspic C2 view, but a creative interpretation of what AC was all about – e.g. C charity in cities funded production / employment).
- Having bishop performing secular functions was crucial to preservation of admin value of cities. Unity of diocese kept city and territory unity for longest.
- Contrast with Islam for Syrians: New cityscape with mosques. New attitude to public administration. Islamic law differentiated differently between public and private property (no aesthetic considerations, but privacy crucial). Kennedy argues for longer-term socio-economic changes. Coming of Islam = just one aspect of C6-10 transformation.
- A way of acknowledging R inheritance appropriate + useful to early medieval society
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