488 Lizzi Testa
ers with respect to territory and jurisdiction.44 It can be assumed, however,
that thanks to Gelasius’ intervention in this delicate institutional matter, the
church was able to overcome the crisis of civil administration that was already
perceptible at the end of the 5th century.
Nuns, Monks, and Monasteries
Monastic foundations, which were located within cities or more often in the
countryside, in both remote locations and along main roads, had multiplied
throughout Italy over the course of two centuries. Nevertheless, a map of
monastic settlements in RomanoGothic Italy is extremely difficult to draw.45
Differences between Annonarian and Suburbicarian Italy in the spread of
diocesan networks and in the rural development of Christianity are evident in
the kinds of male monasticism that took root in these two regions during the
5th and 6th centuries: largely urban and with characteristics that combined
the monastic experience and clerical life in northern Italy; of the coenobitic
type and more related to the countryside in southern Italy. During the same
period, eremitical installations also began to populate the central Apennine
region, whereas previously they were mostly present in insular areas.46 In fact
each of these forms dated back to the second half of the 4th century but was
apparently preceded by early expressions of female asceticism, which there
fore will be analysed first.
Female Asceticism
According to Jerome, Marcella first expressed her ascetic inclination when
Athanasius of Alexandria was received by Pope Julius for a few months around
340/345. She was soon followed by other women in her family and then, with
little chronological gap, by other young virgins or widows of her own class.
Jerome’s arrival in Rome around 380, finally, gave new impetus to female
44 Otranto, Per una storia dell’Italia tardoantica, pp. 128–34.
45 Attempts to collate information on known monasteries in Italy before the 7th century
include: Ferrari, Early Roman Monasteries; Luiselli, “La società romanogotica”, pp. 108–13;
Jenal, Italia Ascetica; and now Wood, “Entrusting Western Europe to the Church”, p. 47.
46 A very selective picture is provided in Luiselli, “La società romanogotica”, pp. 108–13, and
Jenal, “Zum Asketen—und Mönchtum”, which is an updated synthesis of Penco, Storia del
monachesimo in Italia.