The Remaking of a Christian Space: Oria and Southern Italy in the Ninth-Century Mediterranean

The thesis studies the lifetime of Bishop Theodosius of Oria and the process in which Oria became an economical, political, and ecclesiastical center in the ninth-century Mediterranean. It presents the argument that as a reaction to half a century of Muslim raids, Theodosius worked to claim the Christian identity of the Salento. Extending pastoral services in his see, translating relics, building churches and shrines, and encouraging the conversion of the Jews was his way of asserting the Church's hegemony in the Apulian landscape.