On 05.10.2026 we present the 50th session of our online lecture series with a contribution of
Fermude Gülsevinç
(ANAMED – Research Center for Anatolian Civilizations, Koç University)
Sailing Saints: Maritime Connectivity and the Byzantine Affective Koine in the Early Medieval Mediterranean
This lecture explores how maritime connectivity contributed to the circulation of saints’ cults, relics, devotional practices, and shared emotional repertoires across the early medieval Mediterranean. Rather than approaching the sea primarily as a conduit for commerce or political communication, it considers maritime routes as channels through which religious practices, sacred objects, narratives, and forms of belonging travelled between geographically and linguistically diverse communities.
Focusing on Byzantine Southern Italy between the eighth and eleventh centuries, the lecture examines three different mechanisms of devotional mobility. The cult of Gregory the Illuminator in Naples provides a case for the transplantation and local adaptation of an eastern saintly tradition; the cult and memory of Nilus of Rossano illuminate the movement of religious personnel and the connective role of Italo-Greek monastic networks; and the translation of the relics of Nicholas of Myra to Bari in 1087 demonstrates how the maritime movement of sacred remains could create new centres of pilgrimage and devotional attachment.
Bringing hagiographical and liturgical texts into dialogue with relic traditions, sacred topography, architecture, inscriptions, and other material evidence, the lecture asks whether these movements produced more than religious connectivity. I propose the concept of a Byzantine affective koine to describe a shared repertoire of suffering, protection, healing, intercession, miraculous intervention, and communal memory through which communities across the Mediterranean could articulate forms of religious belonging without requiring political or administrative uniformity.
To join the lecture: https://us06web.zoom.us/j/85622764363?pwd=1eSCQsHHOA520wx3FiNK6L3RDDiOdY.1
(Meeting ID: 856 2276 4363 / Passcode: 253428)
