La formazione della sancta Ecclesia Marabensis (858-882). Fonti e linguaggi di un progetto papale

My research focuses on realising a study on Methodius' archbishopric and on the papal politics of the 9th century concerning central Europe. Besides my work on the sources the huge historiography on this theme which dates from the 19th and the second half of the 20th century, serves as a basis for my analysis. This poses a significant challenge to the project according to the ideological and polemical tendency of a large part of the literature. But of course these extensive results can't be ignored and therefore the adaptation and contextualisation due to modern standards and the critical analysis of the main topics, aims and methodological approaches are an important part of my project. My work examines new prospects in discussing the traditional historiographical problems concerning the foundation of a new ecclesiastical territoriality in central Europe and it concentrates on the recovering of long neglected sources; therefore, the Roman sources (for example the Liber Pontificalis or the pope's registers), the Slavic sources (the Vita Costantini and the Vita Methodi) and the German sources (Annales fuldenses and the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum) will be subjects of a systematic investigation. The letters of Pope John VIII serve as an important source (872-882), especially the Moravian corpus (seven fragments and four complete letters), which represents a possibility to observe papal politics towards the rising archbishopric of Methodius. The analysis on the Moravian corpus will also be a linguistic one. I will concentrate especially on the vocabulary in the papal letters defining the Methodian archbishopric and its archbishop and the vocabulary used in the correspondence between Pope John VIII and the Slav chief Svatopluk. The linguistic analysis allows to understand the main stages of a dynamical and flexible papal politic: at the beginning of the correspondence the letters are written in a cautious style, reflecting the papal awareness of the alternating historical and territorial circumstances. After Svatopluk's confirmation and an increased political stability in that region, the papal letters became more audacious. Moreover efforts were made towards a justification and legitimation of the new Roman diocese, in order to decrease the influence and the continuous objections of the Bavarian church having had tried to reject papal intrusion over the missionary territories by claiming them to be Bavarian ones assigned by Carolingian authority. The papal letters are precious documents which testify the ideological effort to find an untouchable identity for the Methodian diocese and the right canonical position for Methodius. The first papal attempt consists in assigning Pannonian identity to the Methodian diocese, according to a strategy already adopted during the furious polemic between Rome and Constantinople about the control of Bulgarian Christianity. In the papal letters the term "Pannonian diocese" is suddenly replaced by "Moravian diocese". This seems to be a strategy to establish a new diocese with a new name, that can be regarded independent from the late Roman past.The change of the diocese's name signifies a radical transformation in the papal politics demonstrating an example of effective political sovereignty that reacts to the new political realities along the eastern borders of the Empire. In this context, it's obvious that the relationships between the Pope and the Slavic chiefs, which serve as absolute guarantors for the survival of the new ecclesiastical realities, gain significantly in importance.