Peter of Farfa

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Peter (died ca. 919) was the long-serving Abbot of Farfa from about 890 until his death. He replaced the interim abbot Vitalis. His abbacy marked the return of stability after a period which saw four abbots in the space of two years. [1]

Vitalis was the "surrogate" Abbot of Farfa in 888, between the death of Spento and the election of the long-serving Peter. The history of the period in Farfa's history, besides the barest chronological outline, has been obscure since it was first written down, by Gregory of Catino in the late eleventh century.

Santa Vittoria in Matenano Santa Vittoria in Matenano.jpg
Santa Vittoria in Matenano

In 897, Farfa was attacked and sacked, presumably by Saracens, who had begun to settle in south and central Italy and systematically plunder the countryside. [2] An account of these events, the Destructio monasterii Farfensis, was written by the early eleventh-century abbot Hugh. He records "the properties of our monastery, which were given mercifully by the pious, [were] dispersed cruelly by the impious [through] evil destruction". His vague wording allows that at least some of the raiders were locals and not Saracens. [3]

History of Islam in southern Italy Wikimedia list article

The history of Islam in Sicily and Southern Italy began with the first Muslim settlement in Sicily, at Mazara, which was captured in 827. The subsequent rule of Sicily and Malta started in the 10th century. Islamic rule over all Sicily began in 902, and the Emirate of Sicily lasted from 965 until 1061. Though Sicily was the primary Muslim stronghold in Italy, some temporary footholds, the most substantial of which was the port city of Bari, were established on the mainland peninsula, especially in mainland Southern Italy, though Muslim raids reached as far north as Rome and Piedmont. The Muslim raids were part of a larger struggle for power in Italy and Europe, with Christian Byzantine, Frankish, Norman and local Italian forces also competing for control. Muslims were sometimes sought as allies by various Christian factions against other factions.

Hugh was the Abbot of Farfa from 998. He founded the abbatial school and wrote its history from the late ninth through the early eleventh century under the title Destructio monasterii Farfensis. A later student of his school, Gregory of Catino, wrote a fuller history of the monastery partly based on Hugh's earlier account.

Under Peter's direction, the monks of Farfa fled, some to Rome and others to Rieti. The abbey buildings were used as a barracks by the Saracens at first, but in 898 they were accidentally burnt down. The abbey's treasures were rescued by the monks, and its library and archive were brought by Peter and a few others to the church of Saint Hippolytus in Fermo. He soon had them moved again to the castle of Santa Vittoria in Monte Matenano. In the late eleventh century, the Farfese monk Gregory of Catino records that many documents were missing from the abbey's archives; these were probably lost during the itinerant period after 897. The books and documents did not return to Farfa until around 930, after Peter's death. [4]

Rome Capital city and comune in Italy

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Rieti Comune in Lazio, Italy

Rieti is a city and comune in Lazio, central Italy, with a population of 47,700. It is the capital of province of Rieti and see of the diocese of Rieti, as well as the modern capital of the Sabina region.

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Fermo[ˈfermo]listen  is a town and comune of the Marche, Italy, in the Province of Fermo.

Notes

  1. Marios Costambeys, Power and Patronage in the Early Medieval Italy: Local Society, Italian Politics, and the Abbey of Farfa, c.700–900 (Cambridge: 2007), 162n.
  2. For which development cf. Pierre Toubert, Les structures du Latium médiéval: le Latium méridional et la Sabine du IXe siècle à la fin du XIIe siècle, 2 vols., Bibliothèque des Écoles Françaises d'Athènes et de Rome 221 (Rome: 1973), 970–73.
  3. Costambeys, 346.
  4. Costambeys, 19.

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