Christian Belief and Practice in the Alps (ca. 250-ca. 600)

In the past, scholars have used the available data to identify a process of ‘Christianisation’, understood as the transformation of the local population into ‘Christians’. Nevertheless, the Alpine region resists such an approach because it attests to only timid institutional efforts that allow for a thorough penetration of the territory. This assumption invites a rereading of local sources and customs in order to identify features that may have facilitated the integration of different beliefs and practices into new forms of Christianity. It appears, instead, that the spread of Christianity in the Alpine regions mainly relied on individual initiatives. The scholars who contributed to this volume revisited the available evidence to evaluate its relevance in light of this nuanced understanding of religious identity, thus shifting the perspective from a unidirectional ‘Christianisation’ of the Alpine regions to the multidimensional notion of ‘Christianness’.