In fall 2014, Dr Dorine van Espelo and I were given the opportunity to share a postdoctoral research project on the early papacy at Radboud University, under supervision of Professor Olivier Hekster. We were part of the pilot project of the Anchoring Innovation research group, part of OIKOS (National Research School in Classical Studies), which gathered scholars on classical antiquity from all over the Netherlands and from all fields. We worked on widely diverging topics, but we united in our use of the same approach, that of Anchoring Innovation. Thanks to a generous grant from the Dutch government, Anchoring will continue for years to come.
Our project, Popes and expressions of Roman power: Anchoring religious politics in periods of change (200–800 CE), surpassed the traditional boundaries of antiquity. It aimed at bringing together the too often separated fields of (late) antique and (early) medieval studies, thus reflecting the close collaboration of the chairs in ancient and medieval history at Radboud University.
Thanks to the Academy Colloquia grant of the KNAW (Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences) we had the opportunity to close our project under perfect circumstances with an international conference followed by a PhD masterclass in the beautiful Trippenhuis in Amsterdam: Peter, Popes and Politics. Expressions of power in the late antique and early mediaeval world. We are very grateful to the KNAW and also to the additional sponsors: OIKOS Anchoring Innovation as well as the Institute for Historical, Literary and Cultural Studies and the History Department from Radboud University.
The proceedings of the masterclass, Anchoring Sanctity, can be retrieved from the Anchoring Innovation website. The proceedings of the conference are now published in this book, in the open access series of the Anchoring Innovation project. I am very proud, and grateful to the Anchoring board and editors of Euhormos, that this volume is accepted as opening volume of this series, although its topic and time scope are not traditionally included in the field of classical studies. I see this volume, therefore, as a symbol of the interdisciplinary and open-minded spirit which has characterised OIKOS and the Anchoring Innovation project from the start.
I would like to thank all participants of the conference for their contribution to an intellectually challenging, but also convivial atmosphere. Most speakers have reworked their paper to a written article published in this book; Els Rose and Carl Springer were willing to add their expertise after the conference and made the volume even more diverse than it already was. I am grateful to Myrthe Spitzen for helping me with the indices. Thanks also go to Olivier Hekster, who supported Dorine and me whenever it was needed in making our postdoc project a success. Dorine made a career switch after the conference and it was not possible to do the editorial process together. However, this book is very much the product of our shared project. I am very grateful to her for our pleasant collaboration, the good company and her introducing me into the world of medieval studies.
Roald Dijkstra
Nijmegen, September 2019