Fig. 1 Bourg-St-Pierre with Churchyard in town center, 9th.c CE and later

Fig. 2 Map of Bourg-St-Pierre with Church (toward south end of town, marked by cross east-west)
Spoliation of Roman material is common wherever there is continuity between Roman and medieval communities, even when a considerable time has ensued between abandonment and reuse and/or when significant demographic change occurs. In the Grand St Bernard Pass region, the Parish Church of Bourg-St-Pierre and its vicinity in the alpine town of the same name (Figs 1-2) at around 1632 meters (5354 ft.) elevation in the Val d’Entremont of the Valais has many documented spolia on the route of the Grand-St-Bernard where the Roman route of Via Poenina (as seen in the Peutinger Map) was succeeded by the medieval route of Via Montis Jovis.(1) The Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project has been studying and reconstructing Roman life in the upper montane Grand-St-Bernard pass, especially above 1600 meters elevation since 1995; reuse of Roman material in the region is especially significant in the monastery Hospice du Grand-St-Bernard from the 11th c. onward. (2)

Spolium is defined here as a reused Roman artifact whose value for the medieval world lay in its obvious “Roman-ness” (3) – showing continuity between Classical Rome and Christian Rome – while at the same time demonstrating the break and conquest of the Christian world over Classical paganism. While there is precedent in Classical tradition for spolia over other cultures in a military triumph, the Judeo-Christian world and its biblical or other ancient antecedents find the same phenomenon in the literary record of the biblical I Samuel in the exemplum of conquest. When the victorious Philistines placed the captured Ark of the Covenant in the Dagon temple in Ashdod [I Samuel 5:1-5] or later when they placed the defeated Israelite King Saul’s body on the walls of Beth Shean and his armor in the Temple of Astarte [I Samuel 31:10] they signified the triumph of their gods over the god of Israel, a temporary and dangerous display according to the biblical writers and theologians. At times spoliation may show a totemic desire to increase the sacredness of a new site by incorporating the sacredness of a prior site even if under different belief systems. Thus such a universal conquest tradition shows henotheistic propaganda value at the very least and religious dominance as a strong statement of religiocentrism alongside cultural hegemony by the conquering culture. Both somewhat polarized elements of continuity and conquest are evident in these spolia at Bourg-St-Pierre. These spolia are deliberately placed to be conspicuous from all sides of the church, as will be shown in the following discussion.
For medieval Christianity the philosophy of spoliation – while at times a merely pragmatic reuse of good Roman material for time and energy conservation – is not difficult to trace. When the ultimate motives are examined for reuse of Roman material as spolia beyond the specific parish church of Bourg-St-Pierre and in a medieval world at large, perhaps it is Christian triumph over former Roman persecution that is seen in the biblical passage of Colossians 2: 15. “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and made a public example of such, leading them in triumph [thriambeusas] over them in it.” Combining pragmatism with conquest, similar examples exist throughout the former Roman world, “appreciating and appropriating the past” as in Hexham abbey church, Britain “building a monument to honour the new authority in Britain using the most opulent remains of the old authority. Such symbolism would not have been lost on the people of Britain…Roman masonry represented far more than its simple utility as building material. It symbolised the continuing legitimacy of the greatest power that Europe had ever known.” (4) As mentioned, this is philosophically compounded when there is sacred continuity even in the purported conquest of paganism by Christianity (the “my god is bigger than your god” credo).
Some of these specific spolia in the town of Bourg-St-Pierre to be discussed in the following sections are noted already in the prior literature but reappraisal shows more can be documented especially in the area immediate to the parish church, a most likely place of display given the above.
The Carolingian history of Bourg-St-Pierre is known from village and cantonal archives dating to the 8th c., although it is likely that a Roman mansio roadside hostel logically existed here in the 1st c. CE halfway between the Roman town of Forum Claudii Vallensium and the Summus Poeninus sanctuary and mansiones. Charlemagne also passed through here in 800 en route to Mediolanum (Milan), and a subsequent Carolingian castellum appears to have been built – possibly over a Celtic oppidum – on the hill above the town along with a Carolingian chapel and adjoining small monastery were established in the town under the Abbe Vultgarius whose death is recorded here between 812 and 820 CE as Monastere Saint-Pierre de Mont-Joux (5) whose clerical Petrine motif of crossed keys is retained in the town heraldry (Fig. 3).

Fig. 3 Heraldry of Commune of Bourg-St-Pierre
(from Monastere Saint-Pierre de Mont-Joux))
This Carolingian history evidences the early preeminence of Bourg-St-Pierre (6) over the later and ultimately more important 11th. c. Hospice du Grand-St-Bernard at the summit of the pass. Between the 9th and 11th c., most of the pass, including the much higher summit with its hostile climate, was reputedly in the hands of Saracens or brigands.(7)
Bernard of Menthon as Archdeacon of Aosta (subsequently canonized as St. Bernard) sought later to reduce such threats for travelers through the mountains in need of protection against such human elements as well as the fiercely inclement weather so common in the Pennine Alps on any given day of the year.(8)
Dating the original Roman material now in Bourg-St-Pierre before it became spolia there initially in the Carolingian period (circa 800 CE) is also published elsewhere. While the Stanford Alpine Archaeology Project independently arrived at the same conclusion in 1996, the author credits Francois Wible for the first suggestion (1996 and subsequently published in 1997) of Vespasianic epigraphy for the spolia described in the Bourg-St-Pierre churchyard. A full account of this Roman spolia research at Bourg-St-Pierre is now found in this author’s new book (2007).
TO READ MORE, SEE PATRICK HUNT’S NEW ALPINE ARCHAEOLOGY BOOK (2007)
Stanford University
http://www.patrickhunt.net
phunt@stanford.edu
Photos 4-11 by courtesy of Elizabeth Pirrotta, 2004; photo 12 by courtesy of Michael Jennings 2002
copyright Dr. Patrick Hunt © 2005