IVᵉ siècle – Vᵉ siècle
Upper Numidia and Mauretania
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The Circumcellions were Donatist peasant bands active chiefly in upper Numidia and Mauretania from the 340s until the Vandal arrival in Africa. They combined religious militancy, the pursuit of martyrdom, and social protest against landlords, creditors, and magistrates. Their leaders were called “captains of the saints,” while women in their ranks visited martyr shrines. Although not political separatists, they represented an extreme form of rural North African Christianity and challenged the social order of the Roman provinces.
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Le récit
The Circumcellions emerged in the 340s among the villages and hill-fort settlements of Numidia and Mauretania. Their social base consisted of peasants, including the tenant farmers, labourers, donkey-drivers and small tradesmen who populated the rural communities of the high plateaux. Contemporary authorities agreed that their principal radius of action lay in upper Numidia and Mauretania, where they dominated some settlements within Augustine’s diocese of Hippo.
The movement presented itself as a religious calling rather than a conventional political programme. Its members were Donatists, and its leaders were known as “captains of the saints.” Bands of women, described by Augustine as sanctimoniales, travelled between martyr shrines. Silos and storage jars found beside rustic churches suggest that the cellae associated with the movement may have functioned as shrines or places connected with the sustenance of these communities.
Religious devotion and social confrontation were inseparable in Circumcellion action. Optatus of Milevis and Augustine described attacks on wealthy landowners, the weakening of creditors’ claims, and the humiliation of rich men forced from their carriages. These acts were intended to provoke martyrdom: magistrates could be confronted with the choice of executing the Circumcellions or being killed themselves. The movement’s cry, “Deo Laudes,” became feared across North Africa.
The Circumcellions became the immediate cause of Donatus’s exile in 347. When imperial commissioners Paul and Macarius entered Numidia, they encountered armed resistance near Bagai, where the local bishop had transformed his church into a fortress. After the commissioners returned to Carthage, the Donatists were proscribed and Donatus was exiled to Gaul, where he died in 355.
Their actions were not limited to attacks on estates. Around Nif en-Nisr near Ain Mlila, on the Numidian high plateau, roughly cut inscriptions on rocks and boulders recorded individual names and dates associated with the rendering of souls to God. These remains were presented as evidence of the extent to which the pursuit of martyrdom shaped Circumcellion behaviour.
The Circumcellions were not political separatists, and they used the Latin of the Donatist Church. Their importance lay in the way they combined social antagonism with apocalyptic religious expectations. They expressed a radical rejection of the official Christianization of the empire, treating the struggle against the world as an ongoing spiritual conflict.
IVᵉ siècle – Vᵉ siècle
Upper Numidia and Mauretania
Traduction non disponible · Original (anglais) · français indisponible
The Circumcellions were Donatist peasant bands active chiefly in upper Numidia and Mauretania from the 340s until the Vandal arrival in Africa. They combined religious militancy, the pursuit of martyrdom, and social protest against landlords, creditors, and magistrates. Their leaders were called “captains of the saints,” while women in their ranks visited martyr shrines. Although not political separatists, they represented an extreme form of rural North African Christianity and challenged the social order of the Roman provinces.
Poursuivre l’exploration
Le récit
The Circumcellions emerged in the 340s among the villages and hill-fort settlements of Numidia and Mauretania. Their social base consisted of peasants, including the tenant farmers, labourers, donkey-drivers and small tradesmen who populated the rural communities of the high plateaux. Contemporary authorities agreed that their principal radius of action lay in upper Numidia and Mauretania, where they dominated some settlements within Augustine’s diocese of Hippo.
The movement presented itself as a religious calling rather than a conventional political programme. Its members were Donatists, and its leaders were known as “captains of the saints.” Bands of women, described by Augustine as sanctimoniales, travelled between martyr shrines. Silos and storage jars found beside rustic churches suggest that the cellae associated with the movement may have functioned as shrines or places connected with the sustenance of these communities.
Religious devotion and social confrontation were inseparable in Circumcellion action. Optatus of Milevis and Augustine described attacks on wealthy landowners, the weakening of creditors’ claims, and the humiliation of rich men forced from their carriages. These acts were intended to provoke martyrdom: magistrates could be confronted with the choice of executing the Circumcellions or being killed themselves. The movement’s cry, “Deo Laudes,” became feared across North Africa.
The Circumcellions became the immediate cause of Donatus’s exile in 347. When imperial commissioners Paul and Macarius entered Numidia, they encountered armed resistance near Bagai, where the local bishop had transformed his church into a fortress. After the commissioners returned to Carthage, the Donatists were proscribed and Donatus was exiled to Gaul, where he died in 355.
Their actions were not limited to attacks on estates. Around Nif en-Nisr near Ain Mlila, on the Numidian high plateau, roughly cut inscriptions on rocks and boulders recorded individual names and dates associated with the rendering of souls to God. These remains were presented as evidence of the extent to which the pursuit of martyrdom shaped Circumcellion behaviour.
The Circumcellions were not political separatists, and they used the Latin of the Donatist Church. Their importance lay in the way they combined social antagonism with apocalyptic religious expectations. They expressed a radical rejection of the official Christianization of the empire, treating the struggle against the world as an ongoing spiritual conflict.