Dumio-Braga. A Functional Duality, a Legal Anomaly

Abstract

[En] The presence of monasteries that were simultaneously episcopal seats is an absolutely exceptional phenomenon in Late Antique Christianity outside the British Isles. In fact, when this reality occurs, it is associated with processes of ’colonisation’ of Briton entities, as in the case of early settlements in northern Armorica or the exceptional case of the diocese of Britonia on the Spanish Cantabrian coast. Only one known case, that of the monastery-bishopric of Dumio, near Bracara, seems to escape this model. Founded around 550 by a Pannonian named Martin, the monastery was converted a few years later into an episcopal see. Martin became its titular and in this function exerted an enormous influence on the Suevic conversion to Catholicism. Ten years later, Martin was elected metropolitan bishop of Braga and simultaneously retained the see of Dumio. Both sees, sometimes with independent bishops, sometimes with a shared bishop, survived until the Muslim invasion. An institutionally anomalous history whose durability over time is exceptional and difficult to explain.