Baptism and baptisteries between Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

This book brings together articles written on ancient and medieval baptism and baptisteries by an international panel of renowned archaeologists and historians. We cover a wide variety of topics related to Christian initiation, from liturgy to architecture, from theology to the history of institutions and canon law, from religious symbolism to the political dimension of baptism. We address these questions within a broad geographical framework that extends from the British Isles to Ethiopia. We discuss and comment on a large number of material and textual sources that concern both the origins of Christianity and the early Middle Ages, both in the West and in the Byzantine and Muslim East. By bringing together these different researches, we highlight the multifaceted nature of baptism, which is both a mirror and a product of the different societies in which it became a common ritual.