Professor Mar Marcos

Professor Mar Marcos is a Senior Visiting Research Fellow from 1 April to 30 June 2025.

Mar Marcos is a Professor of Ancient History at the University of Cantabria in Spain. She has broad interests in the social, political and religious history of the Roman Empire, especially in religious politics in Late Antiquity. She has been visiting scholar at Wolfson College and Corpus Christi College at Oxford, Real Colegio Complutense at Harvard, Roma Sapienza and École Pratique des Hautes Études (Sorbonne, Paris). Currently, she directs the projects ‘Sedito in urbe: Religious Disputation and Social Order in Late Antiquity’ and the ‘Ancient Religions and Cults Network (ARACNe)’. She has edited Loca haereticorum. La geografia dell’eresia nel Mediterraneo tardoantico (with Tessa Canella) in Studi e Materiali di Storia delle Religioni, 85/1, 2019, and The Role of the Bishop in Late Antiquity: Conflict and Compromise (with Andrew T. Fear and José Fernández Ubiña) London: Bloomsbury 2013.

Project Description: Religious Dissension and Social Order in Late Antique Rome

This project examines religious conflicts in Rome during the fourth and early fifth centuries, focusing on documents preserved in two significant late canonical collections: the Collectio Avellana and the Collectio Quesnelliana. These collections contain records of contentious papal elections and violent doctrinal disputes within Rome. By analysing these documents, which are exclusively conserved in these collections, historians and legal scholars can gain a profound understanding of the imperial administration and religious jurisdiction of the period. Specifically, the study sheds light on the functions of the urban prefecture, offering valuable insights into the drafting and communication of laws during Late Antiquity.