Dr. Kathryn Jasper

Research Interests & Areas

My current research project is an archaeological excavation of a Roman imperial period, monumental fountain located 300 meters from the western coast of Lake Bolsena in central Italy. Its high quality of construction and materials and its remote rural location suggests the fountain was part of a larger complex, likely a Roman villa. Answering questions about the identity and motivations of the fountain’s patron hinges on uncovering how its construction related to the agrarian economy, to routes of export and import, and consumption of goods in the region. My approach blends analysis of historical documents with modern datasets of the physical environment, when relevant, to generate hypothetical ancient and medieval landscapes and practices in GIS databases for analysis.

My first book entitled Bounded Wilderness: Land and Reform at the Hermitage of Fonte Avellana, ca. 1035-1072 (Cornell University Press, 2024) studies economic practices, religious traditions, and the natural environment in tandem to shed light on another side of religious reform. Eleventh-century reform was never solely confined to the rarefied realm of the intellect. Religious reform left its mark on the land and the landscape in Italy. It circulated much more widely and demanded thought about matters as ostensibly mundane as property boundaries and rights to water, orchards, pastures, and mills. In a word, the a book about land. Land is an excellent lens for telling the story of reform because it relates to two fundamental reform principles: independence from lay control and the sacred nature of ecclesiastical property. In a land-based economy, the value of land seems self-explanatory, but in the Middle Ages its meaning was multivalent. For many religious, land was at once the site of ascetic experience and the means of supporting their way of life. Land, therefore, became a fulcrum of reform.