Un sistema agricolo familiare ovvero ciò che è chiamato il monachesimo del Giura

The principal aim of this paper is to describe the ascetic community founded by the two brothers Romanus and Lupicinus on Jura mountains in the fifth cen- tury. Although the male communities are usually described as open places, crowded with guests, pilgrim and sick people and historians wanted mainly to put this form of ascetic way of life in relationship with other similar Gallic communities, some traces in the Life of the Jura Fathers show as these elements are quite unsatisfactory. Family and patrimony seem to be the most predominant feature of these series of monasteries. These traces are here collected in order to try a new description and interpretation of the Jura monasti- cism, which appears mainly as a re-organization of a rich and spread family estate system. In this case, hagiographical and archaeological data fruitfully agree.