Miracle, Law, and Maritime Space

Abstract

This article examines the foundation narrative of Cefalù Cathedral preserved in the so-called Rollus Rubeus. In this account, King Roger II of Sicily is miraculously delivered from a storm at sea and founds a cathedral at the place where he makes landfall. Although the text has long been read for what it may reveal about the historical circumstances of the cathedral’s foundation, it is here approached as a historiographical construct that foregrounds the cathedral’s institutional claims within a specific geophysical environment. By situating the narrative within broader Mediterranean traditions of miracles at sea and the cathedral’s practical activities on the Tyrrhenian Sea, the article argues that the text reflects the cathedral’s place within an interconnected maritime space. This setting thus functions not merely as narrative background but as a spatial framework through which the cathedral’s claims were articulated and its surroundings rendered a locus of institutional belonging. The article concludes with a new edition and English translation of the Latin text.