Euergetism, or gift-giving by the wealthy in the Greco-Roman world to their city in exchange for public honours, experienced an unprecedented proliferation in the early Roman empire. However, with the rise of Christianity in the Roman world, it is thought that euergetism (from the Greek euergetes, benefactor) in its classic, civic sense declined. With Christian donors caring about saving their soul rather than improving their reputation among their fellow-citizens, P. Veyne stated, euergetism lost its rationale. According to P. Brown, a shift in the social imagination occurred, in which a Greco-Roman ‘civic model of society’, exemplified by elites benefitting their fellow-citizens, was replaced by a Judeo-Christian ideal of the rich caring for the poor. Yet, it is argued (cf. C. Lepelley, R. Haensch, Y. Duval and L. Pietri, Ch. J. Goddard, D. F. Caner), this scenario seems at odds with evidence for e.g. the continuing popularity of investment by local elites, pagan and Christian, in games and public buildings, including churches, in late antique cities, the feverish imperial elite and emperor-sponsored world of the circus, and persistent concerns expressed by authors such as Augustine of Hippo or John Chrysostom about Christian engagement with euergetic culture. A rival model of ‘Christian euergetism’ was proposed (J.-P. Caillet), emphasizing continuities with the civic munificence of the high empire. This project engages with this debate in an attempt to find a novel take on the subject, one that is not so much focussed on continuities or wholesale transformation but rather on the specific role(s) played by late antique benefactions and benefactors in late antique society, focussing on categories of gifts, their context (civic, ecclesiastical, private, rural?), the social profiles of donors/recipients, discourses of benefaction and/or charity, and on the recognition (honours, high status, personal salvation…) donors expected/received in return for their gifts. Within the project funding will be pooled with colleagues to be able to let a junior researcher write a PhD thesis on this subject.