Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire

by Judith Herrin

  To some Byzantines, urban monasticism was a contradiction in terms, since it brought those who were committed to a lifetime of prayer, contemplation and silence into the bustling noise of the city. But as we have seen, monks had been allowed to settle in Constantinople in the fifth century, and numerous communities flourished there behind high walls. Some like the Stoudios, Chora, Evergetis and Dalmatou monasteries became famous and sustained an unbroken existence for centuries. Dalmatou, the first to be set up, just outside the walls of Constantinople in 382, continued in use until the twelfth century when it was converted for use as a nunnery. Many others, such as the Myrokeraton, Xylinites or Koukoubiou, are known from a single mention and remain unidentified. This is also a common feature of female houses, which are much less well documented than male.

  From earliest times, women had shared the determination to dedicate their lives to Christ. Some Desert Fathers established sister houses for them. Female communities were set up in an urban environment, also under the protection of a bishop. In Constantinople, Patriarch John Chrysostomos (390–404) supported the nunnery founded by Olympias, a wealthy heiress, who also made generous donations to the Church from her inheritance. In his correspondence with her, John praised her dedication and appreciated her material support for monasticism. Her foundation remained in existence for over two centuries, perhaps longer. In the early seventh century, the abbess Sergia wrote an account of the miraculous recovery of its holy relics. But this is exceptional. From the Lives of female saints it is clear that their commitment to monastic life paralleled that of men, but their nunneries – whether in cities or the countryside – might not survive for more than a couple of generations after the founder. During iconoclast persecution, when the veneration of icons was privatized, women sustained their devotion in their own homes rather than in nunneries. This may have encouraged a later model of domestic sanctity, which permitted married laywomen, like St Maria the Younger in the tenth century, to attain sainthood.

  While monasteries expanded throughout Byzantium, Athos developed its own system of government. Initially, all those registered as monks or hermits on the Holy Mountain elected a Protos (literally, first) to represent them in their relations with the outside world. Later, a council of monasteries emerged as the ruling institution, although Lavra, Vatopedi and Iviron, a community of Georgian monks, remained independent and their abbots took precedence over the Protos. Karyes became the administrative centre of the Holy Mountain, where biannual meetings of all the monks were held. While both emperors and patriarchs attempted to influence and regulate relations among the groups in the monastic federation of Athos, the leading abbots negotiated privileges for their communities. They successfully extended exemption from all imperial taxation and an increase in the number and size of boats in which they transported their produce to markets.

  In 1045, Constantine IX Monomachos issued a new charter for the Holy Mountain, which noted and corrected several bad developments. Some monks complained about the admission of eunuchs and young boys, the size of monastic boats and their use for commercial purposes, the use of cattle, the cutting of firewood and export of lumber for building: all these were to be corrected. Clearly the emperor had been made aware of factional plotting as well as uncanonical acts, such as the ordination of under-age boys as deacons and priests. He urged ‘all the most devout elders’ to attend the general assembly and to ‘participate in the decision with the fear of God and with truth, free from all favoritism and bribe-taking, from party feeling, from partiality and from any other passion: from envy, strife and vengefulness’.

  Some of these problems had arisen from the rapid expansion in numbers, which meant that there was not enough to eat. The Holy Mountain attracted recruits from all corners of the Christian universe, first as visitors or pilgrims, later as brothers committed to the monastic life. While Iviron was intended to serve as a community for Georgians, Benedictine monks from Amalfi in southern Italy established three houses on Mount Athos, and numerous Armenians, Slavs and Bulgars settled on the mountain. During the twelfth century, monks from Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia came to play a much larger role on Mount Athos in their houses at Panteleemon, Zographou and Hilandar, to which the Serbian ruler Stefan Nemanja and his son Sava retired. Mount Athos welcomed Orthodox from far and wide and maintained contacts with Sinai and other distant houses. Some monks who visited the Holy Mountain and gained spiritual training there went on to found their own monasteries elsewhere, and others were appointed to bishoprics and even to the patriarchate.

  While the expansion of monasticism on Mount Athos was supported by imperial patronage, abbots tried to keep their large estates free from imperial taxation. Emperors were not always willing to grant charters of exemption, nor did they approve the foundation of new monasteries at the expense of older houses which often fell into disrepair. In a series of laws issued during the tenth century (see chapter 14), they aimed to concentrate religious devotion on already existing monasteries. Although he had supported Athanasios in his monastery of the Lavra, in 964 Nikephoros Phokas reinforced these laws, without success. Lay patrons often wanted to establish their own communities which would bear their name and commemorate their deaths, and the prestige of Athos continued to attract donations.

  In the late Byzantine period, the monks of Athos were drawn into a vigorous theological debate over hesychasm (hesychia, literally, silence, quiet), which demonstrated the importance of the Holy Mountain in the religious life of the empire. In the early thirteenth century, Gregory Sinaites, who had been trained at Sinai, introduced hesychast practices to Athos. These were based on repetition of the simple prayer, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me’, combined with breathing exercises designed to focus concentration and raise the monk’s spiritual awareness to a higher level. Hesychast theory naturally appealed to those Athonite hermits who lived in isolation and followed their own routine of prayer (called idiorhythmic). It was given much greater prominence and force by Gregory Palamas (1296–1359), then abbot of Esphigmenou, one of the oldest communities on the Holy Mountain. In his writings, Palamas developed hesychast principles, inspired by the moment when the disciples witnessed the uncreated light of the transfigured Christ on Mount Tabor (Matt. 17:1–6). He believed that monks with a heightened awareness could experience the divine energy and uncreated light, and become like God:

  Those who have pleased God and attained that for which they came into being, namely divinization (theosis), these then are in God since they are divinized by Him and He is in them since it is He who divinizes them. Therefore, these too participate in the divine energy.

  This claim was hotly disputed by Barlaam of Calabria, an orthodox monk from southern Italy, and many others who ridiculed the hesychasts as ‘navel-gazers’. In 1339 Barlaam, abbot of the Akataleptos monastery in Constantinople, was sent by Andronikos III on various diplomatic missions to the West connected with the proposed reunion of the eastern and western Churches. With his bilingual culture, he was aware of the theology of St Thomas Aquinas (not yet translated into Greek), which strengthened his doubts about the spiritual mysticism embodied in hesychasm. In writings directed against Gregory Palamas, he expressed strong criticism of hesychast practices, which led to his condemnation at a local church council in 1341. One year later he converted to the Roman Catholic faith and was appointed bishop of Gerace in southern Italy. Although his opponents destroyed most of his writings, he seems to have drawn on the logical Aristotelianism of Aquinas, which he opposed to the Platonic and Neoplatonic theology of the hesychasts. In this respect, Byzantium developed a distinctive mystical spirituality which never had any parallel in the West, indeed it seems closer to many eastern religions. It set orthodox tradition apart from the intellectual theology of the West, where monks contributed directly to philosophical argument and logical reasoning.

  During the civil war of 1341–7 (see chapter 26), Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos appointed Palamas as Archbishop of Thessalonike and supporte
d his elaboration of hesychast theology. The monks of Athos thus became involved in the dispute between Palamas and Barlaam and participated in the councils of 1341, 1347 and 1351, which endorsed the former and condemned the latter (plate 39). The mystical elements of early Christian prayer, elaborated first by Gregory Sinaites and further developed by Gregory Palamas, were promoted to become a defining feature of orthodoxy. In this way, Byzantium embraced a spiritual practice that owed much to Neo-platonism, and rejected Aquinas’ Aristotelian application of logic to theology developed in the West. The opposition surfaced during the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438/9), when western scholars defeated the eastern theologians with arguments based on Aristotelian techniques. Yet at the same gathering, the exposition of ancient Platonic texts by the Byzantine scholar George Gemistos Plethon entranced western philosophers who were unfamiliar with them.

  Although western crusaders had respected the independence of Athos, its prosperity attracted hostile attention from the Catalan Company of mercenaries in the early fourteenth century and later from the Turks, who reduced its properties on the mainland and forced some monks to flee. Some settled at Meteora (literally, in mid-air) in central Greece where they could withstand military attack from the top of their rocks. But new communities continued to be founded on Athos in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries; less-organized forms of monastic life also flourished. The advance of the Ottomans into the Balkans signalled a change, marked by periods of temporary occupation and, ultimately, control of the Holy Mountain in 1430. While the monasteries were permitted to continue as independent institutions in return for an annual tribute, their spiritual and material conditions declined.

  The fate of Athos during the period of Turkish rule is a sad tale of selling manuscripts and increasing reliance on Russian benefactors. As the leader of the Greek Orthodox community (millet), the Patriarch of Constantinople gained greater control over the monasteries; this was recognized at the end of the First World War when the terms of the Treaty of Sèvres were confirmed at Lausanne in 1923. But recent developments have favoured Mount Athos. In particular, the breakup of the USSR and the lifting of restrictions on religious observance have led to an influx of orthodox recruits to the monasteries. Many now come from the diaspora Greek communities of America and Australia, as well as the orthodox in the Asian landmass and the Balkans. Against all the odds, the history of the Holy Mountain is being rewritten, with mobile phones, computers and speedboats. Buildings are being restored, new icons painted, medieval frescoes and manuscripts preserved. A venerable Byzantine institution is finding new feet in the twenty-first century.

  19

  Venice and the Fork

  She did not touch her food with her hands but when her eunuchs had cut it up into small pieces she daintily lifted them to her mouth with a small two-pronged gold fork.

  Peter Damian, Institutio monialis, c. eleventh century

  From that moment in 1004/5 when the Byzantine aristocrat Maria Argyropoulaina used her little golden fork in Venice, western dining habits would never be the same. Although initially condemned as pretentious, forks became luxury objects, often made of precious metal with ebony or ivory handles, collected by monarchs and bequeathed to churches. The Romans had used forks in their ancient style of dining on couches. But both couches and forks were forgotten in the early Middle Ages. Primitive instruments resembling a knife, with a single point, were used for piercing meat and people ate with their hands. Our familiar fork, to which Norbert Elias attributed a ‘civilizing’ role, returned to Europe thanks to Byzantium. Maria’s golden one serves as a symbol of many aspects of Byzantine cultural influence in the West.

  This influence was particularly evident in the settlement at the head of the Adriatic, founded by refugees from mainland Italy during the Lombard invasions of the sixth century, which became the city of Venice (see chapter 6). Fleeing with their wealth to the sandbanks that formed islands in the lagoon, the inhabitants became expert sailors and shipbuilders, exploiting the local supplies of fish and salt. They were governed by the exarch of Ravenna and maintained strong links with Constantinople. In the early seventh century, Emperor Herakleios provided funds for the church of the Mother of God at Torcello (Santa Maria Assunta, which was later rebuilt with the famous mosaics and Last Judgment); and the local inhabitants created a new city named Heracleana (Civitas Nova Heracleana) in the emperor’s honour. The combination of local wealth, military support from Ravenna, a bishopric established at Malamocco and cultural investment from Byzantium created the nucleus of Venice, a name which embraced scattered communities on a number of islands.

  The Lombard invasions of northern Italy also put pressure on the Byzantine exarchate of Ravenna, which rarely had enough funds or troops to defend the territory reconquered by Justinian’s wars. In 751, King Desiderius finally realized the Lombards’ ambitions and captured Ravenna. Byzantium transferred its attention to the new settlement of Venice. But the inhabitants of Venice carefully balanced their alliance with Byzantium with their need for allies in the West. From the eighth century onwards, they cultivated close relations with the Franks in order to preserve their independence from hostile powers, notably Lombards and later Hungarians. The old Roman title Duke of Venice gradually lost its Byzantine connections; ‘dux’ became ‘doge’, and an autonomous system of city government slowly emerged under his authority. Contacts with the East were strengthened by Byzantine control of certain Dalmatian ports on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and Venetian boats provided a regular service for ambassadors travelling between East and West. Merchants of Venice are known to have traded in wood for shipbuilding, wheat, salt and slaves, while archaeological evidence suggests the circulation of Byzantine glass and pottery, such as amphoras for transporting wine, grain and oil. At the end of the ninth century, Doge Orso II presented a set of twelve bells to the emperor, who responded with gifts of silks.

  A lucrative slave trade also linked Venice with the Muslim world, although Roman popes regularly condemned commerce with non-Christians and Byzantine emperors prohibited it whenever they were at war with Islam. The Venetians continued to sell slaves (both Christian captives and non-Christian prisoners of war) in eastern Mediterranean centres where they bought spices, jewels and incense. In 829, they took advantage of local Christian anxiety in Alexandria about a possible Muslim persecution to smuggle the relics of St Mark out of Egypt. San Marco became their patron saint and his lion still adorns the flag of the city. When a suitably grand new church was built to house these precious bones, a Byzantine style of architecture was adopted. In 976, this church of San Marco was destroyed in a fire, repaired and later replaced by the great basilica which dominates the Piazza of San Marco today (plate 29). Architects from Constantinople, inspired by the church of the Holy Apostles in the Byzantine capital, began the construction under Doge Domenico Contarini in the mid-eleventh century and created the building characterized by Byzantine-style domes and mosaic decoration, as well as western architectural elements. Bronze doors made in Constantinople were installed at the west entrance and the Pala d’Oro, a magnificent Byzantine gold and enamel altar façade, commissioned by Doge Ordelafo Falier in 1105, was displayed behind the high altar. These tributes to imperial culture were increased after 1204 by materials looted from Byzantium, such as the four bronze horses from the Hippodrome (plate 30), carved pillars from the church of St Polyeuktos and a porphyry sculpture of the tetrarchs now immured in the external wall. The Basilica of San Marco symbolizes Venice’s great admiration for Byzantine culture.

  Venetian magistrates also sought and obtained titles and honorific ranks from Byzantium. They regularly sent their sons to be educated in the capital and married them to Byzantine ladies. Maria Argyropoulaina embodied these strong ties. Her marriage to Giovanni, son of Pietro II (doge from 991 to 1008), was a mark of Byzantine gratitude to Venice for its recent naval assistance which had thwarted an Arab siege of Bari in southern Italy. It united the senatorial family of Argyros and Argyro
poulos (son of Argyros) with the Orseolo, a leading Venetian family. Romanos Argyros, a close relative of Maria, later ruled as emperor from 1028 to 1034. The wedding was celebrated in Constantinople in the summer of 1004, in great style. The patriarch blessed the couple and Emperors Basil II and Constantine VIII placed the golden wedding crowns on their heads. When Maria and Giovanni arrived back in Venice, the whole city met them at a lavish reception, and the birth of their son, named Basil after the Byzantine ruler, was greeted with joy. Two years later, however, all three died during an epidemic. Nonetheless, their union strengthened an important relationship between the Republic and the Empire.

  Constantinople cultivated these connections not only for cultural but also strategic reasons: the Venetian navy was designed to serve military as well as commercial purposes and proved an essential ally in Byzantine efforts to protect its territories in southern Italy. These relations were enshrined in a document of March 992, issued by Basil II (976–1025), which gave Venice most favoured trading status, under the direct control of the foreign minister. Guaranteed by a golden seal (chryso-boullos) and thus known as a chrysobull, it listed the privileges enjoyed by Venetian merchants in return for military and naval aid. The most important were reduced entry and exit fees payable to the port of Constantinople, which were restricted to Venetian merchants and could not be extended to merchants or goods from other cities. Amalfitan, Lombard or Jewish merchants were expressly excluded, as were the local Byzantines. Citing ancient customs, the imperial document recalled that the Venetians had always acted as loyal servants of the emperor, particularly when asked to assist imperial forces in Italian waters, and counted on this continuing.