Viewing the Morea

Viewing the Morea

KL

D u M b a r t o n o a k s b y z a n t i n e s y M p o s i a a n D C o l l o q u i a

Series EditorMargaret Mullett

Editorial BoardJohn Duffy

John HaldonIoli Kalavrezou

Viewing the Morealand and people

in the late Medieval peloponnese

KL

Edited by

sharon e. J. Gerstel

Du M ba rton oa ks r ese a rC h l i br a ry a n D Col l eC t ion

Copyright 2013 by Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and CollectionTrustees for Harvard University, Washington, DCAll rights reservedPrinted in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Morea: The Land and Its People in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade (Symposium) (2009 : Dumbarton Oaks)Viewing the Morea : land and people in the late medieval Peloponnese /edited by Sharon E. J. Gerstel. pages cm. (Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine symposia and colloquia)The majority of the chapters in this volume were presented as papers at the 2009 Dumbarton Oaks symposium Morea: The Land and Its People in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade.Includes index.isbn 978-0-88402-390-6 (cloth : alk. paper)1. Peloponnesus (Greece : Peninsula)CivilizationCongresses. 2. Peloponnesus (Greece : Peninsula)AntiquitiesCongresses. 3. Excavations (Archaeology)GreecePeloponnesusCongresses. 4. FranksGreecePeloponnesusHistoryCongresses. 5. CrusadesFourth, 12021204Congresses. 6. Civilization, Medieval13thcenturyCongresses. 7. Civilization, Medieval14th centuryCongresses. I. Gerstel, Sharon E. J., author, editor of compilation. II. Dumbarton Oaks, issuing body. III. Title.df901.p4m66 2013949.5 203dc23 2012042878

www.doaks.org/publications

Designed and typeset by Melissa Tandysh

Cover: View from the Villehardouin Castle at Mystras toward Sparta and the hills of Parnon (photo: S. Gerstel)

Frontispiece: Church of the Virgin Hodegetria, Mystras, ornamental detail (photo: S. Gerstel)

Con ten ts

KL

Acknowledgments L ix

introduction L 1sharon e. j. gerstel

The Morea through the prism of the past L 9elizabeth jeffreys

The architectural layering of history in the Medieval Morea: Monuments, Memory, and Fragments of the past L 23

amy PaPalexandrou

The songbook for William of Villehardouin, prince of the Morea (paris, bibliothque nationale de France, fonds franais 844):

a Crucial Case in the history of Vernacular song Collections L 57john haines

The triangle of power: building projects in the Metropolitan area

of the Crusader principality of the Morea L 111demetrios athanasoulis

Coinage and Money in the Morea after the Fourth Crusade L 153

julian baker and alan m. stahl

The Frankish Morea: evidence provided by acts of private transactions L 187

helen g. saradi

rural exploitation and Market economy in the late Medieval peloponnese L 213

david jacoby

people and settlements of the northeastern peloponnese in the late Middle ages:

an archaeological exploration L 277timothy e. gregory

Greek, Frank, other: Differentiating Cultural and ancestral Groups

in the Frankish Morea using human remains analysis L 309sandra j. garvie-lok

Mapping the boundaries of Church and Village: ecclesiastical and rural landscapes

in the late byzantine peloponnese L 335sharon e. j. gerstel

reflections of Constantinople: The iconographic program of the south portico

of the hodegetria Church, Mystras L 371titos PaPamastorakis

a brief history of the Morea as seen through the eyes of an emperor-rhetorician:

Manuel ii palaiologoss Funeral Oration for Theodore, Despot of the Morea L 397

florin leonte

a new lykourgos for a new sparta: George Gemistos plethon

and the Despotate of the Morea L 419teresa shawcross

Mapping Melancholy-pleasing remains: The Morea as a renaissance Memory Theater L 455

veronica della dora

Abbreviations L 477

About the Authors L 481

Index L 485

aCk noW leDGM en ts

KL

The majority of the chapters in this volume wer e pr esented as papers at the 2009 Dumbarton Oaks symposium Morea: The Land and Its People in the Aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. On behalf of the authors, the editor would like to acknowledge the support of Jan M. Ziolkowski, Director of Dumbarton Oaks. The editor also warmly thanks Alice-Mary Talbot, former Director of Byzantine Studies, for organizing a wonderful symposium and Margaret Mullett, current Director of Byzantine Studies, for helping to bring this volume to fruition.

With this publication we honor the memory of Titos Papamastorakis, one of the contributors to this vol-ume. A joyful friend and innovative thinker, Titos devoted his career to writing about Byzantine art in the Peloponnese. May his memory be eternal.

Argos

Corinth Athens

Monemvasia

ebes

Andravida

Ayios Vasileios

BlachernaiGlarentza

Geraki

Isthmia

Kalamata

Korone

Mani Peninsula

Merbaka

Methone

Mouchli

Mystras

Nauplion

Nemea

ParoriSparta

Tigani

Zaraka

Patras

Chlemoutzi

Pylos

Kythera

0 100 200 kmN

2000 m 1500 m

1000 m

500 m

200 m

100 m

0 m

2000 m

1500 m

1000 m

500 m

200 m

100 m

0 m

335

In the last t wo deca des, archa eolo- gists, geographers, and anthropologists focusing on landscape have developed a rich theoretical frame-work to support discussions of settlement patterns, community identity, place, memory, and collective ritual.1 In examining the southern Peloponnese I would like to consider overlapping landscapesagrar-ian, sacred, and artisticand the place of villagers, settlements, and churches within these landscapes. Nominally returned to Byzantine control in 1263, the land and its people were knit together by the relationship of peasant and overlord, a relationship that inscribed settlements within an agricultural landscape that was centuries old and engaged villagers in a seasonal cycle regulated by planting and har-vesting, growth and decline. Yet the landscape was also set under the protection of holy powers. Divided by metropolitan jurisdictions and marked by monasteries, hermitages, and small shrines, this sacred landscape was ordered by a calendar of ritual celebration that had other temporal dimensions.

The natural environment plays a critical role in initiating any discussion of landscape. The Taygetos and Parnon mountain ranges divide the southern Peloponnese into geographic microregions of high-lands and valleys (fig. 1).2 Through the valley that rests between them flows the Eurotas River, which starts its journey at the border of Arkadia and flows south to meet the Lakonian Gulf below the fertile plains of Helos. Its many tributaries, formed from the torrents of water that descend from Taygetos and Parnon, carved out deep ravines that separated populations on a seasonal basis.3 Divisions in populations that

1 The bibliography on this subject is extensive. See, among others, J. B. Jackson, Discovering the Vernacular Landscape (New Haven, 1984); K. F. Anschuetz, R. H. Wilshusen, and C. L. Scheik, An Archaeology of Landscapes: Perspectives and Directions, Journal of Archaeological Research 9, no. 2 (2001): 157211; W. Ashmore and A. B. Knapp, eds., Archaeologies of Landscape: Contemporary Perspectives (Malden, 1999); E. Hirsch and M. OHanlon, The Anthropology of Landscape: Perspectives on Place and Space (Oxford, 1995). For a recent analysis of landscape studies within a Greek context, see H. Forbes, Meaning and Identity in a Greek Landscape: An Archaeological Ethnography (Cambridge, 2007), 949.2 For a discussion of the regions topography, see A. Philippson, Der Peloponnes:Versuch einer Landeskunde auf geologischer Grundlage (Berlin, 1891).3 On the effects of these torrents, see P. Armstrong, W. G. Cavanagh, and G. Shipley, Crossing the River: Observations

Mapping the Boundaries of Church and VillageEcclesiastical and Rural Landscapes in the Late Byzantine Peloponnese

KL

Sh a Ron E . J . GERStEL

Church of the Virgin Hodegetria (Aphentiko), Brontocheion Monastery, Mystras, Chamber of the Chrysobulls, detail of vault and north wall (photo: courtesy of the Fifth Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities, Sparta)

TheoHighlight

sharon e. j. gerstel336

resulted from these barriers were established from ancient times; they are reflected, to some extent, in the boundaries of modern-day prefectures. In the late medieval period, these geographical fea-tures created opportunities for the establishment of segregated communities, as demonstrated by the large number of small hermitages and cave chapels burrowed into the stone walls of gorges that were carved out of the land by millennia of the waters flood and retreat.

Parnon divided the regions two largest pop-ulation centers, Mystras and Monemvasia. In the fourteenth century, each was a powerful

on Routes and Bridges in Laconia from the Archaic to Byzantine Periods, BSA 87 (1992): 293310.

metropolitan center, and each was associated with well-known monasteries. These ecclesiasti-cal institutions were closely tied to the surround-ing countrysidethe agricultural lands that supported them and the tax revenue that ensured their survival. This relationship is critical to understanding the place of the villager within the larger landscape, for in the Morea, as in other regions of Byzantium, many villagers were paroikoi (dependent peasants). Registered in fis-cal surveys of ecclesiastical estates and listed in imperial and patriarchal acts, they owed the mon-astery and metropolitan both taxes and labor. As we shall see, divisions between these metropoli-tan centers, and the relations of these centers with dependent monasteries and endowed villages,

Figure 1

Map of the southeastern

Peloponnese (map by M. Saldaa)

Mapping the Boundaries of Church and Village 337

wall connects the small chamber to the church narthex (figs. 3, 8). At the apex of the vault was once an image of the blessing Christ held aloft by angels. Four rays emanate from the framed figure and terminate in hands that hold broad, open scrolls, one on each of the chambers walls (fig. 4); these painted copies of chrysobulls sent by the ruling emperor to the monastery were rendered permanent and incontestable through their inscription on the walls. Painted on sur-faces usually reserved for images of standing

also influenced artistic and architectural commis-sions in the region.

Written and material sources provide critical information about the landscape and the location of Orthodox settlements in the fourteenth cen-tury. A large number of imperial and episcopal acts list the land holdings and privileges of mon-asteries and bishoprics in the region. These docu-ments record endowments, including villages and their paroikoi, but they also chart agricultural features. The documents additionally mention a large number of metochia or monydria, small sat-ellite establishments that made the boundaries of the central monastery visible and set the borders under divine protection.4

The analysis of texts from three places allows us to consider where endowed properties were located and what their location reveals about map-ping landscapes in this period.

the Church of the Virgin hodegetria, Brontocheion Monastery, Mystras

The first set is painted on the walls of the south-west chamber of the Hodegetria church, the katholikon of the powerful Brontocheion Mon-astery in Mystras (fig. 2).5 The vaulted chamber is small3.1 meters long by 2.7 meters wideand dark.6 The north wall is pierced by a steep stair-way that leads through a narrow portal to the galleries above;7 an arched doorway in the same

4 For a recent study of churches as boundary markers, see L. Nixon, Making a Landscape Sacred: Outlying Churches and Icon Stands in Sphakia, Southwestern Crete (Oxford, 2006).5 I thank Panagiotes Perdikoulias of the 5th Directorate of Byzantine Antiquities for providing me with images from this chamber. Permission to use these images was granted by the Regional Archaeological Council. I am very grateful to the members of the council and to the former director of the Fifth Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities, Kalliope Diamante, for their support of this research. I also thank Aimilia Bakourou, Evangelia Pantou, and Michalis Kappas for their advice and assistance.6 G. Millet, Inscriptions byzantines de Mistra, BCH 32 (1899): 98.7 At some point in the churchs history this stairway was rebuilt. The decoration of the chamber, which framed the stairway with a stepped border, demonstrates that the space was always intended as a pass-through from the lower floor to the gallery above.

Figure 2

Church of the Virgin Hodegetria (Aphentiko), Brontocheion Monastery, Mystras, exterior from the east (photo: S. Gerstel)


Figure 3

Church of the Virgin Hodegetria (Aphentiko),

Brontocheion Monastery, Mystras, plan (after

H. Hallensleben, Untersuchungen zur

Genesis und Typologie des Mistratypus,

MarbJb 18 [1969]: 106)

Figure 4


Brontocheion Monastery, Mystras, Chamber of the

Chrysobulls, view of vault and north wall (photo:

courtesy of the Fifth Ephoreia of Byzantine

Antiquities, Sparta)


2 centimeters in height. The names of the reigning emperors, Andronikos II and, in one of the texts, Michael IX, originally scribed in red ink in imita-tion of the cinnabar used for imperial signatures, have worn off, leaving only faint traces at the bot-tom of each scroll.

The texts begin with praise for the emperors justice and then laud the most honorable abbot of the monastery sited at Mystras, the archi-mandrite and protosynkellos, Lord Pachomios. Then, as common in such texts, the chrysobulls enumerate the properties and people, that is, paroikoi, that were endowed to the monastery, charting the relationship of village and landlord, but also mapping the borders, of both monastic holdings and Orthodox territories.14 The chryso-bulls of 131415 and 1319, located on the east and south walls, endow the monastery with substan-tial properties, paroikoi, mills, trees, fields, and vineyards (fig. 5).15 According to these, the mon-astery is given:

a zeugelateion next to the river called Brysiotos, as great and of such kind as it is, with a two-eyed mill on it, at the site called Kalyvitos, land of 150 modii; other land in different places, also of 150 modii; vine-yards, olive trees and various fruit-bearing trees; paroikoi in the area of Mystras, in various places, a two-eyed mill, an agridion at the place called Philetos, known as Dragobiaston,16 as great and of such kind as it is with its surrounds; four paroikoi at Delvina; a monydrion in the revered name of St. Demetrios and known as Pelatos, with its surrounds; a metochion dedicated to the holy and all-praiseworthy apostle and evangelist John the Theologian, and known as Kausalos,17 with its paroikoi,

14 Zakythinos, DGM, 1:19697, 29697.15 Millet, Inscriptions, 103, lines 31104, line 37; 109, lines 30110, line 38.16 For the site of Dragobiaston, see N. Skagkos, , in ()malvasia, ed. I. Anagnostakes (Athens, 2008), 251 n. 130. This excellent article came to my attention after this chapter was written. Translations are by the author unless otherwise noted.17 Ibid., 252 n. 135 where the author provisionally associates the monydrion with the late Byzantine single-aisled chapel of

saints, the monumental texts, held aloft by oth-erworldly hands and sealed with the likeness of Christs face, are iconic.8 Placed below the blessing Christ, the enumerated privileges are thus sanctioned by heaven. This relationship is spelled out in the iambic verse that is divided by the angels into four stanzas that mention Christ as the lord of lords, the Palaiologoi, and the founder of the church, Pachomios.9

Painted in a single campaign, the chrysobulls are ordered by date, beginning on the east wall with a text of 131415 and ending on the north with a text of 1322.10 The text on the north wall covers an earlier one, most likely also a chrysobull.11 The scrolls originally had likenesses of golden seals at the bottom.12 Writing in 1892, Constantine Zesiou observed the likeness of Christ on one, but this image and the others are long gone.13 The letters, painted reddish brown, are approximately

8 For a reading of illuminated chrysobulls as the ani-mated record of imperial donation, see A. Cutler, Legal Iconicity: The Documentary Image, the Problem of Genre, and the Work of the Beholder, in Byzantine Art: Recent Studies; Essays in Honor of Lois Drewer, ed. C. Hourihane (Princeton, 2009), 6379.9 Millet, Inscriptions, 99100; A. Rhoby, Byzantinische Epigramme auf Fresken und Mosaiken, vol. 1 of Byzantinische Epigramme in Inschriftlicher berlieferung (Vienna, 2009), 23941.10 K. Zesiou, : , in idem, (Athens, 1892), 4571 (hereafter ); idem, : , in , vol. 1, (Athens, 1917), 7294, nos. 2014; Millet, Inscriptions, 97156; F. Dlger, Regesten der Kaiserurkunden des Ostrmischen Reiches von 5651453 (Munich and Berlin, 1960), 4:2305, 2341, 2437, 2438, 2483, 2485, 2633. I am very grateful to Liz James, who provided me with a copy of her unpublished masters thesis, Four Chrysobulls from the Monastery of the Brontochion, Mistra (University of Birmingham, 1986). For Byzantine chrysobulls, see A. E. Mller, Imperial Chrysobulls, in Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Studies, ed. E. Jeffreys, J. Haldon, and R. Cormack (Oxford, 2008), 12935. For chrysobulls of Andronikos II, see P. Alexander, A Chrysobull of the Emperor Andronicus II Palaeologus in Favor of the See of Kanina in Albania, Byzantion 15 (194041): 167207.11 This chrysobull mentions the church of SS. Theodore. It is the only one of the five to use the term Morea. Millet, Inscriptions, 118.12 For a discussion of golden seals, see P. Grierson, Byzan-tine Gold Bullae, with a Catalogue of Those at Dumbarton Oaks, DOP 20 (1966): 23953.13 Zesiou, , 43; Millet, Inscriptions, 99 n. 1.


around Helos,20 dedicated to St. Basil, with its paroikoi and choraphia and mills; at Mouchlion,21 another metochion dedi-cated to the saints Theodore, and called Brontochei[on], with the choraphia that belong to it, paroikoi and a mill; another metochion dedicated to St. Nicholas, and

20 For medieval Helos, see J. M. Wagstaff, The Development of Rural Settlements: A Study of the Helos Plain in Southern Greece (Amersham, England, 1982); W. D. Taylour and R. Janko, Ayios Stephanos: Excavations at a Bronze Age and Medieval Settlement in Southern Laconia, The British School at Athens, suppl. vol. 44 (London, 2008), 6069 (with collected bibliography).21 On Mouchli and its relations with Mystras and Amyklion, see E. Dark, - , .... 10 (1933): 45482.

vineyards, choraphia, olive trees and other fruit-bearing trees, and mills; another metochion dedicated to the more-than-holy Theotokos, also called Kalogonia,18 with its paroikoi, and the choraphia there and other rights, including those of water for plough-ing which this metochion takes from that river, the Gephyratos, for the irrigation of the choraphia; the agridion called Mitatova with its surrounds;19 another metochion

St. John the Theologian at Vouvali in the modern village of Mystras. For this chapel, see .. 51 (1996): 159, pl. b.18 Kalogonia is immediately to the south of Sparta.19 Modern-day Agrapidoula. For archaeological remains of this settlement, see W. Cavanagh et al., Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape: The Laconia Survey (London, 2002), 1:393.

Figure 5


Brontocheion Monastery, Mystras, Chamber of the

Chrysobulls, south wall (photo: courtesy of the

Fifth Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities, Sparta)


known as Molochos, with its surrounds and the choraphia that it possesses; another monydrion at Androusa dedicated to the honored commanders of the heavenly pow-ers and known as Ligude, with its rights.22

22 The monydrion should likely be identified as the church of the Archangel Michael (. ), a monastic church first constructed in the 10th or 11th century. Located on a hill above the village of Polichne, approximately 20 km

Of the sites that can be identified, several are close to the city of Mystras, including Kalogonia and Mitatova (fig. 6). The Brysiotis and Gephyratos

north of Androusa, the monastic enclosure was trans-formed into a kastro in the later medieval period, the castle of the Holy Archangel named in the Acciajuoli estate inven-tories. Most recently, see M. Breuillot, Chateaux oublis de la Messnie mdivale (Paris, 2005), 190200 (with earlier bibliography). I thank Michalis Kappas for bringing this site to my attention.

Eurotas River

MystrasBr

ysioto

s Rive

r

Kalogonia

to Mouchlion

Androusa Mitatoba (Agrapidoula)

Figure 6

Sites identified in the chrysobull of 1319 (map by M. Saldaa)


are tributaries of the Eurotas River. The list ends with two known locations outside of Lakonia: Mouchli, in Arkadia, and Androusa, across Tayge-tos, in Messenia.23

The two later texts secure the rights to proper-ties at a greater distance from Mystras. According to the chrysobull of February 1320 painted on the chambers west wall the monastery pur-chased properties at Zaravos.24 The same text records the donation of properties at Passava,25

23 That Pachomios had an interest in properties in Mes-senia should come as no surprise. Androusa, located in fer-tile agricultural lands, was sited at the west end of a pass that connected Messenia and Lakonia. Material evidencein this case fragments of ecclesiastical sculpture that had been transported from Sparta to Mystrashave been linked to a workshop active in the region of Androusa around the year 1200, demonstrating that even before the Frankish conquest there was an artisanal connection between the two areas. On this workshop see G. Pallis, ( 12 13 .), .... 27 (2006): 91100 (with collected bibliography). 24 Millet, Inscriptions, 113, lines 59.25 The fortress is located in the northeast corner of the Mani. See M. Breuillot, : ," .. 11 (1992), 299309.

Figure 7

St. George, Kato Meligou, apse with inscription (photo:

courtesy of the Fifth Ephoreia of Byzantine

Antiquities, Sparta)

Astros,26 the Maleve plain around Cholodome-tikon, and around the site called St. Nicholas, known as Phouska. The donor of these properties is recorded as the Sebastos Ioannes Polemianitos, a member of a Moreote noble family.27 At least one church from the named regions can be linked to the period in which the lands were deeded to the mon-astery. In Kato Meligou/Cheimerini near Astros, remains of monumental decoration in the small, single-aisled church of St. George, a metochion of the Old Panagia Church, have been dated to the late thirteenth or fourteenth century (fig. 7).28

The September 1322 chrysobull, painted on the north wall, includes a number of additional prop-erties gifted to the monastery by Lord Andronikos Palaiologos [Asen], the kephale of the land of the Peloponnese ( ) (fig. 8).29 Gained in battle, these include:

a metochion in the area of Skorta30 dedi-cated to the more-than-holy Theotokos and known as Bogale ( ), with its rights being paroikoi, vineyards, choraphia, olive trees (fig trees, apple trees),

26 Astros is located to the east of Mount Parnon. Although the text specifies the shore, the lands must have included properties in the hills leading up to Mount Maleve. For Astros, see Bon, La More franque, 51517.27 Kyr Ioannes Polemianitos is also mentioned as the patron of a manuscript (Madrid, Escurial, cod. -II-5) dated 131119, which contains homilies of St. John Chrysostom. The colophon identifies the scribe as Nicholas Malotaras. See S. Lampros, , . 4 (1907): 16466, 357. In 1317 and 1319 the same scribe produced a manuscript for Pachomios, abbot of the Brontocheion Monastery (Serres, Monastery of John the Baptist, cod. 74). For this manuscript, see P. N. Papageorgiou, , , BZ 3 (1894): 32223. That the nobleman and the abbot employed the same scribe suggests that the two men knew each other and that the gift of proper-ties from the Sebastos to the monastery was a donation made to a familiar institution.28 For the church of St. George, see .. 36 (1981): 2.1:142. A large settlement of the eleventh or twelfth century is located on the road between Astros and Oreini Meiligou (the specific site is called Sabbanas after a small chapel dedi-cated to St. Sabbas at this location); see .. 29 (19731974): 2.2:423; BCH 104 (1980): 605.29 Millet, Inscriptions, 115, lines 5161, line 11; Zakythinos, DGM, 2:297.30 For Skorta, see Bon, La More franque, 36366.


(fig. 9).37 The acquisition of properties in close proximity to Mystras was undoubtedly intended to augment the finances of the monastery. Finally, in 1375, landowners gave arable fields at Terkova to the monastery.38

, .. 9 (1988): 34787.37 Several churches around this village date to the four-teenth century. St. Nicholas Achragias is dated to the end of the fourteenth century. For this church, see note 117 below. The Old Monastery of the Forty Martyrs near Theologos is decorated with wall paintings of the thirteenth century, 13045, and the fifteenth century. N. B. Drandakes, , .... 16 (199192): 11538. The church of the Virgin, between the village of Theologos and the monastery, has wall paintings of 13045. Philippides-Braat, Inscriptions, 32627. Drandakes recorded two additional churches in the area that are in ruins. See N. B. Drandakes, , .. 13 (1996): 172.38 The donation is recorded in a nonscribal colophon

and other fruit-bearing trees; and also two choria called Zourtza31 and Mountra,32 enclosing within their borders Pacheia, Choutza, Pratzydake and Klenova, with their mills and trees. Similarly he gave to this monastery land gained at Pistiana, Topolana, and at the site of St. John. In like manner through the prostagma and the patriarchal sigillion grammaton is attached to the same monastery another metochion on the plain of Karytaina dedicated to the more-than-holy Theotokos and known as the New Monastery, with its paroikoi, vine-yards, choraphia, olive trees and mill. Also [the monastery] has land of 600 modii at Passava through purchase.

These sites stretched the geographical reach of the monastery substantially to the north, plot-ting a chain of villages that ran in a line between Byzantine and Frankish-held lands.

In May 1366 landowners deeded additional lands to the monastery through a patriarchal sigillion.33 These properties are located in the immedi-ate vicinity of Mystrasvineyards, mills, fields, and paroikoi near the area of Brysi,34 Barsova,35 Kalybitas, Trypi,36 Kalogonia, and Theologos

31 For medieval building remains at Zourtza (mod-ern Kato Phigaleia [Bon, La More franque, 389]), see C. Bouras, Zourtza: Une basilique byzantine au Ploponnese, CahArch 21 (1971): 13749. The basilica dates to the late tenth century but was still in use in the later period. I thank Kostis Kourelis for discussing the location of this village with me.32 Modern-day Phaskomelia. See Bon, La More franque, 389. For a discussion of the legal and fiscal status of these villages, see D. Jacoby, Un rgime de coseigneurie grco-franque en More: Les Casaux de Paron, MlRome 75 (1963): 11125; repr. in D. Jacoby, Socit et dmographie Byzance et en Romanie latine (London, 1975), IV.33 MM, 1:47983.34 For , see A. Philippidis-Braat, Inscriptions du Ploponnse: Inscriptions du IXe au XVe sicle, TM 9 (1985): 324.35 Modern-day Ayia Eirene. A post-Byzantine church may be built on the foundations of an older monument.36 Several Byzantine churches are located in or close to the village. SS. Theodore, now in ruins, was decorated with wall paintings in the late thirteenth century. See N. B. Drandakes, , .... 25 (1955): 3887. To the northeast of the village is the cave church of St. Nikon, with paint-ings dated to the late thirteenth century. See K. Diamante,

Figure 8

Church of the Virgin Hodegetria (Aphentiko), Brontocheion Monastery, Mystras, Chamber of the Chrysobulls, north wall (photo: courtesy of the Fifth Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities, Sparta)


The Hodegetria chrysobulls form part of the integral program of a single chambera test case for considering the intersection of word, image, and spatial experience. Serving as a transitional zone, the chamber connected liturgical space on the ground floor to what might have been a more

George in this village have been dated to the first quarter of the fourteenth century. ... (1981): 26364. The village is located near Karyoupolis.

on fol. 244 of cod. Vat. Gr. 352. N. Bees, 1375 , in (Jerusalem, 1907), 24148; K. Maxwell, Another Lectionary of the Atelier of the Palaiologina, Vat. Gr. 352, DOP 37 (1983): 4754. The inscription of the colophon in the Gospel Book, like the inscription of the chrysobulls within the Hodegetria Church, was intended to safeguard the terms of the donation. Is it possible that Terkova is the village Tserova (modern-day Drosopege, located between Areopolis and Gytheion)? Paintings in the church of St.

Eurotas River

Mystras

Brysi

otos R

iver

eologos

KalogoniaBarsova (Ayia Eirene)

Brysi

Trypi

Figure 9

Identifiable properties from

sigillion of 1366 (map by M. Saldaa)


private space of monastic contemplation or one for administrative functions in the churchs gal-leries.39 Passing through the chamber literally meant passing by lists of rites and properties, a vis-ible proclamation as the bounty of the words pro-claimed status and mapped landscapes. Like acts written within Gospel books,40 the inscription of chrysobulls on the walls of the chapel rendered the privileges permanent and afforded protec-tion to documents that were subject to removal or destruction. In a sense, the chamber acted as a small treasury, housing texts whose words trans-lated into wealth and material sustenance.

In addition to endowing properties to the monastery, the chrysobulls exempted the commu-nity from taxes and proclaimed the monasterys alienation from the oversight of the local met-ropolitan. The documents thus empowered the monastery and fostered its relative independence. Yet the permanent inscription of endowed proper-ties suggests that the monumental representation of the chrysobulls also served a larger purpose in mapping imperial territories in the region. The inscription of churches and villages in contested realms or recently conquered lands reveals an attempt to establish boundaries among Byzan-tine, Frank ish, and Venetian territories. Androusa bordered Venetian-held properties in Messenia as well as the large land estates that would come

39 Scholars have yet to understand the function of the galleries in this church and others of the Mystras type. The stairway to the upper level is steep and the galleries are narrow. The unusual representation of life-sized figures of the seventy disciples, visible from the ground floor of the church (even if one allows for the restoration of screens), made the gallery appear to be populated with standing fig-ures and may indicate that the upper levels of the church were more ceremonial than functional. On the galleries in churches of Mystras, see most recently, G. Marinou, , (Athens, 2002), 199212. See also C. Delvoye, Considrations sur lemploi des tribunes dans lglise de la Vierge Hodigitria de Mistra, in Actes du XIIe CEB, vol. 3 (Belgrade, 1964), 4247; H. Hallensleben, Untersuchungen zur Genesis und Typologie des Mistratypus, MarbJb 18 (1969): 10518. On the imag-ery of the seventy disciples, which was later copied in the Pantanassa Church at Mystras, see S. Dufrenne, Les programmes iconographiques des glises byzantines de Mistra, Bibliothque des Cahiers Archologiques 4 (Paris, 1970), 4344, 61, pls. 1416.40 For the inscription of acts in Gospel books, see the chapter by H. Saradi in this volume.

into the possession of the Florentine Acciajuoli.41 Mouchli, in Arkadia, and Skorta and its associated villages bordering Elis, were close to Frankish-held territories in the northern Peloponnese. The texts also provide evidence of land and population exchange, mapping shifting political landscapes. Two villages recently liberated from Latin con-trol ( ) are included in the texts.42 Moreover, the chrysobull on the south wall of the chapel authorizes the resettlement of eleutheroi (landless peasants) from Latin-held lands onto monastic properties.43

The texts inventory settlements, workers, and agricultural features that were necessary to sus-tain the monastery. These are precious sources for the study of the agrarian economy of late medi-eval Lakonia. The chrysobulls carefully differen-tiate among zeugelateia, agridia, and choria, legal terms concerning the size, nature, and duration of agricultural settlements. Valuable information is provided about the location of vineyards, arable fields, and fruit trees that provided figs, apples, and, of course, olives. Together with these are listed the villagers, the paroikoi, who were bound to the land and beholden to the monastery. Water mills, frequently mentioned, were a common fea-ture of agricultural communities, especially in mountainous regions, where the kinetic energy of fast-flowing streams exerted the necessary power to turn the wooden paddle wheel that rotated the millstone.44 The chrysobulls list both mills and two-eyed mills, that is, two-channeled or twin-flumed mills.45 The repeated mention of mills in

41 For the Acciajuoli estates in the region, see J. Longnon and P. Topping, Le rgime des terres dans la principaut de More au XIVe sicle (Paris, 1969). The residents of Androusa (Drusa) are listed in the 1354 inventory of the estates of Niccol Acciajuoli. See ibid., 9495.42 Millet, Inscriptions, 118.43 Ibid., 111; Zakythinos, DGM, 2:20644 On middle Byzantine water mills, see J. Teall, The Byzan tine Agricultural Tradition, DOP 25 (1971): 52.45 An example of a two-channeled or twin-flumed mill of the late Byzantine or early Ottoman period was recorded by a British survey team during field reconnaissance in the Langada Valley near Sparta. See W. Cavanagh et al., Continuity and Change in a Greek Rural Landscape: The Laconia Survey, vol. 2, Archaeological Data (London, 1996), 35255, ill. 24.22. Ironically, Cardinal Bessarion, writing in 1444 to Constantine Palaiologos, despot of the Morea, seems to advocate the introduction of vertical water wheels to the


the documents established title to these facilities but also asserted control over their water sources. The income derived from the use of the invento-ried mills would have benefited the monastery. Reciprocally, the oversight of the monastery would have ensured the smooth operation of the facility, which could have been used by a number of villagers.46

Reference is also made to a sacred landscape that is marked by the location and dedication of chapels and hermitages. Noteworthy is the large number of churches mentioned in the earlier texts: two monydria and five metochia. The mili-tary saints, Demetrios and Theodore, are among those who guard the territory of the monastery through the dedication and placement of related chapels. These small establishments presumably maintained close links with the Brontocheion Monastery, a link that was reified through the duplication of the monasterys name, and the name of one of its churches, for the dedication of SS. Theodore, called Brontocheion, at Mouchli.47

The Mystras chrysobulls can be compared to a small number of imperial edicts that were recorded in churches, either in paint or in sculp-ture, beginning in the middle Byzantine period but increasing in number in the late Byzantium.48

region. This technological innovation was used for water-driven sawmills and iron mills in Italy and the West. A transcription of the letter, found in Biblioteca Marciana, cod. 533, was published by S. Lampros, -, . 3 (1906): 26, lines 510. See also A. G. Keller, A Byzantine Admirer of Western Progress, Cambridge Historical Journal 11, no. 3 (1955): 34348.46 This is surely one incentive for the donation of mills or shares of mills to monasteries in the late Byzantine period. The number of dishonest millers lampooned in paintings in village churches, damned for eternity and strangled by the weight of their filled sacks, scoops, millstones, and measures, provides visual evidence that the smooth running of the mill was critical to the village economy and also to social order.47 Hagioi Theodoroi was the first church built in the Brontocheion Monastery. On its foundation and decora-tion, see A. K. Orlandos, , , .... 12 (1936): 44348; Dufrenne, Les programmes iconographiques, 35.48 On these texts, see most recently S. Kalopissi-Verti, Church Inscriptions as Documents: Chrysobulls, Eccle-siastical Acts, Inventories, Donations, Wills, .... 24 (2003): 80 (with collected bibliography). An addi-tional chrysobull, issued by Theodore Angelos of Epiros in June 1228 and inscribed on marble, once found in the

The existence of permanent chrysobulls in katholika suggests the enhanced role of monasteries as agents for the distant emperor in repatriating lands (and people) that had been lost to Byzantium in recent times of conflict. The chrysobulls concret-ized through permanent inscription the rights to regained territories and tenants. And yet, although the inscription of monumental chryso-bulls in the Hodegetria chamber can be related to an established Byzantine practice,49 it is also very much the product of a Peloponnesian mentalit, where the presentation of lengthy texts for pub-lic display had a long history.50 Such inscriptions were common both at Mystras and, more broadly, in Lakoniaa local and regional practice that may have informed the design of the chrysobull chamber and suggests something about the inten-tions of the abbot, Pachomios.

Understood within a local context, the paint-ing of imperial chrysobulls may reveal an attempt to define a closer boundary, one that was mani-fested in physical terms through the construc-tion of the very walls that enclosed the monastery, separating it not only from the lay public but also from a neighboring church that occupied the same corner of the city. St. Demetrios, the metropolitan church, also contained permanent inscriptions that listed properties and set bound-aries, and these must be seen in connection with, and in contrast to, the documents on display in Pachomioss church.

Although Nikephoros Moschopoulos, the builder of the church of St. Demetrios, gifted the

eighteenth-century collection of Senator Giacomo Nani in Venice, is today in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. The marble plaque, which measures 1.12 0.60 meters, has forty lines of text. For the transcription of the text and a photo-graph of the stone, see I. Guidi, Iscrizione Greca medi-evale Cercirese, Bollettino della Commissione Archeologica, Communale di Roma 9 (1881): 18996, pl. 12; A. Martin, Inscription grecque de Corcyre de 1228, MlRome 2 (1882): 37989, pl. XIII. See also the chapter by Saradi above.49 The Nemanid rulers of Serbia copied the Byzan tine practice; these painted documents are also largely found in churches close to the border of the empire. See Kalopissi-Verti, Church Inscriptions, 8083 (with collected bibliography).50 One has only to think of the Edictum Diocletiani, promulgated in AD 301. Fragments of the lengthy inscrip-tion were built into churches in Geraki and Oitylon (Mani) and have also been recovered in Gytheion (Mani) and in Megalopolis.


Figure 10

Church of the Virgin Hodegetria (Aphentiko), Brontocheion Monastery, Mystras, view of nave (photo: S. Gerstel)

Figure 11

Church of St. Demetrios (Metropolitan Church), Mystras, view of nave (photo: S. Gerstel)


Brontocheion Monastery with an inscribed gospel book (Moscow, Synodal Library, cod. gr. 12),51 it is clear that he and Pachomios also vied with each other over the acquisition of lands and the adorn-ment of their churches. It is, perhaps, not by acci-dent that the lower level of the Hodegetria church, a basilica, appropriates an architectural type most often associated with metropolitan churches in the middle and late Byzantine periods (fig. 10).52 One catalyst behind the decoration of the cham-ber of the chrysobulls at the Hodegetria church may have been an inscribed column in the metro-politan church, also in the southwest corner of the building. This was the first of several columns that would display the holdings of the Church. The accretion of inscribed texts within the two build-ings suggests that the metropolitans and abbots were actively and simultaneously soliciting prop-erties to sustain their respective establishments.

St. Demetrios, Mystras

Four episcopal acts are inscribed on columns in the nave of the metropolitan church (fig. 11). These acts record gifts of lands, villages, and paroikoi primarily in the immediate vicinity of Mystras.53 The earliest of the texts, dated 1312 and linked to the metropolitan Nikephoros Moscho poulos, is carved into the westernmost column of the basil-icas south colonnade, that is, to the right of the west entrance to the church (fig. 12). The text men-tions the acquisition of a mill at Magoula and vine-yards at Leuki, both villages close to Mystras.54

51 See Archimandrite Vladimir, Sistematicheskoe opisanie rukopisei Moskovskoi sinodalnoi biblioteki, vol. 1, Rukopisi grecheskii (Moscow, 1894), 1213; Zakythinos, DGM, 2:285; A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, , BZ 12 (1903): 220.52 P. L. Vocotopoulos, 7 10 (Thessalonike, 1975), 1045.53 Millet, Inscriptions, 12227; Zesiou, , 1:2429; G. Marinou, : (Athens, 2002), 23943. For a history of this metro-politan seat, see M. Galanopoulou, (Athens, 1939), 1262.54 Zesiou, , 1:24; 2:432; Millet, Inscriptions, 12223; Marinou, , 239; Zakythinos, DGM, 2:282, 284; Papadopoulos-Kerameus,

The third column to the left of the west entrance, that is, confronting the south portal, an act of 1330 of the metropolitan Luke, confirms the properties mentioned in the first and adds a vineyard.55 Below this act is another of 1341,56 under the name of the metropolitan Neilos, which mentions the paroikoi of the villages of Magoula, Leuke, Parori,57 and Sapikos. Two other acts issued by Neilos in May and December 1339, carved into the easternmost column of the south colonnade, list more exten-sive properties, including a zeugelateion near Brysi; paroikoi and unworked stasia near Magoula; mills, olive trees, vineyards, and paroikoi in Parori and Sapikos; properties at Leuke;58 and the Monydrion of John the Baptist next to the river, a location that has been identified as Trypi (fig. 13).59

The properties listed in the acts are all close to Mystras (fig. 14). Several of them, such as Magoula and Parori, have substantial Byzantine remains dated to circa 1300, including three churches with wall paintings from this period.60 Important evi-dence of habitation can also be seen in recent exca-vations at Parori, which unearthed modest graves dating to the period in which the acts were pro-mulgated (fig. 15).61 In addition to the remains of

, 220. See also the chapter by A. Papalexandrou in this volume.55 Zesiou, , 1:2627; 2:43536; Millet, Inscrip-tions, 12324; Marinou, , 240.56 Zesiou, , 1:27; 2:43337; Millet, Inscrip-tions, 124; Marinou. , 242.57 Paintings in the cave church of the Virgin Langadiotissa outside of Parori have been dated to the fourteenth century. According to Drandakes, the painted bishops stylistically resemble the episcopal figures in the Hodegetria Church, Mystras: N. B. Drandakes, , .. (1994): 3133.58 Spolia from the Byzantine period are incorporated into the walls and pavement of the church of the Zoodochos Pege in Leuke. See Drandakes, , 180 n. 9.59 Zesiou, , 1:2629; 2:43235; Millet, In scrip -tions, 12426; Marinou, , 24041. For sur-viving Byzantine structures at Trypi, see Drandakes, , 87 n. 2.60 The church of St. Nikander is located at Ambrazi, to the right of the road from Magoula to Varsova. St. Nicholas is located outside of the village, adjacent to the Salvara tower, on the road that leads to Trypi. See N. B. Drandakes, , .. (1969): 49.61 The rescue excavation in 1995 by D. Charalambous pro-vided critical evidence for the existence of a late medieval


Figure 13

Church of St. Demetrios (Metropolitan Church), southeast column of nave (photo: S. Gerstel)

Figure 12

Church of St. Demetrios (Metropolitan Church), southwest column of nave (photo: A. Papalexandrou). I had it (the church of St. Demetrios) built to glorify God and the Holy Great Martyr of God, Demetrios, and I also raised from the foundations five mills in Magoula, and I also planted both an olive grove and an orchard in Magoula, and in Leuke I planted vineyards. I also bought the houses of the Chartophylax Eugenios right next to the church. Afterwards he tried coercively or with whatever means he could to remove them from the Church: Greek text in G. Millet, Inscriptions byzantines de Mistra, BCH 23 (1899): 122.

columns as surfaces for the inscription of lengthy texts may have traveled from St. Demetrios to a church in its dependent village.62 Further evidence

62 For the text of 1389 concerning Despot Theodore I Palaiologos, which was once carved on five columns in the church of the Virgin at Parori, see Millet, Inscriptions, 15155. For an English translation see the Appendix to the chapter by Leonte in this volume. S. Kalopissi-Verti has also noted the one-time existence of carved columns in the katholikon of the monastery of Varnakova in Aetolia. The columns were destroyed during the reconstruction of the old church in 1831. See Kalopissi-Verti, Church

several individuals, the graves contained glazed pottery and plain wares as well as iron shoe pro-tectors. Connections between the metropolitan church and its endowed properties must have been tight. The similar, though later, inscribing of columnsseventeen or eighteen lines divided over five columnsin the church of the Virgin at Parori shows that the practice of using church

settlement in this location. The excavation of eight tombs yielded glazed and unglazed pottery, parts of shoes, clasps from garments, coffin nails, and two Venetian torneselli, one dated to the reign of Antonio Venier (13821400). See .. 50 (1995): 145, 16869; BCH 124 (2000): 815. A second rescue excavation in Parori, in 1997 and 1998, to the west of the church of the Dormition of the Virgin, brought to light three tombs and the grave of a child. An earring and bells for the decoration of clothing were found in one of the tombs housing the bones of a woman: .. 53 (1998): 2.1:22122 (and private conversation with the excavator). I thank Ms. Charalambous for providing photos from her excavation for this publication.


of a connection between St. Demetrios and Parori may be detected in the hand of a sculptor who may have carved reliefs in both the metropolitan church and the village. The relief of a warrior saint found at Parori and a capital from the sanctuary screen of St. Demetrios carved with the figure of a centaur display the same treatment of facial

Inscriptions, 84; K. Sathas, : , , (Athens, 1865; repr. Athens, 1962), 4244.

MystrasTrypi

MagoulaParori

LeukeEurotas River

Figure 14

Identifiable properties from acts of the metropolitan Neilos of 1339 and 1341 (map by M. Saldaa)

Figure 15

Parori, excavated tombs (photo: D.

Charalambous)

features; the figures hold their shields in a very similar fashion (figs. 16, 17).63

Column shafts inscribed with lengthy texts were found not only in St. Demetrios and at the Church of the Virgin in Parori; such texts were also displayed in other churches in Mystras and elsewhere in Lakonia. A verse of forty-six lines was carved into the four columns that formed the portico of the church of St. Sophia at Mystras.64 fourteenth- or fifteenth-century testament carved on a column shaft today in the Pikoulas Tower Museum in Areopolis, Mani, records vineyards and farmland from the bishoprics of Amyklion and Kranoupolis given in exchange for memo-rial services (fig. 18).65 The columnar shape and inscription of an act endowing properties recalls the large number of boundary stones preserved from Byzantium, many of them marking out the limits of monastic properties and many terminat-ing in curses placed upon anyone who might move them.66 A document of 1755 describes a column of

63 Of bluish marble, the plaque measures 0.85 0.53 meters. See A. J. B. Wace, Lakonia, V: Frankish Sculptures at Parori and Geraki, BSA 11 (19045): 13940; Bon, La More franque, 592. For the centaur, see S. Gerstel, An Alternate View of the Late Byzantine Sanctuary Screen, in Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Views on Religious Screens, East and West, ed. S. Gerstel (Washington, DC, 2006), 148, fig. 14.64 Millet, Inscriptions, 14346. For the church, see M. Emmanouel, : , in (19261996): (Ioannina, 2003), 15398.65 The fragmentary column preserves seventeen lines of the inscription: Philippidis-Braat, Inscriptions, 32224 (with collected bibliography); R. Etzoglou, Karyou-polis: Une ville byzantine dserte, Byzantion 52 (1982): 83123, pl. II; Tales of Religious Faith in Mani, exh. cat., Pikoulas Tower Museum, Areopoli, Mani (Athens, 2005), 7071.66 See, for example, a similar text on a white marble col-umn shaft mentioning the metochion of the monastery of St. Nicholas (located between the villages of Loukas and Neochorio near Tripoli) in the region of Skorta. The malediction of the 318 Nicaean fathers is close to that inscribed on the columns at St. Demetrios: Philippidis-Braat, Inscriptions, 34445; N. Bees, , VizVrem 11 (1904): 6367. Such markers are also found in other parts of the Byzantine world. An inscribed marker from the region of Nicomedia, Bithynia, between the Monastery () toward the west and toward the east the monastery places a curse on


properties and institutions in the act of 1339 carved into the southeast column of St. Demetrios (fig. 13).67 This valuable document demonstrates

67 Charles Buchon recorded an inscribed column of 1340 at the monastery of St. John the Baptist at Trypi. The inscription listed the property endowed to the metropoli-tan of Lakedaimonia: J.-A. Buchon, Recherches historiques sur la principaut franaise de More, 2 vols. (Paris, 1845), I. LX, LXXIX. Buchon notes: La colonne subsiste cependant encore; et si lglise du couvent, place dans une situation ravissante, scroule avant peu, il sera facile de la transporter Misitra (sic), qui nen est loigne que dune lieue. The doc-ument of 1755 reads: , , , , , , ,

1340 found at the monydrion of St. John the Baptist at Trypi, which was inscribed with the name of the metropolitan of Lakedaimonia and confirmed the metropolitans possession of fields and a vine-yard in that village. The monydrion of St. John the Baptist at Trypi is recorded among the endowed

whomever moves the marker: A. Avramea and D. Feissel, De Chalcdoine Nicomdie, TM 10 (1987), 43233. The inscrip-tion is dated to the tenth or eleventh century. An engraved column from Trikala, dated 137273, now in the Istanbul Archaeological Museum, ensures the rights to the villages (?) of Megalommatou and Monampelon. See A. Avramea and D. Feissel, Inventaires en vue dun recueil des inscrip-tions historiques de Byzance, IV: Inscriptions de Thessalie, TM 10 (1987): 38385, pl. IX.2. For common curses, see H. Saradi, Cursing in the Byzantine Notarial Acts: A Form of Warranty, 17 (1994): 441553.

Figure 16

Parori, immured figure of a soldier (photo: S. Gerstel)

Figure 17

Church of St. Demetrios (Metropolitan Church), centaur capital from icon screen (photo: S. Gerstel)


how inscribed and prominently displayed stone markers established, irrevocably, the legal obliga-tions of monastic landlord, subsidiary metochion, and tenant farmers for the region.

In Lakonia, lengthy texts were inscribed on the walls and columns of churches in order to delineate and concretize the boundaries of monastic prop-erties; to exert episcopal authority; and to place

, . , , . (6848 = 1340).

Figure 18

Areopolis, Mani. Pikoulas Tower Museum. Column

(after Tales of Religious Faith in Mani, exh. cat.,

Pikoulas Tower Museum [Athens, 2005], 70).

. . . are the same, irrevocably and eternally not to be

returned, from the bishopric of Amyklion the vineyard

of Yeranos, from that of Kranoupolis (Karyoupolis?)

the vineyard of Daps/nou and, by purchase from the

Vrysiotoi free farmland and vineyards on this site,

in order to hold services on three days of the week,

Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday, in the church and at the saints tomb. If anyone dares remove any of the said properties of the church, let

him have the curse of the inspired fathers in Nicaea,

and of myself, the sinner. Year . . . Indiction . . .

villages and broader regions under the jurisdic-tion of Frank, Florentine, Venetian, or Byzantine. These boundary lines were not simply markers of territory, but signifiers of power.68 Artificially cre-ated and dynamic in their frequent redefinition, these boundaries exploited the natural landscape of the region and fixed the place of villages and vil-lagers within an imagined landscape.

Monemvasia

Monemvasia, located on the eastern coast of the Peloponnese and divided from the region of Mystras by Parnon, was also guaranteed lands and people by imperial decree. A chrysobull of June 1301 issued by Emperor Andronikos II to the metropolitan of Monemvasia enumerates sub-stantial properties given to the city.69 These rich agricultural lands include:

the village of Ganganeas,70 with its paroikoi, estates, its rights and its use, land in the village of Nomia with its paroikoi,71

68 On such a concept, see H. Kuper, The Language of Sites, American Anthropologist 74 (1972): 41125.69 MS Escor, S-I-12. Fols. 72r73r. E. Miller, Catalogue des manuscrits grecs de la bibliothque de lEscurial (Amsterdam, 1966), 6165; MM, 5:16364. On the identification of some of these villages, see T. Gritsopoulos, , in (Athens, 198283), 4546. For a rough translation of the text and commentary, see H. Kalligas, Byzantine Monemvasia: The Sources (Athens, 1990), 22327. Kalligass translation changes the order of the listed villages; I have amended the text to accord with the original Greek version, which lists the village in roughly topographical order. A chrysobull of 1405 issued by Manuel II Palaiologos endows the metropolitan with additional villages. For this text, see MM, 5:16870.70 Outside of Ganganeas, the church of the Panayitsa or Chrysaphitissa, the katholikon of a monastery, may have been built on the remains of an earlier building: N. Drandakes, S. Kalopissi, and M. Panayotidi, , ... (1983): 237 (M. Panayotidi).71 The double-naved Church of the Holy Apostles, located at the site of Vrysika, between the villages of Lyra and Nomia, has been dated to the first half of the fourteenth century based on stylistic comparison of its wall paint-ings to others in Geraki and the Mani: N. Drandakes et al., , ... (1982): 39194 (V. Kepetzi).


and those in the village of Teria.72 A ham-let () in Lyra, with its paroikoi and estates, of Mountouson, and estates at Sion; a village in the plain called Episkopia with its paroikoi and the land owned by the church; fields in different locations of Helos with water mills that were erected by the church and a vineyard;73 a hamlet called St. Kournoutos with its paroikoi; another hamlet called Kamara with its paroikoi and estates; the Monastery of St. George at Prinikos with its paroikoi,74 a lake, and the entire contribution of acorns, half of which previously went to the civil administration;75 the village of Peziamenoi with its paroikoi and estates and all of the rights that go with it;76 the village of Philodendron with its paroikoi and estates; the monastery of St. John the Baptist in Zaraphona with its paroikoi

72 The wall paintings in Terias cemetery church of the Dormition have been compared stylistically to late thir-teenth-century frescoes in the church of the Taxiarchs in the village of Ayios Nikolaos near Monemvasia and the church of St. Nicholas near Geraki: Drandakes et al., , ... (1982): 38689 (V. Kepetzi). Wall paintings in the chapel of St. Anna, attached to the north side of the church of the Dormition, have been dated to the late twelfth or thirteenth century based on style. See Drandakes et al., , ... (1982): 38991 (V. Kepetzi). For an architectural study of the two buildings, see A. G. Kalligas et al., A Church with a Roman Inscription in Tairia, Monemvasia, BSA 97 (2002): 46990.73 For the area of Helos, which is also mentioned in the Mystra chrysobulls of 131415 and 1319, see above, note 20.74 The site of the church of St. George at Prinikos can be identified as Brinikon, modern Asteri. See Gritsopoulos, , 45; G. A. Pikoulas, : (Athens, 2001), no. 543.75 Centuries later William Leake described Prinikos as about a mile from the sea side; opposite to it begins the lagoon which extends for a mile along the shore, and then becomes a marsh as far as the south-eastern extremity of the plain, where the beach ceases, and the hills end in cliffs over-hanging the sea. The lake is about half a mile broad in the widest part: W. M. Leake, Travels in the Morea, 3 vols. (London, 1830), 1:199. Leake (200) also noted the ruins of a chapel outside of the village.76 Modern-day Glykovrysi. See Gritsopoulos, , 45; Pikoulas, , nos. 884, 885 (). The church of St. George in the cemetery of Ano Glykovrysi may have been constructed in the Byzantine period. See Drandakes et al., , ... (1983): 236 (S. Kalopissi).

and all of the rights attached to it;77 vine-yards at Phota;78 in the village of Pollon Xenion the amount of 25 hyperpyra; a hamlet at Ripiai with its neighboring site of Kalamion and Dikasterion, and the posses-sions of the most holy church at Sorakas,79 Koulendia,80 Koumaraia, Voulkane, Mese, and Dodaia, but also at Nodys, which also comprises a lake, a tower, and an old castle.

Most of these villages can be located today, and many preserve the remains of modest churches that were painted in the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century (fig. 19). Several of the villages, including Zaraphona (modern-day Kallithea), Phota (modern-day Phoutia), and Koulendia (modern-day Helleniko), preserve two or even three churches that can be dated to the late Byzan-tine period, a pattern of multiple church con-struction that is typical for agrarian villages of this period.

Like the Mystras chrysobulls and acts, the Monemvasia chrysobull includes agricultural features such as mills, vineyards, and fields. The

77 Modern-day Kallithea. The cave church of St. John the Baptist, outside of the village, is dated to the early four-teenth century: N. B. Drandakes, - , in : (Athens, 1991), 13640. In the fourteenth century, a narthex was added to the impressive basilica at the center of Zaraphona. See D. Hayer, La Dormition-de-la-Vierge de Zaraphona (Laconie): Des lments nouveaux, BZ 80 (1987): 36070.78 Modern-day Phoutia. The church of St. John is found north of the settlement of Ayia Sophia, which belongs to Phoutia. The singled-aisled church is in ruins: Drandakes et al., , ... (1982): 4012 (V. Kepetzi). The single-aisled church of St. George, today the villages ceme-tery church, preserves paintings from circa 1400. The paint-ings have been compared stylistically to those preserved in the Cheimatissa Monastery near Phloka: Drandakes et al., , ... (1982): 4024 (V. Kepetzi). V. Kepetzi, , in : . . (Thessalonike, 1994), 50830.79 The church of St. John to the east of the abandoned vil-lage has been dated to the late thirteenth century: Drandakes et al., , ... (1982): 400 (V. Kepetzi).80 Modern-day Helleniko. At least three Byzantine churches are preserved in the village and its surrounds: St. Paraskeve, the Transfiguration, and St. John. See Drandakes et al., , ... (1982): 4078 (V. Kepetzi).


A-Tzouras (Panagia Kyra) marks the medieval site of Lyra (Lira), which is mentioned in the doc-ument as a hamlet (fig. 20).81 Archaeologists have

81 The church, in the middle of olive groves, is located approximately 2 kilometers south of modern-day Lira and is accessed by dirt roads. The cross-in-square church, today in ruins and filled with vegetation, has cloisonn masonry on the upper exterior walls. Traces of the base of a built feature, perhaps a bishops throne, are preserved along the lower reg-ister of the east wall of the central apse. To either side of this

terminology of settlements is precise, differen-tiating between villages (choria) and hamlets (agridia). Within this text, one can relate the loca-tion of many of the villages to a local agricultural product: grapes. Many of the named churches and villages are clustered along roads or in val-leys, mostly on the eastern side of the peninsula, the side that had white, chalky soil capable of sus-taining vineyards and the areas that had a longer exposure to the sun. For example, the church of

Eurotas River

Monemvasia

Mystras

Koulendia (Elleniko)

Phota (Phoutia)Nomia

TeriaLira

Helos

Prinikos(Asteri)

Peziamenoi(Glykovrysi)

Ganganeas

Zaraphona(Kallithea)

Sorakas

Figure 19

Identifiable properties from chrysobull of 1301

(map by M. Saldaa)


specific villages within the territorial borders of Monemvasia, especially those with vineyards on the eastern side of Epidauros Limera, guarantee-ing the economic stability of the city by protecting the source of its wine trade.

These documentschrysobulls and episco-pal actsestablished boundaries between recap-tured Byzantine territories and ones recently re gained from the Franks. The Hodeget ria chrysobulls ex plicitly mention lands captured by Andronikos Asen and given to the monastery, the resettlement of populations from Latin-held regions, and the names of villages in disputed territories. In this fashion, and on behalf of the emperor, the monastery guarded the frontier of Byzan tium, defending the line not only by settle-ments, but by the holy powers evoked through the dedication of dependent churchesa metochion dedicated to the warrior saints Theodore at Mouchli; a monydrion dedicated to the arch-angels, the commanders of the heavenly powers, at Androusa; and a monastery dedicated to St. George at Prinikos. Divine powers also protected the boundary, summoning otherworldly assis-tance but also assuring the integrity of the border-line through the presence of the church building, more permanent a marker than a boundary stone.

noted fragments of medieval walls and at least one wine press in the fields surrounding the church; these material remains help test the accuracy of the chrysobull. Phota (Phoutia), mentioned together with its vineyards, is also located on the eastern side of the peninsula; medieval wine presses have been documented in that village as well as in the villages of Sorakas and Koulendia.82 The iron-rich soil on the west, darker, side of the peninsula was, and still is, used to grow other crops such as olives. The chrysobull thus mapped

feature are still preserved paintings from the dado zone of the apse, which was decorated to imitate marble revetment with blue and red veining. I thank Mr. Petros Andresakis for guiding me to the church and for discussing architectural remains in the surrounding fields. According to Andresakis, numerous walls belonging to houses have been disman-tled in recent years. A wine press located in close proxim-ity to the church was no longer visible in August 2010. Wine presses in the region are discussed in G. Skagkou, , in ()malvasia, ed. I. Anagnostakes (Athens, 2008), 30919. I thank Panayiotes Skagkos for discussing this site and its agricultural features with me. For the church, see Drandakes et al., , ... (1982): 39799 (V. Kepetzi). The paintings Kepetzi described have deterio-rated dramatically.82 Skagkou, , 31113, 317.

Figure 20

A-Tzouras (Panagia Kyra), Lira, exterior (photo: S. Gerstel)


Figure 21

Chrysobull of Andronikos II, 1301, Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens, acc. no. 534 (courtesy of the Byzantine and Christian Museum, Athens)

Figure 22

Chrysobull of 1314 (Athens National Library 1462) (courtesy of the National Library of Greece)

Figure 23

Chrysobull of 1314 (Athens National Library 1462) (courtesy of the National Library of Greece)


Monemvasia

Mystras

Amyklion

Eurotas River

Brysi

otos R

iver

Astros

Kastanitza

Zinzina (Polydroson)

Zarax (Gerakas)

Kyparissaia

St. Euthymios

St. George Lykovouno

ArkasaSocha

Prophetes Elias

DyrrachionVoulkano

Pylos

Figure 24

Identifiable properties from chrysobull of 1314 and boundary line (map by M. Saldaa)

It is this belief in the eternality of consecrated structures that is revealed in the abundant men-tion of churches and small chapels in the docu-mentsa web of connected buildings endowed to a single institution. We see this link between churches in the two related columns, one in the church of St. Demetrios and the other in its metochion at Trypi. By inscribing the columns, the relationship of the churches is codified, in terms of both a metropolitan church and its dependency, but also of an urban church and its source of income, that is, the agricultural and fiscal benefits that accrued from the endowed village and taxes paid or labor performed by its paroikoi.

The texts also set the boundaries between metropolitan jurisdictions, especially in a region where the status and possessions of the bishops were still contested. The boundaries of the ter-ritory of Monemvasia are set out in an imperial chrysobull related to the famous original of 1301 displayed in the Byzantine and Christian

Museum in Athens (fig. 21).83 The chrysobull (Athens, National Li brary, cod. 1462, figs. 22, 23) has until recently been considered a sixteenth-century forgery of the earlier document. Charis Kalligas has established convincingly, however, that the chrysobull was actually issued circa 1314, at approximately the same time when Andronikos II issued his first chrysobull to the Hodegetria church.84 The document of 1314 establishes Monemvasias territorial border, which extends north from Epidauros Limera along the coast to

83 S. Binon, Lhistoire et la lgende de deux chryso-bulles dAndronic II en faveur de Monembasie, Macaire ou Phrantzs? EO 37 (1938): 274311; W. Miller, Essays on the Latin Orient (Amsterdam, 1964), 235.84 H. Kalligas, The Miniatures in the Chrysobulls of Andronikos II for Monemvasia, in Mare et litora: Essays Presented to Sergei Karpov for his 60th Birthday, ed. R. Shukurov (Moscow, 2009), 36578; eadem, Byzantine Monemvasia, 22839; MM, 5:15960.


Astros (fig. 24).85 The borderline then turns west, following the slope of Parnon, to the villages of Kastanitza and Tzitzina (Polydroso).86 From there the boundary extends to the church of St. Euthymios, before turning south to the monastery of St. George at Lykobouno.87 Claimed within the borders of the city is the town of Socha at the foot of Mount Taygetos.88 The line then extends over the mountains to Pylos (later Navarino) on the Messenian coast.

Ambitious in scope, the boundary lines en -compass towns and monasteries primarily on the eastern side of Mount Parnon, before turning and claiming properties on the east side of Taygetos and then, farther west into Messenia, lands also claimed by Mystras. Yet the border carefully, and perhaps intentionally, skirts Amyklion, one of the most contested bishoprics in this period. Nikolaos, metropolitan of Monemvasia and Nikephoros Moschopoulos, metropolitan of Lakedaimonia, both fought over the bishopric of Amyklion, located close to Mystras. The issue was settled only in 1340, when Amyklion became a permanent suffragan of the metropolitan of Lakedaimonia.89 We might see the attempt to draw the borderline as an attempt to define metropolitan sees and

85 Kalligas, Byzantine Monemvasia, 11213. For a topo-graphical discussion of this text, see the excellent article by G. Pikoulas, , .. 13 (1996): 393404. For Astros, see above, note 26.86 A cave church dedicated to John the Baptist is located outside of Polydroso. Preserved frescoes from the Byzantine period include a representation of John the Baptist, the Deesis, four frontal full-length bishops, and St. Nicholas. An inscription in a narrow band above the Deesis asked the Lord to Remember your servant, Leo the priest, and his wife and child, Amen. A later inscription suggests that the paintings were completed in 1335. See .. 35 (1980): 2.1:167, figs. 71a, b; N. B. Drandakes, , in , , 19 (Athens, 199293): 1736.87 K. Diamanti, : , .... 32 (2011): 1931.88 See J. M. Cook and R. V. Nicholas, Laconia, BSA 45 (1950): 261 n. 3.89 MM, 1:21621; Zakythinos, DGM, 2:28283; On the complicated history of Amyklion, see E. Kislinger, , 2 (1990): 7491.

constituencies in the period following Latin rule over the region.90

The documents described above literally mapped the landscape by accurately describing features of topography, such as lakes, and built features, such as churches and monydria. The list-ing of sites in an order that actually reflected their position within the landscape further suggests that the documents accurately mapped territorial borders. Yet the documents also map an imagined landscape, a landscape of loss and reconquest. This imagined landscape conjured memories of a distant ruler and ordered communities through shared religious and political affiliations.

Sacred Landscapes

Borders are as important for the territories they enclose as for those they exclude. Between the boundaries and endowed villages of Mystras and Monemvasia lay the elevated ground of Parnon, whose sloping hills, occasionally cut by deep ravines, played host to numerous monasteries and hermitages. Like their brethren in other regions of Byzantium,91 monks in the southern Peloponnese created a sacred landscape that exploited dramatic physical features of mountaintops and, conversely, chasms carved into the earths surface. The mon-asteries of the Holy Forty Martyrs near Theologos (fig. 25), the Virgin Chrysaphitissa in Chrysapha, the Old Monastery at Vrontamas (fig. 26), and St. George at Lykobouno (near Daphni)92 are all

90 A dated letter from Pope Nicholas III to Haymon, bishop of Lakedaimonia, reveals that a Latin prelate was still nominally present in the region in August 1292. See J.-A. Buchon, La Grce continentale et la More: Voyage, sjour et tudes historiques en 1840 et 1841 (Paris, 1843), 432. 91 A.-M. Talbot, Les saintes montagnes Byzance, in Le sacr et son inscription dans lespace Byzance et en Occident, ed. M. Kaplan (Paris, 2001), 26375; V. della Dora, Gardens of Eden and Ladders to Heaven: Holy Mountain Geogra-phies in Byzantium, in Mapping Medieval Geographies, ed. K. Lilley (Cambridge, forthcoming).92 Drandakes, -, 11538; idem, , .. 43 (1988): 15994; J. P. Albani, Die byzan tinischen Wandmalereien der Panagia ChrysaphitissaKirche in Chrysapha/Lakonien (Athens, 2000) (with collected bibliog-raphy); Diamante, .


located in the highlands; their locations exploited the rugged Lakonian topography in the late Byzantine period to further the spiritual needs of the brethren, who presumably sought more remote locations to heighten spiritual contemplation. These monasteries were connected to one another through a network of paths and kalderimia that tra-versed the highlands of Parnon and ran through the dry beds of the gorges the tributaries of the Eurotas River formed on a seasonal basis.93

Dozens of hermitages that created intermedi-ate points between the monasteries are located in the ravines carved into the lower hills of Parnon, and these charted their own landscape of eremitic isolation, interrupted only by the occasional (and seasonal) visits of pilgrims.94 The cave church of A-Giannaki, at Zoupena, for example, attracted pilgrims in the fourteenth century as it does today. Medieval and later inscriptions are painted on or scratched into the monumental icons on its walls, naming supplicants such as the late Byzantine nun Euphrosyne Glyka and a woman named Kale, her

93 A modern-day road connects the first three monas-teries. According to local residents, a path that runs across the plateau connects the monasteries at Vrontamas and Lykobouno (near Daphni).94 Cave chapels are found in a number of ravines, on both the Taygetos and Parnon sides of the valley. See N. B. Drandakes, , in , , 13 (198788): 21318; A. Bak-ourou, , in (Athens, 198283), 40440; N. B. Drandakes, , in , , ed. L. Kastrinake, G. Orphanou, and N. Giannadakes (Heraklion, 1987), 1:7984; Drandakes, , 1736; N. Dran-dakes, , in (Athens, 1994), 1:8389; N. B. Drandakes, , .... 15 (19891990): 17993; Drandakes, - , 13639; N. B. Drandakes, - , .... 17 (19931994): 22329.

Figure 25

Old Monastery of the Forty Martyrs near Theologos (photo: S. Gerstel)

Figure 26 Old Monastery, Vrontamas (photo: S. Gerstel)


topography that was, in and of itself, liminal. Not only were the monasteries located within a moun-tain range, but they also fell between territorial bor-ders that were both political and ecclesiastical.97

The southern Peloponnese included another sacred landscape that can be tracked only through analysis of church dedications in the region (fig. 29). Both Monemvasia and Mystras pro-moted the Constantinopolitan cult of the Virgin

97 For such notions of liminality, see, for example, V. Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and AntiStructure (Chicago, 1969), 95.

husband and child (fig. 27).95 Two other womens names are inscribed adjacent to the figure of St. Kyriake in the hermitage of St. John the Baptist built into the cliffs of the Sophroni Gorge above the Old Monastery of the Forty Martyrs (fig. 28).96 The painted cave was intended as a retreat for a her-mit, judging from the imagery painted within and its architectural plan, which incorporated a small cell for the monk, which may have served ulti-mately as his burial chamber. In the ravines that cut through Parnon, and also to some extent in the craggy foothills on the east side of Taygetos, a popu-lation of monks and hermits occupying a spiritual state between the living and the dead exploited a

95 N. B. Drandakes, - , ... 13 (19851986): 7991.96 N. B. Drandakes, , 12938.

Figure 27

Cave chapel of A-Giannaki,

Zoupena (Hagioi Anargyroi). St. Catherine with

adjacent inscription naming Kale Alype (photo: S. Gerstel)

Figure 28

Chapel of St. John the Baptist, Monastery of the Forty Martyrs near Theologos, St. Kyriake with adjacent inscription naming Kyriake and Kale (photo: S. Gerstel)


imposing monasteries of Mystras were all dedi-cated to aspects of the Virgin: the Hodegetria, Peribleptos, Pantanassa; many of them were also linked through specific imagery to impor-tant Marian cults in Constantinople, such as the Zoodochos Pege. Monemvasia, too, promoted

Hodegetria. See N. Oikonomids, The Holy Icon as Asset, DOP 45 (1991): 40.

Hodegetria, a competition that may have caused friction between the residents of Mystras and Monemvasia, if not between their clergy.98 The

98 See the chapter by T. Papamastorakis in this volume and the discussion of the icon of the Virgin Hodegetria Monemvasiotissa below. In the early fourteenth century, a nun and the metropolitan of Lakedaimonia were involved in a dispute over possession of a copy of an icon of the Virgin

Eurotas River

MonemvasiaPanagia Hodegetria(Hagia Sophia)

MystrasPanagia HodegetriaPanagia PeribleptosPanagia Pantanassa

LykobounoSt. George

Vrontamas Old Monastery

Zoupena (Hagioi Anargyroi)A-Giannaki

Zaraphona (Kallithea)A-Giannaki

Chrysapha Panagia ChrysaphitissaSt. John the BaptistCave Chapel of St.John the Baptist

eologos Forty Martyrs/St. John the Baptist

Vassaras A-Giannaki

Tzitzina St. John the Baptist

Phloka Panagia Cheimatissa

LyraPanagia Kyra(A-Tzouras)

MonasteriesCave Chapels Panagia Pantanassa

Figure 29

Monasteries and hermitages in Lakonia (map by M. Saldaa)


Monemvasia. To the south of the village of Lira, the remains of a medieval settlement is evidenced by the scatter of sherds and fragmentary stone walls that still remain in the fields surrounding the church of A-Tzouras; the settlement has yet to be studied.102 A British survey team has made progress in charting the locations of some small settlements in the region of Sparta through the analysis of sherd scatter; the medieval names of many of the sites, however, remain elusive.103 The excavation of graves at two locations in Parori (fig. 15), as noted above, revealed the bones of resi-dents of that village, but other evidence of habi-tation, such as traces of domestic architecture, has not been found.104 The one-time existence of endowed villages and dependent villagers is best witnessed in decorated churches of the period, many of them still in fairly good condition. These survive in abundancevillage churches and cemetery churches in a surprisingly wide range of architectural types.

Approximately eighty decorated churches of the late Byzantine period survive in Lakonia and fifty additional churches in the region of Monemvasia. The painted cycles of many of these remain unpublished; a number are in decay.105 The churches suggest, both in the rendering of certain subjects on their walls and in the style of their painting, an awareness of ecclesiastical juris-dictions and regional boundaries that mountains and men set. The representation of certain saints, for example, displays an interest in the biographies of local holy men, which appears to have regional significance. The portrait of St. Nikon, as Nikolaos Drandakes has demonstrated, was particularly common in churches in Lakonia, where there are at least eighteen surviving monumental icons of the saint.106 In only one case, as far as I know, is his portrait included in the decoration of a church

102 See above, note 81.103 Cavanagh et al., The Laconia Survey, vol. 2, Archaeological Data.104 See above, note 61.105 Drandakes, , 167235.106 Idem, , 5 (1962): 30619. For the state of research on the identification of the church of St. Nikon in Sparta, see R. Sweetman and E. Katsara, The Acropolis Basilica Project, Sparta: A Preliminary Report for the 2000 Season, BSA 97 (2002): 42968.

the cult of the Virgin. The main church of the kastro was dedicated to the Virgin Hodegetria.99 Additional monasteries dedicated to the Virgin in lands and villages endowed to the city include the Virgin Cheimatissa, the Virgin Pantanassa,100 and A-Tzouras (Panagia Kyra). The territories of Monemvasia and Mystras were explicitly placed under the protection of Christs mother, and her presence was marked on the ground by the mul-tiplication of shrines built in her name. Her pres-ence sanctioned the reinstatement of Byzantine hegemony in the region and established her spiri-tual over-ladyship.

The monastic zone of Parnon, to the con-trary, was placed under the protection of John the Baptist, the model par excellence of eremitic monasticism. At least seven churches in the hills are dedicated to the Baptist, most of them cave chapels or hermitages.101 To these sacred locales, as traced by inscriptions, villagers traveled, leav-ing their names alongside painted offerings.

the Landscape of Painting

Although scholars have cataloged surviving churches and monasteries in the southern Pelo-ponnese, there has been little work done in map-ping settlements, especially those in the region of

99 H. Kalligas, The Church of Hagia Sophia at Mone-mvasia: Its Date and Dedication, .... 9 (197779): 21721. 100 The five-domed church, the katholikon of a mon-astery, is located in Kryovrysi, between the villages of Helleniko and Pantanassa: A. K. Orlandos, , .... 1 (1935): 13951.101 St. John the Baptist, Chrysapha (N. B. Drandakes, , .. 9 [1988]: 30133); the cave cha-pel of St. John the Baptist near Chrysapha (Drandakes, , 17996); the cave chapel of A-Giannaki near Zaraphona (Drandakes, - , 13640, pls. 6074); the cave chapel of St. John the Baptist at Tzitzina (Drandakes, , 1736); the cave chapel of A-Giannaki near Verria (Bakourou, , 40424); Chapel of St. John the Baptist above the Old Monastery of the Forty Martyrs (Drandakes, , 12938); the cave chapel of A-Giannaki at Zoupena (Hagioi Anargyroi) (Drandakes, - , 7991).


later churches continued to evoke the power of the prototype by including copies of the image in their decorative programs.113 The dissemination of the

113 Annemarie Weyl Carr has recently suggested that an image of Christ Elkomenos and Andronikos II now serv-ing as the prefatory miniature for a twelfth-century lection-ary (London, British Library, Add. 37006, fol. 1 verso) was originally the top portion of Andronikoss chrysobull of 1284 for Monemvasia. Supplementing the views expressed in this chapter about monumental representations of Christ Elkomenos in the region of Monemvasia (and referring to the oral presentation of this chapter), Carr sees the image as visually manifesting the identity of the commune for which the chrysobull was promulgated. See A. W. Carr, The Illuminated Chrysobulls of Andronikos II? in : Rivista di ricerche bizantinistiche 6 (2009): 45163.

Figure 30

St. Nicholas, Ayios Nikolaos, St. Theophanios (photo: S. Gerstel)

belonging to the metropolitan of Monemvasia.107 Conversely, the portrait of the ninth-century saint, Theophanios of Monemvasia, is found in the church of the Virgin Cheimatissa in Phloka,108 an influential monastery close to the citys endowed villages. His image is also included among the saints represented in the church of St. Nicholas in the village of Ayios Nikolaos, near Teria, a vil-lage mentioned in the Monemvasia chrysobull (fig. 30).109 As far as I am aware, representations of this saint are not found in the region of Mystras.

Other themes within church decoration may suggest a certain affiliation to a church or metropol-itan centerartistic corroboration of a territorial boundary. The frequent representation of Christ on the Road to Calvary in the lower register and adjacent to the main entrance of small churches in Epidauros Limera and on the island of Kythera may reflect the popularity of a local cult focused on Monemvasias icon of Christ Elkomenos, which was located in the citys metropolitan church.110 Although the icon, described by Niketas Choniates as an ,111 was taken from Monemvasia by the emperor Isaac II Angelos (11851195),112 the holy palladion was so important to the region that

107 St. Andrew in Kato Kastania. ... (1982): 43033 (M. Panayotidi).108 ... (1982): 355 (N. Drandakes). The paint-ings in the church are dated circa 1400. The half-length portrait of the saint is found above the entrance to the dia-konikon. For the saint, see H. A. Kalligas, Monemvasia: A Byzantine City State (London and New York, 2009), 1011.109 The portrait of the saint is located in the prothesis chamber. See N. Drandakes, , .... 9 (19771979): 4041.110 The church, originally dedicated to St. Anastasia, was renamed for the icon. See Kalligas, Monemvasia, 22, 13842; N. A. Bees, , BNJ 10 (193334): 199262. See also V. Foskolou, : , 14 (2001): 22957.111 Niketas Choniates, , ed. J. L. van Dieten (Berlin and New York, 1975), 3.5458 (442).112 The icon was installed in the chapel of the Archangel Michael of the Sosthenio in Constantinople. See R. Janin, La gographie ecclsiastique de lempire byzantine, vol. 3, Les glises et les monastres (Paris, 1969), 348.


School, however, its skilled painters seem to have been somewhat localized. Writing in 1973, Doula Mouriki wisely observed that artistic activities at Mystras were not far-reaching and did not affect painting, for example, at Chrysapha or Geraki,118 that is, in areas that fell between the regional boundaries of Mystras and Monemvasia.

Considering Monemvasias wealth in the same period,119 it would be likely that a group of paint-ers belonging to a Monemvasia School worked in that city and in its hinterlands. As is the case at Mystras, these painters would have benefited from the citys close ties to Constantinople and its extraordinary economic resources. Monumental decoration surviving in Monemvasia is too frag-mentary to provide an accurate picture of the painting style that prevailed in the city.120 Close ties to the Byzantine capital would have guaran-teed that works painted in Constantinople, such as manuscripts and icons, reached Monemvasia; these may have influenced painting in the city and its hinterlands. The icons at the top of the two chrysobulls issued by the emperor, Andronikos II, to Monemvasia, for example, exemplify the high-style painting of the Byzantine capital in the early fourteenth century (figs. 21, 22).121 Andronikos II also sent a well-known icon, the Virgin Hodegetria Monemvasiotissa to the city. Decorated with pearls and precious stones, the famed icon is recalled only in a surviving synaxarion from

the Church of the Holy Apostles at Leondari, CahArch 40 (1992): 16180. Aimilia Bakourou is publishing the chapel at Nikandri.118 D. Mouriki, Stylistic Trends in Monumental Painting of Greece at the Beginning of the Fourteenth Century, in Lart byzantin au dbut du XIVe sicle: Symposium de Graanica, 1973 (Belgrade, 1978), 74.119 See H. Kalligas, Monemvasia, Seventh-Fifteenth Centuries, in EHB 3:87997.120 The very damaged paintings in the church of the Virgin Hodegetria (now St. Sophia) have been dated to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. See E. Stikas, , .. 8 (1986): 271376. Traces of wall paintings are pre-served in St. Andrew, a small, single-aisled church in the lower city. The paintings have been dated to the late thir-teenth or early fourteenth century. A single color image of a female saint is reproduced in A. Bakourou, Tour of Monemvasia (Athens, 2005), 30. 121 Kalligas