“BODIES HERETOFORE SOUND AND WHOLE”: AN EXAMINATION OF THE EMPHASIS ON CORPOREALITY DEPICTED IN THE LATE MIDDLE

BYZANTINE VITA ICONS

A ThesisSubmitted to

the Temple University Graduate Board

in Partial Fulfillmentof the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARTS

byRachael E. Fowler

_________________Thesis Advisor

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CHAPTER 1

THE PROBLEM OF CORPOREALITY

Hagiography, the narrated lives of the saints, formed an important part of

Byzantine religious life. Biographies of the saints, which had become widespread by the

Middle Byzantine era, played a part in feast – day celebrations and at shrines. However,

while literary narratives experienced a certain level of prominence, Thalia Gouma –

Peterson has noted that visual equivalents to hagiographic literature “appear to have

been the exception rather than the rule.”1 If we can accept this, then the late Middle

Byzantine so – called “vita” icons represent a curious category of devotional object that

deserves further study.2

Icons, objects imbued with power, served multiple purposes during the Middle

and Late Byzantine eras. They functioned as intercessory hotlines to God, miracle

workers, judges and protectors. Certain icons held more power than others and stories

1 Thalia Gouma – Peterson, “Narrative Cycles of Saints’ Lives in Byzantine Churches from the 10th to the Mid – 14th Century,” The Greek Orthodox Theological Review 30, Number 1 (Spring, 1985): 31 – 44, 32.

From this point forward, I use “hagiography” to refer to the written word rather than a painted cycle illustrating scenes from this type of narrative.

2 Although other vita icons exist, such as the narrative icon of the Virgin from Cyprus and numerous examples from the Byzantine – influenced Russia, for purposes of this thesis, I rely on Nancy Patterson Ševčenko’s list of Byzantine “vita” icons: icons of Saint Nicholas (from Mount Sinai, and those in Kastoria, Skopje and Kakopetria, Cyprus), Saints George, Katherine, John the Baptist and Panteleimon at Mount Sinai, a relief icon of Saint George in the Byzantine Museum of Athens, an icon of the Anargyroi in Kastoria, two icons of Saint Marina on Cyprus, one of Saint Marina from the monastery of Saint John Lampadistes, an icon of Saint Basil in Houston, one of Saint Phillip in Arsos, and an icon of Saint John Lampadistes in Nicosia. In particular, I have chosen to focus on the earliest of the vita icons as my interest lies in the specific moment when this type begins to appear. Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “The ‘Vita’ Icon and the Painter as Hagiographer,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999): 149 – 165, 150.

I have chosen to exclude the Cypriot vita icon of the Virgin as it has routinely been discussed as “Crusader art.” I have also omitted the numerous Russian vita icons as although Russia had been under the cultural and religious influence of the Byzantine Empire, the icons do not fit into the category of “Byzantine.”

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of the miraculous acts that they performed spread widely throughout the Empire. Icons

played a part in liturgical services, private devotion, state protection and ritual.3 Cities

that owned one of the more famous and powerful icons would have had the additional

bonus of bringing in revenue due to pilgrimage. Russian travelers, for example, wrote of

visiting specific icons during pilgrimage trips to Constantinople and included

information about miracles associated with these objects.4 Icons, although they depicted

holy subjects, did not function as simple portraits but represented a physical

manifestation of the saint on earth — the saint inhabited the icon. Although certain

icons became known for their miraculous acts, Byzantines understood the saint to have

performed the deed and to have manifested it through the vehicle of the holy object.5

Icons functioned as interactive objects that allowed a viewer to communicate with God

through the pictured saint.

Generally comprised of a frontal and rather formal depiction of a holy person,

motionless and with little or no landscape setting, most Byzantine icons, including those

of martyr saints, lack narrative elements. Aside from feast icons which detail Christ’s

passion, violent imagery, allusions to earthly matters, and physicality were generally

3 Although the bibliography of publications about icons is vast, I have included several for general reference. Antony Eastmond and Liz James (Eds.), Icon and Word, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003.Henry Maguire, The Icons of Their Bodies, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “Icons in the Liturgy,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 (1991): 45 – 57.

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? See, for example: Annemarie Weyl Carr, “Icons and the Object of Pilgrimage in Middle Byzantine Constantinople,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 56 (2002): 75 – 92. And for later accounts: George Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1984.

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? Michael Psellos, a resident of Constantinople during the eleventh century, wrote that the icon of the Virgin at the Blachernai palace “changed as the Virgin herself entered into it.” Ševčenko, 1991, 52.

For more information on how icons worked, see Ševčenko, 1991.

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absent.6 The saint occupied an otherworldly atmosphere separate from the mortal earth.

This changed, however, at the end of the twelfth or beginning of the thirteenth century,

around the time of the Fourth Crusade and the Latin occupation of Constantinople,

when icons of the biographical or “vita” type began to appear.7 The visual language of

this icon type emphasizes the humanity of the depicted saints, and this marks a

departure from the “standard” illustrations that focused on the saint’s presence in the

“world beyond.”

The vita icons are large but mainly portable panels that feature a “traditional”

central image of a frontally – facing and immobile saint surrounded by an extra –

earthly atmosphere. Unlike earlier icons, the vita type include a framed border

comprised of scenes chosen from the saint’s hagiography.8 With the exception of Saint

6 Although scenes of Christ’s crucifixion depicted blood, the actual acts of crucifixion or torture are generally absent.

7 It should be noted, however, that while Ševčenko has dated the earliest biographical icons to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, A. Papageorghiou has assigned the Cypriot Saint Marina icon from Philousa to the eighth or ninth century. Glen Peers has questioned the date of the Marina icon and wrote that vita icons “first appeared perhaps as early as the seventh century,” but “became popular by the thirteenth century.” A. Papageorghiou, Icons of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus: The Holy Archbishopric of Cyprus, 1992. Glenn Peers, Sacred Shock: Framing Visual Experience in Byzantium, University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2004, 77.

Ševčenko wrote that “the earliest extant icon with a hagiographical cycle is probably an eleventh- century icon of St. Nicholas on Mt. Sinai… originally a triptych, a form which has no later parallels….” Ševčenko, 1999, 150. Since the date of the Cypriot Marina icon is uncertain I rely on Ševčenko’s dates – particularly as the reverse of the icon, a depiction of Saint George, dates to the thirteenth century. However, if we accept that the vita icon may have appeared as early as the seventh century, why do most of the remaining Byzantine biographical icons date to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, a particularly difficult period for the Empire? I have chosen to exclude the St. Nicholas icon from my study due to its form which is different than the vita icons, possibly signifying that the icon served a unique purpose unrelated to later biographical cycles. Unlike the later icons, the biographical images on the eleventh – century St. Nicholas panel do not frame a central image.

8 Icons that featured framing images had existed prior to the emergence of the vita type. There are, for example, icons of the enthroned Theotokos surrounded by prophets and saints which date to the eleventh or twelfth centuries. For more information on the framed Theotokos icons, see: Yuri Piatnitsky, “The Panagiarion of Alexios Komnenos Angelos and Middle Byzantine Painting.” In Perceptions of Byzantium and Its Neighbors (843- 1261), edited by Olenka Z. Pevny, 40 – 55, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000.

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Nicholas, the framing scenes illustrate events solely from the life of the saint, not any

miracles performed after his or her death. Although illustrated events from the

biographies of saints have survived, in pictorial form, in monumental church cycles

throughout the Byzantine Empire, Nancy Patterson Ševčenko has noted that “though

portraits of holy figures play an extremely large role in Byzantine art, hagiographical

narrative illustration does not.” 9 Relatively few examples of this type of icon still exist

— Ševčenko has listed less than twenty that can be considered Byzantine.10 This new

format of icon and the small number of extant examples create an interesting and

puzzling problem. Surviving primary sources do not seem to mention vita icons, let

alone specify an intended audience or suggest any liturgical or other function that

biographical icons may have served.11 Although for several reasons, principally style, it

is also unclear precisely where this icon form originated, the earliest examples fall

9 Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, Illustrated Manuscripts of the Metaphrastian Menologion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990, IX.

While an examination of monumental biographical cycles is outside of the scope of this paper, Gouma – Peterson has noted that there are eighteen saints whose cycles feature in Byzantine monumental decoration between the end of Iconoclasm until the mid – fourteenth century. While this only represents extant examples of church decoration, several of the saints who have vita icons also appear in monumental cycles. One cycle exists of Saint Panteleimon, two cycles of Saint Basil, thirty – one cycles of Saint Nicholas and thirty – six cycles of the life of Saint George. Most of the extant cycles date from the twelfth century. Gouma – Peterson, 1985, 32 – 34.

For a discussion of depicted scenes in the cycles of Saint George, see Temily Mark – Weiner “Narrative Cycles of the Life of St. George in Byzantine Art. (Volumes I and II).” Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1977.

10 Peers wrote that there are “slightly more than twenty” extant vita icons and footnoted that “more are being discovered.” He does not include a list of vita icons that he considers Byzantine. Peers, 77, 160.

11 However, there is no damage on the bottom of the extant panels which suggests that while the vita icons were of a portable size, they probably did not function as processional objects.

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under the category of “Byzantine” rather than “Crusader” art, which may eliminate the

possibility that the icons were inspired by western images.12

Several issues arise when discussing the origin of the vita icons. As the

biographical panels currently reside in several areas where icon production occurred,

can we assume that manufacture of this type of icon occurred in multiple areas of

Byzantium? The vita icons located at the Monastery of Saint Katherine on Mount Sinai

were most likely made there as many of them include a “distinguishing technical

feature” which can be seen on Sinai icons from this period.13 However, the origin of the

other vita icons remains uncertain. If these biographical images sprang from a variety of

places, how and why did they come about at roughly the same time? While one cannot

examine the vita icons without considering these issues, nevertheless the biographical

icons form an interesting category of devotional object, not only due to their seeming

uniqueness within the Byzantine visual repertoire, but also because of the scenes chosen

for depiction on them. Given that the illustrated scenes could have focused on the

miracles and good deeds that the saint performed either pre – or post – mortem, I find it

curious that the prominent theme among these scenes involves the emphatically earthly

12 None of Kurt Weitzmann’s publications on the icons at Sinai or on Crusader icons include the vita icons that Ševčenko listed. Ševčenko has suggested that the biographical icons may have taken their form from earlier ivory panels or perhaps “enhanced” icons of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. See: Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “Vita Icons and ‘Decorated’ Icons of the Komnenian Period,” In Four Icons in the Menil Collection, edited by Bertrand Davezac, 56 – 69, Houston: Menil Foundation, Inc., 1992.Kurt Weitzmann, “Icon Painting in the Crusader Kingdom,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966): 49 – 83.Kurt Weitzmann, “Thirteenth Century Crusader Icons on Mount Sinai,” The Art Bulletin 45, Number 3 (September, 1963): 179 – 203.

13 “It has been argued that icons produced at Sinai between the tenth and thirteenth centuries have a distinguishing technical feature—the creation of “a special reflection of light on the gold background by the use of a compass equipped with a small brush.’” Alice – Mary Talbot, “Byzantine Monasticism and the Liturgical Arts,” In Perceptions of Byzantium and Its Neighbors (843 – 1261), edited by Olenka Z. Pevny, 22 – 39, New York: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000, 25.

Talbot cites Konstantinos A. Manafis (ed.), Sinai, Athens: Ekdotike Athenon S. A., 1990, 105 – 106.

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issue of corporeality. Emphasizing the focus on the saints’ physicality, in the case of

martyr saints, many of the bordering biographical scenes depict the saint’s torture and

eventual death.14 This stress on corporeality becomes particularly interesting if, as

Glenn Peers has argued, the frame “was a permeable space through, in, and by which

Christian and God sought contact. It was the zone where the most meaningful contact

between viewer and viewed… took place.”15

The violent worldly matters of the vita icons are not an anomaly in

Christianity.16 Christian hagiograpic literature has routinely included graphic and often

gruesome details of the many torments inflicted on the martyr saints when they refused

to renounce their faith.17 Death, for at least the most famous of Christian martyrs, did

14

? The exception to this seems to be Saint Nicholas, a martyr. The framing scenes on vita icons of Saint Nicholas “emphasize his mundane miracles.” Maguire, 1996, 186.

15 “The images through their edges, margins, borders… framed the bodies of their viewers. Byzantines expected presence in their icons, and they found them incarnate in any number of ways... The frame or marginal area enhanced that presence… by its content. Because the zone itself is so generally unseen, in favor of the center or object of representation, its work is nearly invisible.” Peers, 2004, 134.

The idea of the frame as integral to understanding the image as a whole is the premise of Peers’ 2004 book, Sacred Shock. It is important to note, however, that Peers’ study does not rely heavily upon Byzantine primary textual sources.

16 Similar attention to episodes of torture and death from the lives of martyr saints occurs in monumental cycles of the lives of martyr saints. See, for example, the fourteenth – century frescoes of St. George at Staro Nagoričino in modern – day Serbia. Extant examples seem to suggest a spike in the use of biographical cycles during the thirteenth century, roughly the same time that the vita icons began to appear. Gouma – Peterson has noted forty – two surviving cycles which date to the thirteenth century.

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? There are many publications which deal with violence in the context of Late Antiquity including recent books by Michael Gaddis and Lucy Grig. Numerous texts also exist about attitudes towards violence in the Medieval West. Violence in both Late Antiquity and the Medieval West has also been approached with a vast array of methodologies including gender theory, war theory, and the rhetoric of violence. However, there does not seem to be much literature about Byzantine reactions to violence and violent imagery with a few exceptions, including Henry Maguire’s discussion about representations of animal violence in early Middle Byzantine art. In his article Maguire argued that Byzantine interpretations of animal violence changed after the seventh century, by which time “it was no longer possible for the Byzantine viewer to separate the image from what was represented.…” Henry Maguire, “Profane Icons: The Significance of Animal Violence in Byzantine Art,” Res 38 (2000): 18 – 33, 18, 30 – 31.

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not occur in a quick and relatively painless way, but involved a long and dramatic affair

that usually included the added humiliation of public spectacle.18 Violence does not only

appear in written form, but also factors to a lesser degree in Byzantine religious and

secular art.19 One remarkable example of violence in Byzantine religious art is a

calendar icon with the martyrs of September, October and November from the

Monastery of Saint Katherine on Mount Sinai. The icon has been dated to the eleventh

century and is comprised of ninety – one small images, almost sixty of which represent

non – narrative, yet bloody, depictions of martyrs. However, I believe that these violent

scenes function as a symbol meant, along with the inscriptions, to aid in identification

of the saint rather than, as in the case of the vita icons, to act biographically.20 Graphic

Some recent publications on Medieval violence have included short discussions on the different attitudes between East and West based on evidence from law and criminal punishment texts and Angeliki Laiou and R. J. Macrides have published many articles on Byzantine law which shed light on official views of violence. Yet one must be careful in drawing conclusions from the official law texts as these do not necessarily reflect the Byzantine understanding of violence. For example, in the Middle Byzantine period the Orthodoxy was against physical punishment but texts tell us that “punishments of criminal justice included blinding, nose- slitting and other corporeal mutilations.” Norman H. Baynes, “Some Aspects of Byzantine Civilization,” The Journal of Roman Studies 20 (1930), 1 – 13, 2.

For an examination of a Western Medieval understanding of violence with some discussion of Byzantium, see: Mark D. Meyerson, Daniel Thiery and Oren Falk, eds, ‘A Great Effusion of Blood’?, Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press, 2004.

18 Basil of Caesarea, who forms the subject of one extant vita icon, quoted 1 Cor 4:9 in his Homily on the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste to note that the martyrs “became a spectacle for the world and for angels and human beings….”. Johan Leemans, Wendy Mayer, Pauline Allen and Boudewijn Dehandschutter, ‘Let Us Die That We May Live’, New York: Routledge, 2003, 76.

Lucy Grig likened the execution of Christian “criminals” to theater. “The … process was designed to debase the victim [and] punishments might be chosen that were mockingly appropriate [such as] women … led out barely dressed.” Lucy Grig, Making Martyrs in Late Antiquity, London: Duckworth, 2004, 15.

19 For examples of violence in Byzantine manuscript illumination, see the ninth – century Khludov Psalter, where violent images also serve as a framing device. The twelfth – century Homilies of Gregory Nazianzenus also feature graphic martyrdom scenes. In the Homilies’ Martyrdom of the Seven Maccabees, the bodies of the martyrs are clearly broken and bloody: one vignette in particular depicts the breaking of limbs. For secular examples of violence, see: Helen C. Evans and William D. Wixom (eds), The Glory of Byzantium, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997.20

? Unlike the vita icons the calendar icons do not function narratively or include biographical details.

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scenes of martyrdom could also be seen in later monumental frescoed cycles from

within the sphere of Byzantine influence. 21

While calendar icons and those commemorating specific biblical events, such as

the Massacre of the Innocents, used images of brutality, icons dedicated to individual

saints seem to have remained relatively nonviolent. 22 Even when the icon depicted a

martyr saint, the artist generally followed the conventional pictorial type which

overlooked allusions to earthly life in lieu of a more otherworldly setting. In essence,

the choice to focus on “the world beyond” would have rendered violent imagery and

references to earthly matters unnecessary — once the martyr reached his or her

heavenly destination, bodily pain was no longer an issue. While the central images on

the vita icons mostly follow these conventions, the curious choice of the framing

biographical scenes, which include violent imagery, raises some questions which I think

can best be answered after considering the political atmosphere in Byzantium during the

period when these icons first began to appear.23

I believe that the genesis of these biographical icons occurred, in part, as a

reaction to the instability of the Byzantine Empire during the late twelfth and early

thirteenth centuries, as I will demonstrate in this thesis. Focusing on the period when the

vita icons emerged and examining the choice of scenes, I will explore the possibility 21 For monumental frescoed cycles that date earlier than the vita icons, see: Mark – Weiner,

1977, who makes reference to an eleventh – century frescoed cycle of the life of Saint George in Goreme.

22 For “conventional” Middle Byzantine icons from areas other than the Monastery of Saint Katherine, see: Evans and Wixom, 1997, catalog numbers 65 (Saint Nicholas) and 70 (Saint George), both of which may have been painted in Constantinople. Although the icon of Saint George is heavily damaged, both saints are shown from the waist inhabiting the gold “space beyond.”

23 If the vita icon type did appear centuries earlier and gain a level of “popularity” at the end of the twelfth or early thirteenth century, than the political situation in the Byzantine Empire at this particular moment may help to explain why.

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that the disasters, hostilities, and the loss of the capital, of control of the churches, and

of many phenomenally important relics would have made the mortal behavior of the

saints particularly relevant to followers of Orthodoxy at this time. I hope to show that,

to the Byzantine viewer, faced with the turmoil which occurred during this period of

time, the framing episodes of physical life, martyrdom and torture may have functioned

as a sort of reminder or model designed to affect the behavior of those with the

“ultimate prize” in mind.

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CHAPTER 2

HISTORIOGRAPHY

The vita icons differ from other icons due to two main factors: the employment

of a frame which details scenes from the saint’s biography, and the focus within this

border on earthly matters. However, despite the uniqueness of the vita icons within

Byzantine visual culture, sources contemporary to the icons do not mention this type of

iconography and there exists relatively few modern studies that examine the many

problems surrounding these images. Scholars such as Ševčenko, who has provided most

of the information about these icons, Peers and Henry Maguire have discussed issues

such as the form and origin of a framing device as well as possible uses for the

biographical scenes. Yet, while the information modern scholars have provided has

been extremely valuable to our understanding of these complex icons, there is much

about the vita icons which has yet to be investigated. In this chapter, I will explore both

the modern discussions of the vita icons as well as topics which remain to be studied.

The form of the vita icons, in particular the use of the biographical framing

scenes, has only been discussed by Ševčenko, who has suggested that this device may

have had predecessors in earlier Byzantine ivories, “decorated” icons made with a mix

of materials, or epistle cycles used on templon beams. However, Ševčenko admitted

that viewing the ivories as the iconographic source for the vita form was problematic

because “on vita icons the scenes almost always go around all four sides and there is no

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parallel [for this] among Byzantine ivories.”24 The decorative icon theory, which Peers

has also mentioned as a possible source for the vita type, also has problems.25

There are decorated icons which have scenes… on their silver – gilt frames but these are fourteenth century and the scenes are not on contiguous boxes but separated by panels of ornament. The only metal icon which seems to provide exactly the model we seek is dated by some to the eleventh, others to the twelfth century.26

However, this dating would make the metal icon only slightly earlier than the vita icons,

and, with only one extant example, it does not seem likely that the decorated icons were

related to those of the vita type. The epistle cycle beams may have been a more likely

source for the vita form as, while they “usually contain the twelve feasts, there are

epistyles with scenes from the life of a saint… and there is textual evidence for these in

Constantinople earlier.”27

Scholars are also unclear if the vita form was an eastern or western invention. In

1992, Ševčenko stated that icons of this type “crop up at just about the same time” in

the east and west and noted that “the surviving Byzantine icons derive almost

exclusively from areas subject to considerable Western influence: Sinai, Cyprus and

Kastoria.”28 Yet this does not necessarily mean that the vita form came from a Western

source and, in fact, may have served a specific purpose in those western influenced

areas. Since 1992 the idea of a Western source for the vita icons seems to have fallen

24 Two vita icons are from Kastoria, six from Sinai and six from Cyprus. Ševčenko, 1992, 57.

25 See Peers, 2004, 80.

26 Ševčenko, 1992, 67.

27 Ševčenko, 1992, 57. Ševčenko also points out that there is a fragmentary epistle beam with biographical scenes of Saint Eustratios from the Monastery of Saint Katherine, Sinai, which dates to the early thirteenth century, making it contemporary with the vita icons.28

? Ševčenko, 1992, 57.

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out of favor and recent scholarship cites the east as the source for the vita form. In the

exhibition catalog The Glory of Byzantium, Rebecca W. Corrie stated that “recent

investigations of this vita type… leave little doubt that it emerged from the East.”29

Ševčenko herself, in 1999, wrote that “the development of the vita icon should be

sought in the Eastern Mediterranean,” and, primarily due to style, extant examples from

the east fall under the label of “Byzantine” objects rather than “Crusader.”30 In fact,

Ševčenko has stated that the vita icon was “a response to the multilingual, multiethnic

environment of the region.”31 Part of her evidence for this theory is the inscriptions on

the vita icons, several of which have Latin donors. The problem of addressing such a

culturally and linguistically diverse group might explain why the biographical frames

became necessary, particularly in the case of those vita icons from the Monastery of

Saint Katherine, however the period of emergence is still unaccounted for. Mount Sinai

had long been a pilgrimage location for people of several faiths and, due to this history

of pilgrimage, attracted visitors from a number of areas and with a variety of languages.

The Monastery was also unique in its location: a Byzantine Orthodox institution with a

29

? Evans and Wixom, 1997, 484.

30 Ševčenko, 1999, 161. The term “Crusader art” is somewhat problematic as it could, and does, go beyond style and,

depending on the author, might comprise objects created for, in the broadest sense, a non – Orthodox patron of Western heritage. This could include people of Western descent who had lived in Byzantine areas as well as newly arrived Westerners involved in the battles. The term “Crusader art” could also include items which Byzantine artists made for a non – Byzantine patron.

Although Jaroslav Folda, who has published extensively on Crusader art, has cited several icons of the vita type as Crusader, I have mainly excluded these from this paper. The exceptions are icons which Folda cited as Crusader and Ševčenko as Byzantine, specifically the Cypriot icons of Saint Nicholas tes Steges and Saint Marina from Pedoulas, both of which I discuss in Chapter Five of this thesis.

31

? Ševčenko, 1999, 161.

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fairly sizable group of westerners situated within a Muslim – ruled area.32 There is some

evidence from the Monastery’s ample icon collection to suggest that “addressing

visitors of other linguistic backgrounds” occurred.33 However, when looking at icon

inscriptions, for example, it does not seem as though a great language barrier existed:

according to Konstantinos A. Manafis, less than fifteen icons which date from the

twelfth through early fifteenth centuries include inscriptions in languages other than

Greek.34 And, while the largest group of the Byzantine vita icons came from the

Monastery, this group only numbers seven, a relatively small amount of the

Monastery’s collection.

While Ševčenko’s assertion that pictorial biographies would have been

important in a multi – lingual pilgrimage site certainly seems to be a plausible

explanation for the vita icons at Sinai, it does not explain the use of this form elsewhere,

particularly as pilgrimage was not a new phenomenon in the late twelfth or early

thirteenth century and Constantinople, a city which had attracted numerous pilgrims and

where multiple ethnicities, languages and religions had co – existed in relative peace

prior to this period, does not seem to have been the place of origin of any of the existing

vita icons.35 Cyprus and Kastoria, where several of the vita icons may have been

created, although under Latin influence at the time these icons began to appear, were

32

? For visual evidence of a relatively sizable population of westerners at the Monastery of Saint Katherine see Weitzmann, 1966.

33 Ševčenko, 1999, 161.

34 In the book on Sinai which Konstantinos A. Manafis edited, it has been stated that four icons have Latin inscriptions, Latin and Greek together are on three, there are three icons with Arabic translations of Greek inscriptions, one instance of Syriac, and there are two icons with Georgian and Greek text. Manafis, 1990, 103.

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not pilgrimage sites. It is also important to note that Jaroslav Folda addressed the issue

of pilgrimage in the thirteenth century and stated that “pilgrimage, which had flourished

in the twelfth century, was still popular, but diminished in numbers in the thirteenth.

Newly important holy sites [to Westerners], like the Monastery of Saint Katherine, were

distant and difficult of access.”36 Thus again we must question the period of emergence

— if the vita icons were created in order to accommodate speakers of other languages,

what changed to make this necessary in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century as

opposed to earlier in the Monastery’s history? The idea of linguistic accommodation

becomes more problematic if, as Annemarie Weyl Carr has stated, “the vogue [of the

vita icon] seems to have abated by the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.”37

Language accommodations might have provided part of the impetus for the use

of a biographical frame on the vita icons but the question of scene choice remains. Why,

if the vita icons had a mixed viewing audience, would the scenes have needed to reflect

the corporeality in as many or more of the framing images than his or her miraculous

deeds? What was the intended message and did it differ depending on the religious

background of the viewer, Orthodox or other? In the case of martyred saints such as

Katherine and Panteleimon, it was the act of martyrdom that created their special favor

with God. As John Chrysostom wrote, the martyrs “can speak to [God] with great

35 Ševčenko has noted that “this genre of icon does not seem to have originated in Constantinople, although we lack any icons from the capital at this period, the first half of the thirteenth century.” Stylistically, it seems that the vita icons on Cyprus are consistent with Cypriot painting as are the icons from the Monastery of Saint Katherine. Ševčenko, 1999, 162.

36 Jaroslav Folda, Crusader Art in the Holy Land, From the Third Crusade to the Fall of Acre, 1187 – 1291, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, 19.

37

? Annemarie Weyl Carr, “The Vita Icon of Saint Basil: Notes on a Byzantine Object,” In Four Icons in the Menil Collection, edited by Bertrand Davezac, 94 – 105, Houston: Menil Foundation, Inc., 1992, 97.

15

confidence and freedom.”38 Thus, the choice to include the martyr passions on the

frames makes sense. However, this does not explain why, at this period in time, it was

necessary to illustrate these scenes when, prior to the late twelfth or early thirteenth

century, depictions of the saints, even the martyr saints, in multi – linguistic pilgrimage

areas eschewed tangible allusions to the physical world in lieu of the golden

background of the “world beyond.”

Most of the scholarship involving vita icons has focused on the use of the

narrative scenes on one or two specific icons rather than the overall iconographic

system used on the frames. Maguire, who discussed the thirteenth – century vita icon of

Saint Nicholas from Sinai, wrote that the biographical images were “not so much

narratives designed to engage the emotions of the beholder, but reiterated assurances of

protection….”39 Peers, who has written about the Saint George icon which is currently

in Athens, spoke of the framing devices on the vita icons, noting that “the framing

scenes… perform an integral role in understanding [the saint’s] qualification for

intercession.”40 However, to date no one has broached the question of why it was

necessary to “reiterate assurances of protection” or to aid the viewer in “understanding

the saint’s intercessory qualifications.” More specifically, no one has asked why these

assurances were useful or, indeed, needed so intensively at this specific moment in time

38

? John Chrysostom, Discourses Against Judaizing Christians, trans. Paul W. Harkins, Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1979, 228.

39 “The generic quality of the scenes [on the Saint Nicholas vita icon from Sinai] made them more useful because the less specific the image was, the greater the number of situations it could apply to, and the more people could relate to it. The generalization of each miracle scene expanded its range of reference and thus its relevance to viewers. The scenes… were drained of their specificity in order to insure the breadth of their appeal.” Maguire, 1996, 185, 186.

40 Peers, 2004, 79.

16

that they generated a new type of icon. While Ševčenko, who has explored possible

sources for the use of the frame, also has suggested a purpose motivating the use of

biographical framing scenes, her explanation does not touch upon the subjects of

protection or intercession.

The issue of patronage also becomes hugely problematic when discussing the

vita icons, in particular the categorization of the icons as “Byzantine” or “Crusader.” As

I discussed in an earlier footnote, the term “Crusader art” is, in itself, a broad and

problematic term. “Crusader art” does not have an agreed – upon definition and does

not necessarily have anything to do with style. To call something “Crusader art” could

imply any number of things. For example, if a person of Western descent, even if he or

she had been long – term residents of Byzantium, created or donated the money for an

image or object, it may belong to the category of “Crusader art” even if someone of

Greek heritage painted it. In the case of the vita icons at the Monastery of Saint

Katherine, it is generally thought that the painting of the icons occurred at the

monastery. Likewise, the Cypriot vita icons are consistent with Cypriot painting styles.

However, vita icons from elsewhere do not have a clear provenience.

Although not all of the vita icons include donor portraits, an early thirteenth –

century icon of Saint George from Sinai features a donor who Kurt Weitzmann

identified as “the monk and priest John of the Iberians or Georgians.”41 The inscriptions

on this icon are in Greek. If this icon was intended for private devotion, both the use of

biographical frames and the Greek inscriptions seem odd as a monk or priest would

41 Weitzmann also notes that “a Greek painter made” this icon. Kurt Weitzmann, The Icon, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1978, 106.

17

have been literate and, presumably, familiar with the life of the saint. If linguistic

concerns existed at the Monastery during this period which necessitated the addition of

framing scenes, as I discussed above, than this Saint George icon must have been

painted for a wider audience, not private devotion. Another icon with a donor portrait is

the Cypriot Saint Nicholas tes Steges, an icon which may or may not fall into the

category of Crusader art.42 The icon’s donor wears clearly western clothing but the

inscriptions, in Greek, label it “tes Steges” indicates that the donor had designated the

icon to be connected to the Orthodox church of Saint Nicholas tes Steges.43 This vita

icon must have been painted for public devotion. Perhaps, as Barbara Zeitler has

suggested, the donation of the icon may have been a “show of ownership and

presence.”44

There has been some discussion about the scenes used on the frames, in

particular the relationship between the framing scenes and hagiographic texts as well as

an examination of extant illustrated scenes from monumental painted cycles. Which

scenes frequently appear in depictions of a saint’s vita cycle and which are unique? To

date, Ševčenko has studied Byzantine cycles of Saint Nicholas and, in an unpublished

dissertation, Temily Mark – Weiner created a thorough catalog of cycles of the life of

Saint George. These two saints not only feature most frequently among the vita icons

42 Scholars have disagreed about the categorization of this icon. I discuss this further in Chapter Five of this thesis.

43 Papageorghiou, 1992, 49.

44 Barbara Zeitler, “Ethnicity and Assimilation: A Thirteenth Century Icon of St. Nicholas from Cyprus,” In ‘The Sweet Land of Cyprus,’ edited by A.A.M. Bryer and G.S. Georghallides, 434 – 435, Nicosia: The Cyprus Research Centre for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, 1993, 434.

18

but make up a large part of extant monumental cycles throughout the Byzantine Empire

as well. Our understanding of the vita icons would benefit from more such studies.

While the vita icons represent such a unique category of Byzantine visual media,

several options exist which could add to our understanding of such works. One

possibility for future research would be an examination of roughly contemporary

biographical paintings from the west: which saints are depicted in such a manner in the

west? What scenes from the saints’ vitaes are illustrated and do these scenes differ from

or coincide with the scenes shown on biographical icons from the east? Ševčenko has

discussed the Italian biographical icon of Saint Katherine and found that the Byzantine

vita icon focused mainly on Katherine’s martyrdom as opposed to “establishing the

virtues of… a holy figure” as seen on the Italian icon.45 In fact, Ševčenko has stated that

“western variants on the vita icon form show the narrative being used… to integrate the

veneration of a saint common to two cultures, to promulgate an institution’s values or

voice a particular personal appeal.”46 It would be valuable to our understanding of the

vita icons to explore reasons behind this.

While it is clear that modern scholars have explored several issues that aid in our

understanding of the vita icons, some problems still remain. Iconographic choices still

must be fully explored and current examinations have concentrated mainly on the use of

the frame as a zone of mediation. While there must have been a reason for the genesis

of this icon type at this specific moment at the end of the eleventh or beginning of the

45

? Although damaged and missing some scenes, an examination of a thirteenth- century Italian vita- style icon of Saint Nicholas published in The Glory of Byzantium (Catalog number 320) utilizes similar episodes as the thirteenth- century Sinai Nicholas. Ševčenko, 1999, 155.

46

? Ševčenko, 1999, 155.

19

twelfth century, only Ševčenko has questioned the circumstances. However, although

scholarship has discussed possible origins for the form and function of the vita icons,

the problem of a stressed corporeality and humanity remains. In particular, it has not yet

been discussed how a Byzantine viewer would have interpreted this physicality and

what this may have meant at this specific moment in time. Another area for future

research deals with the locations of the vita icons: Were these icons being produced in

such separate locations as Cyprus, Greece and Sinai? If so, how and why did they begin

to appear at roughly the same time? The scholars who discuss the vita icons and their

unique form of representation have largely ignored discussion of the period when this

type of icon emerged, choosing instead to focus on what the purpose of the framing

narrative scenes could have been. This period of Byzantium, specifically the years after

the death of Manuel I Komnenos until the return of Constantinople to the Byzantines,

has been largely overlooked in the field of art history. Byzantine artists must have

produced images during this period — these cannot all fall under the umbrella of

“Crusader art.” In the next chapter, I will discuss the role of the martyr in Byzantine

Christianity as well as events surrounding the specific moment when the vita icons

began to appear.

CHAPTER 3

THE MARTYR SAINTS IN BYZANTINE CHRISTIANITY

20

The martyr saint embodied the ideal of faith – based strength, “perseverance and

invincible courage” in the face of suffering and death during times of oppression.47

Within hagiographic literature, descriptive scenes of martyrdom detail, with remarkably

gruesome minutiae, the saint undergoing the most ghastly of torments while retaining

his or her faith and, usually, praying for God to forgive the deeds of the torturers.

Ignatios the Deacon, a ninth – century writer, looking at images of martyrs was to

inspire the viewer to “partake in his mind of the spiritual feast of martyrdom.”48 Martyrs

had “invincible faith and courage” and for a believer, seeing visual depictions of a

martyr caused “spiritual calm, even if his heart were swelling with harshness. [Gazing]

at men enduring [torture should make one] yearn to have these men as protectors and…

appeal to them with supplications for fervent and speedy assistance.”49 According to

Michael Gaddis, in early Christianity the martyr served as an “active intern of spiritual

47 Ignatios the Deacon expounded upon this matter in great detail, including numerous examples of martyrdom tortures: “Who seeing a man who, for the sake of Christ, delivered himself into the hands of executioners, and was constrained by stocks and muzzles and instruments of torture and then nobly expired because of the deadly punishments, would not be astounded by his perseverance, his invincible courage and faith? …Who, looking at another man whose flank and back are being scraped with iron claws because he refused to utter a word unworthy of piety, would not be anointed with the emollient of compassion? Who, seeing a man thrown to the lions for their dinner, crushed between their teeth and kneaded as pure bread for the heavenly table, would not partake in his mind of the spiritual feast of martyrdom? Who would behold a man entwined in heavy chains, hoisted up, receiving bruises that come from flogging and finally suffering death by the sword, and would not be prompted to praise God in gratitude, restraining himself from all distraction in his brokenheartedness?… Who would behold a man deprived of his head for the sake of Christ and by the decision of a tyrant and tossed about on the billows of the sea separate from the remaining vessel of his body and seeing [the two] united again by the divine will and God’s bonding help, and traveling the ways and lanes of the sea as if on firm land, would not immediately sail into the haven of spiritual calm, even if his heart were swelling with harshness? … Who could gaze at men stiffened by wintry ice and frosty air, suffering in their nakedness, and enduring the fracture of their legs and being delivered into the fiery flames and having their corpses which escaped being reduced to cinders by virtue of the firmness of their nature and then floating in the river’s current, and would not yearn to have these men as protectors and would not appeal to them with supplications for fervent and speedy assistance?” Ignatios the Deacon, The Life of the Patriarch Tarasios, Translated by Stephanos Efthymiadis, Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998, 195 – 196.48

? Ignatios the Deacon, 1998, 195 – 196.49

? Ignatios the Deacon, 1998, 195 – 196.

21

combat” and his or her “calm… [endurance] was … responsible for… impressing pagan

onlookers.” 50 The martyr saints’ exemplary behavior often brought about a special

relationship with God through these model acts which allowed them to “intercede for

and intervene in the lives of terrestrial men.”51 Martyr saints form the subject in a

majority of the extant vita icons, comprising ten of the seventeen that Ševčenko

identified as Byzantine. 52 In this chapter I will explore the martyr saints’ abilities of

intercession and intervention in connection with the specific historical moment when

the vita icons began to appear.

Prior to the emergence, in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, of the vita

icons, early Orthodox writers such as Gregory of Nyssa and John Chrysostom held up

the martyr saints as admirable heroes whose steadfast faith should serve as a model of

pious behavior. Although Gregory of Nyssa and Chrysostom were active in the fourth

century, their writings were known throughout Byzantium for the duration of the

Empire.53 In his Homily on the Holy Martyrs, Chrysostom lauded the saints’ strength

50 Michael Gaddis, There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005, 14, 172.

51

? Christopher Walter, The Warrior Saints in Byzantine Art and Tradition, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2003, 2.

Theodoret, who was active during the fifth- century, wrote that in the act of pilgrimage “Christians come to the martyrs to implore them to be their intercessors.” Gary Vikan, “Art, Medicine, and Magic in Early Byzantium,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38, Symposium on Byzantine Medicine (1984), 67.

52

? According to Ševčenko’s list of Byzantine vita icons ten depict martyr saints: two of Saint George, one of Saint Katherine, one of John the Baptist, one of Panteleimon, one of the Anargyroi, one of Saint Philip and three of Saint Marina. Seven of the extant Byzantine vita icons show non – martyr saints: four of Saint Nicholas, one of Moses, one of Saint Basil and one of John Lampadistes. Ševčenko, 1996.

53

? “Byzantines respected Gregory of Nyssa and in the fourteenth century, [one of his] concepts provoked a heated discussion.” Alexander Kazhdan, Barry Baldwin, and Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “Gregory of Nyssa,” The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan, Oxford University Press, 1991. Temple University. 28 November 2008. http://libproxy.temple.edu:2235/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t174.e2174

22

and remarked that their bodies remained on earth so that, in times of trouble, the devout

might visit them and perhaps remember that worldly hardships are fleeting, but “the

relief from [burdensome tortures] lasts throughout the aeons of eternity.”54 Faithful

followers of Orthodoxy should “take up the same blessed struggle [as the martyrs],

should circumstances call for it.”55 Chrysostom, in his Homily on Julian the Martyr,

stressed the martyrs’ focus on “heaven and [its] blessings” during their torments as

exemplary behavior for the Christian believer to emulate, stating that those who imitate

the martyrs’ actions “might learn that the things that are naturally burdensome and

unbearable become light and easily borne with the hope of future blessings.”56

Written and oral biographies of the martyrs did not comprise the sole

inspirational sources for the devout. Images which detailed scenes of the tortures that

the martyrs endured were also intended to move and inspire the devoted to “yearn for

protection and appeal for assistance” from the blessed saints.57 According to Ignatios the

“[Chrysostom’s] reputation as orator was sustained throughout the Byzantine millennium. Approximately 2,000 manuscripts have survived.” Barry Baldwin, Alexander Kazhdan, Robert S. Nelson, “John Chrysostom,” The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan, Oxford University Press, 1991. Temple University. 28 November 2008. http://libproxy.temple.edu:2235/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t174.e2617

54

? Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 119. 55

? Ignatios the Deacon, 1998, 194.56 “So too, when the martyrs were suffering countless torments and being stressed physically by

diverse tortures, they focused on none of these, but glued their eyes to heaven and the blessings that come from there. Indeed, so that you might learn that the things that are naturally burdensome and unbearable become light and easily borne with the hope of future blessings, listen to the first in rank for such blessings, who says: ‘The light momentary distress is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all possible measure… since we look not at what’s visible, but at what isn’t visible.’ (2 Cor 4:17 – 18) I haven’t made these comments purposelessly, but for your sake, so that, whenever you see a person living in luxury and enjoying a life of ease in this life, but due for punishment there, you don’t consider them blessed because of their present luxury, but call them wretched because of the punishment to come. And, again, [so that], whenever you see in distress and dire straits and beset by countless evils in this contemporary life one of those due to enjoy considerable honor there, you don’t weep because of the present torments, but call them blessed and consider them to be envied because of the crowns stored up for them in that infinite eternity.” Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 131.

57 Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 194

23

Deacon, who wrote about visits to painted martyria, the explicit images of torments

would have moved the viewers to feel “compassion” and “spiritual calmness” and,

through this compassion and the martyrs’ “invincible courage and faith,” would have

allowed the onlookers to “praise God in gratitude” without “distraction.”58 To Ignatios

the Deacon, visual passions of female martyrs should give the viewers additional

strength due to the “invincible manliness” the women displayed by their “rejection [of]

the effeminate condition of cowardice.” 59 Hagiographic violence, presumably in both

textual and pictorial forms, according to Gaddis, “played a key role in shaping the…

evolving [Christian] self - conscious [and] articulating boundaries.”60 Although Gaddis

was writing about Late Antiquity, this observation seems applicable to the later period

as well, as the following discussion will demonstrate.

While Christian persecution at the hands of pagan tyrants did not pose a threat at

the time the vita icons began to appear, reminders of the trials and steadfast behavior of

the martyr saints may have proven helpful to a Byzantine citizen, particularly at the

time when the vita icons began emerging. The late twelfth century marked the

beginning of a long and tumultuous time for the Byzantine Empire. In the late twelfth

century, Constantinople was an “international” city with quarters for Venetian,

Genoese, Pisan and Muslim merchants. However, Michael Agnold has stated that “over

58

? Ignatios the Deacon, 1998, 195 – 96. See above, footnote 47.59 “And one can see these things accomplished not only by men; one will behold these [same]

contests even more distinctly among females, who bear up under the same struggles whether these are of racks, wheels of torture or other engines of torment that fail to produce a quality of speech. Who seeing these things accomplished by the most delicate sex, and reading the colors as if looking at letters, would not reject the effeminate condition of cowardice and, summoning up courage rather than rashness, would not intone a victorious praise of God and would not loudly declare [those women] blessed for their invincible manliness?” Ignatios the Deacon, 1998, 51. 60

? Gaddis, 2005, 14

24

the last decades of the twelfth century there are indications that religious hostility was

becoming more intense.”61 including an incident when residents of Constantinople had

“massacred” Latins in an event “with strong religious overtones” in 1182.62 After a

turbulent last quarter of the twelfth century, in the early thirteenth century, events

during the Fourth Crusade created both political problems and physical destruction in

Constantinople. Residents of the city “turned on” the Latin population of

Constantinople who, as a result, fled to the outlying Crusader camps. Within the first

few years of the thirteenth century, fires had spread through Constantinople, city walls

had been damaged, and the city itself had been sacked. The Byzantines faced a

particularly trying time when the non – Orthodox outsiders sent many of the Empire’s

holiest treasures to the Latin West. Constantinople remained under Latin occupation

until 1261, by which time buildings had been stripped, relics had been translated, the

treasury had dried up and the population had dwindled.63

During the occupation, the Orthodox authorities had lost control of many

important churches in Constantinople, such as the Hagia Sophia, as well as many of the

“rich monasteries” elsewhere within the empire.64 Although it seems in hindsight that no

61

? However, Angold noted that “evidence points to this as a Byzantine phenomenon rather than a Latin one.” Michael Angold, The Fourth Crusade, Harlow, England: Pearson Education Limited, 2003, 60.62

? Angold, 2003, 60. W.B. Bartlett does not make reference to any religious “overtones.” W. B. Bartlett, An Ungodly War, Phoenix Mill, Great Britain: Sutton Publishing Limited, 2000, 35.

63

? Angold, 2003, 158.64

? Angold, 2003, 179. “After the conquest, the Latins [also] assumed control of about fourteen monasteries and twenty – four churches both within and outside [Constantinople’s] walls. Vassilios Kidonopoulos, Translated by Georgi R. Parpulov, “The Urban Physiognomy of Constantinople from the Latin Conquest through the Palaiologan Era,” In Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261 – 1557), edited by Sarah T. Brooks, 98-117, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006, 101.

25

serious threat against Orthodoxy existed, several incidents in various parts of the empire

show that some tension existed between local Latin rulers and their neighbors, mainly

due to religious or financial concerns. One major example of the disputes between

western power figures and the Greek population dealt with an important

Constantinopolitan ritual. Early in the occupation, the procession of the Virgin

Hodegetria icon, an event which had occurred weekly since the sixth century, stopped.

In 1206, “shortly after the Greek patriarch had died, the Greeks” wanted to “revive the

old ceremonies,” including the aforementioned procession.65 The Latin patriarch agreed

to restore the ritual with conditions attached that the Greeks subsequently “refused,”

causing the patriarch to “ban celebration of the Eucharist in the Orthodox churches of

Constantinople” in retaliation.66 While the Latin Emperor quickly overturned this ban

and, later the same year supported the Greek “right to elect their own patriarch,” a

power struggle between the eastern and western churches continued, including an

incident in 1213 where Greeks who “refused to recognize papal supremacy were thrown

in prison.”67 Around the same time, Theodore Eirenikos, the Orthodox patriarch of

Nicaea, “wrote an encyclical to his people urging them to be strong in the face of Latin

persecution.”68

The sacking of Constantinople was just the beginning of Byzantium’s troubles,

although Paul J. Alexander stated that it was “the crusades [that] shattered Byzantine

65 Angold, 2003, 182.66

? Angold, 2003, 182.67

? Angold, 2003, 183.68

? Angold, 2003, 186.

26

confidence in their historical destiny.”69 Man – made hardships did not account for all of

the damage in Constantinople. Natural disasters occurring after the Fourth Crusade

caused a considerable amount of loss in the capital city: in 1231 and 1237, “great

earthquakes… destroyed several unspecified churches and parts of the city walls.”70

During the period of occupation, due to natural and man – made destruction, “thirteen

monasteries in Constantinople were deserted and at least nineteen convents and three

churches destroyed to some degree.”71

With the loss of an Orthodox patriarch, important buildings and holy objects, as

discussed above, things very likely seemed apocalyptic to the Byzantines. This would

particularly have been the case because as early as the sixth and as late as the twelfth

centuries, prophecies had existed that connected the fall of Byzantium and its capital

city to the end of the world.72 Constantinople was to have “kept growing ‘until the

end.’”73 Unfortunately, not many Byzantine authors seem to have recorded their

reactions to the events surrounding the sack of Constantinople. Westerners, such as

Robert of Clari and Geoffrey of Villehardouin, authored most of the surviving primary

69

? Paul J. Alexander, “The Strength of Empire and Capital as Seen Through Byzantine Eyes,” Speculum XXXVII, Number 3 (July 1962): 339 – 357, 340.

While I must note that Alexander does not provide any evidence to support this statement within his article, Ihor Ševčenko has found that “towards the end of the thirteenth century on, things became more pessimistic” in the eyes of the Byzantine “intellectuals.” Ihor Ševčenko, “The Decline of Byzantium Seen Through the Eyes of Its Intellectuals,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 15 (1961): 167 – 186, 171.

70 Kidonopoulos, 2006, 101.71

? Kidonopoulos, 2006, 101.72

? “At the time of Justinian, Choricius of Gaza… was sure… that the present [empire] was the last. In the tenth century, Andrew, God’s Fool… prophesied that Constantinople would last until the end of the world, and in the twelfth century, Manasses wished that New Rome might keep growing ‘until the end.’” Ševčenko, 1961, 183.

73

? Ševčenko, 1961, 183. See above, footnote number 68.

27

sources for the Fourth Crusade. The accounts of Clari and Villehardouin provide good

details regarding the wealth of Constantinople, but fail to provide insight about the

reaction of the Greek people to the Latin invasion. However, Niketas Choniates, a

Byzantine who witnessed the events in Constantinople, provided perhaps the best extant

record written from an eastern perspective.74 His narrative included details about

Constantinople but focused less on the logistics of battle and more on the human and

emotional aspects of the invasion. Alexander noted that

the Byzantine sense of greatness [due to the emperor’s status as the only legitimate ruler over the entire Christian world]… made it possible to account for setbacks on the battlefield or for temporary victories of an unorthodox theological doctrine by considering them examples of ‘falling asleep’… to be followed by the reign of another restorer who would reawaken the state.75

According to this belief, events of the Fourth Crusade may have seemed all the more

apocalyptic as the Byzantine “self – image prior to the Fourth Crusade… did not offer

psychological protection to the inhabitants… against a prolonged period of internal

disintegration and decline from the status of universal empire to that of a medium –

sized or even small state.”76 Indeed, perhaps surprisingly to modern readers, Choniates

seems to have identified Byzantines’ sins as the cause of the capital city’s fall and,

74

? Constantine Stilbes, a Byzantine in Constantinople during the Latin sack of the capital in 1204, also provided an eyewitness account. His record, however, mainly lists “complaints about Latin religious and military atrocities,” including the opinion that “their bishops, especially the pope, are very well pleased with the slaughter of Christians, and they declare that these murders are the salvation of those who commit them.” Tia M Kolbaba, “Fighting for Christianity. Holy War in the Byzantine Empire,” In Byzantine Warfare, edited by John Haldon, 43 – 70, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2007, 66.

75

? He continued on to say that this “self- image prior to the Fourth Crusade… did not offer psychological protection to the inhabitants… against a prolonged period of internal disintegration and decline from the status of universal empire to that of a medium- sized or even small state.” Alexander, 1962. 348, 356.

76

? Alexander, 1962, 356.

28

while he deemed the events a “divine judgment,” Choniates also “praise[d] God” for

“putting [the Byzantines] to death and resuscitating them.”77 The events surrounding the

Fourth Crusade and Latin occupation of Constantinople may also have made the role of

the martyr saints particularly important at this moment. Chrysostom had written, “when

you see that God is punishing you, do not flee to his enemies… so that you may not

rouse his anger against you still further. Run instead to martyrs….”78

While Choniates did not specifically connect contemporary Byzantine suffering

to martyrdom, his account does discuss, albeit briefly, the physical assaults that

happened during the Latin siege of Constantinople. His details of this violence are

markedly similar to accounts of martyr passions: “There was… the taking of captives,

and the dragging about, tearing in pieces, and raping of bodies heretofore sound and

whole. They who were bashful of their sex were led about naked.”79 The acts of

“dragging about,” “tearing in pieces” and forced public nudity featured prominently in

many martyr hagiographies. In fact, these acts seem to fall within the repertoire of

martyrdom “standards.”80 Illustrated examples of “dragging about,” “tearing into

pieces” and public nudity can be found within the framing scenes on the vita icons — a

77

? For Choniates’ “divine judgment,” see: Angold, 2003, 8. For Choniates’ praise, see: I. Ševčenko, 1961, 171.

There is at least one other example of a Byzantine writer discussing loss in similar terms. In the late eleventh century Michael of Attaleia spoke of the Byzantine defeats during battles with the Seljuqs: “losing the virtues [of respect for justice and tradition and recognizing God’s benefactions] caused the losses…. ‘He who knows the will of his master and does not do it will be stricken.’” Alexander, 1962, 357.

78 Chrysostom, 1979, 227 – 228. 79

? Niketas Choniates, O City of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniates. Translated by Harry J. Magoulias. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984, 315 – 16.

80

? “Ševčenko seems to find… that there was an analogy between the stereotypical character of hagiographic literature and the pictorial cycles of saints’ lives.” Mark – Weiner, 1977, V.

29

Cypriot Saint Marina, for example, although not completely nude, has exposed breasts

with only a sheer loin cloth to cover her genitalia and the martyr passions routinely

include the “tearing into pieces” of the saint.81 In Coptic texts, Saint George, who is the

subject of two vita icon, had his “flesh… torn in shreds” and later “broken” or “cut into

pieces.”82 After each of these episodes God resurrected the saint.

Later in his account of the sack of Constantinople, Choniates wrote that [God]

“both wounds and heals, kills and restores to life.”83 This analogy also would have

called to mind another convention of martyr passions. The martyr saint often

experiences several episodes of death and revival, expiring during one torture only to

come back to life and face a further, and often more gruesome, torment. Details of the

martyrdom of Saint George, for example, include at least ten different episodes of

81

? Nudity is not rare in Byzantine art. However, Eunice Daughterman Maguire and Henry Maguire have noted that “[officially], nudity in art was condemned unless it was for a clearly Christian purpose, such as demonstrating the human nature of Christ at his Baptism and Crucifixion, the nakedness of Adam and Eve or illustrating the self – denial of certain ascetic saints.”

Maguire and Maguire also discuss the use of nudity as a humorous device, although the stigma and embarrassment of public undress remained. In an example of late twelfth – century rhetoric, Eustathios described the shame felt by a monk whose clothing had been stolen. “I am paraded about with a full escort, mocked for my unseemly condition, and made a show of.” Eunice Dauterman Maguire and Henry Maguire, Other Icons, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007, 97, 118.

In 1999, Henry Maguire stated that “the profane art of Byzantium illustrates the value of synkrisis, or comparison. The profane motifs on the outside of churches made what was inside more holy by contrast.” If we accept that nudity is a “profane” element in Byzantine art, than I would argue that the nudity or near – nudity of the martyr saints depicted on vita icons might have served to shock the viewer. If nudity was present in specific instances and the Byzantine viewer recognized the nude figure as a symbol of someone ridiculous, an ascetic saint or the human nature of Christ, I believe that depictions of non- ascetic martyrs, such as Saint Marina, as nude must therefore stress not only the saint’s humanity but also the extreme humiliation and spectacle that he or she endured during her torments. Henry Maguire. “The Profane Aesthetic in Byzantine Art and Literature,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 53 (1999), 204 – 205.

82

? Ernest A. Wallis Budge, The Martyrdom and Miracles of Saint George of Cappadocia, London: D. Nutt, 1888. 208, 212.

See also Jacobus de Voragine, The Golden Legend, Volume 1. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.

83

? Choniates, 319.

30

torture during the midst of which, in Coptic texts, the saint dies and is revived three

times before he finally, and permanently, expires.84

The events surrounding the Fourth Crusade did not only affect the area around

Constantinople. Sinai, Kastoria and Cyprus, areas where most of the vita icons likely

originated, also endured some hardships during the years surrounding the sack of

Constantinople, either as a direct result of the Latin occupation or, in the case of the

Monastery of Saint Katherine, a natural disaster. Sinai, although a relatively peaceful

area, had experienced an earthquake in 1201 which “toppled some of the fortification

walls and destroyed a number of monastic cells” at the Monastery.85 Kastoria, located in

Northern Greece, had a history of being “attacked by neighboring peoples” prior to

1204 and after this date “was held alternately by the despot of Epirus, the despot of

Nicaea and the Bulgars.”86 Cyprus, an island which “was under the strong impact of

Byzantine culture” and had “close links” to Constantinople, had become a Latin – ruled

territory in 1191.87 However, while “direct administration” no longer came from

Constantinople, “cultural links [with Byzantium] were not lost.”88 From Leontios 84 See Mark – Weiner, 1977 for a list of the illustrated tortures of Saint George from Byzantium.

For a translation of Coptic texts detailing Saint George’s martyrdom, see Budge, 1888.85 This event led to the monks “processing out of the monastery on the anniversary of this event

as residents of Constantinople did on the anniversaries of their earthquakes. Once there, they were to recite a number of prayers appealing for intervention to ensure that a disaster of this nature would never take place again.” Nancy Patterson Ševčenko, “The Monastery of Mount Sinai and the Cult of Saint Catherine,” In Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261 – 1557), edited by Sarah T. Brooks, 118 – 137, New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006, 118.

86

? Tatiana Malmquist, Byzantine 12th Century Frescoes in Kastoria, Uppsalas, Sweden: PhD. Diss, Uppsala University 1979, 13.

87

? Doula Mouriki, “Thirteenth – Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” The Griffon 1 – 2 (1985 – 1986), 9 – 112, 12.Catia Galatarotou, “Leontios Machairas’ ‘Exegesis of the Sweet Land of Cyprus’: Towards a Re – appraisal of the Text and its Critics,” In ‘The Sweet Land of Cyprus’, edited by A.A.M. Bryer and G.S. Georghallides, 393 – 413, Nicosia: The Cyprus Research Centre for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, 1993, 402.

88

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Machairas, a Cypriot writer active in the fifteenth century, it does seem as though the

Byzantine residents of Cyprus experienced loss similar, although perhaps smaller in

scale, to that in Constantinople. Machairas discussed how the westerners “took”

property and money from the “Greek dioceses and bishops and gave it to the Latins or

as gifts to the knights.” 89 Specifically Machairas mentioned that the kings “took tithes,”

“villages,” and “the kingdom.”90 According to Machairas the Latins claimed more than

physical property noting that “there are two natural rulers in the world, a temporal and a

spiritual one, so [Cyprus] also had the emperor in Constantinople and the Patriarch in

Great Antioch, before it was taken by the Latins.”91

Although the situations in Constantinople, Sinai, Kastoria and Cyprus differed,

occurrences in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries included both natural and

man – made disasters which led to a confused and tumultuous time throughout the

Byzantine Empire. At lease one Byzantine primary source, that of Choniates, discussed

the events of this period in terms similar to martyr passions and the plea of the

Orthodox patriarch Eirenikos to “be strong in the face of Latin persecution”

demonstrates that there was a need for such a reminder.92 In the next chapter I will

examine the focus on corporeality as seen on the vita icons and what this may have

meant at the specific moment in history when this type of icon first began to appear.

? Galatarotou, 1993, 408.89

? Galatarotou, 1993, 409 – 410.90

? Galatarotou, 1993, 409 – 410.91

? Galatarotou notes, however, that “Machairas’ references to the Greek and Orthodox nature of Cyprus are few and far between,” so his complaints may indicate a general displeasure with the Cypriot rulers. Galatarotou, 1993, 409 – 410.

92

? Angold, 2003, 186.

32

33

CHAPTER 4

IMPLICATIONS OF THE FOCUS ON WORLDLY ISSUES

The vita icons form an interesting category of devotional object not only

because of the hagiographic frames, but also because the saints depicted are shown

inhabiting two worlds: both the physical realm of earth and the “world beyond” in

heaven. Prior to this period, the saints on icons inhabited only this gold – backed “world

beyond,” emphasizing what Byzantine authors described as “the prize” rather than “the

contest.”93 According to Weitzmann, “in Byzantium, … the impression of remoteness

from the earthly sphere was fundamental to icon painting.”94 This “remoteness” is

absent from the framing scenes on the vita icons, which represent the saint as human

and, in the case of the martyr saints, focus heavily on the extremely physical act of

violence. This emphasis on the martyrs’ passions occurs in a manner that had not

previously been employed in Byzantine icons: not only do the vita icons depict the

saints within the “earthly sphere” but they also show the body of the martyr as bloody

and broken. Although there had been depictions of graphic violence within Byzantine

art prior to the vita icons, the brutality seen on the biographical icons is employed

93 Early homilists such as John Chrysostom and Pseudo- Basil discussed martyrs and their passions as athletes in a game. See: John Chrysostom, “Homily on the Holy Martyrs,” in Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter.Alexander Kazhdan, "Simile," The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan, Oxford University Press 1991. Temple University. 10 November 2008 http://libproxy.temple.edu:2235/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t174.e4976Pseudo- Basil, Homilia XVII in Cyril Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312 – 1453, Buffalo, NY: University of Toronto Press, 1986, 37. J. Sawhill, The Use of Athletic Metaphors in the Biblical Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, PhD Diss., Princeton, 1928.

94 Kurt Weitzmann, Art in the Medieval West and its Contacts with Byzantium, London: Variorum Reprints, 1982, 65.

34

differently than the earlier icons. Calendar icons, for example, show a multitude of

saints who celebrate his or her feast during the specified time, many of whom are shown

enduring the martyrdom process. The violence in such icons does not function

narratively but rather as a signifier due to the nature of the calendar icon, a type of

devotional object which enables the viewer to recognize feasts. Depicted violence,

along with an inscription, allows the viewer immediately to connect the saint and his or

her status as a martyr holding special favor with God. These abbreviated martyrdom

scenes are shown among more “traditional” depictions of static and frontally facing

saints, underscoring the character of these icons as chronological lists. Images of the

Massacre of the Innocents also include graphic violence. However, the brutality is

shown in the context of a specific Biblical incident that occurred in the physical world.

Neither the graphic acts on the calendar icons nor those within the Massacre of the

Innocents function in the same way as the explicit acts on the vita icons. Specifically,

the calendar icons are non – narrative, and the Massacre of the Innocents must always

take place in an earthly realm.95 In this chapter I will discuss the use of violent corporeal

scenes on the vita icons and the ways in which a Byzantine viewer may have interpreted

such illustrations.

While the form of the vita icon, and particularly the use of biographical scenes

chosen from the saint’s biography, was unusual, it seems that narrative had long been

“valorized as the most effective form of teaching” in the Late Antique and Byzantine

95 Violence is also acceptable within images of the Massacre of the Innocents to depict the open, “unrestrained lamentation” that Chrysostom, among others, had “condemned” as inappropriate. “Mothers abandoned themselves to despair because they did not have the consoling knowledge of the death and Resurrection of Christ.” Unrestrained gesturing, such as that within the Massacre of the Innocents, was “rare” in Middle Byzantine iconography. Henry Maguire, “The Depiction of Sorrow in Middle Byzantine Art,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 31 (1977), 123 – 174, 130 – 131.

35

Mediterranean.96 Augustine, who wrote in the late fourth and early fifth centuries, stated

that “if the hearers need teaching, the matter treated must be made fully known by

means of narrative.”97 Yet while pictorial narratives existed in monumental form and

within manuscript illuminations prior to the late twelfth century, hagiographic

illustrations seem to have been absent on painted portable icons. Although the

emergence of biographical scenes on the vita icons at this particular time is interesting,

it is the importance given to the saints’ corporeality within these scenes which

represents a marked shift from earlier iconography.

According to Ihor Ševčenko, a study of hagiography can reveal “the Byzantium

of flesh and blood, the real world of poor people, of smells, of cruelty and of passion, of

greed and of concrete suffering….”98 Even while acknowledging that it is problematic

to view hagiographic texts as reflections of real life, nevertheless, the decision of the

donor or artist to include hagiographic details within the frame of the vita icons seems

to stress all the more the saints’ corporeal existence on earth.99 Why was there a desire

96

? Cynthia Hahn, “Picturing the Text: Narrative in the Life of the Saints,” Art History 13, Number 1 (March 1990), 1 – 33, 1.

97

? Hahn, 1990, 1.98

? Ševčenko cites as evidence texts such as “the apocryphal Acts of John where we learn how he temporarily got rid of bedbugs… and in the Miracles of Saint Artemius we read how the saint shared an open latrine with a patient waiting for a cure at Artemius’ shrine.” In other words, a modern reader may be able to gather information about every – day Byzantium through details such as these. Ihor Ševčenko, Observations on the Study of Byzantine Hagiography in the Last Half- Century, Toronto: Canadian Institute of Balkan Studies, 1995, 18, 19.

99 For examples of opposing views on the reading of Byzantine hagiography as history, see Evelyne Patlagean, “Ancient Byzantine Hagiography and Social History,” In Saints and Their Cults, edited by Stephen Wilson, 101 – 122, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1985. Patlagean discusses the use of standards and types in hagiographic literature. These “models,” although they can and do offer “the humbler facts of urban life,” utilize “traditional themes which… impoverish the documentary aspect of the account through their lack of precision…. [Hagiography] presents the same material image of [urban space] as do the historians, but… denies it any value…. History is linear… [while] hagiography is timeless.” Patlagean, 1985, 109, 110, 111, 112.

36

to focus on the human side of the saint at this particular moment? The emphasis on the

physicality of the saints at this period was not limited to the biographical scenes on the

vita icons or in monumental cycles.100 A review of the literature and non – biographical

imagery contemporary to the vita icons demonstrates that there existed a new and

pronounced interest in the corporeality of saintly beings.101 Maguire, writing about

Byzantine depictions of sorrow, noted that in “the second half of the twelfth century…

Byzantine artists showed a new interest in pathos and human feelings.”102 Yet, while

Maguire questions whether this interest was a “concern of Byzantine artists… or

characteristic of specific phases,” he does not question why portrayals of emotion and

sorrow would have interested Byzantine artists at this specific moment in time or what

the impetus was for such depictions at this period.103

For a more generalized approach to the reading of hagiographies as “historical narrative,” see Thomas J. Heffernan, Sacred Biography, New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

100

? As I mentioned in an earlier footnote, monumental hagiographic cycles did exist in churches around the Empire. Most of the extant cycles date from the twelfth century. Gouma – Peterson, 1985, 32 – 34.

101 This interest was not specific to Byzantium and the Orthodoxy. The late thirteenth – century Franciscan manuscript Meditations on the Life of Christ clearly demonstrates a Western interest in Christ’s humanity with episodes that specifically deal with day – to – day matters. Christ’s physicality was also emphasized: during his circumcision “Jesus cries… because of the pain He felt in His soft and delicate flesh, like that of all other children, for He had real and susceptible flesh like all other humans.”

It should be noted that while the heavily illustrated Meditations on the Life of Christ emphasized Christ’s humanity, the depiction of Saint John the Baptist’s beheading does not show the moments before or during the martyrdom. Rather, in the picture, John has already been beheaded and the soldier responsible for the decapitation is in the process of returning his sword to its scabbard. Interestingly, illustrations from the passion of Christ do not exist in this manuscript even though there are “empty frames with instructions for the pictures.” After the frame intended for Christ’s arrest, the “instructions” for illustration are absent. Isa Ragusa, trans., Meditations on the Life of Christ, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961, 42, 447 footnote 193.

102

? Maguire also stated that this interest in “pathos and human feeling” had likewise occurred during the tenth century. Maguire, 1977, 126.

103 Maguire, 1977, 125.

37

Byzantines used icons in a few different ways. Certain icons, such as the Virgin

Hodegetria, played a part in processions, while others were displayed during feast day

celebrations, available in a public space for general devotion or accessed for private

prayer. Although Folda has suggested that one of the vita icons from Cyprus may have

been used as an altarpiece due to its large size, the manner in which the remaining vita

icons functioned is unknown.104 The lack of damage along the bottoms of the icons

suggests that they were not used as processional images. Although the question of when

and where anyone could or would see the vita icons raises some interesting problems,

Hans Belting has said that “the viewer and the person depicted in the [devotional] image

were related to one another mimetically. The images were expected to reciprocate the

believer’s mood and, if possible, even generate it. [Religious images] undertook to

persuade the viewer… of the presence of what they represent.”105 Prior to the emergence

of the vita icons in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, mimesis such as Belting

discussed would have entailed imitating the behavior of the saint who resided in the

heavenly realm.106 “Traditional” depictions of the saints on earlier icons illustrated the

holy person in a golden, extra – earthly setting. Icons from the previous period included

little or no allusions to the physical world or the earthly existence of the depicted saint.

104

? This is the icon of Saint Nicholas tes Steges, a thirteenth – century painting which does not specifically fall under the categories of either Byzantine or Crusader art. I will discuss this icon, along with the other Byzantine vita icons in Chapter Five of this thesis.

105

? Hans Belting, The Image and Its Public in the Middle Ages, New Rochelle, NY: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1990, 58, 80.

106

? For information on mimesis in rhetoric and architecture, see Alexander Kazhdan and Anthony Cutler, “Imitation,” The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan, Oxford University Press, 1991, Temple University, 10 November 2008. http://libproxy.temple.edu:2235/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t174.e2449

38

However, with the vita icons, particularly the use of biographical episodes, the

importance shifted from the goal of reaching the “world beyond” to the process by

which the depicted saints attained that goal. Viewers of these icons had to confront the

physicality of the saints in question before they could ask the saint to mediate on their

behalf. The visual record of the saints’ time on earth as seen on the vita icons

demonstrated the ideal behavior which had led to his or her special favor with God. The

mere acts of viewing and contemplating the deeds of these saints, according to writers

such as Chrysostom and Ignatios the Deacon, should cause a change to the observer’s

emotions and conduct.107 Given this, we must examine why the vita icons stressed the

humanity of the saint. Specifically, we must question why there was a need at this

period for a reminder of the humanity of the saints. Furthermore, if “a medieval viewer

would have had only a narrow range of available responses to a particular sequence of a

visual narrative,” did the depiction of the saint as both human and as a resident of a

“world beyond” change the mimetic meaning for the viewer?108

In Peers’ discussion of the vita icon of the martyr Saint George with the central

relief, he wrote that “the selection of scenes allows a participatory model to emerge that

permits any Christian viewer to witness and engage one of the ideal exemplars of

devotional self- sacrifice and redemption.”109 On this George icon and as a whole, the

107

? In particular, it is the acts of the martyrs that should cause changes in behavior. See above, footnotes 47 and 56.

108

? Hahn, 1990, 5.109

? Speaking of the icon of Saint George with a central relief, Peers also stated that the “narrative reading [of the framing scenes] has a teleological purpose: to follow [the saint] from the entry onto the road of sainthood to the mortal conclusion of this path.” This seems to be substantiated by the relative lack of posthumous scenes illustrated on any of the vita icons. Peers, 2004, 87.

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illustrated episodes on the vita icons almost exclusively detail events that occurred

during the saints’ lives as opposed to miracles performed after death.110 All of the scenes

on the Athens Saint George detail his path to martyrdom. While the “devotional self-

sacrifice and redemption” of the martyr saints such as Saint George was clearly the

most extreme example of this concept, the idea may have applied to any number of

scenarios, including situations where there was a perceived threat against the Orthodox

church. Although illustrated cycles of the martyr saints stress the events which

ultimately led to his or her death, the martyr passions usually begin with or include

incidents in which the saint refuses to participate in non – Christian rituals. Saint

Katherine, for example, declines to sacrifice to pagan deities while Saint George

“renounces his wealth.”111

As I discussed in the previous chapter, church fathers had cited the behavior of

the martyrs as a tool for teaching proper conduct for those who face difficult situations.

In the words of Ignatios the Deacon, “who would behold a man entwined in heavy

chains, hoisted up, receiving bruises that come from flogging and finally suffering death

by the sword, and would not be prompted to praise God in gratitude, restraining himself

from all distraction in his brokenheartedness?”112 Chrysostom, whose “reputation… was

sustained throughout the Byzantine millennium” constantly iterated that “light

momentary distress [prepares] us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all possible

110

? Saint Nicholas is the exception to this. Two early vita icons of Saint Nicholas include a post – mortem incident where he saved a boy from slavery with the Saracens. These are the late twelfth or early thirteenth century icon from the Monastery of Saint Katherine and the thirteenth – century Cypriot icon from Saint Nicholas tes Steges.

111

? Peers, 2004, 87.112

? Ignatios the Deacon, 1998, 195 – 96.

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measure… since we look not at what’s visible, but at what isn’t visible.”113 Discomforts

on earth in the name of faith should not be bothersome as

whenever you see in distress… in this contemporary life one of those due to enjoy considerable honor [in heaven], you do not weep because of the present torments, but call them blessed and consider them to be envied because of the crowns stored up for them in that infinite eternity.114

During the time that the vita icons began to emerge, Byzantines saw the Latins

take control of the political, religious and economic center of the Empire,

Constantinople. The Crusaders not only looted the city, they disrupted important

religious rituals vital to the security of the state and the salvation of its people. They

took property from both secular and religious owners throughout the Empire and

drained the treasury. Given the turbulence of the period when the vita icons began to

appear, I believe that this form emerged not only to accommodate linguistic differences,

but also to spread the message that those who held special favor with God had achieved

his or her position by endurance in the faith, and a disregard for any discomfort on

earth.115 In my next chapter I will discuss the iconography of individual vita icons as

well as the importance of the saints on the extant examples.

113

? Baldwin, Kazhdan, and Nelson, 1991. Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 131.114

? Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 131.

115 The saints depicted on extant vita icons add a new dimension to the issue of the period of emergence, which I will discuss in the next chapter. Of the saints which form the subject of the early vita icons, dating from the late twelfth to early thirteenth century, most were known to have aided causes which may have been related to a period of turbulence. Weitzmann briefly discussed the connection between a saint’s “popularity” and the period in which the saint experienced this renown. “It is quite understandable that during the Crusades, when the exchange of prisoners was a continuous concern, Saint Leonardus of Limoges should have become very popular [as he was characterized as the patron of prisoners].” This was in reference to a late twelfth- century Crusader icon. Weitzmann, 1966, 55.

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CHAPTER 5

A DISCUSSION OF THE ICONOGRAPHY

The vita icons differ from other Byzantine icons in part because of the inclusion

of the earthly life of the saints depicted on them. In this chapter I will address the

iconography of the earliest vita icons. As the focus of my thesis is the importance of the

corporeality of the saint at the specific moment of the late twelfth and early thirteenth

century, I will discuss what it may have meant that people chose to depict both martyr

saints and the non - martyrs Nicholas, Basil, Moses and John Lampidestes.

A few generalizations can be made about the vita icons. With the exception of

vita icons of Saint Nicholas, which show a posthumous miracle, the framing scenes

only illustrate events from the saints’ lives. Vita icons of martyr saints focus almost

entirely on the events which led to his or her death, while non – martyrs participate in

actions related to the church. The subjects of the existing vita icons of non – martyrs,

Nicholas, Basil and Moses, were in some way associated with law, which is especially

interesting given the events of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. John

Lampadistes, another non – martyr, adhered to an ascetic lifestyle, thereby denying his

physical needs through the use of severe self – control in much the same way as the

martyrs. Miraculous acts are relatively rare except in the icon of Saint Panteleimon and

icons of Saint Nicholas. In most of the examples, barring the martyr passions, events

from the saint’s life occupy only one of the framing scenes although on the icons of

Panteleimon and Nicholas a singular miracle may span several boxes. In the framing

scenes the saints exist within a detailed landscape and generally share the space with

42

other figures. Figures in the framing scenes, including the saint, maintain active poses

with bent limbs and raised arms. The saint is usually shown standing or bent at the waist

in the process of offering a blessing. Within these bordering scenes, the saint often

looks away from the viewer, interacting with other painted figures instead of facing

frontally. This changes during the martyrs’ tortures, however, as the saint faces the

icon’s viewer frontally while those inflicting violence remain sideways, bent and with

arms raised in motion. The central images adhere to the traditional, frontal depiction of

a still saint. Moses, who receives the ten commandments in the center of the icon, is the

exception. Martyrs are generally nude or in loincloths during their passions. No

apparent hierarchy exists within the pictorial treatment of the saint versus other figures

or, in many cases, the landscape, all of which are given the same careful attention to

detail. Stylistic differences among the vita icons occur mainly due to area of origin and

do not have any effect on the form and its use.

Vita Icons from the Monastery of Saint Katherine, Sinai116

Most of the Byzantine vita icons from the Monastery of Saint Katherine

illustrate the biographies of saints with a connection to the site. The Monastery held

relics of Saint Katherine and had chapels for saints Nicholas, Panteleimon, and John the

Baptist. Mount Sinai was the site where it was believed that Moses received the ten

commandments. According to Nancy Ševčenko, “the saints with vitas on Sinai were

116 None of the vita icons from the Monastery of Saint Katherine were included in Folda’s “Annotated Handlist of Western – Influenced Icons from the Monastery” in his 2005 volume on Crusader Art. All of the Sinai vita icons remain in the collections of the Monastery of Saint Katherine.

43

venerated by various groups with Moses, Saint Katherine and John the Baptist

reportedly venerated even by Muslims.”117 While it should be noted that several of the

saints depicted on Sinai vita icons, such as Katherine and John the Baptist, had chapels

within the Monastery compounds, based on the surviving record, not all of the saints

with dedicated areas on Sinai were the subjects of vita icons. Saints Peter, Paul and

Anthony, for example, had “chapels within Sinai walls” but do not feature on extant vita

icons.118

All of the following Byzantine vita icons from Sinai date to the late twelfth or

early thirteenth century and were likely painted there. As the Monastery also produced

numerous icons of the traditional type at this time, it may be helpful to look at the saints

who feature on vita icons in order to gain an understanding of the emergence of this

new format.119

117 Ševčenko, 1999, 164.118

? Weitzmann, 1963, 194.119

? See Chapter One of this thesis for a brief discussion of the “traditional” type of Byzantine icon.

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Saint Katherine120

Of the twelve framing scenes, four are graphic depictions of Saint Katherine’s

martyr passion, although all deal with events leading to her death. In the central image,

Saint Katherine holds a cross in her right hand and stands atop a dark ground. No

donors appear within the central space and the inscriptions are in Greek. Unlike many

120 This Byzantine icon differs from “western variants on the form [as the uses there were to] integrate the veneration of a saint common to two cultures, to promulgate an institution’s values or voice a personal appeal, and to establish the virtues of an entirely new holy figure.” Ševčenko, 1999, 153- 155.

The icon “was most likely placed near the relics of the saint in the bema.” Manafis, 1990, 386. The icon image was taken from Corinna Rossi, The Treasures of the Monastery of Saint Catherine Vercelli, Italy: White Star Publishers, 2006.

45

of the other martyr saints depicted on vita icons, Katherine remains fully clothed in all

but two of the framing scenes.

Although Katherine’s relics had connected her with the Monastery, Nancy

Ševčenko has suggested that the saint “may have been venerated primarily… for being

a royal protector of the faith and a model of right thinking and the Orthodox use of

power. [She is] presented as… an imperial defender of Christianity and by extension of

Orthodoxy.”121 As “the events of Katherine’s life were almost never illustrated in

Byzantium,” the use of the vita form for this saint seems particularly odd unless we

consider the moment when this icon was made.122 Given the events of this period, as I

discussed earlier, Katherine’s role as a “defender of Orthodox Christianity,” may have

had a strong impact on the choice to utilize the biographical vita icon in a depiction of

this saint. The nature of this icon would have forced viewers to confront the actions

which allowed her to gain such a status. In Katherine’s case, these were the events

leading to her martyrdom, depictions of which should have the power to move the

contemplative viewer to compassion, courage, faith, and, if need be, the desire to “take

up the same… struggle.”123

121

? Ševčenko, 2006, 123, 124.122

? Ševčenko, 2006, 123.123

? Ignatios the Deacon, 1998, 194.

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John the Baptist124

Fourteen scenes, which include John the Baptist’s “birth, ministry, decapitation

and the discovery of his head,” flank the central image.125 John is shown in full – length

and holds a staff topped by a cross and an inscription. He stands within a simple

landscape comprised of a bush or small tree. An axe leans on the bush at his right foot

124 The icon “was most likely intended to be placed inside the chapel of Saint John the Baptist within the Monastery enclosure.” Manafis, 1990, 386. The icon image was taken from Manafis, 1990.

125

? Manafis, 1990, 115.

47

and a small donor “who wears the same white robes and has the tonsure of a Georgian

cleric” kneels at his left foot.126

John held an important role in the Orthodox Church due in part to his role as the

one who baptized Christ, and numerous religious buildings in Constantinople had

dedications to him. Several of these, including the Studios Monastery, were damaged

during the Latin occupation. As in the aforementioned icon of Saint Katherine, the

viewer of this icon would have had to confront the saint’s deeds in order to understand

how John gained access to the world beyond as depicted in the center of the icon. His

acts, including his beheading and the baptism of Christ, provided what Chrysostom had

described during the feast of John’s death as:

the school of virtues, the guide of life, the model of sanctity, the rule of justice, the mirror of virginity, the monument of modesty, the exemplar of chastity, the way of repentance, the pardon of sins, the discipline of faith; he is… the sum of the Law, the precursor of the Judge.127

In other words, Chrysostom saw John the Baptist as an exemplar of ideal Christian

behavior. John is seen in a simple mantle without decoration or undergarments in both

the central and framing scenes. His left leg and the right side of his body from the waist

are left exposed. John’s dress starkly contrasts with the colorful clothing on the other,

fully covered, figures, meaning that viewers would have had to face John’s deeds and

his self – deprivation, reinforcing the belief that the discomforts of earth, including the

loss or removal of property, combined with righteous acts, ultimately led to heaven.

126

? Ševčenko, 1999, 158.127

? Jacobus De Voragine, The Golden Legend, Translated by Granger Ryan and Helmut Ripperger, Part 2, New York: Longmans, Green and Co., 1941, 503.

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Saint George128

Twenty scenes from Saint George’s life flank the central image, all of which

focus on his martyr passion including seven depictions of violent torture. The torments

include the episodes from George’s martyrdom in which the saint is scraped with metal

hooks, stretched on the wheel, crushed under a boulder, flogged and beaten, placed in a

limestone pit, licked by flames and beheaded.129 As in most of the vita images of

martyrs, Saint George wears only a sheer loincloth while undergoing torture. In the full

– length central depiction of the saint, George holds a spear in his right hand and a 128

? The image of the icon was taken from Rossi, 2006.

49

shield in his left. A small donor, “the monk and priest John of the Iberians” floats at

George’s right.130 Inscriptions are Greek.

Although George was known as a holy warrior who “protected soldiers and

conquered evil,” according to Maguire, and supported by the scenes on the vita icons of

the saint, George’s martyrdom was key to his importance as a saint and intercessor.131

[The] repeated sufferings of [George], God’s interventions on his behalf, and his own miracles performed on the behalf of others were all assurances to the donor or viewer of George’s closeness to God and the effectiveness of his intercessions. Many sufferings, therefore, meant many miracles.132

George’s strength in the face of temporary earthly suffering enabled him to have eternal

special favor with God. George was a “popular” saint, with many extant written vitae

and monumental church cycles as well as a number of “traditional” icons. It appears,

from the sheer number of surviving examples of biographical cycles of George

throughout the Empire, many of which date to the twelfth or thirteenth century, that

something changed that necessitated the inclusion of scenes drawing mainly from his

martyr passion.133

129 Although Alexander Kazhdan and Henry Maguire have stated that in the case of a warrior saint such as Saint George, “it was appropriate to see the strength and power of the body [as opposed to] the wasting of the flesh in the image of an ascetic saint,” the focus on George’s torments on this icon fit with what is seen on vita icons of other martyrs in that the frame illustrates the events leading to the saint’s death. Alexander Kazhdan and Henry Maguire, “Byzantine Hagiographical Texts as Sources on Art,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 (1991), 3.

130

? Kurt Weitzmann, The Icon, New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1978, 106.

131 Walter, 2003, 130.

132 Maguire, 1996, 192.

133 I discussed these changes in Chapter Three of this thesis. For information on Byzantine biographical cycles of Saint George, see Gouma – Peterson, 1985.

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Saint Panteleimon134

Of the sixteen framing scenes, three show how he attained his status as a holy

healer, five illustrate his miracles, and eight images detail the events which led to

Panteleimon’s death and burial.135 No donors appear within the central image which

depicts the saint from the waist holding a cross in his right hand and a box containing

134

? This icon probably hung in the “chapel of Saint Panteleimon which in older times existed outside of the Monastery walls.” Manafis, 1990, 386. The icon image was taken from Manafis, 1990.

135

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three phials in his left. Panteleimon is either nude or wearing a small loincloth during

his martyrdom.

Panteleimon belonged to a group of saints known as the “anargyroi, healing

saints who perform services without pay.”136 These saints had the ability to “cure pure

people.”137 His life in “poverty” and death by martyrdom provided an example of what

Chrysostom had stated was “light momentary distress leading to eternal glory.”138 Saint

Panteleimon not only demonstrated the strength to overcome earthly discomfort but the

ability to intercede and relieve physical woes for the faithful.

? The scenes include Panteleimon’s adoption, schooling in medicine, baptism and burial. The depicted miracles include three scenes detailing his resurrection of a child, healing a blind man and aiding a paralytic. As in the icon of Saint Katherine, the frame also includes Panteleimon’s refusal to worship idols. Evans and Wixom, 1997, 397.

136

? Evans and Wixom, 1997, 397.

137 Malmquist, 1979, 89.138

? Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 131.

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Moses139

Twenty images flank the central portrait of Moses who stands, barefoot, before

the burning bush with a donor kneeling at his feet. Moses’ active pose and the agitated

drapery of his clothes as he receives the ten commandments within the central scene are

139 Ševčenko has noted that the donor of this icon probably had a Venetian name, something “puzzling for an icon done apparently early in the Latin domination. [This] could conceivably be connected with… struggles over jurisdiction which were resolved by 1217.” The donor’s name, “Neilos ho Kooueri, is probably Quirini, a Venetian name known on Crete from shortly after the Venetian takeover.” Ševčenko, 1999, 158. The icon image was taken from Ševčenko, 1999.

53

unique among extant vita icons. Also unique is the depiction of an episode from the life

of Moses within the central image.

The Monastery of Saint Katherine had a special relationship with Moses

because Sinai was the location of the burning bush where he received the ten

commandments, in effect introducing church law. Moses, seen on the icon as “youthful

and beardless,” “was regularly honored in the Orthodox church.”140 Residents of the

Monastery viewed Moses as one who could intercede on their behalf to avert natural

catastrophes, “appealing to the Virgin and to Moses [on the anniversaries of the 1201

Sinai earthquake] to intervene with Christ to ensure that a disaster of [that] nature would

never take place again.”141

140 Weitzmann, 1963, 192. Ševčenko, 2006, 118.

141 Ševčenko, 2006, 118.

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Saint Nicholas142

This icon of Saint Nicholas contains sixteen framing scenes and no donor

images. The central picture of Nicholas shows him from the waist up with smaller, half

– length images of Christ and the Virgin float in the upper corners. His right hand is

raised in blessing and he holds a jeweled codex in his left. Inscriptions are Greek. The

142 This icon “was probably intended for the chapel of Saint Nicholas at the Monastery.” Manafis, 1990, 386. The icon image was taken from Manafis, 1990.

A fifteenth – century vita icon of Saint Nicholas from Sinai also illustrated the same episodes on the frame but also has the unique feature of a secondary frame with a Deesis and the saints. In the later icon, Nicholas is full- length and stands upon a painted earth. The images of Christ and the Virgin are still present and two donors kneel at Nicholas’ feet. I have omitted discussion of this icon due to its late date.

55

illustrated episodes include four scenes detailing his rise and high status within the

church and nine show events surrounding four of Nicholas’ miracles: his rescue of men

from a storm at sea caused by a demon, the removal of a demon from Plakoma, his

rescue of three men from execution and the posthumous recovery of a boy from

slavery.143 These episodes mark Nicholas as a saint who could aid in the removal of

demons and one who could successfully intercede on behalf of those who were falsely

or unjustly persecuted.

Vita icons of Saint Nicholas differ from those of other saints as the focus on the

framing images is on his miracles. He may have been of particular importance around

the turn of the thirteenth century as one who could successfully intervene due to his

ability to “solve earthly problems, including aiding people in trouble with the law,

expelling demons and his indefatigable opposition to the force of envy in all its

operations, which linked him as an intercessor with the heavenly court.”144 Although

Nicholas was not a martyr, the frame’s focus on his earthly acts demonstrates to the

viewer what steadfast faith could do. While the strength that the martyrs showed in the

face of physical pain illustrated that earthly discomfort was nothing compared to an

eternity in heaven and an ideal of good earthly behavior during trying times, Saint

143 Ševčenko has provided narrative information for all of the scenes framing the Nicholas vita icons. Unfortunately, this has not been done for other extant vita icons. Across the top are “the birth of Saint Nicholas, his schooling and his consecrations as priest and bishop. Along the left side of the icon, from top to bottom, Nicholas celebrates mass, the generals appear in prison, Nicholas appears before Constantine and the three generals thank Nicholas. Along the right side, from top to bottom, are the sea story, Nicholas appearing before Ablabius, the three generals appear before Constantine, and Nicholas felling the Cypress of Plakoma. From left to right along the bottom: Nicholas rescues Basil from the Saracens, Nicholas saves the three men from execution, and the death of Saint Nicholas.” Nancy P. Ševčenko, The Life of Saint Nicholas in Byzantine Art, Torino: Bottega D’Erasmo, 1983, 29

144

? Maguire, 1996, 169.

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Nicholas’ deeds showed that those steadfast in his or her faith could appeal to him to aid

in worldly matters.

Vita Icons from Cyprus145

The extant Cypriot vita icons are somewhat problematic, due either to their

current conditions or for stylistic reasons. The Byzantine attribution of only two of the

Cypriot icons, those of Saint Marina from Philousa and Saint John Lampadistes, has not

been questioned. Two icons, those of Saint Marina from Philousa and another of the

saint from Pedoulas, have had so much damage that only one or two of the original

framing scenes remain legible. Stylistically, Cyprus remains problematic in terms of

categorization due to the combination of eastern and western styles. Regardless of

definitions of “Crusader Art,” I have included the following vita icons not only because

of Nancy Ševčenko’s inclusion in her list of those considered Byzantine, but also as I

believe that stylistically they represent a Cypriot approach to the form that appeared on

Cyprus and elsewhere at roughly the same time.

145 The thirteenth – century vita icon of Saint Philip from Arsos seems to have been a recent and unpublished discovery which illustrate “scenes from apocrypha of the life of the saint.” Unfortunately, the icon was unavailable to me. “Faculty and Staff Notes,” Harvard Divinity Today, 3, Number 3 (Fall 2007): 6, 12 November 2008, http://www.hds.harvard.edu/news/HDT/2007v3n3.pdf

I have omitted discussion of the Saint Marina vita icon from the Monastery of John Lampadistes as it dates to the fifteenth century, much later than the moment when this icon type began to appear. However, Papageorghiou has stated that this Marina icon “had a purely Cypriot approach.” Papageorghiou, 1976, 96.

57

Saint Marina (Philousa)146

This icon, which likely dates to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, has

suffered a great deal of damage resulting in the loss of most of the framing biographical

scenes: only two, which illustrate episodes from Marina’s martyrdom, remain clear

enough to see.147 In the two visible framing scenes, Saint Marina wears only a sheer

cloth wrapped around her hips and endures a scraping with hooks and boiling in a

146 The icon image was taken from Papageorghiou, 1992 and is currently located in Paphos. 147

? See footnote seven for alternate dating of this icon.

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cauldron. She remains “still” while those inflicting the torture do so while fully dressed.

Depictions of a saint in the nude existed elsewhere, including other extant examples

from Cyprus, but these unclothed saints were usually ascetics whose holiness depended

on the rejection of material objects, including clothing.148 No donor portraits are present

within the central image and inscriptions are Greek. Unlike the other vita icons, the

figures of Marina’s tormenters overlap the frame.

148

? “In the official Byzantine view, nudity in art was condemned unless it served a clearly Christian purpose, such as the nakedness of Adam and Eve, Christ at his baptism and crucifixion, or the self – deprivation of certain ascetic saints. Otherwise, nude images were associated with paganism.” Maguire, 1999, 200- 201.

59

Saint Marina, Pedoulas (Paphos?)149

With the exception of the central image, this thirteenth – century icon has

sustained heavy damage. “Of the sixteen framing scenes only one, [which depicts a

beast devouring Saint Marina], remains visible.”150 Unlike the earlier icon of Saint

Marina, there has been some debate over whether this image is “Crusader Art” or

Byzantine. Doula Mouriki has written that the “articulation of the eyes with

149 The icon image was taken from Papagiorghiou, 1992. This icon of Saint Marina is currently in the Museum of the Archbision Makarios III Cultural Foundation, Nicosia.

150 Byzantine Icons from Cyprus: Benaki Museum September 1st - November 30th , 1976, 18.

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brushstrokes which repeat the curve of the irises… has some western parallels.”151

According to an exhibition catalog from the Benaki Museum, this icon of Saint Marina

displays “a combination of styles including old… elements that were latent in the

painting of the previous centuries and elements that were characteristic of the… art of

the conquerors.”152

It is difficult to speculate what the other framing scenes on either icon of Saint

Marina may have been and therefore impossible to say with absolute certainty that the

biographical images stressed her martyrdom although it does seem likely.

151 Doula Mouriki, “Thirteenth- Century Icon Painting in Cyprus,” The Griffon 1 – 2 (1985 – 1986), 9 – 112, 36.

152 Byzantine Icons from Cyprus,1976, 18.

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Saint Nicholas tes Steges , Kakopetria 153

Sixteen scenes flank the central image of Saint Nicholas on the left and right.

There are no scenes above or below the saint, who holds a book and stands in a

landscape within. On the thirteenth – century icon, donors, identified as the “Ravendel

153 Along the right- hand side of the icon from top to bottom the illustrations show “the three generals in prison, Nicholas saving the three men from execution, Nicholas appearing to Ablabius, Nicholas appearing to Constantine, the three generals coming before Constantine, Nicholas resurrecting the three murdered schoolboys, Nicholas rescuing Basil from the Saracens, the death of Saint Nicholas and his tomb. Along the left, from top to bottom, Nicholas is born, he attends school, Nicholas’ consecration as priest, his consecration as bishop, the sea story, his felling of the Cypress of Plakoma, and the story of the three maidens.” According to Ševčenko’s study of cycles of Saint Nicholas, with the exception of Nicholas’ schooling and the resurrection of the three boys, the depicted episodes are standard. Ševčenko, 1983, 38. The icon image was taken from Papageorghiou, 1992. The icon is currently in the collections of the Museum of the Archbishop Makarios III Cultural Foundation, Nicosia.

62

family,” sit to either side of the saint’s legs. Zeitler has suggested that the donation of

the icon may have been a “show of ownership and presence. The donor images

reminded the local Orthodox church goers of their dependence on the western

landowners.”154

Jaroslav Folda has suggested that this icon belongs in the category of “Crusader

Art” and Mouriki stated in 1985 – 1986 that the donor portrait “makes it clear that the

patronage was Western.”155 Mouriki also cited the “relegation of the figures of Christ

and the Virgin to the spandrels of the top is Western, echoing the Western custom of

inserting miniature figures of angels or saints in similar positions.”156 The frame itself

may also suggest that this icon falls into the category of “Crusader Art” as the “scenes

from the life of Saint Nicholas do not frame the saint on all four sides, as is customary

in Byzantine art, but on the two vertical sides, as in many Western examples.”157

However, “the choice and iconography of the scenes conform, on the whole, to the

Byzantine tradition.”158 Adding to the argument is Nancy Ševčenko’s discussion of the

episode in which Nicholas resurrects three murdered boys. Although she later included

the icon in her list of Byzantine vita icons, Ševčenko had noted that this story “is purely

western and only [found] on [this icon].”159 Mouriki and Annemarie Weyl Carr now

154 Zeitler, 1993, 434.

155 Folda, 2005, 503. Mouriki, 1985 – 1986, 38.156

? Mouriki, 1985 – 1986, 39.157

? Mouriki, 1985 – 1986, 40.158

? Mouriki, 1985 – 1986, 40.159 Ševčenko, 1983, 153. Papageorghiou stated that the only scene “uncommon to Byzantine

iconography is that of Nicholas’ burial in Myra.” He also suggests that “the presence of western donors… is evidence that at the end of the thirteenth century western knights on the island were offering donations to the Orthodox church.” Papageorghiou, 1992, 49.

63

seem to disagree with Folda, believing that this Nicholas “was from the beginning

intended for the Greek church” and have attributed the icon to a workshop which

operated in a “maniera cypria… which combined features of Western iconography with

distinctly Cypriot elements.”160 I agree with Mouriki and Weyl Carr as Cypriot art at

this time tends to combine styles from the east and west. The connection of this icon

with a Greek church, regardless of the patron, is compelling evidence that this Nicholas

should be considered as Cypriot Byzantine rather than as a work of Crusader art.

160 An inscription on the icon which reads Saint Nicholas tes Steges suggests that this icon was intended from its creation for the Byzantine church of the same name. Rebecca W. Corrie in Evans and Wixom, 397.

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Saint John Lampadistes, Kalopanayiotis161

Fourteen scenes surround the central image of Saint John Lampadistes, who

holds a censor and a cross. The tip of his head and his halo enter into the central

framing scene although this may not have been the case when the icon was originally

painted. The icon, which dates to the late thirteenth century, is in poor condition with

paint missing throughout many of the framing scenes and in the area around his lower

legs. Lampadistes appears to stand within a landscape with a possible donor portrait

partially visible by his right foot. Due to the state of the icon as well as the lack of

161 The image of the vita icon of John Lampadistes is taken from ‘The Sweet Land of Cyprus,’ edited by A.A.M. Bryer and G.S. Georghallides, Nicosia: The Cyprus Research Centre for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, 1993. This icon is currently in the collections of the Byzantine Museum of Nicosia.

65

information published about Lampadistes, I have not been able to identify the individual

episodes.

John Lampadistes differs from the other saints with vita icons as his importance

seems to have been limited to Cyprus. Lampadistes, a non – martyr who lived in the late

eleventh century, “renounced matrimony in order to follow the monastic life” and “was

recognized as a saint after the miraculous properties of his relics” became apparent.162 I

believe that the use of a vita icon to depict Lampadistes, as in the case of saints on the

other vita icons, stressed the path which led to his holiness rather than his position after

death. According to Macharias, who wrote about how the Latins on Cyprus had stolen

from the Greek church, Lampadistes had the ability to “‘drive away devils.’”163

162 Doula Mouriki, “The Cult of Cypriot Saints in Medieval Cyprus as attested by Church Decoration and Icon Painting,” In ‘The Sweet Land of Cyprus,’ edited by A.A.M. Bryer and G.S. Georghallides, Nicosia: The Cyprus Research Centre for the Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, 1993, 249.

163 Mouriki, 1993, 149. See Chapter Three for Macharias’s discussion of the Latins on Cyprus.

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Vita Icons from Elsewhere or of Unknown Provenance164

Saint Basil, Cappadocia or Cyprus (?)165

164 As the biographical icon of the Anargyroi has not been published outside of a brief mention in an exhibition catalog, it was regrettably unavailable to me. I have also omitted discussion of the mid – fifteenth – century icon of Saint Nicholas from Patmos, the late fourteenth – century Saint Nicholas from Skopje and the Kastoria Nicholas from the late fifteenth century. For a discussion of the iconography of the three icons of Saint Nicholas see Ševčenko, 1983.

165 Weyl Carr has stated that Basil’s “reputation as a wonder – worker, [was] focused only in his native province of Cappadocia [as well as the fact that] it is in Cappadocian churches that we find monumental cycles of Basil’s life. It is in Cappadocian churches that one finds Basil imaged alone in separately framed votive murals. This suggests Cappadocia as the likely place of origin for something as exceptional as a vita icon of Basil.” However, iconographically the icons does not find “comparanda in Cappadocia but in Cyprus due to the treatment of gold ground and vigor of facial coloring.” Carr, 1992, 99, 100- 101. The icon of Saint Basil is currently in the collections of the Menil Foundation in Houston. The image was taken from Bertrand Davezac, ed., Four Icons in the Menil Collection, Houston: Menil Foundation, Inc., 1992.

67

Due to fire damage only nine of the twelve original framing scenes on this early

thirteenth – century icon have survived. “The sequence on this icon has no parallels

textual or pictorial that might help to decipher [the damaged scenes].”166 The illustrated

scenes on this icon mainly detail Basil’s rise within the church, including his baptism,

his consecration as bishop and celebrating the liturgy.167 A full – length picture, Basil is

surrounded mainly by a gold ground with an allusion to earth at his feet. He holds a

codex in his hands.

Saint Basil was very important to Orthodoxy and “wrote one of the two liturgies

most frequently used in the Orthodox church.”168 It is unusual that this icon “emphasizes

Basil’s liturgical activities” as his miracles or interventions [were] by far the most

popular scenes of his life in other cycles… [The focus of this icon deals with] his entry

into the Christian community, consecration as a leader of the church and lasting

contribution to Orthodox Christianity.169

That Basil’s miracles were overlooked in favor of his connection with the

church seems significant at a time when there was a perceived threat to the Orthodoxy.

Saint George, Kastoria(?)170

166 Leslie Brubaker, “The Vita Icon of Saint Basil: Iconography,” In Four Icons in the Menil Collection, edited by Bertrand Davezac, Houston: Menil Foundation, Inc., 1992, 75.

167

? Brubaker, 1992, 81- 88.168

? Brubaker, 1992, 75.

169 Weyl Carr, 1992, 100. Brubaker, 1992, 88.170 The icon of Saint George is currently in the Byzantine Museum of Athens. The image was

taken from Travel to Athens, Greece, “Byzantine Museum Double Sided Ikon of Saint George,” Athens City Guide, 12 September 2008. http://www.greece-athens.com/pages_images/108.jpg

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Although the central image of Saint George on this thirteenth – century icon is a

carved wooden relief, two – dimensional biographical scenes make up the borders on

the right and left sides of the icon. Of the twelve framing episodes, three are

“unidentifiable.”171 The scenes which remain all detail the path to George’s

martyrdom.172 Two angels form the top center of the frame and there are no scenes

below the saint. George does not inhabit a landscape and stands sideways, praying and

171 Walter, 2003, 137.

172 From the upper left corner: “George renounces his wealth, George confronts the emperor, the scraping of George’s flesh and three damaged scenes. Along the right, second from the top, George wears a red- hot helmet while soldiers beat him and use pincers on his body, George defeats the idols and converts the queen, George and the queen are sentenced, he prays is beheaded and entombed.” Peers, 2004, 87.

69

facing the upper right corner with parts of his body entering the frame zone. A shield

sits along his left side. The use of a central relief of the saint is unique to the Byzantine

vita icons but may suggest that the artist was looking at Byzantine ivory panels or

“enhanced icons.”173 This icon is unique not only for the use of a combination of relief

and the flat painting of the frame, but also because of the non – frontal pose of the

central image. Saint George actively intercedes with god in this image and the viewer

must “read” the framing images in order to understand how the saint earned his

closeness with god.

Inscriptions are Greek although Weitzmann has stated that

wood carving as such and details like the form of the shield… suggest not only Western influence, but a style that suggests the work of a Western artist. [However] the scenes… are iconographically related to the Sinai [Saint George of the early thirteenth century] and are more purely Byzantine than those of the Sinai icon.174

Folda has written that this icon was actually “the joint product between a Byzantine

painter and a Latin sculptor” but “the issue is not resolved.”175 Peers has said that this

Saint George “was clearly produced for a member of the Orthodox faith.”176 No

scholars, however, have suggested that this icon should be considered strictly a

Crusader, rather than a Byzantine, object. Kastoria, “after 1204, was held alternately by

173 Peers, 2004, 80. There is a vita icon of Saint George done wholly in relief from Kievan Rus’ although the biographical scenes do not completely frame the central portrait. George, in the icon from Kievan Rus’ faces frontally. See The Glory of Byzantium, catalog number 202.

174

? Weitzmann, 1978, 109.175

? Folda, 2005, 309.

176 Peers, 2004, 85. He does not state why this is the case.

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the despot of Epirus, the despot of Nicaea, and the Bulgars,” so Folda’s suggestion that

this Saint George was a collaboration seems likely if the icon did originate here.177

177 Malmquist, 1979, 13.

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CONCLUSION

The vita icons represent a shift in Byzantine iconography from a focus on the

world beyond to one directed at the life of the saint on earth. In the late twelfth or early

thirteenth century Byzantines appeared to have a need for the viewer to be aware and

conscious of the saints’ physicality that had not previously existed. In the case of the

martyr saints, this desire to emphasize the corporeality of the depicted saint resulted in

graphic depictions of violence. Martyrs served as exemplars of good Christian behavior

during periods of oppression. Throughout their passions, the martyr saints continuously

plead for God to forgive his or her tormenters. Hagiographies describe the martyr as

focused on the end result of his or her human suffering: eternal life with Christ. Martyr

hagiography demonstrates the Christian tenet of forgiveness rather than revenge and

stresses the relative lack of importance in human suffering when the ultimate prize of

heaven promised to be so sweet.178 Saint Basil lauded the martyrs, encouraging the

faithful to “become a martyr by choice and end up being worthy of the same rewards as

theirs, without persecution, without fire, without blows.”179 In my opinion, the

perseverance of the martyr saints in the face of torment, depicted on the framing scenes

of the vita icons, was likely intended to act as a reminder to the Orthodox viewer of the

reward for those who remained steadfast in their beliefs despite the difficult situation

around them. Writers such as Chrysostom and Ignatios the Deacon routinely stated that

178 John Chrysostom, in the Homily of the Holy Martyrs, stated that “the tortures are not burdensome for even a brief flash of time for those whose gaze is fixed on future things and whose eyes are glued to the President of the games.” Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 119.

179

? Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 2003, 68.

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the martyrs demonstrated the ideal behavior on the route to heaven and Asterius said

that “the deeds of [the martyrs show us how] to preserve the true religion even in

extreme danger….”180 “Those who see the pictures [of martyrs burned alive] are more

likely to imitate the martyrs.”181

If Hannah Arendt’s comment that “violence appears where power is in

jeopardy” holds true in a Byzantine context, then the decision to focus on scenes of

torture would have had a significance beyond merely illustrating a hagiography.182 With

this in mind, I believe that the choice to concentrate on earthly matters, such as episodes

of torture and violence in the case of the martyr saints, served the purpose of illustrating

the ideal route of behavior for the Orthodox believer during the time of the Latin

occupation of Byzantium. These biographical icons emerged at a tumultuous time

which many have considered as the start of the end of the Byzantine Empire. It was in

this period when, due to the Fourth Crusade, Byzantine Orthodoxy lost not only control

of the capital and many powerful holy objects, but also the ability to undertake the

important ritual of the Tuesday parade of the Virgin Hodegetria icon through

Constantinople. Choniates noted the violent “dragging about, tearing in pieces,” and

forced public nudity he witnessed during the Latin siege of Constantinople. The events

which Choniates described, along with his belief that the fall of the capital was God

“putting the Byzantines to death and resuscitating them,” clearly parallel martyr

hagiographies, where such occurrences are almost standard. 180

? Leemans, Mayer, Allen and Dehandschutter, 2003, 168181

? Photios as cited by Robin Cormack, Writing in Gold, New York: Oxford University Press, 1985, 150.

182 Hannah Arendt, On Violence, New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1970, 56.

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Photios had “argued that visual aids were essential… for the encouragement of

the imitation of past deeds of Christian bravery and perseverance” and modern scholar

Robin Cormack has stated that “the icon was… one of the possible sources of help in

moment of… trouble.”183 At this particular moment, I believe that the focus on the

corporeality of the saint, as depicted on the Byzantine vita icons, served to show

viewers behavior to imitate during this tumultuous period. The “traditional” portrait of

the saint depicted the “prize” while the vita icon offered a guide on how to reach that

goal. Ihor Ševčenko wrote that he had

come to view the… Acts of the Martyrs… as morale- building tracts addressed to communities under severe stress, whose purpose it was to uphold the sagging morale of these communities and to counteract… the widespread falling away from the faith…. The authors… set up shining examples of endurance to encourage, or shame, the mass of the potential lapsi into holding firm.184

Although he used personal experience rather than Byzantine sources to draw this

conclusion, it is my belief that, in part, the vita icons began to appear in the late twelfth

or early thirteenth century with this use in mind.

183 Cormack, 1985, 49, 132.184

? Ševčenko, 1995, 15.

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