Dumbarton Oaks Papers 57

This is an extract from:
Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 57

Symposium on Late Byzantine Thessalonike
Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot
Published by
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Trustees for Harvard University
Washington, D.C.
Printed in the United States of America
www.doaks.org/etexts.html
Ernst Kitzinger
19122003
rnst Kitzinger died at his daughters home at Poughkeepsie, New York, on January
E 22nd, 2003, at the age of ninety. More than any other person, he was responsible for
creating at Dumbarton Oaks the worlds foremost institution for the study of Byzantium.
He also left a legacy of scholarship on early medieval and Byzantine art that is both inno-
vative and deeply researched. And he has left a large number of students, both official and
unofficial, who treasure his mentoring with gratitude and admiration.
Kitzinger was born into a cultured Jewish family in Munich, whose Sunday-morning
activities regularly included visits to art museums in that city. He decided to concentrate
on the history of art when he entered the University of Munich in 1931. In the summer of
the same year Kitzinger traveled for the first time to Rome, where he discovered Late An-
tique art and architecture. After the rise to power of the Nazis in 1933, and the consequent
threat that they would soon ban Jewish students from receiving university degrees, Kitz-
inger completed his Ph.D. thesis within the unprecedented space of a single year, taking
his final oral exam with his supervisor Wilhelm Pinder in the autumn of 1934. His disserta-
tion was an analysis of the problem of the development of style in Roman painting from
the early seventh to the middle of the eighth century, a problem that was to engage him
for all of his life.
Late in 1934 Kitzinger left Germany. After a brief stay in Rome, he traveled to Lon-
don, where he worked at the Department of British and Mediaeval Antiquities at the British
Museum, under the sponsorship of the Keeper, T. D. Kendrick. He started out as a vol-
unteer, but soon he was able to eke out a living on the odd jobs that Kendrick steered his
way, such as writing book reviews for the Journal of Hellenic Studies (one pound per review),
or preparing an index for five years of issues of the British Museum Quarterly (five pounds),
or researching the carvings on St. Cuthberts coffin for publication (ten pounds). In the
last named project, which eventually came out in the collective volume on The Relics of
Saint Cuthbert, edited by C. F. Battiscombe in 1956, Kitzinger proposed a new reconstruc-
tion of the wooden coffin, discovering that the twelve incised figures of apostles were orig-
inally arranged in the order of the litany of the canon of the Roman Mass. Kitzinger
brought a Continental perspective to British scholarship of the 1930s, especially to the
study of Anglo-Saxon art, which previously had tended to be treated in a somewhat
parochial and antiquarian fashion. Kitzinger traveled with Kendrick throughout north-
ern England recording and photographing Anglo-Saxon sculptures. This experience re-
sulted in an important article which set Anglo-Saxon vinescroll designs in the context of
x ERNST KITZINGER
Mediterranean ornament (Anglo-Saxon Vinescroll Ornament, Antiquity 10 [1936]: 67

71).
In the spring of 1937 the British Museum sent Kitzinger to Egypt for two months in
order to study Coptic sculpture. On his way back, he made his first visit to Istanbul, where
the floor mosaics of the Great Palace were being unearthed and the wall mosaics of St.
Sophia were being uncovered. It was also during this period, in England before the war,
that Kitzinger wrote his most widely known book, Early Medieval Art at the British Museum,
which is a guide not only to the collections of the museum itself, but also to the whole phe-
nomenon of the transformation of antique styles into medieval modes of representation.
This book achieved a great popular success, going through several successive editions in
London and in Bloomington, Indiana, as well as being translated into German in 1987.
At the outbreak of the Second World War, Kitzinger was working on the objects from
the Sutton Hoo ship burial, as they arrived at the British Museum in a truck full of dirt
fresh from the field. He used to describe how, in August of 1939, the excavated treasures
came to Bloomsbury still enclosed in chunks of earth, just as they had been hastily torn
from the ground, before they were cleaned, photographed, and put away for safe-keeping
during the war.
In 1940 Kitzinger, who had been forced by the Nazis to leave Germany, was interned
by the British authorities because he was German, and evacuated to Australia. He was de-
tained there in a camp in the desert for nine months, but he put his time of imprisonment
to good use by learning Russian from a fellow detainee. Eventually, the Warburg Institute
obtained his release and he was able to take up an invitation from Dumbarton Oaks to
come as a fellow. He arrived in Washington in the autumn of 1941 as a member of the sec-
ond class of fellows, the first having been admitted a year earlier. At that time, Dumbarton
Oaks had a resident faculty of scholars, of which Kitzinger soon became a member, rising
steadily through the ranks. In 1946 he was appointed Assistant Professor, in 1951 Associ-
ate Professor, and in 1956 Professor of Byzantine Art and Archaeology. Meanwhile, he had
been created Director of Studies, a post that he held with great distinction from 1955 un-
til 1966. In his later life Kitzinger remarked that his forced immigration to the United
States, in spite of the disruptions to his life that had preceded it, was the best thing that
ever happened to him.
Intellectually, in its early days Dumbarton Oaks was a more hierarchic institution than
it is today. The Director of Studies really did direct the studies of the junior scholars in the
institution, prescribing what they should work on, and how they should carry out their re-
search. As a younger fellow, Kitzinger had to negotiate between his own interests and
scholarly inclinations and those of his successive employers. But the negotiation was fruit-
ful, and resulted in some of his most important long-term projects. Under a system initi-
ated in 1941 by Wilhelm Koehler, the so-called Archives project, Junior Fellows were ex-
pected to devote half of their time to an institutional research effort. Koehlers aim was to
gather the scattered information on excavated sites and materials from every country that
had once been part of the Byzantine empire. Kitzinger was assigned to work on the
Balkans. The immediate result of his researches was an article on the monuments of Stobi
with their rich sequence of floor mosaics (A Survey of the Early Christian Town of Stobi,
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 3 [1946]: 81161). More lastingly, Kitzinger gained an abiding in-
terest in the style and subject matter of mosaic pavements, which resulted in several other
ERNST KITZINGER xi
important studies written later in his career. He was one of the first scholars to investigate
floor mosaics not merely as accessories to archaeology and as tools for dating, but as indi-
cators of stylistic and cultural changes. In other words, he brought this material, which
previously had tended to be beneath the attention of art historians, within the canon of art
history, long before the study of visual culture became a recognized field.
A second Dumbarton Oaks project that became important in Kitzingers scholarship
was the corpus of the mosaics of Norman Sicily. A. M. Friend, who became Director of
Studies in 1945, conceived a scheme to study the mosaics in Italy that had been executed
under Byzantine influence, because he thought that they would be able to throw light on
the lost mosaic programs of Constantinople, particularly those of the church of the Holy
Apostles. To this end, Friend sent Kitzinger to Sicily in the summer of 1949 to initiate a
complete survey of the mosaics there. This project was to engage Kitzinger for the rest of
his life. Friends interests in theology and in the relationship of images to Byzantine reli-
gious thought also helped to nourish Kitzingers engagement with the early cult of icons.
Kitzinger acknowledged that his fundamental article on The Cult of Images in the Age
before Iconoclasm (Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 [1954], 83150) owed much to the intellec-
tual atmosphere of Dumbarton Oaks in the late 1940s and early 1950s, with its free ex-
change of ideas between resident philologists, historians, and art historians.
Once he himself became Director of Studies in 1955, Kitzinger was obligated to shift
his time and his energies away from his own research to the demands of the institution.
His task was to guide the transition of Dumbarton Oaks from a private foundation that re-
flected the interests and aesthetic enthusiasms of its founders into an academic institution
of international standing. Kitzinger believed in Dumbarton Oaks as a place in which the
highly centralized civilization and ideology of Byzantium could be studied in all of its
interrelated aspects, an academic locus where the fields of history, literature, theology,
liturgy, music, law, archaeology, and art history could together create an integral picture
of this preeminent mediaeval culture. He viewed art and archaeology as central to the en-
terprise, because images occupied a position at the ideological core of Byzantine thought
and society. He also understood Byzantine studies in their broadest sense, as embedded
within medieval history and civilization as a whole; he did not draw narrow boundaries
around the discipline, but included the study of lands that were in cultural dialogue with
the Byzantines, whether Slavic, Near Eastern, or Latin.
As Director of Studies, Kitzinger put the publication program on a firmer basis, mak-
ing the Dumbarton Oaks Papers come out annually. He was responsible for the creation of
the photograph and fieldwork archive, because he felt that good photographs were fun-
damental to serious work in art history. He was also involved in the important fieldwork
carried out by Dumbarton Oaks in Istanbul and on Cyprus. He organized two significant
symposia, Byzantium in the Seventh Century, in 1957, and, together with Kurt Weitz-
mann, The Byzantine Contribution to Western Art of the Twelfth and Thirteenth Cen-
turies, in 1965, the latter growing out of his interest in the Sicilian mosaics.
During his years as Director of Studies, Kitzinger made a strong impression on those
who passed through Dumbarton Oaks, particularly on the Junior Fellows, to many of
whom he acted as a mentor. His personality, in which an overlay of shyness concealed a
considerable strength, combined personal sympathy and kindness with rigorous and un-
compromising standards. He was capable of interrupting his own work over the weekend,
xii ERNST KITZINGER
in order to give a spontaneous tour of the collections to a couple of unknown undergrad-

uates, who had turned up without warning at the front entrance of Dumbarton Oaks. And
he could demand from a Junior Fellow repeated rewrites of a thesis or a paper, until every
detail came up to his exacting standards. He shepherded the progress of the Junior Fel-
lows, and often of former Junior Fellows, with extraordinary care and with close attention
to their needs. During this period, Kitzinger also taught occasional courses in the Depart-
ment of Fine Arts at Harvard, where he made lifelong converts to fields such as Anglo-
Saxon art, early Byzantine floor mosaics, and the mosaics of Norman Sicily.
In 1967, after a year as a member of the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton,
Kitzinger moved to Harvard permanently, as the first Arthur Kingsley Porter University
Professor, a chair that he held until 1979, when he retired. In accepting the position at
Harvard, Kitzinger turned down the offer of a professorship in Princeton at the Institute
of Advanced Study. One of his reasons for this decision was that he hoped to be able to con-
tinue to play a role at Harvard in guiding the destinies of Dumbarton Oaks as a center of
Byzantine studies, a hope that, in the event, was unfulfilled. He also wanted to be able to
contribute to the formation of the next generation of scholars through his teaching, and
to have the opportunity to give out some of the material that he had accumulated during
his years of research at Dumbarton Oaks. During his twelve years at Harvard, in addition
to teaching highly regarded courses for undergraduates, Kitzinger supervised some eight-
een graduate dissertations in both western medieval and Byzantine art. His students are
now leading specialists in fields as diverse as early Gothic manuscripts and stained glass,
early Byzantine sculpture and textiles, Carolingian art, and late Roman painting and floor
mosaics. It is a remarkable testimony to the breadth of Kitzingers knowledge and the
strength of his pedagogy that he could have successfully guided students with such diverse
interests.
Kitzinger did not relax after his retirement. He took up fellowships at the Institute for
Advanced Study in 1980 and 1982, and in 1989 he served as Visiting Distinguished Pro-
fessor at the University of Seattle. In spite of problems with his eyesight, he continued to
research and to write, producing several important articles, a comprehensive monograph
on the mosaics of the Martorana in Palermo, and a publication in six volumes of photo-
graphs of Sicilian mosaics which had been taken during the campaigns he had organized
for Dumbarton Oaks in the early 1950s. The last volume of the Sicilian corpus, together
with its introductory text, came out in 2001, when he was 88. The products of Kitzingers
retirement years alone would be, for most scholars, the equivalent of a lifetime of achieve-
ment.
Kitzingers eminent contributions to scholarship won him many honors. He was given
honorary doctorates by Swarthmore College, by the University of Warwick, and by the Uni-
versity of Rome La Sapienza. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at Cambridge in the aca-
demic year 1974 to 1975, where he gave the lectures that became his book Byzantine Art in
the Making (London and Cambridge, Mass., 1977). In 1982 Germany made him a member
of the order Pour le Mrite, the highest distinction in humane studies in that country.
In his scholarship, as in his teaching, Kitzinger never considered himself to be a Byzan-
tinist. Like other great scholars of his generation, such as Hugo Buchthal, Otto Demus,
Andr Grabar, and Richard Krautheimer, his interests encompassed western as well as
Byzantine art. His work was, in his own terms, both centripetal and centrifugal, that is,
ERNST KITZINGER xiii
both interpreting Byzantine culture on its own terms, and exploring how other cultures
were interacting with Byzantium. He became convinced, very early in his career, that the
study of Early Christian archaeology should be integrated with art history, and that the lat-
ter should be concerned not only with high art, such as the mosaics and frescoes on the
walls of churches, but also with more mundane objects, such as the jewelry that people
wore on their persons or the textiles that they used in their houses. He also felt that art,
and especially its formal development, should be viewed as more than an ancillary aspect
of history and literature, but as a basic communicator of cultural values in its own right.
For all of his scholarly life Kitzinger was fascinated by the problem of changes in artis-
tic forms, and of the links that can be proposed between changes in visual forms and his-
torical developments. Kitzinger wished to make style speak with the same authority as
iconography and texts, and he liked to cite the popularity of modernist painters such as
Kandinsky and the Abstract Expressionists to support his view that pure form has the abil-
ity to communicate. In the postmodern age, this view is out of fashion, yet no one articu-
lated it with more eloquence and clarity than Kitzinger, and when the pendulum of fash-
ion swings back again, his works will undoubtedly be central to a reconsideration of style.
The analysis of style in Byzantine art can be said to present the historian with an eas-
ier problem and a more difficult one. The easy task is to find the expression of known so-
cial, political, and historical factors in the forms of art. This problem was addressed by
Kitzinger through the influential concept of modes, whereby different styles, even within
the same image, reflected different categories of subject matter and function. The hard
task is to define what artistic forms can tell us about a culture or a society that we did not
already know from other sourceswhat the specifically visual can contribute to our un-
derstanding of an epoch. Kitzinger had already taken up this question in his Munich dis-
sertation on early medieval Roman painting. It was to occupy him throughout his career,
particularly in his studies of floor mosaics, where ornament often played as large a role as
iconography. During his final years of teaching at Harvard he wrote Byzantine Art in the
Making, which was a summation of much of his thinking about the dynamics of stylistic
change in Late Antique and early Byzantine art. This work is not a study of the dialogue
between art and texts, but rather a visual history of Late Antiquity, in which art is enabled
to speak with its own distinctive voice.
Kitzinger was not only the master of the broad synthetic survey, but he also produced
many important studies devoted to individual monuments and works of art. It was in these
more focused studies that his capacity for painstaking analysis and attention to detail came
to the fore. For example, his research established the authenticity of the much disputed
Cleveland marbles, a group of miniature portrait busts and statuettes of Early Christian
subjects that were acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1963. Although most of the
leading experts in Roman art at that time considered them to be forgeries, on account of
their unexpectedly baroque characteristics, Kitzinger was able to show that they are au-
thentic works of the third century, thus greatly expanding our knowledge of the earliest
Christian art, which hitherto had been known for the most part only from the paintings of
the Roman catacombs and of the baptistery at Dura Europos. Kitzingers findings were ini-
tially published by William Wixom in the Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1967, and
then by Kitzinger himself in the Atti del IX Congresso internazionale di archeologia cristiana, I
(Rome, 1978), 65375.
xiv ERNST KITZINGER
Another of Kitzingers most influential monographic studies may be mentioned here,

if only to demonstrate the range of his scholarship. In 1949 he published an article in the
Art Bulletin on The Mosaics of the Cappella Palatina in Palermo. This article was not pri-
marily concerned with style, but used the layout and iconography of the mosaics in the
palace chapel to illuminate the presence and patronage of its royal patron, Roger II. It was
a ground-breaking study of the manipulation of religious iconography by a medieval ruler
in order to create a political program.
The passing of Ernst Kitzinger is mourned by his family, friends, students, and col-
leagues. His legacy remains secure, in his writing, in his impression on those he worked
with, and in the institution that was so dear to his heart.
Henry Maguire

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
Introduction
JEAN-MICHEL SPIESER
i la seconde cit de lempire byzantin est souvent prsente dans les rcits des
S voyageurs,1 son exploration scientifique est encore loin dtre acheve. Ce sont
videmment ses grands monuments encore debout et transforms en mosque ainsi que
quelques vestiges antiques, un peu plus nombreux vers 1800 que de nos jours,2 qui alors
attirent lattention. Tandis que les monuments byzantins vont peu peu intresser ceux
que lon va appeler historiens de lart,3 les notations sur les monuments antiques lancent
en quelque sorte les tudes sur la topographie. Pour lhistoire de la ville, cest aussi dans la
premire moiti du XIXe sicle que les premiers matriaux sont runis.4 Mais cest dabord
par les rudits locaux que lintrt pour la topographie byzantine de la ville sest dvelopp
la fin du XIXe et au dbut du XXe sicle, dans une Thessalonique qui ntait pas encore
rattache la Grce. On ne connat plus gure M. Chatzi Ioannou qui a crit une premire
description de Thessalonique.5 Mais cest surtout linfatigable P. N. Papageorgiou quil
faut rappeler.6 Cest sur ces bases que se sont construites les premires synthses bien con-
nues et souvent encore utiles, les trois volumes de O. Tafrali et les tudes de Ch. Diehl.7
Mais je ne tiens pas ici faire un historique des tudes sur Thessalonique. En rappelant
ces prcurseurs qui paraissent bien lointain aujourdhui, ce sont aussi mes propres sou-
venirs que jvoque: ils taient beaucoup moins lointains lorsque P. Lemerle, il y a envi-
ron trente-cinq ans, mengagea travailler sur Thessalonique, mais, ce moment, jeune
tudiant, form dans un cadre o lrudition ntait pas le premier des soucis, jtais
1
Voir maintenant S. Tampak, H Qessalonivkh sti" perigrafev" twn perihghtwvn 12o"19o" m.C. (Thessa-
lonique, 1998), en particulier les listes des pages 20911 et les fiches du supplment.
2
Je pense en particulier au portique, connu sous le nom de Las Incantadas, dont des sculptures ont t
transportes au Louvre et dont la localisation exacte na pas pas encore t dtermine (en dernier voir
M. Vitti, H Poleodomikh; Exevlixh th'" Qessalonivkh" ajpo; th;n i{drushv th" e{w" to;n Galevrion [Athnes, 1996], 100
101 et la notice qui lui a t consacre, ibid., 19899 avec la bibliographie antrieure), ainsi qu larc qui faisait
partie sans doute de la porte principale de la ville ou qui marquait lentre de la ville: ibid., s.v. Crush; Puvlh,
17071 avec les rfrences antrieures.
3
Les premires planches reprsentant des monuments byzantins de Thessalonique sont dues Ch. Texier
qui parle dj de Thessalonique dans sa description de lAsie Mineure et publie des planches dans Ch. Texier,
Architecture byzantine (Londres, 1864).
4
F. Tafel, De Thessalonica ejusque agro (Berlin, 1839).
5
M. Chatzi Ioannou, Astugrafiva Qessalonivkh" (Thessalonique, 1881).
6
Pour sa bibliographie, cf. Makedonikav, Paravrthma 3 (1964).
7
O. Tafrali, La topographie de Thessalonique (Paris, 1913); idem, Thessalonique au XIVe sicle (Paris, 1913); idem,
Thessalonique des origines au XIVe sicle (Paris, 1919); Ch. Diehl, M. Letourneau, H. Saladin, Les monuments chr-
tiens de Salonique (Paris, 1918).
2 INTRODUCTION
dabord tonn davoir me confronter des livres et des articles qui me paraissaient dun
autre ge et dont jai alors dcouvert lintrt. Le thme que ce symposion se propose
daborder me rapproche plus quil nest apparent de ces dbuts. En effet, il apparaissait
clairement mes yeux, comme ceux de P. Lemerle, quil fallait choisir, pour thme de
recherches, entre la Thessalonique palochrtienne et la Thessalonique des Palologues.
Prolongeant la formule utilise quelques lignes plus haut, je dirais maintenant que je rap-
pelle cette alternative, non par nostalgie ou pour le plaisir de rappeler le pass, mais parce
quelle est lie au thme de ces journes.
En effet, le destin de Thessalonique, depuis sa fondation par Cassandre, roi de Mac-
doine, a t changeant, comme dailleurs celui de bien dautres grandes mtropoles. Les
sources crites ne nous renseignent que peu sur la Thessalonique hellnistique et des pre-
miers temps de la domination romaine. Les vestiges archologiques, pour lpoque hel-
lnistique, sont tellement peu parlant quon a encore du mal se faire une ide de lex-
tension de la ville. Dans les dernires annes, une attention scrupuleuse porte au
rempart, des fouilles de plus en plus systmatiques, ont donn quelques lments. Cest
bien lpoque impriale, dont le vestige essential est lagora, mais surtout lantiquit tar-
dive qui permettent de cerner un premier dveloppement monumental important. La
construction du palais de Galre est une sorte de point de dpart pour une priode qui
sachve avec la menace slave sur Thessalonique. A ce moment, la plupart des principales
glises palochrtiennes de Thessalonique sont construites depuis un certain temps:
la Rotonde a t dcore une date encore discute, qui va de la fin du IVe au dbut du
VIe sicle; Saint-Dmtrius me parat presque certainement mettre aux environs de 520,
mme si une date dans la deuxime moiti du Ve sicle est encore souvent admise; le cas
de Sainte-Sophie nest peut-tre pas encore dfinitivement rgl, mme si elle est gnrale-
ment considre comme postrieure, malgr une intressante suggestion qui essaie de
placer la construction du premier tat de la basilique coupole encore au VIe sicle.
Ce dynamisme est certainement mettre en rapport avec la ncessit sentie ds la t-
trarchie dtablir dans la partie nord de la Mditerrane orientale un nouveau centre de
gravit politique. Si, en fin de compte, la solution constantinopolitaine a t, juste titre,
retenue, ce nest pas par hasard que Galre avait fait construire un palais Thessalonique,
ni que Constantin avait hsit en faire sa rsidence. Lorsque la domination romaine dans
les Balkans commena perdre du terrain, Thessalonique, vraisemblablement, en bn-
ficia dabord, grce au transfert, sans doute vers 450, du sige de la prfecture du prtoire
depuis Sirmium.
Ce nest que de nombreux sicles plus tard que Thessalonique connatra une seconde
acm comparable celle de lantiquit tardive, mais dune certaine manire, plus impor-
tante, saffirmant vraiment comme seconde cit. Entre les IVe et VIe sicles, elle ne pou-
vait gure prtendre une telle appellation, face Alexandrie, Antioche, sinon Ephse.
Limportance de Thessalonique dans lempire palologue pose plusieurs questions aux-
quelles ce symposion a essay de rpondre. Le thme mme du symposion fait que lune
dentre elles reste en suspend. On a du mal comprendre le relatif silence des sources, la
relative absence de monuments pendant la priode prcdente, en particulier pendant les
XIXIIe sicles o Thessalonique tait certainement prospre comme le montre le Timar-
ion, systmatiquement cit ds que lon fait allusion cette priode. Le silence des monu-
ments est particulirement troublant; quand on songe la floraison de la peinture ailleurs
JEAN-MICHEL SPIESER 3
en Grce et mme, prs de Thessalonique, en Macdoine, pendant ces deux sicles, on ne

peut tre qutonn de ne pouvoir citer Thessalonique que, au dbut de la priode, la
Panagia tn Chalken, et, la fin, les fresques, connues depuis assez peu de temps, de Os-
ios David. Seule une enqute attentive permettra de dlimiter ce qui est volution relle
et ce qui est effet de perspective, de mauvaise conservation, voire de destructions et de
ramnagements dus la prosprit des dcennies qui ont suivi. Mais certainement la
Thessalonique des XIXIIe sicle tait moins brillante que celle des Palologues.
Nous avons donc essay de faire un tableau de cette priode exceptionnelle o Thes-
salonique vient vraiment au premier plan, mais aussi danalyser les causes de cette situa-
tion. Thessalonique est politiquement plus importante que jamais. La ville tait un car-
refour et la prsence trangre y a jou un rle important. Vie artistique et vie
intellectuelle taient galement florissantes; une partie des communications du symposion
essaie de montrer limpact de Thessalonique sur sa rgion. Le dveloppement de la vie re-
ligieuse, li la proximit et au rayonnement de lAthos, est galement un fait important
et a donn Thessalonique un certain nombre dvques remarquables. Tout ceci suppose
quil y a au moins une certaine prosprit conomique malgr le trouble des temps et mal-
gr des situations parfois tragiques. On en a souvent conclu, autant pour Constantinople
dailleurs que pour Thessalonique, que lpoque des Palologues prsentait une situation
paradoxale, o un dveloppment culturel brillant allait de pair avec une situation poli-
tiquement trouble et se dgradant peu peu. Limage de cette priode, que les historiens
de la culture ont pu appeler Renaissance palologue, ne correspond gure au schma
habituel, construit par lhistoriographie, des Age dOr de Justinien ou autres Sicle de
Pricls. Le paradoxe disparat en partie lorsquon voque un autre de ces lieux com-
muns historiques, Le sicle de Louis XIV, o un ge brillant sest termine de manire
bien sombre. En effet une partie des communications a bien montr quil y avait rupture
dans la priode envisage, rupture quil faut sans doute situer au milieu du XIVe sicle,
o la conjonction de plusieurs facteurs cre les conditions dun dclin qui annonce la fin
de lEtat byzantin. Les relations entre la Reine des villes et la Seconde cit ont t vo-
ques plus dune fois pendant le symposion; malgr les tensions qui souvent sont ap-
parues, malgr des tentations dindpendance, elles ne cesseront pas de faire partie dune
mme histoire et le destin de la seconde prfigurera celui de la premire.
Ce symposion, dont jespre quil aura contribu avancer dans notre connaissance de
Thessalonique, est loin dtre un point final. De nombreux textes demandent encore tre
publis et tudis; les fouilles enrichissent tous les jours la connaissance de la topographie
de la ville. La prsence de Thessaloniciens, venant du Service archologique et de lUni-
versit, parmi les orateurs de ce colloque est un symbole du dynamisme des recherches qui
se pratiquent Thessalonique mme. Elles permettent desprer que, si les communica-
tions publies de ce colloque vont pouvoir se substituer au volume de Tafrali sur le XIVe
sicle, les archologues de Thessalonique seront en mesure, dans un avenir proche, de
nous fournir une Topographie de Thessalonique, un important instrument de travail qui
manque encore.
Il ne me reste plus qu remercier ceux qui ont rendu possible ce symposion: mes col-
lgues Senior Fellows qui ont demble accept un thme que javais lanc dans la discus-
sion, E. Keenan, directeur de Dumbarton Oaks, qui a accueilli le symposion et qui en a fa-
cilit lorganisation, avant tout Alice-Mary Talbot, directeur des tudes byzantines, pour
4 INTRODUCTION
ses conseils dans la prparation du symposion et pour son efficacit pour la prparation
de la publication, son assistante Caitlin McGurk, toujours disponible pour rpondre mes
questions. Enfin et tout particulirement, je remercie tous les orateurs qui ont accept
rapidement et avec enthousiasme de participer ce projet si bien que, malgr leurs nom-
breuses occupations, la plus grande partie des communications entendues peut tre
prsente dans les pages qui suivent.
Universit de Fribourg (Suisse)


Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
Late Byzantine Thessalonike: A Second Citys
Challenges and Responses
JOHN W. BARKER
. . . who has been so pre-eminent a master of words, surpassing all others, that would be
capable of making a proper comparison of this city with the greatest of the others? Who
could do justice to its surpassingly beautiful and wholesome location, or its yield of pro-
duce that excels even Egypts fertility? So, too, the superlatively lovely and sacred shrines
and holy places that are everywhere within it, of such size and such profusion that there is
nowhere else their like, neither in magnitude nor in multitude. Likewise its market-place,
welcoming people from everywhere on earth, and obliging those who gather there to for-
get where in the world they might be: so that living there was as good as being everywhere
at once. And, while many people have sung the praises of other harbors, yet the one there
would truly surpass all others as an exampleone and the same place serving the function
of both a city and a harbor, and causing the main town to terminate not at the sea but at
virtually a second city all its own. So, too, is it girt by walls more grand than the circuit of
Babylon. And, as the greatest of all the harbors we know, it provides the greatest security,
embracing the city in arms eager to unite with it. Would not the citys total appearance al-
lay anyones discontent? . . . And would it not persuade any visitor to forget his own home?
. . . as to the citys piety and its devotion to the worship of God . . . no time-limits are
fixed there for those who wish to pray: rather, since the churches are open both night and
day, it is possible to have ones fill of prayers and to find ones supplications rewarded. As
for the other aspects of the citys eager striving and its zeal in such mattersthe beauty of
its offerings, the multitudes of its donations, the continuity of its vigils, the cantillations of
its singers, and, above all, its virtually musical concord and organizationthese are best
appreciated in their presence and best understood in experiencing their reality. . . . [The
citizens] reward for this piety is certainly not slight: rather it is just what anyone would
crave for his near and deardeliverance from sieges, relief from famines, remedies for
epidemic diseases, the annihilation of sovereigns who attack in armed force, and prophe-
cies of the citys unique impregnability and preservation from disaster. . . . [St. Demetrios
himself] assists in these matters, since he abides within the city, and he gathers to himself
the polarities of faction from all sides, as the citys savior, the citizens mediator, and the in-
tercessor for their interests before God. Still more, he appoints to the government such
gentle sovereigns as relax the citys taxes and tribute offerings, while at the same time he
is its commander against external foes, inspiring dread in those who dare raise arms
against the city. So might it be said that the city represents a general model of piety.
And where might one find larger or finer ensembles of orators and philosophers?
Rather it is in this city that they assemble, constituting a veritable school of general stud-
ies, with each of them following his own Muse here. . . . it has now become this schools lot
to stand supreme in intellectual activities, though it was founded among people by no
6 LATE BYZANTINE THESSALONIKE: CHALLENGES AND RESPONSES
means previously ignorant. On the contrary, the city has been at all times a veritable He-
likon, and the disciplines of the Muses have managed to blossom here through all the
ages. . . . Thus, one might compare being here to dwelling in Athens in the company of
Demosthenes and Plato.1
Slightly compressed and minimally modified, this constitutes the bulk of the glowing de-
scription of his native city written by Demetrios Kydones. That native city was, of course,
not the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, but Thessalonike. The description is a part of
what is called his Monody on the Fallen in Thessalonike, in which Kydones goes on to
deplore the so-called Zealot rising in the city in 1345 that had wrecked and ravaged all that
the description celebrated. This Monody or Lament probably originated as an ora-
tion, possibly delivered the following year, perhaps in Constantinople before Thessalon-
ian refugees from that upheaval.2
Even beyond standard Byzantine propensities for hyperbole, Kydones creates the
most glowing picture possible of his native city the more to dramatize the disasters it suf-
fers, plainly a strategy of rhetorical effect rather than of sober accuracy. Yet one cannot
deny that fourteenth-century Thessalonike at its best exhibited many of the features that
Kydones praises so fervently. Its location was indeed a blessed one.3 As the major city of
Macedonia and Thessaly, Thessalonike was the focus of a rich agricultural hinterland
which not only supplied amply its own needs but made it a conduit for lucrative exports
of vegetable and animal products.4 Situated at a crucial point along the great Via Egnatia,
the vital Roman highway that spanned the south Balkans from Dyrrhachium on the Adri-
atic to Constantinople on the Bosphorus,5 the city held immense strategic significance that
merged with its economic advantages. Its ample harbor guaranteed its prosperity as a
port, while its position at the northern apex of the Aegean Sea and at the southern outlet
of the Vardar valley made it the logical commercial linchpin of the Balkan peninsula, es-
pecially with Basil IIs conquest of Bulgaria and the resulting reintegration of the south
Balkans under a coherent Byzantine political and economic order.6 The most familiar tes-
1
Demetrii Cydonii occisorum Thessalonicae monodia, PG 109 (1863): 63952, at 641B644B. The translation
given is slightly adapted from pp. 29293 of the rendering of the full text (pp. 291300) by J. W. Barker, The
Monody of Demetrios Kydones on the Zealot Rising of 1345 in Thessaloniki, in Essays in Memory of Basil
Laourdas (Thessalonike, 1975), 285300. Other panegyrical comments on the city by an earlier Byzantine
writer, John Kameniates, are cited by A. Laiou at the beginning of her essay, Thessaloniki and Macedonia in
the Byzantine Period, in Byzantine Macedonia: Identity, Image, and History, ed. J. Burk and R. Scott, ByzAus 13
(Melbourne, 2000), 111. For a comprehensive collection of descriptions of, and writings on, the city through
the Byzantine era in general, see H. Hunger, Laudes Thessalonicenses (Thessalonike, 1992).
2
Barker, Monody, 28889.
3
The work of the dedicated Rumanian scholar O. Tafrali, Topographie de Thessalonique (Paris, 1913) remains
the standard overview, despite its age.
4
For the agriculture of Thessalonike and its hinterland, there is now A. Laiou, The Economy of Byzantine
Macedonia in the Palaiologan Period, in Burk and Scott, eds., Byzantine Macedonia (as in note 1 above), 199
211, esp. 200203; also her H Qessalonivkh, h endocwvra th" kai o oikonomikov" th" Cwvro" sthn epochv twn
Palaiolovgwn, in Buzantinhv Makedoniva 3241430 m. Cr., Dievqne" Sumpovsion (Qessalonivkh, 2931 oktwbrivou
1992), ed. T. Pentzopoulou-Valala (Thessalonike, 1995), 18394; and, on rural conditions, her Peasant Society
in the Late Byzantine Empire: A Social and Demographic Study (Princeton, N.J., 1977).
5
F. OSullivan, The Egnatian Way (Newton AbbotHarrisburg, Pa., 1972); Ch. I. Makaronas, Via Egnatia
and Thessalonike, in Studies Presented to David Moore Robinson, vol. 1 (St. Louis, Mo., 1951), 38088; see also
Laiou, Thessaloniki and Macedonia in the Byzantine Period, 7.
6
Laiou, Economy of Byzantine Macedonia, 203; M. Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 10251204: A Political
History, 2d ed. (LondonNew York, 1997), 28384; W. Heyd, Histoire du commerce du Levant au moyen ge, trans.
F. Raynaud (Leipzig, 1923), 1: 24445.
JOHN W. BARKER 7
timony to the citys great vitality is, of course, the famous twelfth-century description of
Thessalonikes annual October fair, set up along the Vardar valley to the west of the town
walls, a robust gathering of merchants and visitors from far and wide who brought profit
and prosperity to the citys economy.7 As for the citys own grand topography, Kydones did
not exaggerate in representing Thessalonike veritably as two cities in one, its lower zone
around the harbor joined to the upper city on the ascending slopes within, all within the
embrace of a magnificently sturdy fortification system.8
Nor need we be entirely cynical about our panegyrists praise of Thessalonikes religious
life. We may question how much civic bounty was directly bestowed by the protective pa-
tron, St. Demetrios, but the people of the city had over the centuries accepted as fact that
he did indeed watch over them. His shrine was an important center of pilgrimage, while
the proximity of the city to the great monastic center of Mount Athos connected it closely
with principal currents of Orthodox spiritual life. More than a dozen churches survive
from the span of the Byzantine centuries to suggest what a profusion of important sanctu-
aries there must have been.9 The citys devotional and liturgical life had a vitality and in-
dividuality that is only now being appreciated.10 Likewise genuine, despite Kydones
rodomontade, was Thessalonikes intellectual life, cradle and home to a number of impor-
tant scholars of the period, of whom Kydones himself was but one distinguished example.11
7
Timarione, ed. R. Romano (Naples, 1974), 36; trans. B. Baldwin, Timarion (Detroit, 1984), 4345. For dis-
cussion of this passage, see S. P. Vryonis Jr., The Panegyris of the Byzantine Saint: A Study of the Nature of a
Medieval Institution, Its Origins, and Fate, in The Byzantine Saint, ed. S. Hackel (London, 1981), 196228, at
2024. On the economic dimension, see Laiou, Thessaloniki and Macedonia, 78.
8
On the early history of the citys fortifications, see G. M. Velenis, Ta; teivch th'" Qessalonivkh" ajpo; to;n
Kavssandro wJ" to;n Hravkleio (with Eng. summary) (Thessalonike, 1998); also J.-M. Spieser, Les remparts de
Thessalonique. propos dun livre rcent, BSl 60 (1999): 55774. There are important short studies by
M. Vickers, esp. The Byzantine Sea Walls of Thessaloniki, BalkSt 11 (1970): 26178, and Further Obser-
vations on the Chronology of the Walls of Thessaloniki, Makedonikav 11 (1971): 22833. Not fully reliable is
the booklet by G. Gounaris, Ta; teivch th'" Qessalonivkh" (Thessalonike, 1976), in English as The Walls of Thessa-
loniki (Thessalonike, 1982).
9
Among comprehensive studies, the pioneering one by C. Diehl, M. Le Tourneau, and H. Saladin, Les mon-
uments chrtiens de Salonique (Paris, 1918), is now quite dated; more recent material may be found in R. Janins
Les glises et les monastres des grands centres byzantins (Paris, 1976). Good general treatment of the citys churches
can be found in such guidebooks as: A. Papagiannopoulos, Monuments of Thessaloniki (Thessalonike, n.d.);
Chr. Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments of Thessaloniki (Thessalonike, 1997); and
E. Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou and A. Tourta, Wandering in Byzantine Thessaloniki (Athens, 1997); all with bibli-
ographies, the last of them particularly good. There are too many studies of individual churches to cite here,
but mention should be made of J.-M. Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments du IVe au VIe sicle. Contribution l-
tude dune ville palochrtienne (Paris, 1984); and P. Vokotopoulos, Church Architecture in Thessaloniki in the
14th Century. Remarks on the Typology, in Lart de Thessalonique et des pays balkaniques et les courants spirituels au
XIVe sicle. Recueil des rapports du IVe colloque serbo-grec, Belgrade 1985 (Belgrade, 1987), 10716.
10
For a specific example of indigenous Thessalonian liturgy, see O. Strunk, The Byzantine Office in Ha-
gia Sophia, DOP 910 (1956): 175202.
11
This is the purview of F. Tinnefeld later in this volume. In general, see D. M. Nicol, Thessalonica as a
Cultural Centre in the Fourteenth Century, in H Qessalonivkh metaxu; Anatolh;" kai; Duvsew". Praktika; Sumpo-
sivou . . . th'" Etaireiva" Makedonikw'n Spoudw'n (Thessalonike, 1982), 12131, reprinted as no. X in Nicol, Stud-
ies in Late Byzantine History and Prosopography (London, 1986); also, E. Fryde, The Early Palaeologan Renaissance
(1261c. 1360) (Leiden, 2000), 16971; and A. E. Vakalopoulos, A History of Thessaloniki, trans. T. F. Carney
(Thessalonike, 1972), 5051; or a little more fully in his earlier Origins of the Greek Nation, 12041461, trans.
I. Moles (New Brunswick, N.J., 1970), 46 ff, esp. 4954; also B. Laourdas, H klassikh; filologiva eij" th;n Qessa-
lonivkhn kata; to;n devkaton tevtarton aijw'na (Thessalonike, 1960). The place of Thessalonike in Palaiologan cul-
tural life is noted throughout S. Runcimans The Last Byzantine Renaissance (Cambridge, 1970); cf. the com-
ments of R. Browning, Byzantine Thessaloniki: A Unique City? Dialogos: Hellenic Studies Review 2 (1995): 91
104, at 99101.
To be sure, the upheavals of the fourteenth century brought reductions, disruptions, and
even displacements to many of the qualities that Kydones praises. But, at least for much of
that century, especially the first half, Thessalonike must still have been an extraordinary
urban world fully meriting his panegyrical outpourings.
Kydones hyperbole led him to florid comparisons of Thessalonike with the likes of an-
cient Babylon and Athens, beyond other cities not specified. Notably, the one city not in-
voked for comparisons sake is the Byzantine capital city, Constantinople, where Kydones
himself had already begun his career as the leading Byzantine intellectual of his era. Ky-
dones certainly understood well the disparities pertaining by then between the two great
cities, and could even have made up a scorecard in which Thessalonike could claim con-
siderable points of superiority to Constantinople, or advantage over it. But, the fact re-
mains, Constantinople was the seat of the central government, of the court, and of serious
opportunity for anyone seeking status of the first rank in either letters or politics. Kydones
appreciated that fact, and he had made his own clear career choice.
Put simply, Demetrios Kydones knew that Constantinople was No. 1, while his beloved
native city was inescapably No. 2. Not that he would have admitted such a ranking him-
self. (Ironically, the evocation of urban dichotomy he does make is in a fanciful distinction
within Thessalonike itself, between its harbor and the main town.) He and his family had
been expelled from Thessalonike during the Zealot episode, and his subsequent career
was pursued in the capital: that he never chose to return home does not, however, dis-
credit his appreciation of it.
ANALYZING THE SECOND CITY

Through much of the Byzantine Empires long history, and ever since, Thessalonike
has labored under a status of secondityor, if a pun may be forgiven, of secondicity.
Writers now describe it so automatically as Byzantiums second city that it is difficult to
recall who first coined this usage. The label has become a clich, and, like most clichs, it
invites suspicion or scorn. But, also as with so many clichs, there is a kernel of truth to it
that cannot be ignored. Its implications color all analyses of the citys history, especially in
the later Byzantine period.
In Byzantiums early centuries, the empire possessed many great cities that could and
did challenge Constantinoples status. Alexandria was a prime example, but there were
many other great imperial cities. Successive episodes of the dismantling of the empires
western provinces, the termination of the West Roman regime, and the consolidation of
the Germanic successor states in the fifth and sixth centuries were followed by the Arab
conquests of the seventh, processes that recurrently stripped the empire of many former
urban centers. The considerable changes in economic and social life by the beginning of
the eighth century, meanwhile, further reduced urban life in the territories that remained
to the Byzantine Empire in its geographic redefinition. From that time onward, the con-
tinued vitality and prosperity of Thessalonike stood out the more clearly, marking it as the
most important Byzantine city after the capital itself.
In what follows, the portrait of this second city must deal with a complex of themes,
each distinct and yet regularly interwoven with each other. One of these themes is, of
course, that of Thessalonikes rivalry to Constantinople through one or another kind of
JOHN W. BARKER 9
political challenge, attempting to replace secondary with primary or at least alternate sta-
tus. But often connected to that theme is a parallel one, which is concerned with Thessa-
lonian tendencies of separatism from the capital, and which in turn involves still another
theme: the citys repeated detachment as a kind of appanage. In occasional counterpoint
to those themes is one of occasional internal dissension within Thessalonikes population.
Still another is the recurrent threat of encroachment or attack by foreign forces.
Such themes might well be traced individually, freed from the straitjacket of a chrono-
logical narrative. Yet total avoidance of chronology risks losing a sense of coherence,
within which the constant interaction of our themes needs to be seen. Accordingly, the dis-
cussion that follows will observe some degree of chronological flow, as supported by the ap-
pended outline, even as we sort out the topical themes. In doing so, of course, I must pass
over still other themes that are left to other papers in this volumesocial, intellectual, and
artistic aspects of late Thessalonian life that Kydones praised so passionately.
Focus on the final Byzantine centuries inevitably obliges us to leave aside important
contributions of earlier centuries to the shaping of the city as we deal with it. In those cen-
turies Thessalonike had its share of glory and of sufferingin episodes of internal unrest
and dissension, of tastes of capital-city status, of facing grave attack and devastation that
already prefigured the even more dramatic experiences the city was to have in our time
period.12
It is with the late twelfth century, however, that we begin our scrutiny in earnest.
Though Thessalonike had reached a height of prosperity by that time, it was less the citys
wealth than its combination of strategic and symbolic importance that attracted the sec-
ond episode of its foreign violation. The first had been its brutal pillaging by the Saracen
corsair Leo of Tripolis in 904. This one was its savage storming and sack in 1185 by the
forces of Norman Italy. That horrific event was visited upon Thessalonike as punishment,
in a sense, for the sins of Constantinople: the Norman campaign was justified as retalia-
tion for a massacre of Latins in the capital three years before, and the targeting of the city
was intended to represent a step on the way to Constantinople. If in different ways, the
sack of 1185 conveyed messages parallel to those of the Saracen sack in 904. The earlier
disaster provided an urgent spur to resurgent Byzantine command of the seas and to the
empires eventual achievement of military and naval ascendancy in the Mediterranean
world. The later event laid bare the full depth of Latin hatred for decaying Byzantium in
the age of the Crusades, and adumbrated the horrors to be visited upon Constantinople,
in its own turn, in 1204.
THESSALONIKE AS AN APPANAGE: THE MONTFERRATS

In the years just before the Norman ravishing of Thessalonike, that city was caught in
the first tangles of one of our important themes. This is the concept of treating the city as
what would seem to correspond with the French feudal appanage. Understanding the
12
O. Tafrali, Thessalonique des origines au XIVe sicle (Paris, 1919), effectively expanding the very cursory sur-
vey previously published in his Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle (Paris, 1913), 113. Though now considerably
dated, Tafralis 1919 book still offers the fullest survey of the citys history up to the last phase of the Byzantine
era. For a stimulating reflection on some general trends and circumstances, see Laiou, Thessaloniki and
Macedonia. See also Browning, Byzantine Thessaloniki: A Unique City? for a range of interesting observa-
tions.
French royal practices of granting patrimonial enclaves to younger sons of the reigning
dynast is complicated enough by itself. Simplistic equating of the French principles and
practices with Byzantine phenomena is unwise and misleading, if not ultimately incor-
rect.13 Setting aside the vain question of Western models, however, we might use the term,
cautiously qualified, as one of convenience in explicating an obscure episode, one with im-
portant implications for Thessalonikes future.
In early 1180, after a dizzying round of marital negotiations for a suitable Western
noble, Emperor Manuel I married his elder daughter Maria to Renier, or Rainier, of Mont-
ferrat, a young member of an emerging princely family of northern Italy. Though barely
eighteen at the time, and a decade younger than his bride, Renier was given the title of
caesar, which normally would make him heir or second-in-line to the throne. Reports cir-
culated that, in token of his status, Renier was given the city of Thessalonike as his pos-
session, and even that he was crowned as its king. Those reports are entirely Western in
origin, and there is no evidence on the Byzantine side of Reniers investment with any
Kingdom of Thessalonike. Still, there is precedent for such an act from more than a cen-
tury earlier: Alexios I Komnenos invested one of his noble allies, Nikephoros Melissenos,
with the rank of caesar, at the same time awarding him the administration of Thessalonike.
In the case of Renier and Maria, there is at least the possibility that they may have made a
brief residence in the city, and the multiplicity of Western statements on the point makes
it unwise to rule out completely the possibility that Renier was given something like a
pronoia grant in Byzantine fashion.14 Two things do emerge clearly from the murk of this
episode, however. One is the identification of the Montferrat family with claims upon
Thessalonike; the other is the simple fact that Thessalonike was deemed a choice parcel of
property for use in dynastic manipulation.
Whatever his claims to Thessalonike, Renier of Montferrat did not live long enough to
enjoy them. Following Manuel Is death in 1180, Renier and his wife were murdered two
or three years later after the failure of her ambitious schemes to claim the throne. Reniers
honor, if not also his claims, might still have been vindicated, however, through the efforts
of two older brothers. One of them, Conrad of Montferrat, had his own entitlements to
Manuels favor and had actually been in Constantinople for a while in 1180, just before the
emperors death. In 1187, after the collapse of the Komnenian dynasty, Conrad was invited
to Constantinople in his turn to become an imperial in-law. The new emperor, Isaac II An-
gelos, gave Conrad his sister Theodora as a bride and awarded him also the title of caesar.
Conrad was, however, denied some aspects of that dignity, and nothing seems to have been
said about any rights to Thessalonike. The Montferrat baron quickly earned Isaacs grati-
tude by leading the suppression of a serious military rebellion against the emperor. Nev-
ertheless, court sentiments turned against Conrad, and he decided to cut his losses. Aban-
13
J. Barker, The Problem of Appanages in Byzantium, Byzantina 3 (1971): 10522, esp. 11622.
14
Niketas Choniates simply reports the marriage: ed. J.-L. van Dieten (Berlin, 1975), 171 and 200; trans.
H. J. Magoulias, O City of Byzantium (Detroit, 1984), 97, 114. On the date of the marriage, Magoulias, 383 note
478. For Western sources that identify the couple with Thessalonike, see the accounts by R. W. Wolff, The
Fourth Crusade, in A History of the Crusades, ed. K. M. Setton, vol. 2, 2d ed. (Madison, Wisc., 1969), 165 and
notes 3436; and by S. Runciman, Thessalonica and the Montferrat Inheritance, Grhg.Pal. 42 (1959): 27
35: 28 note 3. More recently, C. Brand, Byzantium Confronts the West, 11801204 (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), 19,
and 319 note 12.
JOHN W. BARKER 11
doning his new bride and office, before 1187 was out, he set off for the Holy Land where
he was to die as king of Jerusalem.15
It was left to yet another Montferrat brother, the marquis Boniface II, to seek full sat-
isfaction. His involvement as leader of the Frankish forces of the Fourth Crusade is well
known, and, considering his tangle of connections and motivations, any residual concern
over Montferrat interests in Thessalonike can only be guessed at. After the capture of Con-
stantinople in 1204, Bonifaces hopes to become its new Latin emperor were dashed, and
at least at that point he turned his attentions to Thessalonike. Reasserting his brothers
rights, he demanded and eventually secured that city for himself, with the title of king.16
Bonifaces personal regime there lasted barely three years, and, after his death at the
hands of besieging Bulgarians in 1207, his widow conducted a feeble government in the
name of their son Demetrios. Still in his mid-teens, Demetrios found his weak regime un-
der Greek attack. In 1222 he was obliged to make a trip to western Europe to beg for aid
just as would such later rulers of Constantinople as the Latin emperor Baldwin II and
Byzantine emperors John V, Manuel II, and John VIII.
Under Boniface and his son, Thessalonike could take pride in being a capital city of
sorts, but the next chapter in the story saw that status given yet further lustre. In truth,
though, the Montferrat kingdom of Thessalonike belongs partly to another of our themes,
that of opposition to Constantinople. So too does the regime that replaced it, that of The-
odore Angelos, representing the forces of the Epirote regime among the several Byzan-
tine successor states that arose in the years after 1204. With the Angelan episode I shall
deal shortly. First, however, we must return to the Montferrat connection with Thessalon-
ike, which hardly ended when Theodore Angelos took the city in 1224.
Demetrios and his half-brother, William, made a feeble effort to retake it in 1225, but
the expedition foundered and William died in futility. The hapless Demetrios himself per-
ished two years later. Though he bequeathed his Thessalonian title to the Latin emperor of
Constantinople, Latin legal intervention awarded it instead to the marquis Boniface III of
Montferrat, Demetrios nephew, son of his half-brother William, and to his descendants.17
That devolution extends our appanage theme. Through several generations, the mar-
quises of Montferrat continued to include the style of king of Thessalonike in their formal
titles, though there were other Western claimants to the title as well. Such Latin claims on
Byzantine rights were taken seriously in the West, and there were cases of Latin titular
claimants actually making military attempts on Byzantine territories, so that resolution of
such claims was a genuine concern of Byzantine diplomacy. This process reached a climax
early in the reign of Andronikos II who, become a widower, sought a new bride from a
Latin dynasty, one who would bring the best diplomatic dowry to Byzantium. After pur-
suing several prospects, Andronikos turned to the marquis William VII of Montferrat.
The latter had been an Italian ally of Emperor Michael VIII and felt honored at the idea
15
On Conrad, see the account of Niketas Choniates, ed. van Dieten, 38287, 39495, trans. Magoulias,
21015, 217 (see also 397 note 1116). For a critical account, see Brand, Byzantium, 8084.
16
Boniface of Montferrats role in the Fourth Crusade and its aftermath are well represented in standard
accounts: Wolff, The Fourth Crusade and Runciman, Montferrat Inheritance; D. E. Queller and T. F.
Madden, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 2d ed. (Philadelphia, 1997). For an older account
of the Montferrat regime in the city, see Tafrali, Thessalonique des origines, 192211. But now see T. F. Madden,
Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice (Baltimore, 2003), 18490.
17
D. M. Nicol, The Last Centuries of Byzantium, 12611453, 2d ed. (Cambridge, 1993), 6164.
of becoming Emperor Andronikos father-in-law. He was all-too-happy to accept contri-

butions to his military needs in exchange for yielding up, along with his daughter, the use-
less family claim to Thessalonike. Thus, when in 1284 Andronikos took as his second wife
the young Yolanda of Montferratwho took the Byzantine name Ireneit seemed as if
the Montferrat claims on Thessalonike were laid to rest.18 In fact, they were not. In-
deed, the problem of quasi-appanage partitionings was only to be renewed.
THE MONTFERRAT HERITAGE

Blame for this outcome is often laid, perhaps too easily, at the door of Irene-Yolanda
herself. Having borne Andronikos II a series of children, including three sons (John,
Theodore, Demetrios), she became resentful about their exclusion from power in favor of
Andronikos son by his first marriagealready his designated heir and co-emperor as
Michael IX. In a famous passage,19 the historian Nikephoros Gregoras describes scorn-
fully how the empress demanded that each of her sons share in the imperial title, along
with apportioned territories assigned to them and to their descendants. When this de-
mand was rejected as an impossible innovation, the empress became embittered and
troublesome. This impasse occurred apparently in 1303, and in that year the empress re-
sponded by reasserting her familys rights to Thessalonike and resettling herself there in
what amounted to her independent court. From it she circulated vicious slanders of her
husband and pursued various intrigues, mostly seeking prestigious alliances for her sons,
if in vain. She continued to agitate unsuccessfully for preferments for her eldest son, John.
When her brother Marquis John I died back in Montferrat, leaving her as heiress to the
title, she first proposed that John be sent west to become successor in her place. An-
dronikos and the patriarch blocked this scheme, but eventually the empress arranged to
have her second son, Theodore, assume the Montferrat succession.20 She had already ac-
quiesced in the sacrifice of her hapless little daughter Simonis to the wedding bed of Ser-
bian king Milutin (1299).21 Building upon this alliance with Milutin, she intrigued to have
her youngest son, Demetrios, made Milutins heir, an opportunity with which Demetrios
dabbled before rejecting so barbarous a situation.
Nikephoros Gregoras denounced Irene-Yolandas ideas as non-Roman and Latin,
while modern historians have equated her aims with Western feudal ideas. In point of fact,
her proposals diverged from the classic Capetian French concept of the appanage in that
it would have apportioned the sovereign title as well as territories, while the French prac-
tices never denied the unity of the realm under the sovereign dynast. Her ideas rather re-
call the much earlier practices of the Merovingian and Carolingian Franks.22 Moreover,
18
D. M. Nicol, The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits, 12501500 (Cambridge, 1994), 4849; A. Laiou, Constan-
tinople and the Latins: The Foreign Policy of Andronicus II, 12821328 (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), 4448; Runci-
man, Montferrat Inheritance, 3031.
19
Nikephoros Gregoras, ed. L. Schopen, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1829), 23336; key passages trans. Barker, Ap-
panages, 1056; cf. Nicol, Byzantine Lady, 49 ff; and Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle, 2056.
20
A. Laiou, A Byzantine Prince Latinized: Theodore Palaeologus, Marquis of Montferrat, Byzantion 38
(1968): 386410, and Constantinople and the Latins, 17374; Nicol, Byzantine Lady, 5253; Runciman, Mont-
ferrat Inheritance, 3132.
21
Nicol, Byzantine Lady, 5152, 5758, as well as Later Centuries, 11921; Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins,
95100.
22
Barker, Appanages, 122.
JOHN W. BARKER 13
her proposals were hardly unprecedented. The principle of collegial sovereignty was well
established in Palaiologan dynastic practice, and was particularly characteristic of that
practice. With equal scorn, Gregoras in fact reports a more direct anticipation of Irene-
Yolandas proposals. It seems that Andronikos own father, Michael VIII, had actually fa-
vored his younger son, Constantine the Porphyrogenitos, over Andronikos. Michael, it was
said, had planned to detach the region around Thessalonike and Makedonia and make
it into Constantines own separate imperial dominion; only Michaels death prevented this
from happening, so the story went.23
Further, the continuing conduct of Andronikos himself, after his confrontation with
his wife, indicates that Irene-Yolandas thinking was by no means out of step with the Byz-
antine governmental setting of her day. In 1306 he honored his nephew, John, with the
rank of panhypersebastos and designated him as guardian of Thessalonike and all the
other western cities. Moreover, having denied Irene-Yolandas initial demands on her
sons behalf, and having forced a diplomatically nullifying local marriage on their eldest,
John, Andronikos granted that son the title of despot with some kind of status in Thessa-
lonike, where he died in 1307.24 Through all of this, the empress maintained a court in
Thessalonike, conducting her own foreign policy as if an independent sovereign in her
little enclavea situation that lasted until her death in 1317 (in her summer retreat at
nearby Drama). Her position and titles were based upon her Montferrat dowry, which was
accepted as hers by right. At the same time, her regime covered a period in which others
were also appointed in some way or another as governors of Thessalonike: her son the des-
pot John and later the despot Demetrios (returned from his Serbian ordeal). Moreover,
from 1310, her uncongenial stepson, Emperor Michael IX, also resided in the city. Ac-
cordingly, the empresss actual powers in administering the city itself may have had some
limitations, though there is occasional evidence of her involvement.25
Though Irene-Yolandas youngest son, Demetrios, held the post of governor of Thes-
salonike some years later (in the 1320s), the issue of the Montferrat claims on that city and
its supposed kingdom died with her. But the issue of Byzantine appanages (real or so-
called) did not. What we really observe in all this dynastic tangle is, of course, evidence of
the decentralization that was becoming ever more characteristic of Byzantine government
by the early fourteenth century. Feeble and waning, the old governing bureaucracy was
being replaced by the power of regional magnates. The only way the emperor in Con-
stantinople could maintain some control of localities, both rural and urban, was to send
out younger members of the reigning family with viceregal powers. If they were younger
sons of the emperor, they automatically bore the title of despot. Though there were a few
close calls, these appointments never became hereditary patrimonies in the Western sense
of an appanage.26 But it is an irony that Irene-Yolandas little re-created Kingdom of Thes-
salonike, generated out of her personal animosities and seemingly at odds with orderly
governmental practice, represented the first really notable case of quasi-appanage prac-
tices in late Byzantium.
23
Gregoras, 1: 18691.
24
Gregoras, 1: 241.
25
Nicol, Byzantine Lady, 5657; Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins, 22932.
26
Barker, Appanages, 12021. Cf., however, Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins, 48, suggesting some West-
ern influence.
Such continuing practices also continued to involve Thessalonike itself, if after a cer-
tain hiatus. We shall examine subsequently the further examples: John V Palaiologos in
Thessalonike and then related territories in the period 135054; John Vs second son, the
despot Manuel, in two phases as governor of Thessalonike (136973, 138287), in the lat-
ter one operating a semi-autonomous regime of his own; John Vs grandson, the would-
be emperor John VII, grudgingly given by his uncle, Emperor Manuel II, the rule of the
city (14038) as both Emperor of all of Thessaly and Despot of Thessalonike; and,
upon John VIIs death, Manuels installation of his own third son, the despot Andronikos.
THE EMERGENCE OF SEPARATISM

What we may call the appanage theme of Thessalonikes Palaiologan history must
meanwhile be seen in relation to its parallel theme, that of the citys propensity for sepa-
ratism from the capitalseparation from and, at times, outright challenge to Constan-
tinople. In a sense, this thread must also lead us back to Boniface of Montferrat and his
creation of the crusader Kingdom of Thessalonike in 1204. The marquis seems to have
been welcomed as ruler in the city, at least initiallypartly through his politic marriage to
a widowed ex-empress, partly also out of possible local disgust with the discredited and
overthrown Byzantine regime of Constantinople. Bonifaces personal rule was cut short by
his death in 1207, by which time he had become very unpopular; but, though we have no
hard evidence on the point, the government of his widow and son may have won some
sympathy from the populace.
Having been elevated to the status of a Latin regal capital, Thessalonike was soon ad-
vanced to becoming a Byzantine imperial capital, if an interim one. The Byzantine splin-
ter regime of Epiros under its Angelan house, fired by the vigorous leadership of its sec-
ond lord, Theodore Angelos, capped its pressures against the Latin occupiers by forcing
the surrender to him of Thessalonike in December 1224. On that basis, the bold Theodore
had himself crowned formally, early the following year in the metropolitan cathedral of
Thessalonike, with the joint titles of king of Thessalonike and emperor of the Romans. He
followed this with the creation of a full panoply of titles, administrative organization, and
court trappings. In all this, he was issuing a challenge not only to the weak Latin regime
of Constantinople but also to the Laskarid successor-regime of Nicaea, which until then
had seemed to hold the preeminent claim of continuing the Byzantine imperial govern-
ment in exile.27 In that sense, then, Thessalonike was not being itself proclaimed as the
new Byzantine capital, but merely a temporary onea stepping-stone on the way to Con-
stantinople, not a fully-fledged rival to it.
Upon the defeat, capture, and blinding of Theodore Angelos by the Bulgarian king in
1230, however, the Angelan regime in Thessalonike was suddenly transformed into a pre-
carious holding operation: first by Theodores brother, Manuel, who ruled under the title
of emperor and despot of Thessalonike until 1241; then by Theodores son John with the
same titles (124244); and finally by Manuels son Demetrios (124446). From the hapless
Demetrios Thessalonike was taken in 1246 by John III Vatatzes, the expansionist Nicaean
emperor, to become a component of the Nicaean regimes campaign to restore the Byzan-
tine Empire. The city received as its first Nicaean governor the respected general, An-
27
D. M. Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros (Oxford, 1957), 6367; also Tafrali, Thessalonique des origines, 21219.
JOHN W. BARKER 15
dronikos Palaiologos, father of the future Michael VIII, founder of Byzantiums last rul-
ing dynasty.28
There are limits to our knowledge of Thessalonike under Nicaean and subsequent
Palaiologan government. It is clear that it was dominated by an urban nobility which had
agreed to surrender the city to Vatatzes and was rewarded by a formal chrysobull guaran-
teeing the rights and freedoms that typified the relative autonomy some Macedonian cities
enjoyed in their internal affairs. Thessalonike continued to be the seat of the governors
and viceroys who administered much of Nicaeas European territories, a pattern carried
over smoothly into the Palaiologan regime, as restored in the old capital of Constantinople
from 1261 onward.29 Just what kind of public sentiments and divisions existed in Thessa-
lonike itself during the latter decades of the thirteenth century cannot be documented
precisely, but at least one scholar30 has speculated that the Montferrat experience may
have left, if not a nostalgic legacy, at least a stimulus to Thessalonian pride and even sepa-
ratism. Irene-Yolanda may or may not have been welcomed in her private regime there out
of long-nurtured pro-Montferrat sentiments, though perhaps Andronikos II did hesitate
to curb her independence out of uncertainty about the citys loyalty to him. But Thessalo-
nians may well have taken satisfaction in their city being once again a capital of sorts, of a
quasi-independent statelet. In that regard, the complex story of Irene-Yolanda on her own
in Thessalonike also represents the real beginnings of separatist ideas in the citys Palaiolo-
gan role.
In connection with the themes both of appanages and separatism, it is perhaps worth
noting here a factor that could well have furthered both mentalities during all of our time
period: the factor of the periodic dangers that threatened and isolated Thessalonike, cre-
ating recurrent realities of independence, sought or unsought. At regular intervals
through the fourteenth century and into the fifteenth, conditions of travel were violently
interrupted or suspended by the depredations of raiders or invaders. We know, for in-
stance, that Irene-Yolanda had to be warned not to make a journey from Thessalonike to
Constantinople in 1305/6 because the rampages of the Catalan Grand Company in the
area rendered the route hazardous if not impassable.31 Subsequent threats by Serbs and,
later, by Turks would likewise have imposed temporary but highly disruptive conditions,
suspending normal travel, transportation, and contacts. If they did not by themselves cre-
ate the needs for quasi-independent subgovernments, or alone generate separatist moti-
vations, such disruptions must have made both rulers and ruled more conditioned to ac-
cept regularized forms of local self-reliance.32
However early some enhancement of status may have become a motivation for Thes-
salonians, it was one they were to display repeatedly through the fourteenth century. It
could have flickered fleetingly in 1326, amid the debilitating struggles between An-
dronikos II and his rebellious grandson, Andronikos III. At that point John the Panhy-
28
Nicol, Despotate of Epiros, 14648, and Last Centuries, 2021; Wolff, The Latin Empire of Constantinople,
in Setton, ed., A History of the Crusades, 2: 187233, at 21415; Tafrali, Thessalonique des origines, 21931.
29
M. Angold, A Byzantine Government in Exile: Government and Society under the Laskarids of Nicaea, 12041261
(Oxford, 1975), 286 ff; Tafrali, Thessalonique des origines, 23242.
30
Runciman, Montferrat Inheritance, 3435.
31
George Pachymeres, ed. I. Bekker (Bonn, 1835), 2: 58687; cf. Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle,
2067.
32
On this point, cf. Browning, Byzantine Thessaloniki: A Unique City? 97.
persebastos, who was then governor of Thessalonike, planned to defy his uncle, the elder
Andronikos, and plotted to create an independent regime for himself in Macedonia, a ven-
ture that soon fizzled out.33 It was perhaps in that context, however, that we can place hints
of a parallel and very ominous pattern emerging: social tensions finding expression in out-
bursts of internecine violence.34
SEPARATISM AND SOCIAL UPHEAVAL: THE ZEALOTS

Notwithstanding the mounting Serbian threat from the north, the restoration of some
stability attending the independent reign of Andronikos III limited further opportuni-
ties for separatist activism. But that situation changed with the premature death of An-
dronikos, with the ensuing regency of dowager empress Anna of Savoy for their son John
V Palaiologos, and then with the usurpation of John Kantakouzenos as John VI. The
struggle between the supporters of John V and John VI was a profoundly disruptive
episode, accelerating the dissipation of reduced Byzantine resources and guaranteeing
the empires further decline into impotence and vulnerability. Among other things, the
struggle laid bare the terrible gaps and resentments between social and economic groups,
especially in Byzantiums few remaining urban centers. These resentments led to out-
breaks of violent conflict in a number of them, such as Adrianople in Thrace, where the
notables (aristocratic or otherwise) and powerful (dunatoiv) tended generally (if not totally)
to support the aristocrat Kantakouzenos and the populace (the dh'mo") generally supported
the legitimate Palaiologan dynast. It was in Thessalonike, however, that the most compli-
cated and potent of these outbreaks occurred.
The scene there had been set in advance. Long-standing social tensions had appar-
ently been behind the first incident in the launching of an earlier civil war, the one in which
old Andronikos II was challenged by his grandson, Andronikos III. In 1322, while An-
dronikos IIs son, the despot Constantine, was governor of Thessalonike, a violent popu-
lar rising by the demos of the city confronted Constantine, obliged him to flee, and com-
pelled the citys surrender to the faction of the younger Andronikos.35 Five years later,
however, sentiments were sufficiently shifted in Thessalonike for a majority to accept its
seizure by Andronikos III and his lieutenant, John Kantakouzenos.36
It was, significantly, the second phase of succession struggles, that between John V
Palaiologos and John VI Kantakouzenos, which ignited a more prolonged upheaval. Kan-
takouzenos proclaimed himself emperor in October 1341. Excluded from the capital, he
33
U. V. Bosch, Andronikos III Palaiologos: Versuch einer Darstellung der byzantinischen Geschichte in den Jahren
13211341 (Amsterdam, 1965), 3941; Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins, 29495; Nicol, Last Centuries, 119;
Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle, 214.
34
Allusions to these tensions and outbursts in writings by Thomas Magistros are cited by I. S evcenko in his
important study Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse: A Reinterpretation, DOP 11 (1957): 84 and notes
1213; and by G. Weiss, Johannes KantakouzenosAristokrat, Staatsmann, Kaiser und Mnchin der Gesellschafts-
entwicklung von Byzanz im 14. Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1969), 9192. Another possible reference, if more gen-
eralized, may be found in the letter (Loenertz 77; Cammelli 160) of Demetrios Kydones to Phakrases (1372),
ed. R. J. Loenertz, Dmtrius Cydons, Correspondance, vol. 1, ST 186 (Vatican City, 1956), 10910.
35
Gregoras, 1: 35657. Cf. Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins, 290.
36
D. M. Nicol, The Reluctant Emperor: A Biography of John Cantacuzenus, Byzantine Emperor and Monk, c. 1295
1383 (Cambridge, 1996), 26, and idem, Last Centuries, 160; also, Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle,
20913.
JOHN W. BARKER 17
quickly attempted to build himself a position in Thrace and Macedonia, with Thessalonike
as a much-desired prize. Led by Kantakouzenos old friend Synadenos, then governor of
Thessalonike, elements of the dynatoi who dominated the city attempted to deliver it to him
in early 1342. But a faction of the demoswhose main strength was the organization of
sailors and dockworkers in the harbor (the nautiovn) and who called themselves by the
name Zealots (zhlwtaiv)stirred up the populace, which forcibly drove out large ele-
ments of the notables. The Zealot leadership then cast in their lot with the ambitious Alex-
ios Apokaukos, the veritable dictator of Constantinople, who had rallied the populace
there as his support for championing the claims of John V. After a personal visit to Thes-
salonike, Apokaukos established his son, the megas primikerios John, as governor there in
the name of the dynastic loyalists. In actual fact, John Apokaukos merely shared power
with another holder of the same title, the Zealots own leader, one Michael Palaiologos,
who with his well-organized popular faction had created something of an independent do-
minion only loosely connected with any central government. John Apokaukos and
Michael Palaiologos each held the title of archon and were backed by a legislative council
or boulhv (whose selection is not clear). Imposing a strict suppression of any internal dissi-
dence, this regime held out against a series of Serbian and Turkish menaces brought into
play by the civil war.
Through all this, the position of John Apokaukos was a largely fictitious one. But he
had ambitions of his own, and he began to cultivate the remnants of upper-class Kantak-
ouzenian sympathies. Once he had consolidated his alternate support, he brought matters
to a head by arranging the murder of Michael Palaiologos. This coup left the Zealot fac-
tion momentarily leaderless and the younger Apokaukos in full control. His next step was
given impetus by the murder of his father, Alexios, in June 1345. Finally left on his own,
John Apokaukos confirmed his shift of allegiances and arranged a bargain with the Kan-
takouzenian leaders by which he was left in his position in Thessalonike as a reward for
submission of the city to the usurper. What he did not anticipate was the resurgence of the
Zealot faction. Under new leadersone of them called Andreas Palaiologos, known as
leader of the longshoremen (paraqalavssioi)a riot was organized and the populace
joined in what became a bloodbath. Apokaukos and about a hundred of the counterrevo-
lutionary magnates were rounded up and, after brief imprisonment, were delivered to the
mob to be torn to pieces in savage retaliation. Heedless of their leaders admonitions, the
blood-crazed mob then went on a rampage through the city, murdering any other Kan-
takouzenian sympathizers, real or merely accused, and pillaging their homes. When the
dust settled, Thessalonike was more firmly than ever under the control of the Zealots and
their ruthless commune. Dissent of any kind was prosecuted as Kantakouzenism.
After John VIs assumption of power in Constantinople, the Zealot regime remained
defiant, refusing to accept as their new metropolitan Kantakouzenos designate, the emi-
nent Gregory Palamas. This denial was apparently made not only on political grounds
but because the Zealots opposed the triumphant theological doctrines of hesychasm with
which Palamas and his Kantakouzenian supporters were identified. This meant that
Zealot Thessalonike was isolated ecclesiastically as well as in other ways. Meanwhile, the
Serbian ruler, Stefan Dusan, had renewed his menace to Thessalonike, adding to its
strains. Further, this was the epoch of the Black Deaths passage through the Mediter-
ranean world: clearly in the path of its devastation, Thessalonike was undoubtedly af-
fected.37 The actual impact is not adequately recorded or known in detail, but, especially
in combination with all the other stresses, it must certainly have contributed to a mount-
ing sense of disillusionment and disaffection amid the prolonged stalemate. Eventually the
radical regime found its influence shaken and eroding. In desperation, it went so far as to
consider handing the city over to Dusan. That prospect proved to be the last straw for the
exhausted Thessalonians. A reaction soon split the regimes leadership. The two co-archons
were Andreas Palaiologos and the protosebastos and governor, Alexios Laskaris Meto-
chites, son of Andronikos IIs famous logothete. Metochites, no Zealot himself, felt
strongly about maintaining the citys ties to the central government and opposed any kind
of secession therefrom as apostasy. In the resulting confrontation, Andreas Palaiologos
and his faction were defeated; expelled, he fled to Mount Athos, even though he had been
made unwelcome on a previous visit there. Metochites then opened negotiations with
John VI, and in 1350 it was finally possible for Kantakouzenos to make a triumphal entry
into the long-contested city. The remnants of the Zealot leadership were rounded up for
punishment in Constantinople, leaving behind only broken and powerless remnants of
discontent. Thus did the spectacular separatism of Thessalonike end in renewed subjec-
tion to the government in the capital.38
The seven or eight years of Zealot rule in Thessalonike were regarded with horrified
fascination by the writers of their day and have intrigued scholars of modern times. Byzan-
tine historians such as Nikephoros Gregoras and John Kantakouzenos himself expatiated
on the utter novelty and radicalism of the Zealots regime, considered something un-
precedented in Byzantine tradition.39 This view became the starting point for discussions
37
See Nicol, Last Centuries, 22425. Studies on the Black Death in Byzantium are as scanty as our sources
of information on the subject, and mainly concentrate on analyzing the stylized, classicizing accounts of Gre-
goras and Kantakouzenos: C. S. Bartsocas, Two Fourteenth Century Greek Descriptions of the Black Death,
Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 21 (1966): 394400; T. S. Miller, The Plague in John VI Can-
tacuzenus and Thucydides, GRBS 17 (1976): 38595; H. Hunger, Thukydides bei Johannes Kantakuzenos.
Beobeachtungen zur Mimesis, JB 25 (1976): 18193. Beyond passing reference to these two writers (pp. 50
51), there is unfortunately no treatment of the Byzantine scene in M. W. Dols, The Black Death in the Middle East
(Princeton, N.J., 1977).
38
The Zealot episode is touched upon in many areas of related literature, but for the best general (and con-
textual) accounts, see Nicol, Last Centuries, 19295, 199, 202, 22729, and Reluctant Emperor, 58, 6263, 6768,
74, 1079. Still useful, if dated, is P. Charanis, Internal Strife in Byzantium during the Fourteenth Century,
Byzantion 15 (194041): 20830, repr. as no. VI in Charanis, Social, Economic, and Political Life in the Byzantine Em-
pire (London, 1973); see also idem, The Monastic Properties and the State in the Byzantine Empire, DOP 4
(1948): 51118, esp. 11214; likewise, Vakalopoulos, History, 5659; more recently, A. Laiou, The Byzantine
Empire in the Fourteenth Century, chap. 24 in The New Cambridge Medieval History, VI: c. 1300c. 1415, ed. M.
Jones (Cambridge, 2000), 795824, esp. 81317. An outstanding survey of events and of the literature on them
may be found in S evcenko, Nicholas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse, 81 ff; and a subsequent one in D. M.
Nicol, Church and Society in the Last Centuries of Byzantium: The Birkbeck Lectures, 1977 (Cambridge, 1979), 2028.
39
Gregoras, 2: 79596, a portion translated by Ernest Barker in his Social and Political Thought in Byzantium,
From Justinian I to the Last Palaeologus: Passages from Byzantine Writers and Documents, Translated with an Introduc-
tion and Notes (Oxford, 1957), 19293; Kantakouzenos, ed. L. Schopen, vol. 2 (Bonn, 1831), 23335, a portion
translated by D. J. Geanakoplos in his Byzantium: Church, Society, and Civilization Seen through Contemporary Eyes
(Chicago, 1984), 27172. Given the removal of the Kabasilas Discourse from viability as a source for the
Zealots, these statements by our two historians are the only contemporaneous suggestions remaining to us of
supposedly radical intents and innovation on the part of the dissidents. In view of the stylized and partisan
character of their accusations, however, these passages are suspect, and hardly decisive or accurate evidence
in themselves. On the political terminology that they and other Byzantine writers used, see G. L. Bra tianus
Empire et dmocratie Byzance, BZ 37 (1937): 86111, and Dmocratie dans la lexique byzantine
lpoque des Palologues, in Mmorial Louis Petit (Bucharest, 1948), 3240.
JOHN W. BARKER 19
of the Zealots as social revolutionaries, supposedly committed to a radical program of

drastic socioeconomic reform. Eventually colored by modern ideological agendas, such in-
terpretations have waxed and waned through the course of the twentieth century, and by
now have been considerably deflated. Likewise apparently ephemeral has been a corollary
effort to link the Zealot rising with patterns of urban unrest and violence extensively man-
ifest in western Europe by the middle of the fourteenth century. These interpretations
have produced lively and voluminous scholarly argument.40
If reduced in intensity by now, debate about the nature of the Zealot regime remains
unresolved, and will probably continue to be so until new sources or evidence can be dis-
covered. But the questions continue to tantalize us. Was it an organized movement of so-
cial protest with a serious program of reform? Or was it simply the lashing-out of the bit-
terly disaffected have-nots, seeking to turn the tables on the haves? What was its
connection to the anti-hesychast intellectual circles of the city? Did the regime represent a
genuine venture in democracy, or was it simply a brief assertion of mob rule?
The terrible gap between rich and poor did not go unrecognized at the time by Byzan-
tines themselves, as a remarkable Dialogue between the Rich and the Poor by Alexios
Makrembolites bears witness.41 There is no question that poverty and despair motivated
the lower-class participants in violent episodes. It is also interesting that the cradle of
Zealot leadership was the labor force of the citys harbor workers (as a guild or otherwise).
The Zealots might indeed have had radical ideas: they may have sought to alter the society
and institutions of their age with some degree of drastic, conscious, and radical character.
But our sources are simply insufficient to prove such totally conjectural portrayals. Those
sources do describe mob actions against the persons and properties of the wealthy, actions
characteristic of urban rioting in many an age. But the sources afford no clear or explicit
evidence of any systematic program of confiscations or redistributions of wealth.
It had also been suggested early on that the Zealots were influenced in their supposed
social philosophy by the anti-hesychast circle created in Thessalonike by the visiting con-
troversialist Barlaam.42 But no decisive evidence has been advanced for this idea. The only
indication of any religious policy by the Zealots is their rejection of Palamas as their
prelatewhich in the end may have depended more on his identification with Kanta-
kouzenos and the circles of the notables. Kantakouzenos refers to episodes when the rag-
ing mob used the symbol of the cross as a banner in their campaigns against the rich.43
Elsewhere, he reports that on various occasions the drunken or rowdy mobsters made
mockeries of the sacraments.44 We know that the Zealot leader Andreas Palaiologos took
the trouble to visit Mount Athos to pay respects to the venerated Sava the Younger, later
to be reckoned a saint. In his life of St. Sava, the pro-Kantakouzenian Philotheos, after
commenting venomously on the Zealots damage to the holy mans native city, recounts in-
40
For an extended survey of the varying interpretations and extensive literature on these issues of the
Zealot episode, see Appendix 2.
41
Published by I. S evcenko, Alexios Makrembolites and His Dialogue between the Rich and the Poor,
ZRVI 6 (1960): 187228, and repr. as no. VII in idem, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium (London,
1981). For a sympathetic portrait of Makrembolites (in an otherwise rather negative book), see E. de Vries-van
der Velden, Llite byzantine devant lavance turque lpoque de la guerre civile de 1341 1354 (Amsterdam, 1989),
25167, plus a previously unedited text by this Byzantine author, 26989.
42
Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle, 2013, 269.
43
Kantakouzenos, 2: 234.
44
Ibid., 2: 57071; cf. Nicol, Church and Society, 27 and note 53.
cidents in which Sava pointedly snubbed and then denounced the visitor.45 All in all, the
religious element remains difficult to establish clearly in our understanding of the Zealots,
beyond their official opposition to Palamism.46
The record is clear as to Zealot hostility to the Kantakouzenian cause. But how great
was their corresponding loyalty to the Palaiologoi? It is interesting that the two prominent
Zealot leaders identified for us both bore that family name: Michael and Andreas Palaiol-
ogos. Despite efforts to identify them,47 however, they do not fit in any way into the known
Palaiologan family tree, and we do not even know their relationship to each other: they
may, indeed, simply have come from some sort of client family or families who took the dy-
nastic name by extension. But one point does remain unavoidable: the so-called revolu-
tionaries did consistently identify themselves with Palaiologan legitimacy. The Zealots
presumably hated Kantakouzenos for his identification with and support of the wealthy
classes, in a simple reflection of social divisions. But did the Zealots use Palaiologan loyalty
as a convenient mask to cover what really was the unique venture in regional secessionism
in Byzantine history? Or did the issues of social controversy merely boil downas they
had so often through Byzantine historyto a question of which faction would be placed
in control of an imperial throne that no one ever suggested should be abolished?
These and other questions will continue to vex scholars, who must recognize that they
are reduced as much to speculation as to facts. But, to be fruitful, any further study should
consider the Zealot episode not only by itself but also in relation to several contexts. Cer-
tainly the episode has to be seen as part of a spectrum of social upheaval and urban vio-
lence to be observed in the fourteenth century. The attempts to find direct connections or
influences between the Zealot rising and given episodes elsewhere, however, have not pro-
duced a convincing case. Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that patterns of violent social
dissension were generally current, and what happened in Thessalonike holds some place
in those patterns. On the other hand, what happened there was, if a distinctly Byzantine
episode, not an isolated one. We do have to recognize how conditions in this city shaped
events so that they followed a scenario different from, as well as more complex and pro-
longed than, what can be observed in the upheavals of other Byzantine cities (e.g., Adri-
anople) during the Kantakouzenian civil war. Thessalonike had a large and diverse popu-
45
Philotheos, Life of St. Sava the Younger, ed. A. Papadapoulos-Kerameus, Anavlekta iJerosolumitikh'"
stacuologiva", vol. 5 (St. Petersburg, 1888), 190359, at 32730. In his denunciation of the Zealots, Philotheos
insists that their work is utterly at odds with Thessalonian tradition and is the product of some foreign bar-
barians from parts far distant from us (tinw'n barbavrwn ejk te tw'n hJmetevrwn ejscatiw'n) and of refugees from
nearby islands (p. 194, lines 78). Blaming troubles in ones society on outsiders is a timeless recourse, but
would Philotheos vague charge be any suggestion of foreign influence from, say, Italians? (See Appendix 1.)
46
But see the discussion of Palamas involvement with the Zealots by J. Meyendorff, A Study of Gregory Pala-
mas, trans. G. Lawrence (London, 1964), 8993. Meyendorff argues that the Zealots were not initially opposed
to Palamite theology but that they came to oppose Palamas himself purely for the political reason of the
prelates ties to Kantakouzenosin other words, anti-Palamism was really just a subcategory of anti-
Kantakouzenism. In passing, Meyendorff gives the following description of the Zealots: they represented a
political force diametrically opposed to centralization, in that they stood out against the mighty who repre-
sented imperial power, and defended the local interests of the city of Thessalonica, rather than those of the
Empirea portrayal that hints, even unconsciously, at an underlying spirit of Thessalonian separatism.
As to Barlaam and his impact on the citys intellectual scene, see G. Schirs brief study, O Barlaa;m kai; hJ
filosofiva eij" th;n Qessalonivkhn kata; to;n devkaton tevtarton aijw'na (Thessalonike, 1959).
47
E.g., by A. Th. Papadopulos, Versuch einer Genealogie der Palaiologen, 12591453 (Munich, 1938), 29 and
75; more neutrally in PLP 21527, 21425.
JOHN W. BARKER 21
lation, including an unusually extensive mercantile middle class which could apparently
be persuaded to support the popular factions, at least at times. Above all, Thessalonike had
its own privileged traditions and institutions of municipal government (including a senate
and a popular assembly), allowing it certain degrees of internal autonomy regardless of the
governors sent from the capital, if not at times in spite of them.48 In that sense, Thessa-
lonike had something comparable to the commune of the Italian cities long before those
counterparts did.
As for the specific mechanics of the Zealot government, we do not know very much.
Gregoras describes their organization as some of the more reckless men, gathered to-
gether in a self-selected assemblage of absolute authority.49 A great deal of their control
must have depended upon either actual or implied intimidation from organized popular
factions. There were sufficient checks to the authority of the executive archontes for one of
them to challenge the other on policy issues and win, as in the confrontation of Metochites
with Andreas Palaiologos. (As despot in Thessalonike, Manuel II Palaiologos was also to
run afoul of the local council later in the century, as we shall see.) Moreover, the volatility
of civic government was of a piece with the sentiment of Thessalonian separatism that is
one of our chief themes. It might well be that the seemingly bizarre episode of the Zealot
regime will make sense only if we do understand it thus in its fuller Thessalonian context,
not as a totally exceptional and isolated event in the citys history but as part of a larger con-
text of recurrent Thessalonian separatism.50
SEPARATISM RENEWED
Indeed, if not new before 1342, that context hardly ended in 1350. Ironically, the very
step intended to terminate Zealot separatism only initiated a renewal of subtler separatist
forms. Kantakouzenos had brought the legitimate dynast, John V Palaiologos, to accom-
pany him in the triumphal entry into Thessalonike, to symbolize their supposed reconcil-
iation. When he departed Thessalonike, John VI left the young Palaiologos behind as
nominal governor of the city. Kantakouzenos had hoped thereby both to placate the legit-
imate dynast for his eclipse and, at the same time, to conciliate any sentiments of Zealot le-
gitimism still remaining in the city. Far from bringing stability, the arrangement soon went
awry. John V intrigued with Stefan Dusan, which only prompted the Serbian prince to ad-
vance on Thessalonike for his own ends. The menace was averted only when John Vs
mother, the dowager Anna of Savoy, chastised her son and then, in a personal interview,
persuaded Dusan to desist. In 1352 John V was drawn into territorial interests eastward,
as a function of Kantakouzenos breakneck acceleration of partitioning Byzantine territo-
ries into quasi-appanages.51
48
G. L. Bratianu, in his classic little volume, Privilges et franchises municipales dans lEmpire byzantin (Paris,
1936), argued that there was a resurgence of urban institutions and eagerness to return municipal privileges
in the late Byzantine era; he stresses the case of Thessalonike in general and its Zealot movement in particu-
lar (pp. 1089, 11523); also, as noted, making comparisons to contemporaneous Western events. For Tafralis
analysis of 14th-century civil institutions in the city, see Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle, 6684. See also
Vakalopoulos, History, 5253.
49
Gregoras, 2: 796, lines 1214: qrasuvteroi gavr tine", eij" aujtoceirotovnhton aujqentiva" a[qroisma sullegevnte".
50
This point had already been somewhat anticipated by Tafrali himself: Thessalonique des origines, 24749,
stressing the strong currents of separatism that had been building up before the Zealot episode.
51
Nicol, Reluctant Emperor, 1067, 11011, 11517, 118 ff; also Last Centuries, 230, 237, and Byzantine Lady, 92.
John V would finally displace John VI from Constantinople in 1354. But by that time
the Thessalonian stage had firmly been claimed for a seeming rerun of the Latin Kingdom
of Thessalonike. If John V cared little for that city in compensation for the capital, his
mother felt quite the reverse. To be sure, Thessalonike had for some time become a kind
of warehouse for ex-empresses or the like, and even an emperor or two. In a prefiguration
of Kantakouzenos installation of the reluctant John V, Andronikos II had in 1310 sent his
son, Michael IX, to reside there after the latters humiliation in several defeats: and there
he remainedin uncomfortable proximity with his stepmother Irene-Yolanda up to her
death in 1317until he died, a broken man, in 1320. Michaels widow, the Armenian-born
Maria-Rita Palaiologina, mother of Andronikos III, stayed on there as the nun Xene until
her death in 1333. Anna Palaiologina, mother of the last Angelan despot of Epiros, was
briefly confined on an estate in Thessalonike after ceding her titles and lands to An-
dronikos III. Other notables meanwhile found it a comfortable alternative to the tension-
filled capital.
But Anna of Savoy, with the acquiescence of John VI, took over active rule of the city.52
Like Irene-Yolanda, Anna was a Latin princess, a Palaiologina only by marriage. However,
though she was related to the Montferrat family, Anna lacked her own hereditary claim to
the city. Instead, Anna assumed the citys government by her right as an empress (devvs-
poina), and she ruled there with full use of that title, from 1351 until her death about four-
teen years later. Both Irene-Yolandas renewed Kingdom of Thessalonike and Annas
quasi-Empire of Thessalonike fell somewhere between an appanage and a separatist gov-
ernment. Irene-Yolandas regime had been an embarrassment to the government in Con-
stantinople, but Annas regime reflected the degree to which the empires fragmentation
had become normality.
Annas government was apparently welcomed and appreciated by the citys popula-
tion; her reputation is still commemorated by the gate in the upper city walls that bears
her name.53 In far less blatant terms than that of the Zealot epoch, her regime might have
suggested a subtler kind of detachment from Constantinopleone mutually acceptable
to both cities in the circumstances. But altered circumstances could evoke a return to more
robust separatism. By the latter decades of the fourteenth century, dynastic apportion-
ments were standard Palaiologan procedures. As already mentioned, in 1369 the second
son of John V, the despot Manuel Palaiologos, was assigned to govern Thessalonike and its
region. In 1373 he was advanced over his rebellious elder brother, Andronikos, and made
co-emperor and heir. A new round of family strife, during which the displaced first-born
prince seized power as Andronikos IV (137679), muddied the picture. In the aftermath
of that disruption Manuel was deprived of his rights as heir to the throne. Disgruntled,
Manuel set out secretly for Thessalonike in 1382, and there, in defiance of his father, John
V, he established his own rival regime, using the full imperial title. For five years, Manuels
Empire of Thessalonike made the city independent of the capital, if not officially, at least
de facto. Thus liberated, Manuel threw off the official Constantinopolitan policy of timid
52
See D. M. Nicol and S. Bendall, Anna of Savoy and Thessalonica: The Numismatic Evidence, RN 19
(1977): 90102; also Nicol, Last Centuries, 23738, and Byzantine Lady, 9293. On institutional implications, see
pp. 91127 of A. Christophilopoulou, H ajntibasileiva eij" to; Buzavntion, in Suvmmeikta, vol. 2 (Athens, 1970),
1144. For further literature on her, see PLP 21347.
53
See J.-M. Spieser, Les inscriptions byzantines de Thessalonique, TM 5 (1973): 17576.
JOHN W. BARKER 23
accommodation to Turkish power and pursued a program of staunch resistance to Ot-

toman forces, a program augmented by an active and completely independent foreign as
well as domestic policy.
If this gave Thessalonians any immediate thrill of independence and honor, the re-
action soon set in. Manuels little empire was no match militarily for the juggernaut of
Turkish conquest, and Thessalonike soon found itself constrained by a severe siege. To
Manuels disgust, the civic fathers lost any stomach for continued struggle. In 1387 the
Thessalonians compelled him to take flight as a humiliated exile while they surrendered
the city to the first of its Turkish occupations.54
In his own writings of this period, Manuel deplored the divisions, obstructionism, and
squabbling that he had to put up with at the hands of the independent-minded Thessalo-
nians. In pursuit of their own advantage, Manuel claimed, they were willing to cast prin-
ciples aside and even accept foreign domination as preferable to fighting on in a noble but
hopeless cause.55 From their viewpoint, of course, surrender would allow them to protect
their city and their interests from ruin, which made more practical sense. But any civic ini-
tiatives mattered less now than the compelling fact that Thessalonike, like all things Byzan-
tine, had become a toy in the hands of circumstances. Nothing illustrates this better than
the citys one last experience in juggling independence and domination.
BETWEEN OCCUPATION AND APPANAGE

For a period of fifteen years, Thessalonike had its first taste of Turkish domination,
which began in 1387. The sources for the period are scanty and confusing. From them ar-
guments have been made that the city might actually have broken free in some way and
then been resubjected to Turkish rule about 1394. It has also been suggested, on the other
hand, that Thessalonike might initially have been allowed some degree of continuing in-
ternal autonomy under general Turkish overlordship, with a more direct and strict rule
then imposed in or about 1394, at a time of increased tension between the Byzantines and
the Turks. The matter remains cloudy, but the scholarly consensus would seem to be that
Thessalonike was effectively held by the Turks, to one extent or another, without inter-
ruption until 1403.56 That point aside, the fifteen years of Ottoman control saw Thessa-
54
The basic study is G. T. Dennis, The Reign of Manuel II Palaeologus in Thessalonica, 13821387, OCA 159
(Rome, 1960); more cursorily, J. W. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus (13911425): A Study in Late Byzantine States-
manship (New Brunswick, N.J., 1969), 4250, 5260. Nicol, Last Centuries, 28488.
55
Manuel poured out his bitter feelings in his Discourse in Epistolary Form to Kabasilas, written in the
summer of 1387: ed. R.-J. Loenertz, Manuel Palologue, pitre Cabasilas, Makedonikav 4 (1956): 3846; see
Dennis, Reign of Manuel II, 8788; Barker, Manuel II, 5960. Manuel had complained earlier about the diffi-
culty of leading the contentious and recalcitrant Thessalonians, in a letter written in 1383 to Demetrios Ky-
dones: The Letters of Manuel Palaeologus, ed. and trans. G. T. Dennis (Washington, D.C., 1977), 1215, letter 4.
Manuels efforts to guide the populace during the Turkish siege survive in a highly inflated adaptation of his
speech to a popular assembly held in the autumn of 1383: his Sumbouleutikov" or Discourse of Counsel to
the Thessalonians, ed. B. Laourdas, in Makedonikav 3 (1955): 290307; for an excellent summary of its con-
tents, see Dennis, Reign of Manuel II, 8084.
56
The possibility of a Byzantine recovery had been left open in Barker, Manuel II, 45053, but this inter-
pretation was meanwhile rejected by George T. Dennis, The Second Turkish Capture of Thessalonica, 1391,
1394, or 1430? BZ 57 (1964): 5361, repr. as no. V in idem, Byzantium and the Franks, 13501420 (London,
1982). His interpretation seems now to prevail: e.g., Nicol, Last Centuries, 321. See also A. Vakalopoulos, Zur
Frage der zweiten Einnahme Thessalonikis durch die Trken, 13911394, BZ 61 (1968): 28590.
lonike as the first target of the emerging Turkish policy known as the devsirme, the obliga-
tory levy of tribute-children exacted from a Christian population. This and other poten-
tially harsh burdens were relaxed, however, through the interventions of the successive
archbishops of the city, Isidore and Gabriel, whose personalities won the respect of the
Turks and a softening of their impositions upon the occupied metropolis.57
The occupation ended with Thessalonikes return to the Byzantines as part of treaty
settlements made by local Christian powers with Suleyman, Bayazid Is son and claimant
to the Turkish succession after the battle of Ankyra.58 The citys rule had been earmarked
in advance for Manuel IIs nephew, John, as a reward for the latters holding the fort in
Constantinople during Manuels absence in the West, and as compensation for ceasing to
contest Manuels rights to the throne in the latest round of Palaiologan dynastic strife. Af-
ter some initial misunderstanding and delay upon Manuels return in 1403, John VII was
indeed allowed to reign in Thessalonike with the full imperial title. As with Manuels own
independent regime in 138287, Thessalonike was once more, and for the last time, a
counter-capital to Constantinople.59
We know little of Johns regime in Thessalonike or what its people thought of him, but
once again the separatist motives of a dynastic dissenter would seem to have corresponded
with any remaining separatist ideals of that restless city. On the other hand, we do know
that, all through John VIIs reign there, Manuel maintained a loyal dependent, one
Demetrios Leontaris, as administrator and liaison agent in the city. Whether he was there
to conduct the actual government, or to be a helpful advisor, or just to spy on John, is not
clear, but his uninterrupted presence in the city indicates that Manuel had not totally
ceded control or connection of Thessalonike to Constantinople. There is evidence that
John VII had a son, Andronikos V, with whom he hoped to maintain his dynastic claims;
but the boy died before his father, ending that dream.60 When John VII himself died in
September 1408, Manuel, who had been visiting the Byzantine Morea at the time, has-
tened to Thessalonike to forestall any dissidence and to establish his third son, Despot An-
dronikos, as the official head of government there, again with Leontaris at his side during
the boys minority.61
Manuel II was the most successful of the sovereigns who employed this quasi-
appanage pattern to control the disparate territories of his small and fragmented state.
The secret of his success was his own persistent energy in personally coordinating these
connections. But, as age and circumstances got the better of him, neither he nor his
deputies could stave off impending disaster. Thessalonikeonce the second city, once the
sometime challenger of the capitalwas to be the first victim of that reality. In 1422 Thes-
salonike was beset by a Turkish siege. Barely able to save Constantinople from the same
57
Nicol, Last Centuries, 32122; Vakalopoulos, History, 6162. See also B. Laourdas, OiJ dhmosieumevne"
oJmilive" tou' ajrciepiskovpou Qessalonivkh" Isidwvrou wJ" iJstorikh; phgh; gia; th; gnwvsh th'" prwvth" tourkokrativa" sth;
Qessalonivkh (13871403), Makedonikav (195560): 2034; and S. P. Vryonis, Isidore Glabas and the Turkish
devshirme, Speculum 31 (1956): 43842.
58
On this see G. T. Dennis, The Byzantine-Turkish Treaty of 1403, OCP 33 (1967): 7288, repr. as no. VI
in idem, Byzantium and the Franks. Also Barker, Manuel II, 22227; Nicol, Last Centuries, 31920.
59
See Barker, Manuel II, 23845 and 49093; Nicol, Last Centuries, 32021.
60
G. T. Dennis, An Unknown Byzantine Emperor, Andronicus V Palaeologus (14001407?), JBG 16
(1967): 17587, repr. as no. II in idem, Byzantium and the Franks.
61
Barker, Manuel II, 27880; Nicol, Last Centuries, 23536.
JOHN W. BARKER 25
menace, Manuel recognized the fact that his young and diseased son Andronikos no
longer had the resources to maintain it. In the summer of 1423, Manuel therefore super-
vised negotiations by which it was transferred to the Venetians. This was not the first time
the Byzantines, in desperate straits, had offered an important city to the Venetian Repub-
lic, but this was the first (and only) time such an offer was accepted. The brief Venetian oc-
cupation of Thessalonike was not a happy time for any of the parties: the population that
first welcomed the Venetians came to chafe irritably under their rule. It all ended in the
Venetians own ultimate failure and the Turkish capture of the city in March 1430.62
Not since the Norman outrage of 1185 had Thessalonike been taken by storm. Its stout
walls had withstood the attacks of Kalojans Bulgarians in 1207, a siege by the Catalan
Grand Company in 1308, and repeated menaces by Stefan Dusans Serbians in the 1330s
and 1340s; suddenly weakened by an earthquake, these walls failed before the Ottoman
Turks in 1430. The shattering seizure and sack of Thessalonike by them was also a warn-
ing signal to Constantinople itself. The fate of the second city in 1430 prefigured vividly
what lay in store for the first city in 1453.
THE POST-BYZANTINE SECOND CITY

We should not ignore the epilogue to Thessalonikes late Byzantine history. Restored
by its conqueror after the ravages, it became the favored residence of Sultan Murad II and
a provisional Turkish capital until his son took Constantinople in hand. After 1453, Thes-
salonike became part of an empire that was too vast, too rich, and too diverse to allow for
any clearly discernible second city of the Ottomans. Thessalonike did prosper, however,
integrated more fully than ever into its natural Balkan hinterland. Among other attain-
ments, it was to become the home for one of the greatest Jewish populations in the world,
as a refuge for the escapees from Christian persecution in the Iberian Peninsula and else-
where, a status it continued to hold until World War II.63
There is a rich irony, however, in the contributions of Turkish Salonik (or Selanik
or Salona) to the decline of the empire that succeeded Byzantium. The city became the
base for the movement of the Young Turks, that cabal of officers who aspired to remake
the Turkish state at the beginning of the twentieth century. And from beyond that circle fi-
nally came one of Thessalonikes greatest native sons, Mustafa Kemal, who as the remark-
62
Barker, Manuel II, 37274 and notes 12932; Nicol, Last Centuries, 33436, 34750, and idem, Byzantium
and Venice: A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations (Cambridge, 1988), 36063, 36771; Vakalopoulos, His-
tory, 6373; K. M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (12041571), vol. 2 (Philadelphia, 1978), 1930; P. Lemerle,
La domination vnitienne Thessalonique, in Miscellanea Giovanni Galbiati (= Fontes Ambrosiani 27, 1951),
21925; also C. Manfroni, La marina veneziana alla difesa di Salonicco, NAVen n.s. 10 (1910): 20:1, pp. 5
68. On the sources for the siege and fall of the city, see S. P. Vryonis, Jr., The Ottoman Conquest of Thessa-
loniki in 1430, in Continuity and Change in Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman Society, ed. A. Bryer and H. Lowry
(BirminghamWashington, D.C., 1986), 281321. Valuable reflections in Greek sources of the attitudes of the
citys population toward the Venetians and their regime are being explored by M. Dobre, foreshadowed in her
report, Les Vnitiens dans les sources de Thessalonique du XVe sicle, in XXe Congrs International des tudes
Byzantines: Pr-Actes, I: Sances plnires (Paris, 2001), 27178.
63
Vakalopoulos, History, 7498; N. K. Moutsopoulos, Thessaloniki 19001917 (Thessalonike, 1981) [based
on annotated Greek edition of 1980], 1539 (in English), 4875 (in French); M. Laskaris, Salonique la fin du
XVIIIe sicle (Athens, 1939). Specifically on the Jewish population, see I. S. Emmanuel, Histoire des Isralites de
Salonique (Thonon, 1936); R. Attal, Les juifs de Grce, De lexpulsion dEspagne nos jours: Bibliographie (Leiden,
1973). See also the article by Jacoby in this volume, below, 85131.
able Atatrk was to preside single-handedly over the final liquidation of the Ottoman Em-
pire and over the creation of the Turkish Republic in its placea process, we might recall,
that ended the status of Constantinople as a first city and capital.64 Kemal Atatrks re-
markable accomplishments came after the Turks had, to his sorrow, lost Thessalonike to
the Greeks in 1916. But the charming house in which he was born is still lovingly pre-
served, within the compound of the Turkish consulate.
And there is still more irony. A Greek city today, Thessalonike flaunts as its most famil-
iar visual symbol an Ottoman monument, the famous White Tower, once part of a grim
Turkish waterfront fortress. And, as part of a Hellenic state again, Thessalonike is once
more a powerful second city within such a state, the citys vigorous economic and cul-
tural life seriously challenging the seemingly unassailable political and cultural primacy of
Athens.
Thessalonikes status as competitor-city has been too recurrent to be ignored or
shrugged off. It was not simply an isolated feature of its late Byzantine context. Has, then,
a destiny of secondicity been immutably fixed for Thessalonike by relentless combina-
tions of geography and circumstances? If so, such a destiny has truly been both the glory
and the curse of this magnificent and fascinating city.
64
Lord Kinross, Atatrk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal, Father of Modern Turkey (New York, 1965), esp. 1112,
6566; H. C. Armstrong, Grey Wolf: The Life of Kamal Atatrk (1933), rev. E. Lengyel (New York, 1961), 34,
3536.
Appendix 1
Late Byzantine Thessalonike: Chronological Highlights
1180 Renier of Montferrat is married to Emperor Manuel Is elder daughter Maria, is made
caesar, and is supposedly promised the rule of Th.; they are both murdered some two
years later amid dynastic succession struggles.
1185 The Normans storm Th. and ravage it viciously during a short occupation before being
driven away.
1187 Reniers older brother, Conrad of Montferrat, marries a sister of Isaac II Angelos, is given
the title of caesar, and helps put down a military rebellion; but, facing court hostility, he
leaves for the Holy Land.
1204 Boniface of Montferrat, brother of Conrad and Renier, is a leader of the Fourth Crusade;
after its capture of Constantinople, he establishes himself as king in Th., ruling from it
until his death (1207) and leaving it to his son Demetrios.
1224 Theodore Angelos, ruler of Epiros, captures Th. from the Latins and is crowned em-
peror in his bid to re-create the Byzantine state.
1230 After the defeat and captivity of Theodore Angelos at Klokotinica, and his blinding, his
brother Manuel rules in Th. as emperor and despot (123041), followed by his nephew
John (124244) and the latters son Demetrios (124446).
1246 Th. is taken from the rapidly enfeebled Angelan regime by John III Vatatzes to become,
instead, part of the Nicaean restoration of Byzantium; Andronikos Palaiologos is named
governor.
1282 ca. Michael VIII Palaiologos contemplates giving his younger son an independent domin-
ion of Macedonia to be ruled from Th., but is forestalled in this by his death.
1284 Andronikos II Palaiologos marries Irene-Yolanda of Montferrat, who brings her familys
claim to Th. as her dowry.
1303/4 Irene-Yolanda, denied the partitionings of sovereignty and territories she has demanded
of Andronikos, removes to Th. where she establishes her own quasi-independent gov-
ernment there by right of her inheritance, remaining there until her death (1317).
1306 Andronikos II appoints his nephew John as panhypersebastos and guardian of Thes-
salonike and all the other western cities; about this time, he also names John, his eldest
son by Irene-Yolanda, as despot, with some kind of power in Th. which lasts until Johns
death (1307).
1308 The Catalan Grand Company, ravaging Macedonia, unsuccessfully besieges Th.
1310 Andronikos II sends his son and co-emperor, the discredited Michael IX, to reside in Th.
1320 On the death of Michael IX, his widow, Maria Palaiologina, becomes the nun Xene and
resides in Th. until her death in 1333.
28 APPENDIX 1: CHRONOLOGICAL HIGHLIGHTS
1322 Despot Constantine, son of Andronikos II, as governor of Th. makes a lax showing
against the rebellious Andronikos III; is driven out of the city by a mob rising, which
hands the city over to partisans of Andronikos II.
1326 John the Panhypersebastos, nephew of Andronikos II, as governor of Th., plans to defy
his uncle and create an independent Macedonian regime for himself, is bought off, and
dies soon after.
1327 A shift in factional politics allows Andronikos III and his lieutenant, John Kanta-
kouzenos, to take control of Th.
1328 The new emperor Andronikos III appoints as governor of Th. the treacherous Syr-
giannes, who subsequently intrigues with the dowager empress Maria/Xene.
1334 Forces of Stefan Dusan of Serbia menace Th.
1338 The empress Anna Palaiologina, mother of the last claimant to the Despotate of Epiros,
is exiled to an estate in Th. until her escape in 1341.
1341ff Dusans Serbian forces pose renewed threats to Th.
1342 Elite partisans of the usurper John VI Kantakouzenos attempt to hand Th. over to him,
but the faction of Zealots arouses the populace to expel pro-Kantakouzenian notables
and establish a quasi-independent regime, supporting the legitimate successor, John V
Palaiologos; John Apokaukos, son of the legitimist leader in the capital, Alexios Apo-
kaukos, is sent to share government with Zealot leader Michael Palaiologos; resentful
of Zealot high-handedness, John has Michael murdered (1344?).
1345 Upon the murder of Alexios Apokaukos in the capital, his son John pursues an inde-
pendent policy, seeking to join the Kantakouzenian side in exchange for confirmation of
his rule in Th.; but revived Zealot agitation leads to a preemptive riot, as a result of which
John and a hundred city notables are brutally murdered; under one Andreas Palaiolo-
gos, the Zealot regime becomes more radical and staunchly anti-Kantakouzenian.
1349 With Serbian pressure mounting and the Zealot regime crumbling, Andreas Palaiologos
is expelled and his successor, Alexios Metochites, negotiates the citys capitulation; John
VI enters Th. in triumph the following year, accompanied by young John V, and the
Zealot leadership is broken.
1352 Dissatisfied with his pseudo-independent imperial regime in Th., John V intrigues with
Stefan Dusan; his mother, Anna of Savoy, resolves the situation, and, when John moves
off to take a partition of Thracian territory, Anna assumes active government of Th. in
her own right, as despoina, until her death ca.1365.
1369 John V names his second son, the despot Manuel, to govern Th., which remains his seat
until 1373 when Manuel is named heir to the throne and co-emperor.
1382 Denied the succession after new dynastic turmoil, Manuel assumes rule of Th. with the
imperial title, against his fathers wishes, and conducts a fully independent anti-Turkish
policy from this base.
1387 After a ruinous Turkish siege, the Thessalonians force Manuel to leave and accept some
degree of Turkish rule or domination.
1403 By treaty with the Turks, Th. is restored to Byzantine control; after some controversy,
Manuel II allows his nephew, John VII, to establish himself there, still with the imperial title.
1408 Upon the death of John VII, Manuel II installs his young third son, the despot An-
dronikos, as governor in Th.
1423 Besieged by the Turks and hampered by ill health, the desperate despot Andronikos,
with his fathers approval, negotiates the transfer of Th. to Venice.
1430 After a strained occupation, the Venetians lose Th. when the Turks take it by storm; Sul-
tan Murad II thereafter makes it his favorite residence.
Appendix 2
Interpretations of the Zealots
A. TAFRALI, KABASILAS, AND THE MARXISTS

The descriptions of the Zealot government by Gregoras and Kantakouzenos, cited above, are
the only authenticated contemporaneous statements about the regimes social intents and innova-
tions. In view of the stylized and partisan character of their accusations, however, these passages are
suspect, hardly decisive or accurate evidence in themselves. They became, however, the starting
point for modern scholarly discussion of the Zealots as social revolutionaries who were suppos-
edly committed to a radical program of drastic socioeconomic reform.
That viewpoint was given its first full development by Oreste Tafrali in his classic study Thessa-
lonique au quatorzime sicle (Paris, 1913). For this purpose, Tafrali drew heavily on what he regarded
as an additional source, and a crucial one. This was a discourse by Nicholas Kabasilas, which pur-
portedly described drastic policies of confiscating monastic properties supposedly pursued by the
Zealots.
Attention had first been called to the Kabasilas work by Constantine Sathas, Mnhmei'a eJllhnikh'"
iJstoriva": Documents indits relatifs lhistoire de la Grce (Paris, 1882), who published only selections
from the text and argued that it revealed the Zealots as freedom-loving patriots rather than as
merely nihilistic rabble. On that foundation Tafrali constructed his exposition (pp. 22572), treat-
ing the Zealots with considerable sympathy and seeing their movement as an early example of pop-
ular struggle for freedom and social justiceperhaps with echoes of the Paris Commune still re-
verberating. In the process, Tafrali published passages from the Kabasilas Discourse, arbitrarily
selected from the Sathas edition, and not always accurately represented. But Tafrali was fully con-
fident that these passages comprised accurate statements of the Zealots supposed ideas and pro-
gram. Until 1957, such presentation of these passages represented the only ready access to the
Kabasilas work. During the interval of some forty-four years, Tafralis projection of the Kabasilas
Discourse and his portrayal of the Zealots as social reformers became a working norm among
scholars.
Thus, though less sympathetic to the Zealots, Charles Diehl, in his Les journes rvolution-
naires byzantines, La Revue de Paris (1 November 1928), accepted Tafralis basic perspectives.
Those perspectives likewise colored the approach of Peter Charanis Internal Strife (194041)
and Monastic Properties (1948). They were the foundation of the section The Social-
Revolutionary Movement of the Zealots of Thessalonica (circa 134250), in Ernest Barkers Social
and Political Thought in Byzantium (Oxford, 1957), 18493. Both authors included translated pas-
sages from Kabasilas as transmitted by Tafrali. Also essentially in this tradition, with hints of Marx-
ist influences, is the article by Robert Browning, Komounata na zilotit v solun, Istoriceski Pregled 6
(1950): 50925.
30 APPENDIX 2: INTERPRETATIONS OF THE ZEALOTS
Tafralis perspectives found particular response, however, among Marxist-inspired scholars.

The first explicitly Marxist analysis was a product of both the pre and postWorld War II world,
by a Greek political writer, Giannis Kordatos, Kommouvna th'" Qessalonivkh" (13421349) (Athens,
1928; rev. ed. 1975). After World War II, however, the focus on issues of class struggle was in-
tensified by Marxist-inspired scholars of the Soviet Union and other countries of the socialist bloc.
The idea of the Zealots as freedom-fighter revolutionaries and reformers was exemplified by B. T.
Gorjanov, Vozstanie Zilotov v Vizantii (13421349), IzvIstFil 3 (1946); and by M. A. Levcenko (in
VizVrem 2/27 [1949]). No Marxist himself, Alexander P. Kazhdan early identified himself with the
argument that the Zealots represented a popular movement aimed at destroying the feudal classes
in Byzantine society, in Agrarnye otnosenija v Vizantij XIIIXV vv. (Moscow, 1952), 18397. Kazhdan
continued to uphold that viewpoint, while stressing that their Byzantine contemporaries viewed the
Zealots and their populist violence as totally out of step with fixed Byzantine presumptions of the
unchallengeable permanence of the empires divinely sanctioned order: thus in his book (co-written
with Giles Constable), People and Power in Byzantium: An Introduction to Modern Byzantine Studies
(Washington, D.C., 1982), 35.
Meanwhile, the presumptions by Sathas, Tafrali, and their epigones about the Kabasilas text
were decisively challenged by the belated publication of the full work. Its actual title is Discourse
concerning the Illegal Acts of Officials Daringly Committed against Things Sacred (Lovgo" peri; tw'n
evcenko published the complete Greek
paranovmw" toi'" a[rcousin ejpi; toi'" iJeroi'" tolmwmevnwn). Ihor S
text, with English synopsis, plus extensive historical and textual discussion, in his Nicholas Cabasi-
las Anti-Zealot Discourse: A Reinterpretation, DOP 11 (1957): 79171published, it might be
noted, in the same year in which appeared Ernest Barkers Tafrali-saturated exposition aforemen-
tioned. S evcenko added textual variants and apparatus to his transcription, plus further discussion,
in The Authors Draft of Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse in Parisinus Graecus 1276, DOP
14 (1960): 181201. Finally, he reviewed scholarly reactions and reassessed (but effectively restated)
his position in A Postscript on Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse, DOP 16 (1962): 4038.
All three of these publications have now been conveniently reproduced as nos. IV, V, and VI in the
collection of his papers, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium (London, 1981), and constitute
some of the most important assessments of the Zealot issue yet published.
Sevcenko at first argued compellingly that Kabasilas Discourse had nothing to do with the
Zealot episode: indeed, he posited that the work was written around 1344 and was actually directed
against the policies of Alexios Apokaukos in the capital and against such a prelate as the anti-
Palamite patriarch John Kalekas. Then (Postscript) he modified this by proposing a later dating,
and that the ecclesiastical appropriations of the despot (and future emperor) Manuel Palaiologos
in 1371 might have been the authors target.
Reactions to Sevcenkos bombshell varied, and his third publication in the series surveys many
of them. Some scholars tried to find a compromise stance. In his Observations on the Anti-Zealot
Discourse of Cabasilas, RESEE 9 (1971): 36976, Charanis argued that, while the text might not
have been directed exclusively against the Zealots, it may have reflected their ideas as some com-
ponent of the rationale it attacks. George Dennis, in his The Reign of Manuel II Palaeologus in Thes-
salonica, 13821387 (Rome, 1960), 91 note 30, at first supported S evcenkos placing of the Discourse
in the debate over ecclesiastical appropriations in the 1370s. Subsequently, however, in the intro-
duction to his The Letters of Manuel Palaeologus (Washington, D.C., 1977), xxxiixxxiii, Dennis pro-
posed that Kabasilas intended the treatise as a generalized rhetorical and theoretical exercise, not
directed at any specific individuals, suggesting further that it might have been commissioned by,
and addressed to, Manuel II himself, rather than being aimed at him. Dennis has gone on to argue
that it does not matter to whom the treatise was addressed; that it was a generalized discussion of a
serious issue (unjust seizure of church properties and wealth), and clearly written in the later three
JOHN W. BARKER 31
decades of the fourteenth century; this in Nicholas Cabasilas Chamatos and His Discourse on
Abuses Committed by Authorities against Sacred Things, Byzantine Studies/Etudes byzantines 5
(1978): 8087, repr. as no. XI in idem, Byzantium and the Franks.
Some scholars reacted to S evcenkos publications either by ignoring them or by pretending
they would just go away. The most dogged adherent to Tafralis presumptions was the Cypriot so-
cial historian Constantine Kyrris. Having produced an earlier study, The Political Organisation
of the Byzantine Urban Classes between 1204 and 1341, in Liber memorialis Antonio Era (= Studies
Presented to the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions,
XXVI: Cagliari, 1961) (Brussels, 1963), 2131, Kyrris went on to construct an elaborate profile of
the Zealot regime in his Gouverns et gouvernants Byzance pendant la rvolution des Zlotes
(13411350), in Gouverns et Gouvernants, II: Antiquit et haut moyen ge (= Recueils de la Socit Jean
Bodin pour lHistoire Comparative des Institutions 23) (Brussels, 1968), 271330, in which he adjusted
to some of S evcenkos conclusions while still essentially accepting the Kabasilas-based traditions of
Tafrali.
Far more tenacious were socialist-bloc Marxist scholars. In the course of his volume Pozdne-
vizantijskij feodalizm (Moscow, 1962), B. T. Gorjanov rejected (and partially misrepresented)
evcenkos arguments and reasserted the validity of the Kabasilas Discourse as a source for the
S
Zealots (pp. 31018, 33132). Michael J. Sjuzjumov was also a continuing advocate of the socialist
viewpoint that the Zealots, joining the bureaucratic faction of Apokaukos, were part of the pro-
longed struggle against the feudal elements of Byzantine society (VizVrem 28 [1968]: 1537).
Soviet interpretative tradition was also backed by other scholars of the Eastern bloc. An early
polemic by the Rumanian scholar E. Frances, Ra scoala Zelotilor din Thessalonic n lumina ul-
timelor cerceta ri, Academia Republicii Populare Romne, Subsectia de tiinte
s Istorice i
s Institutui de Istorie
din Bucuresti. Studi: Revista
de Istorie 12 (1959): 25766, crudely dismissed S evcenkos work with a
raw Marxist reaffirmation of the need to celebrate proletarian mass movements. More articulate
expositions of continuing Marxist interpretation have been the East German Ernst Werner and the
Czech Vera Hrochov. While persisting in themes of class struggle, however, they have become
principal proponents in tracing links between the Zealots and supposed counterparts in contem-
poraneous Italy: accordingly, their work will be discussed in section B, below.
The most balanced and fully developed post-S evcenko response from the Marxist tradition,
however, can be found in the early work of the East German scholar Klaus-Peter Matschke,
Fortschritt und Reaktion in Byzanz im 14. Jahrhundert. Konstantinopel in der Brgerkriegsperiode von 1341
1354 (Berlin, 1971). His discussion of the anti-Kantakouzenian upheavals in the capital cast Alex-
ios Apokaukos as a populist progressive struggling against feudal reaction; but the Zealot
regime in Thessalonike is itself peripheral to his Constantinopolitan focus. A different but alto-
gether moderate socialist-sociological approach is that of Gnter Weiss, in his Johannes Kanta-
kouzenosAristokrat, Staatsmann, Kaiser und Mnch in der Gesellschaftsentwicklung von Byzanz im 14.
Jahrhundert (Wiesbaden, 1969), which is a detailed attempt at dissecting fourteenth-century Byzan-
tine society. In discussing the Zealot movement within the context of the popular role in the period
(pp. 83102), he is willing to recognize that movement as an important populist reform effort, but
he rejects the old ideological portrayal of it, observing that it lacked the slogans which character-
ize modern revolutions, [and] lacked any social-revolutionary program (p. 84).
With the end of the cold war and the dissolution of the Eastern bloc, polemic perceptions of
the Zealots as early proletarian heroes have become more muted. But their death knell was
sounded early on, in the brief and rather neutral section on the Zealots in Lon-Pierre Raybauds
Le Gouvernement et ladministration centrale de lempire byzantin sous les premiers Palologues (12581354)
(Paris, 1968), 14345. This ends by rejecting as unacceptable the Soviet idea of the Zealots as foes
of the feudal lords. It is dangerous to make Thessalonica an archetype of the revolutionary com-
32 APPENDIX 2: INTERPRETATIONS OF THE ZEALOTS
mune, since, if the ties connecting it to the central government were loosened, they were not bro-
ken.
As for the Kabasilas Discourse, meanwhile, debate will continue as to its date and purpose. But
evcenko has removed it once and for all as something to be read as a direct source for the Zealot
S
movement and its ideas.
B. WESTERN CONNECTIONS
A number of scholars have sought to link the Zealot rising with patterns of urban unrest and
violence that manifested themselves extensively in western Europe in the middle of the fourteenth
century. The possibilities of such connections or parallels were first pointed to by Tafrali himself
(Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle, 25657). They were also invoked by George L. Bra tianu, in Priv-
ilges et franchises municipales dans lEmpire byzantin (Paris, 1936), 11922.
Since World War II, the most prominent advocates of such Western connections or parallels
have been two scholars of Marxist persuasion, who have perceived influences by, and analogies to,
social radicalism in contemporaneous Italian urban risings. Vera Hrochov, first in Die Prob-
lematik der Zelotenbewegung in Thessalonike 13421349, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Martin-
Luther-Universitt Halle-Wittenberg 10, Gesellschafts- und sprachwissenschaftliche Reihe 1 (1961): 1447
50, and then more fully in her article La rvolte des Zlotes Salonique et les communes itali-
ennes, BSl 22 (1961): 115, has stressed particular influences of the Genoese revolution of 1339
upon the Zealots. In this she was also followed by Kyrris, in his aforementioned Gouverns et gou-
vernants (32830). That perspective had, however, already been undercut by S evcenko, who had
argued emphatically and compellingly that Genoese contacts and influences in Thessalonike must
have been negligible in this period, in his own article The Zealot Revolution and the Supposed Ge-
noese Colony in Thessalonica, in Prosfora; eij" Stivlpwna P. Kuriakivdhn ejpi; th/' eijkosipentaeterivdi
th'" kaqhgesiva" aujtou' (19261951) (= Ellhnikav, Paravrthma 4: Thessalonike, 1953), 60317, and
reprinted as no. III in his collection Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium (London, 1981).
Meanwhile, Ernest Werner, Volkstmliche Hretiker oder sozial-politische Reformer? Prob-
leme der revolutionren Volksbewegung in Thessalonike, 13421349, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der
Karl-Marx-Universitt Leipzig, Gesellschafts- und wissenschaftliche Reihe 1 (195859): 4583, while insist-
ing on analysis based upon class-struggle theory, stressed the supposed parallelism of the Zealot
episode with the Ciompi upheaval of 1378 in Florence. He then went on to analyze that episode
itself from a Marxist perspective in his Probleme stdtischer Volksbewegungen im 14. Jahrhun-
dert, dargestellt am Beispiel der Ciompi-Erhebung in Florenz, in Stdtische Volksbewegung im 14.
Jahrhundert, ed. E. Englemann (Berlin, 1960), 1155. See also V. I. Rutenburg, Ziloti i Ciompi,
VizVrem 30 (1969): 337; as well as Werners own Gesellschaft und Kultur im XIV. Jahrhundert:
Sozial-konomischen Fragen, Actes du XIVe Congrs International des tudes Byzantines, vol. 1 (Bucha-
rest, 1974), 93110.
If anything, the comparison of the Zealot and Ciompi episodes would likely discourage rather
than further the reading of present-day ideologies or mentalities into these events of the past. Thus
see the work of Gene Brucker, The Ciompi Revolution, in Florentine Studies: Politics and Society in
Renaissance Florence, ed. N. Rubinstein (London, 1968); as well as Bruckers earlier book, Florentine
Politics and Society, 13431378 (Princeton, N.J., 1962). Such scholarship has done much to dispel the
mythology and rhetoric about the Ciompi movement: redefining it as an event intelligible in terms
of contemporaneous Florentine circumstances, rather than being loaded with anachronistic pro-
jections of modern class struggle, proletarian consciousness, and social radicalism.
The entire issue now languishes, but it is difficult to see that Italian events and ideas could se-
riously have had much direct influence on the very different ideas, institutions, and perceptions of
JOHN W. BARKER 33
Byzantines, steeped as they were in their own very distinct ways of thinking. The best perspective
on the problem is that the Thessalonian phenomena were just vaguely parallel to the Western ones,
but were neither identical to nor connected with them. Thus Robert Browning in his essay Byzan-
tine Thessaloniki: A Unique City? (Dialogos 2 [1995]: 98) who, after pondering similarities only to
minimize them, observes: it would be unwise to postulate any direct connection in the total ab-
sence of evidence. The point has been put even more succinctly by S evcenko: Conditions pre-
vailing in the [Byzantine] Empire since the beginning of the fourteenth century furnish a sufficient
explanation for the Zealot revolution (Zealot Revolution/Genoese Colony, 61617).
What is interesting, however, is that it never seems to have occurred to any Byzantine writers
themselves to draw any such parallels between the Zealot episode and any foreign manifestations.
This point is clear when we compare the descriptions of the Zealots by Gregoras and Kanta-
kouzenos, already cited, to the comments these two writers make about prior and contemporane-
ous popular upheavals in Genoa: Gregoras, I, 548, and II, 68788, on the Genoese revolution of
1339 and its extended aftermath; Kantakouzenos, III, 19698, on a social upheaval in Genoa in the
early 1350s (a year or two after the end of the Zealot regime). (For observations on these passages,
evcenko, Zealot Revolution, 611 ff ). In his instance, Gregoras does speak of general condi-
see S
tions around the world in which governments and regimes, whether popular or elite, should be
troubled by divisions and factions turned against themselves, thrown into internecine struggles;
and there was virtually no place devoid of this, no place that could not have been wrecked by such
disaster, if not always in identical fashion, at least to a greater or lesser extent. Yet, even though he
is discussing upheavals of the mid-1340s at that point, Gregoras explicitly fails to connect Zealot
Thessalonike to such a comparative context. Even more significant, perhaps, is the fact that these
two writers expressly avoid using the same terminology for the Genoese events that they employ for
the Thessalonian ones.
There is, to be sure, the teasing accusation of foreign influences made by Philotheos in his Life
of Sava (cited in note 45).

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
The Role of Late Byzantine Thessalonike in Church
Architecture in the Balkans
URC
SLOBODAN C IC

he role of Thessalonike in the art and architecture of the Balkans during the late
T Middle Ages has long been the subject of scholarly discussion. Actually, the recogni-
tion of its significance may be said to have occurred at the very beginning of modern his-
toriography on Byzantine art and architecture in the region of Macedonia.1 It was Gabriel
Millet who first formulated the concept of the Macedonian School in reference to fresco
painting, an idea that paralleled his definition of Byzantine architecture in Greece as l-
cole grecque.2 Such preliminary efforts to organize large bodies of hitherto unknown
monuments may be perceived as having been a worthy cause in an effort to systematize the
material. In reality, the labeling applied by Millet has had a lasting detrimental effect on
the general course of developing historiography in the Balkans. Particularly Millets efforts
to define various regional schools, in tandem with the growing nationalist political sen-
timents and ambitions, have left a scholarly legacy that calls for intensive reexamination
in many respects. One of the enduring controversial issues, grown directly out of Millets
classification system, is the concept of the so-called Macedonian School with all its ram-
ifications. Millets definition of the Macedonian School initially applied to Byzantine
fresco painting in the region of Byzantine Macedonia, but was subsequently expanded, by
others, to the realm of architecture as well. The intensity of interest in the concept of a
Macedonian School has fluctuated over time, reaching several high points since Millet
In 1993 Nikos Oikonomides invited me to give a paper at a symposium entitled Byzantium and Serbia in
the Fourteenth Century that he organized under the auspices of the National Hellenic Research Foundation
in Athens. For a variety of personal reasons I was unable to accept his invitation and did not attend that im-
portant symposium. My regrets for not being able to take part were only magnified by my feeling that I may
have disappointed him, as well as other participants. In the interim, Nikos Oikonomides has passed away,
along with two other colleagues, speakers at that symposiumGordana Babic and Vojislav J. Djuric. The
present article constitutes a belated expression of personal gratitude to my departed colleagues and friends.
1
The first regional researchinitially antiquarian in naturebegan already in the 19th century; cf. A. J.
Evans, Antiquarian Research in Illyricum, Archaeologia 49 (1855): 1167 and P. N. Milu kov, Christianskia .
drevnosti zapadnoi Makedonii, IRAIK 4 (1899): 21149. To these may also be added I. Ivanov, Bu lgarski starini
iz Makedonia (Sofia, 1908). The key works in our context, however, are the following books published just be-
fore or during World War I: N. P. Kondakov, Makedonia : Arkheologicheskoe puteshestvie (St. Petersburg, 1909);
O. Tafrali, Topographie de Thessalonique (Paris, 1913); G. Millet, Lcole grecque dans larchitecture byzantine (Paris,
1916); C. Diehl, M. Le Tourneau, and H. Saladin, Les monuments chrtiens de Salonique (Paris, 1918).
2
G. Millet, Recherches sur liconographie de lvangile (Paris, 1916), 62590, where the Macedonian school is
seen as open to influence from the Orient and Italy, in contrast to the more conservative Cretan school.
66 THE ROLE OF THESSALONIKE IN CHURCH ARCHITECTURE
first formulated it.3 Reasons and motives behind these high points constitute in their
own right a subject worthy of investigation. As my aim here is to address the role of Thes-
salonike in architecture in the Balkans during the late Middle Ages, I will limit my remarks
to only certain specific historiographical issues. These will help illuminate some of our es-
tablished conceptions and misconceptions about the role of the second city of the Byzan-
tine Empire in the shaping of architecture in the Balkans during the fourteenth century.
The question of Macedonian and, more specifically, Thessalonian architecture
during the late Byzantine period has been broached by a number of scholars in recent
years. Their approaches and methodologies have differed vastly, as have the results of their
findings. None of them, it may be added, approached the problem comprehensively. Con-
sequently, our understanding of the architecture in Thessalonike is still rather incomplete.
Surprisingly, not a single surviving monument of late Byzantine Thessalonike has a com-
prehensive scholarly monograph. Less surprisingly perhaps, in these circumstances, the
architecture of this important chapter in the citys history has never been a subject of
a study in its own right. Among those who have dealt with this material, but have ap-
proached it from very specific, limited angles, one should note A. Goulaki-Voutira, P. Vo-
kotopoulos, and M. Rautman.4 Goulaki-Voutira has examined the issue of identification
and dating of Palaiologan churches of Thessalonike, Vokotopoulos has discussed the ar-
chitectural typology of the period, while Rautman has addressed the question of patron-
age of church architecture in the city and within the region of Macedonia as a whole. To
these one may also add an article by G. Velenis, whose own revisiting the subject of re-
gionalism in the architecture of Macedonia will serve as my point of departure.5
After discussing various aspects of the church of the Holy Apostles in Thessalonike
with the aim of demonstrating its idiosyncratic regional character and, therefore, its inde-
3
A. Xyngopoulos, Thessalonique et la peinture macdonienne (Athens, 1955); V. N. Lazarev, Zhivopis XIXII
vekov v Makedonii, XIIe Congrs international des tudes byzantines. Rapports V (Belgrade, 1961); A. Procopiou,
The Macedonian Question in Byzantine Painting (Athens, 1962); P. Miljkovic-Pepek, Deloto na zografite Mihailo i Eu-
tihij (Skopje, 1967); P. Miljkovic-Pepek, Larchitecture chrtienne chez les Slaves macdoniens partir davant
la moiti du IXe jusqu la fin du XIIe sicle, The 17th International Byzantine Congress, Major Papers (Washing-
ton, D.C. 1986), 483500; G. Velenis, Building Techniques and External Decoration during the 14th Century
in Macedonia, in Lart de Thessalonique et des pays balkaniques et les courants spirituels au XIVe sicle, ed. R. Sam-
ardzic (Belgrade, 1987), 95105; C. Giros, Remarques sur larchitecture monastique en Macdoine orien-
tale, BCH 116 (1992): 409443. I. M. Chatzifotis, Makedonikhv Scolhv. H scolhv tou Panselivnou (12901320)
(Athens, 1995) and most recently G. M. Velenis, Macedonian School in Architecture of the Middle and Late
Byzantine Period in K. Fledelius, ed., Byzantium: Identity, Image and Influence. XIX International Congress of
Byzantine Studies, vol. 1 (Copenhagen, 1996), 500505, as well as an expanded version in Greek, idem. H ajr-
' citektonikh; Scolh; th' " Makedoniva" kata; th;n mevsh kai; u{sterh buzantinh; perivodo, Suvnaxh 63 (1997): 4960.
A. Bryer, The Rise and Fall of the Macedonian School of Byzantine Art (19101962), in Ourselves and Others,
ed. P. Mackridge (Oxford, 1997), 7987, displaying premature optimism, declares that by 1962 the concept of
the Macedonian School had run its course. Unfortunately, Bryer appears not to have been sensitive enough
in his reading of some of the scholarly literature published in the 1980s and 1990s.
4
A. Goulaki-Voutira, Zur Identifizierung von palologenzeitlichen Kirchen in Saloniki, JB 34 (1984):
25564, with certain interpretations of original names and dates that have not met with universal approval;
P. Vokotopoulos, OiJ mesaiwnikoiv naoiv th'" Qessalonivkh" kai; hJ qevsh tou" stav plaivsia th'" buzantinh'" naodomiva",
in H Qessalonivkh metaxuv Anatolh'" kai; Duvsew" (Thessalonike, 1982), 97110 was a useful initial overview of
the role of Thessalonike in the development of later Byzantine architecture; it was followed by a much more
narrowly focused article, idem, Church Architecture in Thessaloniki in the 14th Century. Remarks on the Ty-
pology, in Lart de Thessalonique et des pays balkaniques et les courants spirituels au XIVe sicle, ed. Samardzic, 107
16; M. Rautman, Patrons and Buildings in Late Byzantine Thessaloniki, JB 39 (1989): 295315.
5
Velenis, Building Techniques, 95105.
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SLOBODAN C IC
67
pendence from Constantinople, Velenis focused on what he defined as its Macedonian

dome (Fig. 1). According to him, the Macedonian dome is elevated on a tall drum, its
exterior articulated by a slender arcade, each arch of which contains a single-light window
with a flat wall area, often containing decorative brickwork, directly above the window
opening. He cites twenty-two examples of such domes, without considering their chrono-
logical range, and downplaying the fact that their geographic spread reveals some signif-
icant deviations from the regional pattern that he had set out to demonstrate. The old-
est example cited in his corpus of Macedonian domes paradoxically appears on the
church of the Panagia Paregoritissa at Arta, dated 128289, a building obviously totally
removed from the Macedonian scene (Fig. 2). According to Velenis, the external design of
the domes in question is the function of an effort to increase their interior surfaces for op-
timum display of mosaics and frescoes.6 The phenomenon of heightening the drum, how-
ever, cannot be tied to such reasoning. Instead, it may have been informed by structural
and, even more probably, by aesthetic reasons.7 The choice was most likely governed by a
desire for more attenuated proportions of dome drums, a tendency demonstrable in most
later Byzantine buildings. Interesting insights into this issue come from the church of the
Mother of God (Bogorodica) at the monastery of Studenica in central Serbia. Begun in
1183 (?), the church was completed with a dome on a low drum perforated with twelve
windows, one within each of its twelve arched facets. Probably in the second decade of the
fourteenth century, as recently proposed, the drum was heightened and its arcade atten-
uated by the insertion of small blank tympana above each window opening and below the
newly created arcade (Fig. 3).8 During a recent restoration of the church, the later addi-
tions were removed and the original low form of the drum restored along with its pre-
sumed original external coat of painted plaster (Fig. 4). The late medieval changes at Stu-
denica could only have been effected by external, most likely aesthetic concerns. These, in
turn, must have been part of a more universal trend in Byzantine architecture, unrelated
to the Macedonian dome issue.
The ineptness of the Macedonian dome definition, in fact, can be demonstrated on
the very building that Velenis chose to vindicate as the product of a local, that is, Mace-
donian building schoolthe church of the Holy Apostles. An examination of its four mi-
nor domes reveals that, unlike its main dome, they did not feature a blank field above each
of their original window openings (Fig. 5). The present in-fills above rectilinear window
frames are the result of the much later Ottoman interventions. Thus the church of the
Holy Apostles, according to the Velenis hypothesis, would have to be seen as a hybrid so-
6
This explanation is not borne out by the physical evidence in such buildings, however. Most of the hemi-
spherical dome surfaces in the buildings in questionin fact in most middle and late Byzantine domed
churchesbegin directly above the window arches. Only on very rare occasions do windows intrude into the
hemisphere of the dome itself. Consequently, the feature in question must be seen for what it effectively isa
by-product of concern for the exterior articulation of dome drums.
7
O. Markovic-Kandic, Odnos kalote i tambura na kupolama u Vizantiji i srednjovekovnoj Srbiji (Rap-
port de la calotte et du tambour des coupoles Byzance et dans la Serbie mdivale), Zograf 6 (1975): 810,
who argues for the structural rationale in the design of dome drums. Domes on most of the churches in ques-
tion, however, are small enough that such solutions should have been totally unnecessary. Of course, our the-
oretical understanding of such issues was not available to the medieval builder, and thus the notion of per-
ceived structural role of certain design choices should not be dismissed out of hand.
8
M. Canak-Medic, Vreme prvih promena oblika studenicke Bogorodicine crkve (Lpoque des premiers
changements apports laspect de lglise de la Vierge de Studenica), Studenica i vizantijska umetnost oko 1200.
godine, ed. V. Korac (Belgrade, 1988), 51724.
lution in which a Macedonian dome appeared alongside the four non-Macedonian

domes (Fig. 6). This phenomenon, ignored by Velenis, must have a different explanation.
While it now may be clear that the invention of the term Macedonian dome was in-
appropriate, my exercise of demonstrating this point actually has other objectives. The
first of these is to demonstrate that the architecture of Thessalonike came into being as a
result of different builders from elsewhere accepting employment in the newly prospering
city, toward the end of the thirteenth century. The second and more important objective is
to show that by around 1300 certain uniform building standards did evolve in Thessa-
lonike and that these, under specific conditions, were eventually transplanted into neigh-
boring areas of the Balkans, especially into Serbia.9
The first of the stated objectives may be demonstrated by turning to the church of
H. Aikaterine (Fig. 7). This major monument of Palaiologan architecture was extensively
restored in the late 1940s, but the results of findings made at the time have never been
published. Recent conservation work on the building has brought to light much new in-
formation whose final publication is pending.10 Lacking any historical information, the
buildings date and even its original name remain unknown. Proposed dates have ranged
from as early as ca. 1280 to as late as the second quarter of the fourteenth century.11
Putting aside the dating controversy at this point, I will merely point out certain incom-
patible features of this building that signal unmistakably the input of builders from two
distinctly different Byzantine building traditions. The four small domes of H. Aikaterine,
for example, are all octagonal, but differ among themselves in terms of their overall pro-
portions as well as in terms of their construction details. The eastern domes have a slightly
smaller diameter and are proportionally taller than the western pair. Furthermore, the
eastern domes reveal the use of stone bands alternating with brick in the construction of
their drums, a technique not otherwise encountered among Thessalonian churches (Fig.
8). By contrast, the two western domes reveal all-brick construction. Their relatively large
diameters, on the other hand, have resulted in their corner colonnettes being framed by
vertically set bricks that create a very distinctive, independent relationship between each
colonnette and the neighboring arcades. This is particularly apparent on the northwest
dome drum, its colonnettes appearing as though they were placed into special recesses,
setting them completely apart from the surrounding masonry (Fig. 9). The same, even
more pronounced detail occurs on the main dome, where it alternates with curious round
niches as framing devices of individual windows (Fig. 10).
The seemingly negligible detail of thus accentuated corner colonnettes was the hall-
mark of dome construction in churches associated with the Despotate of Epiros. This may
9
For a general overview of 14th-century churches in Thessalonike, see Vokotopoulos, Church Architec-
ture.
10
Evangelia Hadjitryphonos, then an architect-restorer in the Ninth Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities in
Thessalonike, was in charge of the restoration of the church from 1988 to 1994. She is currently preparing a
final report on the work carried out on the building under her supervision. For a preliminary report see
E. Hadjitryphonos, Ergasive" sunthvrhsh" kai apokatavstash" sthn Ag. Aikaterivnh Qessalonivkh" 19881993,
Mnhmei'o kai; peribavllon 3: 1 (1995), 7988. I am grateful to Dr. Hadjitryphonos for providing me with an op-
portunity to examine the building from the scaffolding while the restoration was in progress. I have also ben-
efited from the many discussions we have had over the years regarding this and other related buildings.
11
P. I. Kuniholm and C. L. Striker, Dendrochronological Investigations in the Aegean and Neighboring
Regions, 19771982, JFA 10.4 (1983): 419, provide a date of 1280 for H. Aikaterini. This date was revised by
the authors to 1315 in JFA 14.4 (1987): 395. G. M. Velenis, Ermhneiva tou exwterikouv diakovsmou sth buzantinhv
arcitektonikhv (Thessalonike, 1984), vol. 1: 227, dates the church to ca. 1320.
1 Thessalonike, Holy Apostles, main dome from the southeast
2 Arta, Panagia Paregoritissa, main dome from the southeast

3 Studenica monastery, church of the Mother of God, dome, from the south, after removal of 19th-century plaster
4 Studenica monastery, church of the Mother of God, dome, from the south, after recent restoration
5 Thessalonike, Holy Apostles, southeast minor dome, from the east
6 Thessalonike, Holy Apostles, general view from the northeast

7 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, general view from northwest (photo: L. Bouras)
8 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, northeast minor dome, from the northeast

9 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, northwest minor dome, from the northwest (photo: L. Bouras)
10 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, main dome, from the northwest (photo: L. Bouras)

11 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, upper part of naos, detail of north faade (photo: L. Bouras)
12 Voulgarelli, Panagia Vellas, south faade; detail (photo: J. Trkulja)
13 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, exonarthex, west faade, north side

14 Arta, Panagia Paregoritissa, east faade; detail
15 Mount Athos, Hilandar monastery, Katholikon; narthex domes from the southwest
16 Istanbul, Panagia Pammakaristos (present Fethiye Camii), main church dome, from the southwest (photo:
Dumbarton Oaks Photograph Collection)
17 Kolusa, St. George, general view from the southwest, state as in 1898 (photo: N. Mavrodinov)
18 Thessalonike, H. Panteleimon, main dome, from the northeast
19 Thessalonike, H. Panteleimon, main dome, plan (drawing by M. Mihaljevic)

20 Thessalonike, H. Panteleimon, general view from the southeast, ca. 1900 (after Thessalonike and Its Monuments, 96)
21 Thessalonike, Metamorphosis (Christos Sotir), from the north
22 Thessalonike, Mone Vlatadon, katholikon, dome from the east
23 Thessalonike, Profitis Elias, general view from the southeast (photo: Ch. Bouras)
24 Redina, church, plan; partially reconstructed (author; after N. Moutsopoulos)
25 Redina, church, dome interior; present state, looking east

26 Redina, church, view of ruins from the north (from Eastern Macedonia 1994 )
27 Redina, church, dome, detail of drum, from the northwest
28 Serres, Prodromos monastery, katholikon, chapel of St. Nicholas, dome, from the north
29 Hosios Loukas, monastery, church of the Panagia, dome, from the northwest
30 Elasson, Panagia Olympiotissa, dome from the northwest (photo: J. Trkulja)
31 Elasson, Panagia Olympiotissa, plan (drawing by J. Bogdanovic)

32 Plans of Thessalonian churches: (A) H. Panteleimon;
(B) H. Aikaterine; (C) Holy Apostles; (D) Vlatadon
(drawing by J. Bogdanovic)
33a Meteora, Great Meteoron monastery, church of the Metamorphosis, plan (drawing by J.
Bogdanovic)
Fig. 33b Meteora, Great Meteoron monastery, church of the Metamorphosis,

original building, plan (hypothetical reconstruction, author; drawing by J.
Bogdanovic)
34 Meteora, Great Meteoron monastery, church of the Metamorphosis, the original church, from the southeast
(photo: L. Bouras)
35 Map. Byzantine Empire and Serbia under King Milutin, ca. 1300 (author)
36 Map. Byzantine Macedonia. Region of conflicts between Byzantium and Serbia, showing fortifications newly
built or restored (after M. Popovic)
cer; (C) Kuceviste; (D) Stip;
37 Plans of churches built by Serbian nobility: (A) Musutiste; (B) Cu (E) Ljuboten; (F)
Konce; (G) Lesnovo; (H) Psaca (drawing by J. Bogdanovic)
cer, St. Nikitas, dome, from the northwest
38 Cu
39 Musutiste, Mother of God Hodegetria, from the east, prior to destruction in 1999 (photo: J. Prolovic)
40 Gracanica monastery, church of the Dormition, general view from the south
41 Gracanica monastery, church of the Dormition, plan
42 Gracanica monastery, church of the Dormition, 43 Gracanica monastery, church of the Dormition, SW
main dome, from the south minor dome, from the south
44 Prizren, Mother of God Ljevisa, main dome, from the west
45 Staro Nagoricino, St. George, main dome, from the southwest

46 Prizren, Mother of God Ljevisa, south tympanum below main dome
47 Plans of churches associated with Stefan Decanski and Dusan: (A) Spasovica; (B) Hrusija, St. Basil; (C)
Hilandar, Holy Archangels (drawing by J. Bogdanovic)
48 Pec, Patriarchate complex; Church of St. Demetrius, dome, from the northwest
49 Mount Athos, Hrusija (near Hilandar), Church of St. Basil, from the northeast (photo: S. Barisic)
50 Mount Athos, Hilandar monastery, chapel of the Holy Archangels, dome, from the south (photo: S. Nenadovic)
51 Mount Athos, Hilandar monastery, katholikon, exonarthex dome, from the south
52 Budisavci, church of the Transfiguration, from the southeast (after G. Subotic, Art of Kosovo, 35)
53 Budisavci, church of the Transfiguration, plan (drawing by J. Bogdanovic)
54 Kuceviste, church of the Presentation of the Mother of God, from the northeast (photo: Ch. Bouras)

55 Stip, Holy Archangels, dome, from the southeast

56 Stip, Holy Archangels before destruction of the domed parekklesion, from the southeast (photo: G. Millet)
57 Ljuboten, St. Nicholas, from the northeast (photo: G. Millet)
58 Lesnovo monastery, church of Archangel Michael, from the north
59 Lesnovo monastery, church of Archangel Michael, main dome, from the southeast
60 Lesnovo monastery, church of Archangel Michael, narthex dome, from the north
61 Psaca, St. Nicholas, narthex dome, from the south

62 Matejic monastery, church of the Mother of God, from the northwest
63 Matejic monastery, church of the Mother of God, narthex, from the southwest
64 Matejic monastery, church of the Mother of God, main dome, from the west
65 Map. Region of Macedonia showing location of late Byzantine churches built in Thessalonian ( ), Epirote ( ),
and Skopian ( ) manner
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SLOBODAN C IC
69
be demonstrated by referring again to the main dome of the Paregoritissa at Arta (Fig. 2).
The idiosyncratic nature of Epirote dome construction has not been observed in scholar-
ship, but we must take note of it here as an integral part in the formative process of new
building practice emerging in Thessalonike around 1300. It should also be noted in pass-
ing that the small domes of H. Aikaterine, according to the Velenis classification, belong to
the Macedonian dome type while the main dome, in this case, does not.12 Other Epirote
technical characteristics that may be noted on the church of H. Aikaterine involve semi-
circular tympana framing the main windows of the cross arms, recessed slightly from the
face of the wall (Fig. 11). Among the many examples of such features in Epiros, one may
refer to those on the church of Panagia Vellas at Voulgareli (Fig. 12).13 Likewise, one
should note the use of recessed dog-tooth friezes as outlining devices on the faades of
H. Aikaterine (Fig. 13). These, too, were standard features in the architecture of Epiros, as
attested to by the east faade of the Paregoritissa at Arta (Fig. 14). For us, in the context of
the present discussion, it is important to note that such features were extremely rare in
Thessalonike. While it is obvious that the Epirote methods had some currency in Thessa-
lonike, the input of Constantinopolitan architecture in the reemergence of architectural
production in Thessalonike was by far the greatest.14 The means whereby this may have
occurred are far from clear, however. An assumption has to be made that it probably took
place via the Empire of Nicaea, especially after 1246, when Thessalonike came under the
direct control of John III Vatatzes.15 In the course of the first half of the thirteenth century,
Thessalonike had been entangled in complex struggles between different contenders
for the Byzantine throne, with disastrous effects on the city itself.16 Left physically and
economically ruined since the Norman sack of 1185, Thessalonike, as far as we know,
was practically deprived of any building activity for decades. The revived architectural
production in the city during the last decades of the thirteenth century, then, would imply
that builders must have been brought in from elsewhere. It stands to reason that, in
changed political conditions after 1261, new patterns of patronage began to emerge, put-
ting new centers of architectural productionone of them being Thessalonikeon the
map.
The role of H. Aikaterine has already been pointed out. I will return once more to the
issue of the idiosyncratic nature of its eastern pair of domes (Fig. 8). Their design and man-
ner of construction with alternating bands of brick and stone, as we have seen, were dif-
12
Velenis, Building Techniques, fig. 12, illustrates only the southeastern minor dome of the church.
13
For the Panagia Vellas see A. Orlandos, Mnhmei'a tou' Despotavtou th'" Hpeivrou. H Kovkkinh Ekklhsiav
(Panagiva Bella'"), Hpeirwtikav Cronikav 2 (1927): 15369; also H. Hallensleben, Die Architektur-
geschichtliche Stellung der Kirche Sv. Bogorodica Perivleptos (Sv. Kliment) in Ohrid, Zbornik. Arheoloski muzej
na Makedonija 67 (1975): 297316.
14
Views on this point differ. Vokotopoulos, Church Architecture, esp. 110 f, argues that the input of Con-
stantinople was direct and considerable. The opposite point of view is maintained by Velenis, Building Tech-
niques, esp. 9599. The role of Epiros, as limited as it may have been, has generally been ignored.
15
This subject is deserving of a separate study. H. Buchwald, Laskarid Architecture, JB 28 (1979): 261
96, has provided an important introduction to the architecture under the patronage of the emperors of
Nicaea. His observations on the eclectic origins of this architecture may stand useful comparisons with phe-
nomena dealt with in our context. I am avoiding the terms eclectic and eclecticism, however, because they imply
a conscious and deliberate choice of certain architectural features and formulae that, in my opinion, do not
apply in the context under discussion here.
16
F. Bredenkamp, The Byzantine Empire of Thessaloniki (122442) (Thessalonike, 1996). See also articles in
this volume by J. Barker, A. Laiou, and C. Morrisson.
ferent from those of its western pair of domes. The eastern domes of H. Aikaterine, for ex-
ample, feature corner colonnettes that appear to be fully integrated with the surrounding
masonry. The horizontal stone bands continue through the colonnettes, either because
they were cut from the same block of stone or because individual pieces of stone were care-
fully aligned so that the horizontal banding was achieved. Such an approach to dome de-
sign and construction was common in Constantinopolitan architecture, from where it must
have reached Thessalonike. Several fourteenth-century domes in Constantinople share
these specific characteristics.17 A building of prime significance for our understanding of
the links between the capital and Thessalonike, however, may be the katholikon of Hilandar
monastery on Mount Athos. Built during the first decades of the fourteenth century, but
certainly not after 1316, the Hilandar katholikon exhibits distinctive Constantinopolitan ar-
chitectural traits.18 These include a pair of domes over the outermost bays of the narthex
(Fig. 15). The two domes also exhibit some similarities with the eastern pair of domes of
H. Aikaterine. Featuring octagonal drums, their corners marked by semi-cylindrical colon-
nettes and their faces perforated with single-light windows framed by double skewbacks,
they rest on low square pedestals, separating them from the narthex roof. Similarly the
building technique at both Hilandar and at H. Aikaterine involves bands of three brick
courses alternating with bands comprising a single course of stone.
The presence of comparable, thus articulated domes in the architecture of Constan-
tinople, as early as the late eleventh century, supports the notion that their origins ulti-
mately must be Constantinopolitan, though by ca. 1300 they did acquire a life of their own
in Thessalonike.19 Two Constantinopolitan domesthose of the church of Christos ho
Pantepoptes (present-day Eski Imaret Camii), dated ca. 108187, and the main church of
the Pammakaristos complex (now Fethiye Camii), variously dated to the eleventh or
twelfth centurydemonstrate that the mature form of the dome type described above,
but executed fully in brick, was known in Constantinople long before 1204 (Fig. 16).20 The
17
E.g., the main dome of the Parekklesion of Theotokos he Pammakaristos, as well as the main domes and
the northern exonarthex dome of the katholikon of the Chora monastery; cf. W. Mller-Wiener, Bildlexikon zur
Topographie Istanbuls (Tbingen, 1977), fig. 123 (Pammakaristos); for the katholikon of the Chora, see R. Ouster-
hout, The Architecture of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul, DOS 25 (Washington, D.C., 1987), fig. 153, showing the
domes during restoration work, with their plaster removed.
18
M. Markovic and W. T. Hostetter, Prilog hronologiji gradnje i oslikavanja hilandarskog katolikona (On
the Chronology of the Construction and the Painting of the Katholikon of the Hilandar Monastery), HilZb 10
(1998): 20117 (Eng. summary, 21820), date the construction either to 12991306 or to 131116, during the
reign of hegoumenos Nikodim. For the architecture of the Hilandar katholikon see: S. Nenadovic, Osam vekova
Hilandara. Gradjenje i gradjevine (Eight Centuries of Hilandar. Building and Buildings) (Belgrade, 1997), 59
99; S. Curcic, "The Architectural Significance of the Hilandar Katholikon," BSCAbstr 4 (1978): 1415, where
the Constantinopolitan similarities are outlined, though they are deemed "conservative," implying similarities
with church architecture in the capital before 1204.
19
See, for example, the main dome of the church now known as Kilisse Camii (dated to ca. 1100); cf.
R. Krautheimer, Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture, 4th ed. (Harmondsworth, 1986), 362 f.
20
For the church of the Pantepoptes, see R. Ousterhout, Some Notes on the Construction of Christos ho
Pantepoptes (Eski Imaret Camii) in Istanbul, Delt.Crist.Arc.Et. 16 (199192): 4756. For the main church
of the Pammakaristos complex see the thorough study of H. Hallensleben, Untersuchungen zur
Baugeschichte der ehemaligen Pammakaristoskirche, der heutigen Fethiye camii in Istanbul, IstMitt 1314
(196364): 12893, esp. 14446, for the building core (Kernbau). Hallensleben dates this part of the build-
ing to the 11th century, a date rejected by Mango in H. Belting, C. Mango, and D. Mouriki, The Mosaics and
Frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) at Istanbul, DOS 25 (Washington, D.C., 1978), 3 ff, who prefers
a 12th-century date.
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SLOBODAN C IC
71
appearance of domes of this type during the twelfth century, also on a number of churches
in the central Balkans, is probably a reflection of the assertive policy of Emperor Manuel
I in this region.21 One of these buildings, in addition to the already mentioned dome of the
church of the Mother of God at Studenica monastery (Fig. 3), is the church of St. George
in the village of Kolusa, in the vicinity of Kiustendil, Bulgaria. Built entirely of brick, in
the so-called recessed brick technique, the church has an octagonal dome drum with all of
the essential characteristics of the type (Fig. 17).22 The church is not dated securely, but its
plan and the building technique bespeak a middle Byzantine foundation. Future scholar-
ship will need to resolve the question of how exactly the pre-1204 Constantinopolitan
dome type may have reached Thessalonike a century later. What is beyond any doubt is
that it, along with other building characteristics, became the essence of building practice
in Thessalonike by around 1310, from where it was subsequently exported into the
Balkans.
The unmistakable hallmark of Thessalonian building practice, as it emerged during
the first two decades of the fourteenth century, was a very distinctive type of a church
dome. I will refer to it as the Thessalonian dome, in deliberate contrast to the Macedo-
nian dome, whose definition, as seen above, is essentially misleading.23 Marked by all-
brick construction, the Thessalonian dome is polygonal in plan (Figs. 18, 19). Its corners,
as illustrated by the main dome of the church of H. Panteleimon, are marked by rounded
colonnettes, while its faces feature triple-arched skewbacks, the innermost one framing a
single-light window.24 This specific building paradigm became the favorite clich, as nu-
merous surviving examples demonstrate. It should be noted in the exterior view that the
individual colonnettes are not visibly set apart from the surrounding construction, in con-
trast to Epirote practice. The building core of H. Panteleimon was originally enveloped by
domed parekklesia, and by an exonarthex, of which only the eastern ends of the parekklesia
survive (Fig. 32A). Its oblong narthex features on the main axis a dome of the same basic
21
The main examples of such domes are on the churches of St. Panteleimon at Nerezi, F.Y.R.O.M., St.
Nicholas at Kursumlija, and the church of the Virgin at Studenica monastery, both in Serbia; on St. Nicholas
at Sapareva Bana , and the church in the village of Kolusa, both in Bulgaria. For the first three see
Krautheimer, Architecture, figs. 332 (Nerezi), 333 (Kursumlija), and 391 (Studenica). For Sapareva Bana , see
K. Mia tev, Arhitekturata v srednovekovna Bulgaria (Sofia, 1965), fig. 217. On the policies of Manuel I in the
Balkans, see P. Stephenson, Byzantiums Balkan Frontier (Cambridge, 2000), chaps. 7 and 8.
22
For Kolusa, before the modern restoration disfigured the building, see N. Mavrodinov, Ednokorabnata i
krstovidnata tsrkva po bulgarskitie zemi do kraa na XIV v. (Sofia, 1931), 106, figs. 123, 124.
23
Millet, Lcole grecque, 189201 (Byzantine domes in Greece), though the amount of space devoted to Thes-
salonian domes specifically is remarkably small (pp. 19596). More about Thessalonian domes in S. C urcic,
Gracanica. King Milutin's Church and Its Place in Late Byzantine Architecture (University Park, Pa.London, 1979),
11112, and also in M. Rautman, "The Church of the Holy Apostles in Thessaloniki: A Study in Early Palae-
ologan Architecture" (Ph.D. diss., University of Indiana, 1984), 2025. This dissertation constitutes the only
extensive study of architecture of any of the Thessalonian late Byzantine churches. Sadly, it, too, remains un-
published.
24
H. Panteleimon was one of several churches in Thessalonike damaged by the earthquake of 1978, and
subsequently restored. At the present it remains without an adequate publication. Its date and the dedication
are still uncertain. For summary of the controversy from the current perspective, see E. Kourkoutidou-
Nikolaidou and A. Tourta, Wandering in Byzantine Thessaloniki (Thessalonike, 1997), 45. N. Ioanidou, Istorikhv
topoqevthsh kai arcev" epevmbash", apov th melevth sterevwsh" tou naouv tou Ag. Pantelehvmona (Historical Docu-
mentation and Intervention Principles of the Conservation Study of the Church of St. Panteleimon), in P. As-
trinidou, ed., Restoration of Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Monuments (Thessalonike, 1986), 13145, despite some
mistakes, contains much useful information not available otherwise.
type as the main dome. Its principal distinguishing feature is that it is rotated in such a
way that its colonnettes, and not its windows, are aligned with the main building axis. The
same characteristics were shared by the two domes over the lateral chapels that no longer
survive. They were aligned with the main dome along the transversal axis, creating an un-
usual but effective exterior building design (Fig. 20).
In addition to H. Panteleimon, domes of the same type, as we have already seen, ap-
peared also on the Holy Apostles, built in 131014 (Figs. 1, 5, 6).25 After the middle of the
century the same type recurs on the little church of Metamorphosis (also known as Chris-
tos Sotir) of around 1357, in the rebuilding of the katholikon of Vlatadon monastery, and
finally in the 1360s or 1370s, on the church of Profitis Elias, possibly the katholikon of the
erstwhile Akapniou monastery (Figs. 21, 22, 23).26 On the basis of the design and con-
struction characteristics of domes on these churches, it is possible to claim that a building
workshop, or indeed several related workshops with a standardized building practice,
were at work in Thessalonike from ca. 1300 to ca. 1370. This notion is substantiated by the
widespread appearance of Thessalonian domes during this interval of time. Our atten-
tion will first be turned to the monuments with Thessalonian domes on Byzantine ter-
ritories, and then to the radiation of the formula into the neighboring territories under
Serbian control.
The first example is situated at Redina, a small settlement above a natural pass
through which the Via Egnatia made its way east, just before reaching the Bay of Or-
phanos (Kolpos Orphanou). One of the few standing buildings preserved at Redina is a
small cruciform domed church that survives in a ruinous state (Figs. 24, 25).27 Although
nothing of its interior decoration is preserved, and we lack any historical evidence re-
garding its construction, there can be little doubt that this monument belongs to the first
decades of the fourteenth century. Its superstructure was carefully built, entirely of brick,
its internally cylindrical dome drum resting directly on a system of regular pendentives.
Externally the dome drum is eight-sided. Four of the eight faces of its drumthose situ-
ated on the diagonals, rather than those on the main axesonce contained windows. The
other four arcades contained shallow rectangular niches filled with decorative brick pat-
terns (Fig. 26). Both the niches and the window openings were framed by double skew-
backs. At each corner of the drum was a round colonnette, made of specially shaped, care-
25
The dating of this key monument of late Byzantine architecture has become a subject of controversy as a
result of the publication by I. Kuniholm and C. Striker, Dendrochronology and the Architectural History of
the Church of the Holy Apostles in Thessaloniki, Architectura 20.1 (1990): 126, who propose 1329+ as its con-
struction date. On account of the presence of brick and marble monograms on the exonarthex faades, as well
as a carved inscription on the lintel above the main portal, all of which identify Patriarch Niphon (131014) as
the ktetor, for me it is impossible to accept the dating proposed by Kuniholm and Striker.
26
For the Metamorphosis, see Ch. Mavropoulou-Tsioumi and K. Theocharidou-Tsapral, eds., H anasthvl-
wsh twn buzantinwvn kai metabuzantinwvn mnhmeivwn sth Qessalonivkh (Thessalonike, 1985), 91101. For Vlata-
don, see ibid., 8490, and more recently E. Hadjitryphonos, To perivstwo sthn ekklhsiastikhv arcitektonikhv
th" oyivmh" periovdou th" Buzantinhv" Autokratoriva" (Peristoon in ecclesiastical architecture of the Late Byzan-
tine Empire), 2 vols., Ph.D. diss., Department of Architecture, Aristotle University of Thessalonike, 2000,
12327. For Profitis Elias, see T. Papazotos, The Identification of the Church of Profitis Elias in Thessa-
loniki, DOP 45 (1991): 12127. The church of Profitis Elias was drastically restored from 1956 to 1961. With
the exception of the main dome, all of its minor domes were completely rebuilt at this time. They cannot, there-
fore, be used as evidence in the context of our discussion.
27
N. K. Moutsopoulos, Rentivna IV. Oi ekklhsive" tou buzantinouv oikismouv [Rendina IV. The Churches of the
Byzantine Burg] (Thessalonike, 2000), 295334.
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SLOBODAN C IC
73
fully laid bricks (Fig. 27). Their flat ends are imbedded in the masonry mass, their semi-
circular ends protruding, and collectively forming the semi-cylindrical form of each colon-
nette. All of these details match such details on Thessalonian monuments that we have
seen, and undoubtedly must have been the work of a group of builders brought to Rend-
ina from the regional capital. As we examine the exterior of this and other comparable
domes, we may ponder what their original appearance may have actually been.
Our ruminations, in this regard, are aided by another dome that may well belong to
this larger familythe dome rising over the chapel of St. Nicholas, above the exonarthex
of the katholikon at the Prodromos monastery near Serres (Fig. 28).28 Probably built ca.
136465, the dome of this chapel preserves an external coating of demonstrably later plas-
ter with various architectural features rendered in paint. Particularly interesting in this re-
gard are the painted lion masks that occur atop its semi-cylindrical corner colonnettes.29
Their placement and formal articulation suggest the possibility of their distant origins in
early middle Byzantine architecture and beyond, as the marble-faced dome drum of the
tenth-century church of the Panagia at Hosios Loukas monastery informs us (Fig. 29).30
Here the lion masks still had the function of waterspouts, as they did in classical architec-
ture, from where the idea was presumably appropriated. Their original function com-
pletely forgotten by the fourteenth century, the painted emulation of such lion masks may
have been as meaningful an echo of the distant prototypes as was the mimicking of small
classical columns by virtue of the form and placement of the corner colonnettes. The
Serres dome, with its now invisible construction technique, leaves us with an important but
unanswerable question, whether, indeed, all these domes and church faades originally
may not have been covered with plaster and painted.31
Situated southwest of Thessalonike, in the opposite direction from Serres, the church
of Panagia Olympiotissa at Elasson, in Thessaly, provides another example of Thessalon-
ian impact on church architecture in the surrounding areas.32 Built probably around
1300, the Olympiotissa displays a dome elevated on a tall drum (Fig. 30). In terms of its
28
H. Hallensleben, Das Katholikon des Johannes-Prodromos-Klosters bei Serrai, ByzF 1 (= Polychordia.
Festschrift Franz Dlger zum 75. Geburtstag) (1966): 15873, is currently the only study of the architecture of this
important church. Hallensleben dates the chapel of St. Nicholas erroneously to 134445 and attributes it to
Stefan Dusan. For the correction of dating, see G. Subotic and S. Kissas, Nadgrobni natpis sestre despota Jo-
vana Ugljese na Menikenskoj gori (Lpitaphe de la soeur du despote Jean Ugljesa au Mont Mnce), ZRVI
16 (1975): 16181.
29
To my knowledge, these painted features on the exterior of the dome of the chapel of St. Nicholas have
never been discussed. The entire katholikon, along with its exonarthex and the belfry, is coated with painted
plaster, all deserving of careful examination.
30
L. Boura, O glupto;" diavkosmo" tou' naou' th'" Panagiva" sto; monasthvri tou' Osivou Louka' (Athens, 1980), esp.
3748, who discusses several other middle Byzantine sculptural examples related to H. Loukas.
31
For the preliminary formulation of the much larger question, see S. C urcic, Middle Byzantine Architecture
on Cyprus: Provincial or Regional? (Nicosia, 2000), esp. 19 ff.
32
The Olympiotissa has been a subject of several studies in recent years. Two dissertations have addressed
the architecture of the church explicitly: M. Hatjigiannis, Larchitecture byzantine lpoque des Palaeo-
logues: Le cas du Catholicon de Olympiotissa Elasson (Thessalie) (Ph.D. diss., Universit de Paris, Pan-
thon-Sorbonne, 1989), and K. Englert, Der Bautypus der Umgangskirche unter besonderer Bercksichtigung der
Panagia Olympiotissa in Elasson (Frankfurt a. M.BernNew YorkParis, 1991). See also M. Hatziyanni, Rela-
tions architecturales entre la Thessalie et la Macdoine lpoque des Palologues: Le cas du catholicon de
lOlympiotissa lasson, Qessaliva. Dekapevnte crovnia arcaiologikhv" evreuna" 197590, vol. 2 (Athens, 1994),
37186, where certain architectural phenomena relevant to this context are discussed.
design, construction, and detailing, this dome is practically indistinguishable from those
on the Thessalonian churches (Figs. 5, 21, 22). Moreover, the Olympiotissa displays other
important idiosyncratic affinities with Thessalonian churches. Foremost among these is
the essentially symmetrical disposition of its plan, featuring a domed naos, enveloped on
three sides by a peristoon, a multipurpose space with which it forms an integral whole (Fig.
31).33 Such planning has been noted as one of the hallmarks of Thessalonian churches,
and has been assessed as a deliberate emulation of a distinctive local architectural proto-
type under the auspices of a local class of ecclesiastical patrons (Fig. 32).34 The pronounced
similarity in the planning of the Olympiotissa with the churches of H. Panteleimon,
H. Aikaterine, and H. Apostoloi in Thessalonike, of course, cannot be explained using the
same arguments.
The latest of the group of churches featuring a Thessalonian dome was actually built
after the first fall of Thessalonike to the Ottomans in 1387. Originally built as a small katho-
likon of a new monastery of Great Meteoron in Meteora, in 138788, the church of Meta-
morphosis was subsequently (154445) incorporated into a much larger new katholikon
(Figs. 33b and 33a, respectively).35 Although its western part was destroyed at that time,
most of the original church, including its dome, remains intact, now serving as the sanc-
tuary of the new katholikon. The externally partially visible dome of the old katholikon be-
longs to the type I have identified as the Thessalonian dome (Fig. 34). Though display-
ing unusually squat proportions in other respects, this dome has all the characteristics of
Thessalonian domes. Its very late date suggests that it may well be the last medieval ex-
ample of this dome type. In fact, it may have been built by builders from Thessalonike sent
fleeing from the city in the aftermath of the first Ottoman conquest in 1387.
A number of other, small churches in present-day northern Greece belong to the
Palaiologan period, and several of them may well be associated with Thessalonian work-
shops, though their domes no longer survive. Among these I will mention only the churches
of St. Panteleimon, near the village of Prototsani, near Drama and that of H. Nikolaos,
near the village of Pyli (Vineni) on Lake Mikra Prespa, both dated to the late thirteenth
century.36 Both churches are now in ruins, lacking their original domes. Their external wall
articulation, as well as their building technique, points to Thessalonike as the most likely
source of their builders. From the foregoing, it may be concluded that the impact of Thes-
salonike in the region of Macedonia, and to a somewhat lesser degree in Thessaly, during
the period spanning the late thirteenth to the late fourteenth century, was considerable.
The impact of Thessalonike on the architecture of various parts of Byzantine Mace-
donia and Thessaly, significant as it was, was eclipsed by its impact on neighboring Ser-
33
Hadjitryphonos, To perivstwo, vol. 1, 12829 and passim, where issues pertaining to the function and
architectural integration of such spaces into larger church buildings are discussed in detail.
34
Rautman, Patrons and Buildings, esp. 312 f; who believes that Hagia Sophia in Thessalonike served as
the local prototype that influenced the planning of most Palaiologan churches in the city. It is difficult to ac-
cept this notion for a number of reasons, not the least among them being major differences of function and
scale among the buildings in question.
35
P. L. Theocharides, To parekklhvsi tou Prodrovmou sto Megavlo Metevwro, in Ekklhsive" sthn Ellavda metav
thn'' VAlwsh (Athens, 1979), 12136, provides a useful general chronology of the monastery (p. 132).
36
For Prototsani see G. Velenis, Ena" Palaiolovgeio" nao;" sth;n perioch; Dravma", Episthmonikh; ejpethrivda
th'" Polutecnikh'" Scolh'", Tmh'ma ajrcitektovnwn 6 (Thessalonike, 1973), 83108. For Pyli, see N. Moutsopoulos,
O Agio"
v Nikovlao" Puvlh" (Binevnh"), To; ajrcaiologiko; e[rgo sth; Makedoniva kai; Qravkh 4, 1990 (1993): 4565.
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SLOBODAN C IC
75
bia.37 During the last decades of the thirteenth and the first half of the fourteenth century,
Serbia emerged as the major power in the Balkans. The territorial ambitions of the Serbian
king Stefan Uros II Milutin (12821321) during the first half of his reign, from 1282 to
1299, saw an expansion of the Serbian state into the region of Macedonia (Fig. 35).38 The
Byzantine loss of Skopje in 1282, and the failed attempt by Emperor Michael VIII to
mount a significant counter-campaign, ending with his death in December 1282, initiated
a period of major confrontation between the Serbs and the Byzantines. Successive Byzan-
tine military failures led to a flurry of diplomatic activity under the leadership of Theodore
Metochites that climaxed with a peace treaty in 1299, sealed by the marriage of King Mi-
lutin to Simonis, the young daughter of Andronikos II. An extensive program of recon-
struction of old fortifications and the construction of new ones within the territory of
Byzantine Macedonia must have been chiefly responsible for the transformation of this
thirteenth-century backwater region into a vast construction site during the last decades of
the same century (Fig. 36).39
It was in those circumstances that Thessalonike became a veritable architectural
Mecca of the Byzantine Empire. The city became the home of the second imperial house-
hold, when Empress Yolanda-Irene moved her own court there. Periods of residence of
the empress, various other high-ranking figures, such as Michael Glabas Tarchaneiotes,
Makarios Choumnos, Theodore Metochites, as well as the Serbian king Milutin, short as
they may have been, attest to the new level of importance to which Thessalonike had risen
at the time. Within its ancient city walls, themselves an object of extensive repairs and im-
provements, many new churches and monasteries arose.40 The city, left devastated and
substantially depopulated following the Norman sack of 1185, the twenty years of Latin
control after 1204, and a tug-of-war between the main contenders for the Byzantine
throne from 1204 to 1261, came back to life in a remarkable fashion, at the latest by 1282.
The volume of construction must have reached its peak during the first two decades of the
fourteenth century, followed by a period of relative stagnation, and then yet another, lesser
peak of building activity from ca. 1350ca. 1370.41 Starting with King Milutins patronage
of architecture in Serbia, especially after his marriage to Simonis in 1299 until his death
in 1321, major commissions began to occur outside Byzantine territories, attracting
Byzantine builders to the lands of the former archenemy of the empire. This trend inten-
sified after Milutins grandson Dusan assumed the Serbian throne, first as king (133146),
and then as the emperor of the Serbs and the Greeks (134655). The surviving churches,
as we will be able to see, reflect this pattern of development that made Serbian patrons the
principal employers of Byzantine, and particularly Thessalonian, builders.
37 urcic, Gracanica, chap. 1 (Political and Cultural Conditions in Serbia under King Milutin).
C
38 ivojinovic, La frontire serbobyzantine dans les premires dcennies du XIVe sicle, in Buzavntio
M. Z
kai Serbiva katav ton IDV aiwvna, ed. E. Papadopoulou and D. Dialeti (Athens, 1996), 5766.
39
M. Popovic, Les forteresses dans les rgions des conflits byzantinoserbes au XIVe sicle, in Buzavntio kai
Serbiva (as above, note 38), 6787. Practically simultaneously appeared also I. Mikuljcic, Srednovekovni gradovi
i tvrdini vo Makedonija (Medieval Towns and Castles in the Republic of Macedonia) (Skopje, 1996), a major
study of medieval fortifications on the territory of the F.Y.R.O.M.
40
For the late Byzantine interventions on the city walls of Thessalonike, see G. Gounaris, The Walls of Thes-
saloniki (Thessalonike, 1982), 1517. On urban developments in late Byzantine Thessalonike, see the article by
Ch. Bakirtzis in this volume.
41
Rautman, Patrons and Buildings, and Papazotos, Identification, esp. 127.
The first phase of this development is associated with the intensive architectural pa-
tronage of King Milutin, credited by the author of his Life with building as many as fifteen
churches, seven of which have survived or have been positively identified.42 Of these,
oneSt. Niketas at C ucer (Banjani), near Skopje (built ca. 1307)may be positively
linked to a Thessalonian workshop.43 Displaying many conservative traits, it is a four-
piered, cross-in-square building without a narthex, and with a single polygonal apse (Fig.
37, B).44 A chapel once abutting the church at its southeast corner was added shortly after
the completion of the building, but was destroyed during a restoration in 1928.45 The walls
of the church, built using alternating bands of two to three courses of brick and single
courses of stone, recall wall construction of the Holy Apostles in Thessalonike. The re-
semblance between the two churches, if we compare their domes, leaves no doubt regard-
ing the origins of St. Niketas builders (Figs. 38 and 5). The dome of St. Niketas follows the
Thessalonian formula in all respects: all-brick construction, triple skewbacks, and corner
colonnettes fully merged with the surrounding wall fabric. As such, it is the earliest dated
example of the Thessalonian dome on a church built under the auspices of King Milutin
on the territory of his state.
In several respects closely related to the church of St. Niketas was the church of the
Mother of God Hodegetria in the village of Musutiste in the region of Kosovo. Virtually
identical in plan and practically of the same dimensions, this church, unlike St. Niketas,
was a private foundation (Fig. 37, A). Other similarities include aspects of the building
technique and, most notably, the Thessalonian dome with its characteristic all-brick con-
struction, triple skewbacks framing individual window openings, and slender cylindrical
corner colonnettes (Fig. 39). The church was built in 131415 by a local nobleman, Jovan
Dragoslav, with his wife Jelena, their son Stanisa and daughter Ana, according to an in-
scription that was carved on a stone lintel above the main church portal.46 Sadly, the
42
Arhiepiskop Danilo i drugi, Z ivoti kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih, ed. Dj. Danicic (Zagreb, 1886; 2d ed. Lon-
don, 1972), 13251. A fundamental account of patronage of medieval church building in Serbia, despite its
early date, remains V. Markovic, Pravoslavno monastvo i manastiri u srednjevekovnoj Srbiji (Orthodox monasticism
and monasteries in medieval Serbia) (Sremski Karlovci, 1920), esp. 8998, for the reign of King Milutin. Most
recently the subject of King Milutins patronage of the arts was discussed exhaustively by B. Todic, Serbian Me-
dieval Painting. The Age of King Milutin (Belgrade, 1999), 730.
43
The monastery church of St. Niketas is situated near the villages of C ucer and Banjani, on the outskirts
of Skopje. Most commonly it is referred to as being at C ucer, but occasionally the location is given as Banjani,
thus potentially causing confusion. For a general discussion see P. Miljkovic-Pepek, Crkvata Sv. Nikita vo
Skopska Crna Gora kako istorisko-umetnicki spomenik, in Spomenici na srednovekovnata i ponovata istorija na
Makedonija, vol. 1 (Skopje, 1975), 37986. The main study of its architecture remains Z . Tatic, Arhitektonski
spomenici u Skopskoj Crnoj Gori, Glasnik Skopskog naucnog drustva 12 (1933): 12734. The dating of the
church is uncertain, but it was built by King Milutin, as we learn from the kings Life; cf. Arhiepiskop Danilo,
ivoti, 138. Its frescoes are generally dated as late as ca. 1320; cf. Todic, Serbian Medieval Painting, 34346.
Z
44 urcic, Articulation of Church Faades during the First Half of the Fourteenth Century. A Study of
S. C
the Relationship of Byzantine and Serbian Architecture, in Vizantijska umetnost pocetkom XIV veka (Lart byzan-
tin au dbut du XIVe sicle), ed. S. Petkovic (Belgrade, 1978), esp. 21 f.
45
The chapel, dedicated to St. John the Baptist, was also commissioned by King Milutin; cf. V. R. Petkovic,
Pregled crkava kroz povesnicu srpskog naroda (Belgrade, 1950), 212.
46
This important monument has received only limited scholarly attention. The pioneering study on the
church and its frescoes was that of V. J. Djuric, Nepoznati spomenici srpskog srednjovekovnog slikarstva u
MetohijiI [Monuments inconnus de la peinture Serbe mdivale MetohijaI], Starine Kosova i Metohije
23 (Pristina, 1963): 6189, esp. 6167. For a summary of up-to-date scholarship on the church of the Mother
of God at Musutiste, see I. Djordjevic, Zidno slikarstvo srpske vlastele u doba Nemanjica [Wall Paintings of the Ser-
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church of the Mother of God at Musutiste was the victim of wanton destruction in July
1999. It was one of several medieval churches in the region of Kosovo completely blown
up only weeks after the United Nations military force, KFOR, took control of the prov-
ince.47 Its loss is all the greater because it was the oldest documented private church founda-
tion built by a Serbian nobleman. To make matters worse, its architecture and frescoes had
received only a limited amount of attention up to the time of its demise.
The church of the Annunciation (subsequently Dormition of the Virgin) at Gracanica
monastery, six miles south of Pristina, in the region of Kosovo, was a far more complex,
royal enterprise (Fig. 40).48 Gracanica was apparently the work of a crew made up of
builders from different centers, whose combined talents produced a building in a class of
its own. Begun possibly as early as 1311 under the auspices of King Milutin, the church re-
veals thorough awareness of the church planning in vogue at the time in Thessalonike
(Figs. 41 and 32). The most notable Thessalonian aspects of Gracanicas design, however,
are its five domes (Figs. 42, 43). Featuring all-brick construction, they are characterized by
double skewbacks and characteristic cylindrical corner colonnettes. It is not inconsequen-
tial here to point out the differences between the articulation of Gracanicas Thessalon-
ian domes and those on two other major five-domed churches commissioned by King Mi-
lutin: the church of the Mother of God Ljeviska (Bogorodica Ljeviska) in Prizren, in the
region of Kosovo (built in 13067), and the church of St. George at Staro Nagoricino, near
Kumanovo, F.Y.R.O.M. (built in 131213). Despite certain similarities with Gracanica in
their overall design conception, the two churches have domes whose forms and detailing
are quite different (Figs. 44, 45).49 The faces of their drums are relatively flat, this being
especially pronounced at Prizren, and both domes reveal extensive use of stone as one of
the building materials. Their corner colonnettes, in addition to being different in design,
in both cases clearly stand apart from the surrounding masonry. Occasional visual accents
appear on the domes and elsewhere on the two churches, in the form of decorative friezes
and other designs made up of small specially cut tiles and cruciform terra-cotta jars set into
mortar with their openings facing out (Fig. 46). These are true hallmarks of Epirote con-
struction, as may be attested to by referring once more to the Panagia Paregoritissa at Arta
(Fig. 14). The same elements do not appear on any of the Thessalonian churches, nor on
any of King Milutins buildings featuring Thessalonian domes.
Following the death of King Milutin in 1321, the Thessalonian input in the church ar-
chitecture of Serbia apparently continued, though the number of datable relevant build-
ings that may be associated with the reign of his successor, Stefan Uros III Decanski (1321
31), is relatively limited. Unfortunately, the one building that seems to have displayed
bian Nobility of the Nemanjic Era] (Belgrade, 1994), 131, as well as Todic, Serbian Medieval Painting, 340. For
the dedicatory inscription, see G. Tomovic, Morfologija c irilskih natpisa na Balkanu [Morphology of Cyrillic In-
scriptions in the Balkans] (Belgrade, 1974), 48.
47
Regarding the destruction of the church of the Mother of God at Musutiste, see S. C urcic, Destruction
of Serbian Cultural Patrimony in Kosovo: A World-Wide Precedent? Bulletin of British Byzantine Studies 26
(2000): 1016, esp. 1034.
48
Curcic, Gracanica.
49
Ibid., chap. 4, passim, regarding similarities and differences of design of the three buildings. On the ar-
chitecture of Bogorodica Ljeviska, see S. Nenadovic, Bogorodica Ljeviska. Njen postanak i njeno mesto u arhitekturi
Milutinovog vremena (Belgrade, 1963). For Staro Nagoricino, see B. Todic, Staro Nagoricino (Belgrade, 1993),
with older literature on the subject.
unmistakable Thessalonian characteristics no longer survives. The church of the Ascen-

sion (Vaznesenje), also known as Sv. Spas (Savior), near Kiustendil, Bulgaria (medieval Vel-
buzd; Byzantine Velevousdion; ancient Pautalia), was commissioned by the Serbian king
to commemorate his victory over the army of the Bulgarian emperor Michael Shishman
in 1330. Popularly known as Spasovica, its ruins were still standing until World War II,
when they were completely demolished. Recorded on photographs taken at the turn of the
twentieth century, the church remains have been architecturally documented and pub-
lished.50 The crucial photograph of the building, as seen from the southwest, originally
published by Iordan Ivanov, indicates that its minor domes were of the Thessalonian va-
riety, featuring octagonal drums with corner colonnettes, double skewbacks, and slender
windows. In plan, the church featured a compact cruciform naos, preceded by a twin-
domed oblong narthex, conceptually related to the katholikon of Hilandar monastery, the
oldest known example of this scheme (Fig. 47, A).51
Probable links with Hilandar are notable in another church whose construction oc-
curred during the reign of Stefan Decanskithe church of St. Demetrius in the patriar-
chal complex of churches at Pec. Built by the Serbian archbishop Nikodim, in 132124,
the church was the first of a series of additions to the thirteenth-century church of the Holy
Apostles.52 Abutting its naos along the north side, the church of St. Demetrius must have
given the impression of a monumental funerary parekklesion, comparable in concept, if not
in details, to such buildings as the roughly contemporary parekklesion of the Chora in Con-
stantinople. Possibly built by a mixed crew of builders, the church of St. Demetrius reveals
several idiosyncratic features, such as the Gothic window frame in its apse. At the same
time, its dome displays a number of pronounced Thessalonian characteristics (Fig. 48).
Notable are the triple skewbacks and the slender brick corner colonnettes. Deviating from
the Thessalonian formula, this dome displays curious use of stone, in fact, an assortment
of several different types of stone blocks, introduced almost randomly into an otherwise
predominantly brick structure. Such use of stone blocks is at variance with contemporary
Byzantine practice in general. When stone did appear in domes of Thessalonian churches,
as in the northeast dome of H. Aikaterine (Fig. 8), it was in the form of regularly spaced
courses. The same is true, as we have also seen, of the minor domes of the katholikon of Hi-
landar monastery (Fig. 15). Given the latest thinking regarding the dating of Hilandar
katholikon, it seems very possible that Nikodim, the hegoumenos of Hilandar from 1311 to
1317, may have been responsible for bringing some of the builders from Hilandar to Ser-
bia, after becoming the new Serbian archbishop in 1317.53 In recent years our insights into
the manner of building workshop operations and dissemination of their ideas, methods,
and techniques have slowly begun to develop. These suggest that workshop skills acquired
by young apprentices on major building sites, supervised by Byzantine master builders,
50
S. Nenadovic, Arhitektura Spasovice, Zbornik zastite spomenika kulture 19 (1968): 3342. Reconstruction
drawings by the author display some deviations from what is actually discernible on photographs.
51 urcic, The Twin-Domed Narthex in Paleologan Architecture, ZRVI 13 (1971): 33344.
S. C
52
M. Canak-Medic, Larchitecture de la premire moiti du XIIIme sicle, II, Les glises de Rascie (Belgrade, 1995),
17, 3334, and 47, gives the most recent account of the history of the building and its architecture, with older
bibliography.
53
Archbishop Nikodim (131724), the patron of the church of St. Demetrius, was the hegoumenos of Hi-
landar monastery until his elevation to the throne of the Serbian archbishop (12 May 1317?); cf. Sava, Episkop
sumadijski, Srpski jerarsi od devetog do dvadesetog veka (BelgradePodgoricaKragujevac, 1996), 362.
URC
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79
became the means of spreading Byzantine architectural style within Serbia.54 The church
of St. Demetrius at Pec may aid in the process of improving our understanding the means
of training new builders and their mobility, about both of which we know so pathetically
little.55
Serbian royal patronage of Hilandar monastery provides us with three additional in-
sights of relevance in the context of this study. The first is a small church of St. Basil in the
so-called Hrusija, or Old Monastery, on the seacoast, near Hilandar.56 The church, built
by King Stefan Decanski around 1330, shares several characteristics, including scale, with
the church of Spasovica already discussed (Fig. 47, B and A). Recently restored and
stripped of an exterior coat of plaster, its dome has revealed characteristics that link it to
the domes on the katholikon at Hilandar monastery (Fig. 49).57
The chapel of the Holy Archangels in the courtyard of Hilandar monastery may also be-
long to this family of buildings.58 Externally plastered and painted, the church has a rela-
tively low dome, whose drum is partially concealed by a later slate tile roof (Fig. 50). Its plan
displays similarities with the church of St. Basil, albeit on a slightly smaller scale (Fig. 47, C).
Legend ascribes the church to Emperor Dusan, whose visit to Mount Athos and Hilandar
monastery during the outbreak of the plague in the winter of 134748 may have been the
occasion for such a donation. Judging on the basis of our analysis, the architectural char-
acter of the building seems to confirm this dating. Finally, the exonarthex of the Hilandar
katholikon may also have been commissioned by Emperor Dusan.59 Its dome repeats the de-
sign and building technique of the two small domes over the katholikon narthex (Figs. 15, 51).
If several large-scale fortification towers are added to the list of buildings associated
with Hilandar to which I have already alluded, we are left with a distinct impression that
the monastery and its immediate environs must have been a site of continuous construc-
tion over a period of several decades at the outset of the fourteenth century. Its spiritual
but also secular links with Constantinople, with Thessalonike, and ultimately with Serbia,
made Hilandar one of the most important and influential centers of the period in ques-
tion. Only further in-depth study of this monastery will reveal the many still undetected
clues regarding the processes of transmission of architectural ideas and stylistic variants
during the Palaiologan era.
The role of the Hilandar monastery in the transmission of architectural ideas into Ser-
54 urcic, Two Examples of Local Building Workshops in Fourteenth-Century Serbia, Zograf 7 (1977):
S. C
4551.
55
For the latest general discussion of the subject, see R. Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton,
N.J., 1999), esp. chap. 2.
56
S. Barisic, The Church of St. Basil on the Sea, in Hilandar Monastery, ed. G. Subotic (Belgrade, 1998),
197204.
57
Ibid., fig. on p. 204. The church may have originally been coated with plaster and painted, as indicated
by sections of once preserved original (?) decoration on the dome drum. These details have been removed
along with large areas of demonstrably later plaster. This problem is dealt with separately in my article enti-
tled Nezapazeni doprinosi Hilandara razvoju srpske srednjovekovne arhitekture [Unobserved contribu-
tions of Hilandar to the development of medieval architecture in Serbia], in C etvrta kazivanja o Svetoj Gori [The
Holy MountainThoughts and Studies 4] (Belgrade) (in press).
58
Nenadovic, Arhitektura Spasovice, 13133.
59 urcic, The Exonarthex of Hilandar. The Question of Its Function and Patronage, in Osam vekova
S. C
Hilandara. Istorija, duhovni zivot, knjiz
evnost, umetnost i arhitektura [Huit sicles du monastre de Chilandar. His-
toire, vie spirituelle, littrature, art et architecture], ed. V. Korac (Belgrade, 2000), 47787.
bia, especially under the auspices of Archbishop Nikodim, has already been stressed. On
this occasion, it may be useful also to refer to the small church of the Transfiguration (Pre-
obrazenje) in the village of Budisavci, in the region of Kosovo, ca. 17 km east of Pec. The
church, whose extensive restoration under the auspices of Archbishop Makarije in 1568 is
documented, was originally built in the fourteenth century, but a record of the circum-
stances of this construction has not been preserved.60 With the recent discovery of the
building technique on the dome of the church of St. Basil at Hrusija, it is now possible to
propose a link between these two buildings. The lower part of the dome of the Budisavci
church has preserved its original medieval appearance (Fig. 52). Its octagonal form, with
its corner semi-cylindrical colonnettes and double skewback framing of the four slender
windows on the main axes of the building, recalls Thessalonian domes in a most general
sense. Its distinctive building technique, comprising alternate banding of several courses
of brick with several courses of stone, reveals similarities with the dome of St. Basil at
Hrusija. Lacking further evidence at this point, we may simply hypothesize that the church
may have been built by the builders brought to Serbia from Mount Athos by Archbishop
Nikodim, or by some of their apprentices, shortly after the completion of the church of St.
Demetrius at Pec in 1324. The cruciform plan of the church at Budisavci also reveals some
conceptual links with the group of churches associated with Hilandar monastery that we
have considered in this context (Figs. 53 and 47).
When Stefan Dusan became the king of Serbia in 1331, he continued the policy of ac-
tive patronage of church construction of his father, and particularly of his grandfather Mi-
lutin. Furthermore, like his grandfather, he fostered a climate in which his noblemen ea-
gerly followed the rulers lead, building their own churches and monasteries. As many as
six such churches, relevant to this study, and built in these circumstances during Dusans
reign, have been preserved within the F.Y.R.O.M. The oldest among these is the church of
the Presentation of the Mother of God (Vavedenje Bogorodice, also known as Sv. Spas) in
the village of Kuceviste, near Skopje (Fig. 54). The church was built ca. 1330, apparently
by a woman named Marena, together with a certain Radoslav and another woman,
Vladislava. Marena appears to have been a noblewoman, and all three individuals may be
identified as belonging to a powerful local feudal family.61 Their church displays a slightly
elongated cross-in-square plan of approximately the same size as the church at Musutiste,
built a decade and a half earlier (Fig. 37, C and B). Its narthex with an elaborate fresco
cycle was added in 133237.62 The original building, by virtue of its simple plan, its size,
and its general architectural character, reveals affinities with the churches at C ucer and
Musutiste. Like those two churches, it also displays a Thessalonian dome, here with
double skewbacks, as we saw on Gracanica.
Shortly after Kuceviste, in 1332, Vojvoda Hrelja, a high-ranking nobleman in Dusans
state and an owner of vast estates east of the Vardar (Axios) River, commissioned the
church of the Holy Archangels in the town of S tip (Byzantine Stypeon).63 The church is
based on what appears to have been a standard, slightly elongated cross-in-square plan
60
M. Ivanovic, Crkva Preobrazenja u Budisavcima, Starine Kosova i Metohije 1 (1961): 11344.
61
Djordjevic, Zidno slikarstvo, 13136.
62
Ibid., 13536; also Z. Rasokolska-Nikolovska, O ktitorskim portretima u crkvi Svete Bogorodice u
Kucevistu, Zograf 16 (1985): 4153.
63
The church has received very little attention largely, it would seem, because its interior is without fres-
coes. Among the few notable comments are those of Millet, Lcole grecque, 11415; and Dj. Boskovic, Beleske
URC
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81
(Fig. 37, D). Merely 1m longer than the church at Kuceviste, the church of the Holy
Archangels also displays unmistakable affinities with Thessalonike. This is particularly
true of its octagonal dome drum featuring all-brick construction, triple skewbacks fram-
ing windows, and slender corner colonnettes (Fig. 55). The dome of the Holy Archangels
also displays an idiosyncratic characteristic that may link it to a specific monument in
Thessalonike. Its eight-sided drum is rotated in such a way that colonnettes, instead of
windows, appear on the main building axes. Such an arrangement appears also on the
narthex dome and on the no longer extant parekklesia domes of H. Panteleimon in Thes-
salonike (Fig. 20). Like H. Panteleimon, the church of the Holy Archangels once had a lat-
eral chapel on its south side. Recorded on a unique photograph taken by G. Millet, this
chapel was topped with another Thessalonian dome (Fig. 56). The entire parekklesion,
and any other lateral elements, such as a narthex that may once have existed, are now
gone. As in the case of H. Panteleimon, these were additions not structurally bonded with
the building core, though they must have been added shortly after its completion and pos-
sibly as part of the original design intentions.
Another member of Dusans aristocratic circle, a lady Danica, built a monastic church
dedicated to St. Nicholas at Ljuboten, on the slopes of Skopska Crna Gora.64 The church,
dated to 1337, employs a plan that can best be described as a standard formula, its length
measuring 12 m, identical to the churches of Musutiste and Kuceviste (Fig. 37, E, A, and
C). The dome of Ljuboten, along with substantial portions of its superstructure, was dras-
tically restored in 1928. A photograph taken by G. Millet before this restoration reveals
that its dome, too, had all the characteristics of a typical Thessalonian dome (Fig. 57).
To the same group also belongs the church of St. Stephen in the monastery of Konce,
near S tip, built during the reign of Emperor Dusan (134655) by a nobleman (veliki
vojvoda) Nikola Stanjevic.65 The church utilizes the same basic, slightly elongated plan,
here 13.2 m long (Fig. 37, F). The main distinction, in this case, is the preference for slight
elongation of the main piers in plan. The dome, much like that at Ljuboten, despite its
heavy-handed recent restoration, preserves the essential characteristics of the Thessalon-
ian formula.
By far the most impressive and best preserved of the churches built by the nobility in
Serbia during the fourth and fifth decades of the fourteenth century is the church of
Archangel Michael at Lesnovo monastery, commissioned by the Sevastokrator, later
Despot Oliver with his wife Marija and their two sons. Initially built between 1341 and
1346, the church was enlarged, apparently as a result of its having become the seat of the
bishopric of Zletovo after the council of Skopje in 1347 (Figs. 37, G and 58).66 The en-
sa putovanja [Notes de voyages], Starinar, 3d ser. 7 (1937): 98100. E. Reusche, Polychromes Sichtmauer-
werk byzantinischer und von Byzanz beeinflusster Sdosteuropas, inaugural diss., Universitt zu Kln
(Cologne, 1971), 16064, offers useful observations on the masonry technique.
64
Z. Tatic, Arhitektonski spomenici u Skopskoj Crnoj Gori: 2. Ljuboten (Fr. summary: Lglise de
Ljuboten), Glasnik Skopskog naucnog drustva 2.12 (1927): 93108.
65
R. M. Grujic, Arheoloske i istoriske beleske iz Makedonije (Fr. summary: Notes archologiques et his-
toriques de Macdoine), Starinar, n.s. 34 (1955): 20316, esp. 20511 for Konce. On the restoration of the
church see L. S umanov, Istrazuvanje i proekt Sv. Stefan, s. Konce (Ger. summary: Forschung und Projekt
Sv. Stefan, Dorf Konce), Kulturno nasledstvo i c ovekoviot ivoten
z prostor. Zbornik na trudovi od naucniot kolokvium
(Skopje, 1983): 200208.
66
S. Gabelic, Manastir Lesnovo. Istorija i slikarstvo (Belgrade, 1998), offers a detailed discussion of historiog-
raphy (pp. 1522) and the history of the monastery (pp. 2350).
largement consisted of a domed narthex, built between 1347 and 1349. Both parts, the
original naos and the added narthex, feature Thessalonian domes of the highest qual-
ity (Figs. 59, 60). Judging by the presence of Old Church Slavonic as well as Greek in-
scriptions at Lesnovo, one is reminded not only of Dusans imperial tenets, but also of the
fact that Greek artisans, in this case most probably from Thessalonike, were employed here
on this ambitious project.67 The two domes, in addition to their constructional details, dis-
play also other specific affinities with Thessalonike. Both domes are rotated so that colon-
nettes, and not windows, appear aligned with the buildings main axes. This design pecu-
liarity, as we have already seen, was employed in the churches of Olympiotissa at Elasson
(Fig. 31) and Holy Archangels at S tip (Fig. 56), as well as in the narthex dome of H. Pan-
teleimon in Thessalonike (Fig. 20), possibly the prototype of the entire group featuring
this idiosyncratic detail.
The church of St. Nicholas at Psaca monastery, though only partially preserved, illus-
trates the continuation of the Thessalonian impact into the sixth decade of the fourteenth
century.68 Built before Emperor Dusans death in 1355, the church was commissioned by
another of his noblemen by the name of Vlatko. The original church had a four-piered
naos, here spatially fused with a single domed narthex (Fig. 37, H). In this case only the
narthex dome has been preserved (Fig. 61). Of inferior quality, when compared to the
narthex dome of Lesnovo (Fig. 60), Psaca may be another example of the work of local ap-
prentices trained by the Thessalonian masters on a major building project. In this case the
training may well have occurred at Lesnovo. This hypothesis requires further close study
of the two churches in question.
In addition to the churches mentioned, a large number of churches, many of them still
preserved, were built in and around Skopje, the capital of Dusans state. This phenome-
non has been noted, but is deserving of more extensive attention.69 Given our objectives,
I will touch on only some of the main issues that concern us here. Among the churches
built in the area of Skopje one of the most impressive must have been the church of the
Mother of God (Bogorodica) at Matejic monastery, apparently begun by Dusan himself,
but finished by his wife Jelena and son Uros after his death in 1355 (Fig. 62).70 The church,
situated on a prominent plateau overlooking the plain near Kumanovo, still survives
notwithstanding the numerous misfortunes it suffered throughout history, the latest one
in the summer of 2001.71 The grand building displays a standard cross-in-square plan, ex-
67 urcic, The Architecture of Lesnovo in the Light of Political Realities in Mid-Fourteenth-Century
S. C
Macedonia, BSCAbstr 14 (1988): 22.
68
For the latest account of the history of the church and an up-to-date bibliography, see Djordjevic, Zidno
slikarstvo, 17275; also K. Tomovski, Konzervacija crkve manastira Psace [la conservation de lglise du
monastre Psaca], Zbornik zastite spomenika kulture 14 (1963): 3944.
69
For an introduction to the problem see S. C urcic, Architecture in the Byzantine Sphere of Influence
around the Middle of the Fourteenth Century, in Decani et lart byzantin au milieu du XIVe sicle, ed. V. J. Djuric
(Belgrade, 1989), 5568.
70
The scholarly literature on Matejic is sparse. The most extensive account of its architecture still remains
A. Deroko, Matejca, Starinar, n.s. 89 (193334): 8489; for a general historical account see Petkovic, Pregled,
18488.
71
This major monument of Serbian medieval architecture was seriously damaged by fire during the
physical occupation of the building by Albanian insurgents in the summer of 2001; J. Nikolic Novakovic,
Matejce MonasteryPresentation of Damages, Urgent Regional Workshop: Cultural Heritage at Risk in the Event
of Armed ConflictMacedonia Case (sic) 2024 February 2002 (Ohrid). The proceedings of this international
workshop, focused on the recent damage and destruction of several monuments in the Balkans, are currently
in press.
URC
SLOBODAN C IC
83
panded eastward by a deep sanctuary flanked by two domed chapels. Correspondingly, on

its west side the church has a narthex whose extreme bays are also crowned by a pair of
domes. The construction of the five domes is revealing. The western pair of small domes
clearly displays Thessalonian affinities (Fig. 63). The main dome, on the other hand, with
its characteristic technique of alternating bands of brick and stone construction, departs
from the Thessalonian standards (Fig. 64). Inasmuch as the church at Matejic displays
other characteristics with no links to Thessalonike, its architecture must be seen as evi-
dence of a new architectural synthesis occurring in the region of Skopje during the period
of its prosperity as the capital of Dusans short-lived Serbo-Greek Empire. The role of
Thessalonike in that context was limited to the presence of certain Thessalonian features,
by this time already fully assimilated into the local building practice during the 1330s
and 40s.
The goal of this study has been to shed light on the role of Thessalonike in the devel-
opment of late medieval ecclesiastical architecture in the Balkans. This role has long been
postulated, but its analysis has never gone beyond vague generalizations. In setting out to
accomplish this goal it was necessary first to underscore the distinction between what, on
occasion, has been referred to as the Macedonian School of architecture and architec-
ture that can be associated specifically with Thessalonike itself. The large number of rela-
tively well preserved monuments, both in Thessalonike and in the region of late Byzantine
and Serbian Macedonia, and beyond, provides a basis for an in-depth study, an outline of
which has been presented here. My insistence on the use of the term Thessalonian dome
was driven by concern to provide a suitable tool for detecting certain building traits and
their spread. The term, as I believe has been demonstrated, has a degree of specificity that
is based on the sheer quantity of data at our disposal.
My preliminary conclusionsand they are only preliminarycan be sketched out as
follows. Thessalonikes role as the center of major architectural activity in the first decades
of the fourteenth century was a by-product of the reconstitution of the Byzantine Empire
and the fact that Byzantine Macedonia at that time became a region hotly contested be-
tween Byzantium and Serbia. In favorable political and economic circumstances and ow-
ing to a large volume of construction, a local manner of building evolved in Thessalonike
during the last decades of the thirteenth century. This building manner came about as a
blending of experience brought in by builders from Epiros and the Empire of Nicaea.
Soon after 1300 Thessalonian builders were in demand in the surrounding region, and
beyond, reaching into the territories of Serbia, and to a far more limited extent, Bulgaria.
The erstwhile archenemy of the empire, subsequently the emperors son-in-law, Serbian
king Milutin, became the chief lure for Thessalonian builders with his royal commissions
that began shortly after his marriage with the Byzantine princess had been arranged in
1299. King Milutins interest in Byzantine builders as well as painters was but a part of his
program of cultural Byzantinization of Serbia.72 Serbian noblemen followed the royal
example by hiring either Byzantine builders or native builders trained by foreigners on
major building projects, such as the church of Gracanica monastery. As the fortunes of Ser-
bia continued to rise in the following decades, those of Thessalonike went into decline. A
civil war that broke out in the 1340s, and the territorial expansion of Serbia under Stefan
72 urcic, Gracanica, chap. 1.

C
Dusan, brought about a major shift in patterns of building patronage. It would appear
that from ca. 1330 to ca. 1355 Thessalonian and other Byzantine builders flocked to Ser-
bia, placing themselves in the service of the Serbian rulers and their nobility. During this
time, the capital of Serbia, Skopje, became the new center of architectural gravity, super-
seding Thessalonike in that role. It would appear that, following Dusans death in 1355, a
brief revival of church building occurred in Thessalonike until this, too, was brought to an
end with a prolonged period of isolation, siege, and the first Ottoman conquest of the city
in 1387.
The region of Macedonia, as we have seen, became an extremely fertile area of archi-
tectural production from ca. 1280 to ca. 1370. The beginnings of the architectural activity
in the region witnessed an influx of builders from the Despotate of Epiros, as well as from
the Empire of Nicaea, as these entities lost their political significance. Once its prestige was
reestablished, by around 1300, Thessalonike began to exert influence of its own, on a re-
gional scale. The role of Thessalonike in the development of fourteenth-century ecclesi-
astical architecture in the Balkans, however, was restricted both geographically and
chronologically. Thessalonike, even at the height of its architectural productivity, was only
one of the sources of architectural influence in the region of Macedonia (Fig. 65). During
the first decades of the fourteenth century its impact was paralleled by that of Epiros, em-
anating at the time from another newly risen prosperous center, Ohrid. By the 1340s both
Thessalonike and Ohrid were eclipsed by the third major center of regional architectural
productionSkopje, the capital of Stefan Dusans short-lived Serbo-Greek Empire.
Throughout this period of lively developments, the monastery of Hilandar played a ma-
jor role, attracting as it did the best builders from other centers, such as Constantinople,
and in turn channeling them elsewhere, where the demand for building was great. Thus
Hilandar, along with Thessalonike and Ohrid, must be perceived as one of the main
sources of Byzantine architectural influence in Serbia during the first half of the four-
teenth century.
While a general outline of the role of Thessalonike may now be clearer, the main work
still lies ahead. The several dozen churches preserved, or known to have existed in Greece,
F.Y.R.O.M., Serbia, and Bulgariamost of them essentially understudied or not studied
at allprovide an opportunity but also an obligation to penetrate into the issues more
deeply. The lack of archival material does not preclude learning about builders, their
methods, workshops they belonged to, movements of different workshops, and so on. All
of that can be gleaned in good measure from careful examination of the buildings them-
selves. Once again, here perhaps more clearly than anywhere, one can insist on the docu-
mentary value of the physical evidence at hand. How to use this evidence is the challenge
we must find ways to respond to.
Princeton University

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
Foreigners and the Urban Economy in Thessalonike,
ca. 1150ca. 1450
DAVID JACOBY
oreigners and foreignness in Byzantium have lately enjoyed much attention and have
F been the subject of a growing number of studies.1 Those considering the activity and
presence of foreigners in urban centers generally focus on Constantinople. Foreigners in
late Byzantine Thessalonike have hardly been considered in the last century. The first to
deal with them was Oreste Tafrali, some ninety years ago, yet he limited himself to some
brief remarks.2 Freddy Thiriet examined one specific group in the fourteenth century,
namely the Venetians.3 Shorter references are found in passing in other publications, such
as those dealing with trade. The foreigners in Palaiologan Thessalonike undoubtedly war-
rant a more thorough investigation. Continuity is an important issue in that context. This
is a sufficient reason to reach back to the reign of Manuel I Komnenos and to cover the fol-
lowing three centuries, in order to gain a long-term perspective.
There is no need to elaborate on the importance of Thessalonike as a Byzantine polit-
ical, economic, and cultural center, second only to Constantinople and, at times in the
fourteenth century, possibly even surpassing the capital in intellectual and artistic activity.
The city enjoyed a particularly favorable location along the land route and the waterway
linking Constantinople to the West. In addition, it served as one of the major outlets of the
Balkans to the Aegean and as intermediary between these two regions. It had a rich rural
hinterland and was a major market, maritime station, and population center. Yet while ge-
ographic factors remained on the whole constant, it was unavoidable that the tumultuous
history of Thessalonike after 1204 would have a strong bearing on the citys evolution.
More specifically, the fluctuations in political, economic, and social conditions generated
1
See D. Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance: Une communaut marginalise, in Ch. A. Maltezou, ed., OiJ
periqwriakoi; sto; Buzavntio (= Marginality in Byzantium), {Idruma Goulandrh'Covrn (Athens, 1993), 10354,
repr. in Jacoby, Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean (Aldershot, 2001), no. III; A. E. Laiou, Insti-
tutional Mechanisms of Integration, in H. Ahrweiler and A. E. Laiou, eds., Studies on the Internal Diaspora of
the Byzantine Empire (Washington, D.C., 1998), 16181; several essays in D. C. Smythe, ed., Strangers to Them-
selves: The Byzantine Outsider, Papers from the Thirty-Second Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Univer-
sity of Sussex, Brighton, March 1998 (Aldershot, 2000). Other recent studies are adduced below.
2
O. Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle (Paris, 1913), 3844.
3
F. Thiriet, Les Vnitiens Thessalonique dans la premire moiti du XIVe sicle, Byzantion 22 (1952):
32332, repr. in idem, tudes sur la Romanie grco-vnitienne (XeXVe sicles) (London, 1977), no. I.
86 FOREIGNERS AND THE URBAN ECONOMY IN THESSALONIKE
by successive conquests and civil wars, as well as by various external developments, had a
definite impact on the composition, nature, volume, and intensity of foreign activity and
presence in the city.
Before entering into the heart of the subject, however, some clarifications are required.
First of all, who exactly was a foreigner and, more specifically, who was a foreigner in Thes-
salonike? The issue is far more complex than it would seem at first sight. To be sure, there
were some seemingly objective criteria of foreignness. Foreigners were distinguished by
their ethnic or geographic origin, language, religious creed and, moreover, they were not
imperial subjects. Yet the boundaries between the latter and foreigners were sometimes
blurred. In twelfth-century Constantinople there were Latins who became imperial sub-
jects, and, on the other hand, from the thirteenth century onward we find there Greeks of
Orthodox faith, born and residing in the empire, who were subjects of a foreign power
such as Venice or Genoa.4 One may wonder whether such was also the case in Thessa-
lonike. Other Greeks residing in territories ruled by foreigners were the latters subjects
and thus foreigners once they arrived in the empire, regardless of whether or not they
identified with the latter or with their brethren under imperial rule. A case documented
in 1367 raises tantalizing questions of identity. A Greek woman who had married the Cata-
lan Pere Estanyol in Thebes and had become a Catholic returned to Orthodoxy after her
husbands death fourteen years later, became a nun, and fled to Thessalonike.5 Did she
consider herself a foreigner in the city, or was she considered as such by others, and for
how long? The Jews differed markedly from other groups residing in late Byzantine Thes-
salonike. As we shall see, they retained their specific individual and collective identity as
foreigners, despite being imperial subjects.
A different ambiguity arises with respect to other residents of Thessalonike in that pe-
riod. A perusal of the Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit reveals numerous foreign
names and surnames, yet onomastics are a treacherous tool in our context. Christianiza-
tion, use of the Greek language, service in the army and administration, intermarriage
with Greek subjects of the empire, as well as institutional mechanisms such as justice and
taxation promoted the integration of foreigners into the social and cultural melting-pot
of the empire.6 We find only a few individuals for whom we have sufficient data to identify
them as foreigners. Moreover, we can rarely determine whether or not they maintained
their identity as foreigners, which was especially difficult in an urban surrounding unless
they were inserted within a specific community. Nor do we know at what point and to what
extent they assimilated to their Byzantine surroundings or, in other words, became hellen-
ized. Questions in this respect are even difficult to answer with regard to Yolanda of Mont-
ferrat, wife of Emperor Andronikos II, who resided in Thessalonike from 1303 to 1317,
since the sources dealing with this empress of Latin origin, known by her Greek name
as Eirene, are clouded by political and religious partisanship.7 She was clearly the source
of the Western values and attitudes of her son Theodore, who after leaving the empire
4
For details, see below.
5
The case is mentioned in a letter of King Frederick III of Sicily: A. Rubi i Lluch, ed., Diplomatari de lOri-
ent catal (Barcelona, 1947), 38081, no. CCXCII.
6
See Laiou, Mechanisms.
7
See D. M. Nicol, The Byzantine Lady: Ten Portraits, 12501500 (Cambridge, 1994), 4858.
DAVID JACOBY 87
to rule over the marquisate of Montferrat became thoroughly latinized.8 Finally, it should
also be noted that cultural acculturation did not necessarily entail a change in name or sur-
name, and foreign identity could be concealed by names common in Byzantine and other
Christian communities.
The Deblitzenoi family, attested in Thessalonike from 1301 to 1419, offers a case in
point. The inconsistent spelling of the surname reveals that it was of foreign origin. The
first known member to reside in Thessalonike was Manuel Deblitzenos, the tzaousios of the
citys cavalry corps in 1301, who by then was a pronoia-holder. His son Demetrios remained
loyal to the empire when the Serbian czar Stefan Dusan captured eastern Macedonia in
1345, including his property, and he apparently left Thessalonike during the Zealot revo-
lution. During the civil war of 134147 he sided with the usurper John Kantakouzenos,
remained on good terms with him after the latters victory, and in 1349 died a monk. His
son Manuel was also a military man, an oikeios of the emperor, who was firmly integrated
by marriage within the social elite of Thessalonike. Presumably in 1381 he gave some land
to Docheiariou, an imperial monastery on Mount Athos inhabited by Greek monks.9 Nev-
ertheless, a Deblitzenos who apparently was a member of the same family is expressly
called the Serbian during the last two decades of the fourteenth century.10 It is impos-
sible to determine whether this was still a subjective perception of foreignness by this in-
dividual or a labeling by others.
Even if the foreigner concealed or was unwilling to remember his foreignness, he may
have been occasionally reminded of it. Polemics, one of the favorite games in which Byzan-
tine intellectuals indulged, are rife with examples in this respect, and three of them are
particularly relevant to our investigation. In 1368 Demetrios Kydones reminded the pa-
triarch of Constantinople Philotheos Kokkinos, born in Thessalonike, of his Jewish ori-
gin.11 As for Gregory Palamas, in a letter sent to Philotheos he denigrated his adversaries
Barlaam and Gregory Akindynos by stressing their foreign origin, respectively Calabrian
and Bulgarian.12 There is no doubt, however, how these so-called foreigners perceived
themselves and were viewed by many others.
The cases considered so far clearly illustrate how problematic it is to deal with indi-
8
See A. Laiou, A Byzantine Prince Latinized: Theodore Palaeologus, Marquis of Montferrat, Byzantion 38
(1968): 4012. On the other hand, M. Da browska, Family Ethos at the Imperial Court of the Palaiologos in
the Light of the Testimony by Theodore of Montferrat, in A. R. Bryzek and M. Salamon, eds., Byzantina et
Slavica Cracoviensia, vol. 2 (Cracow, 1994), 7381, minimizes the differences between the West and Byzantium
with respect to family values and the Christian code of moral principles, as expressed by Theodore. She is nev-
ertheless aware of the gap between professed ideas and reality.
9
See N. Oikonomides, The Properties of the Deblitzenoi in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, in
A. E. Laiou-Thomadakis, ed., Charanis Studies: Essays in Honor of Peter Charanis (New Brunswick, N.J., 1980),
17698; M. Bartusis, The Settlement of the Serbs in Macedonia in the Era of Dusans Conquests, in
Ahrweiler and Laiou, Studies (as above, note 1), 15253.
10
P. Schreiner, Zwei unedierte Praktika aus der zweiten Hlfte des 14. Jh., JB 19 (1970): 34.5, and 35 for
the dating after 1380; PLP 5172.
11
Dmtrius Cydons, Correspondance, ed. R.-J. Loenertz (Vatican City, 195660), 1: 16466, letter 129;
Demetrios Kydones, Briefe, trans. F. Tinnefeld, Bibliothek der griechischen Literatur 16 (Stuttgart, 198199),
1.2: 39396, letter 68, commentary 398 and 401 note 4. See also S. B. Bowman, The Jews of Byzantium, 1204
1453 (Tuscaloosa, Ala., 1985), 6768, and Eng. trans. ibid., 287, no. 93.
12
P. Chrestos, ed., Grhgorivou tou' Palama' Suggravmmata (Thessalonike, 196288), 2: 522.31523.3; see also
the Calabrian mentioned in 4: 279.910.
viduals and to determine whether they are or have ceased to be foreigners at any given mo-
ment, even when fairly abundant evidence about them is available. In view of the serious
pitfalls arising with respect to them, it is preferable to restrict this paper to the study of
well-defined foreign groups, already a weighty subject by itself. In that context it is essen-
tial to distinguish between external and internal foreigners, the latter being defined
as minorities in our contemporary language. It is also mandatory to distinguish between
residents and nonresidents. The former were established in Thessalonike on a permanent
basis for lengthy periods, though not always indefinitely. Indeed, some of them returned
to their city or land of origin, while others moved to new locations after a few years. The
nonresidents comprised occasional visitors as well as individuals staying in the city to con-
duct their business for one or two sailing seasons at most.
A final remark is in order. The traditional litany about the paucity and the fragmented
nature of evidence bearing on Byzantine topics is particularly appropriate in our case. On
the whole, Byzantine sources provide general information about foreigners and attitudes
toward them, yet they hardly offer any concrete indications about individuals, their pres-
ence and their activities. This is particularly obvious with respect to Thessalonike. In any
event, since we deal with foreigners, the recourse to foreign sources is indispensable. Es-
pecially Western documents offer abundant and concrete evidence about foreigners in
Constantinople in the Palaiologan period, yet they yield far more limited information for
Thessalonike.
We may begin with external foreigners. The Latins were clearly the most important
group among them in the three centuries or so covered by this paper, in any event with re-
spect to their role in the citys economy. Their activity and presence in Thessalonike were
more or less sustained throughout that whole period, yet the composition and size of their
group fluctuated over time. Except between 1204 and 1224, the appearance of the Latins
in the city was primarily, if not exclusively, related to economic incentives. It will be neces-
sary, therefore, to dwell upon various facets of the economic context in which the Latins
operated, though without attempting to reconstruct the latters overall evolution in Thes-
salonike.
The evidence regarding the Latins in the city from ca. 1150 to 1204 is scanty. It is im-
possible to determine whether this is due to the nature of the extant documentation or re-
flects a volume of western trade less important than one would expect at first glance.13 By
the second half of the twelfth century, Venice, Pisa, and Genoa each had its own quarter in
Constantinople and had been granted commercial privileges and fiscal exemptions in the
empire. Yet until 1192 Venice was the only maritime nation enjoying extensive privileges
in the whole empire, which partly explains why Venetian settlers were to be found in more
provincial cities than those of any other western maritime nation.14
13
The evidence on Latin trade in Halmyros and Corinth is far more abundant: see R.-J. Lilie, Handel und
Politik zwischen dem byzantinischen Reich und den italienischen Kommunen Venedig, Pisa und Genua in der Epoche der
Komnenen und der Angeloi (10811204) (Amsterdam, 1984), 18890 and 19597.
14
On the differing nature and geographic extent of the privileges, see D. Jacoby, Italian Privileges and
Trade in Byzantium before the Fourth Crusade: A Reconsideration, Anuario de estudios medievales 24 (1994):
34969, repr. in idem, Trade, Commodities and Shipping in the Medieval Mediterranean (Aldershot, 1997), no. II.
See also Laiou, Mechanisms, 17177, 179, and my reservations about some of her arguments below, p. 90
and note 23; pp. 12728 and note 298.
DAVID JACOBY 89
Thessalonike appears in the second half of the twelfth century as destination and tran-
sit station of Venetian as well as Pisan merchants and ships, the Venetians also reaching the
city by land. In addition, Thessalonike served as base of operations for some Latins estab-
lished there.15 As elsewhere in the empire, their activity in Thessalonike was interrupted
by political events. The Venetians either were arrested or fled in 1171, yet presumably re-
turned a few years later. They were back at Thebes by 1175 and at Constantinople by the
following year. It is likely, therefore, that such was also the case in Thessalonike long be-
fore Venice arrived at a new agreement with the empire in 1183 and concluded a new for-
mal treaty with it in 1187.16
The expulsion of the Pisans from the empire in 1182 also interrupted the latters trade
and presence in Thessalonike for a number of years. Pisa concluded a new treaty with the
empire in 1192, yet it appears that its citizens did not immediately renew their activity in
the city, in any event not on the same scale as before 1182. Indeed, only five years after the
conclusion of the treaty, in 1197, did Pisa request the restitution of the confiscated Pisan
trading facilities in Thessalonike. Its second demand, namely the stationing of a Pisan vice-
comes, hints for the first time at the presence of Pisan settlers in the city.17 It is likely, though,
that these were also to be found earlier, since, despite the absence of privileged status in
the provinces, some Pisans were established at Halmyros before 1182.18 We may thus sur-
mise that there were both Venetian and Pisan traveling merchants as well as settlers in
Thessalonike in 1185, when the city was besieged and briefly occupied by the Norman
forces.19 However, since Venice enjoyed more extensive privileges than its rivals until 1192,
it is likely that Venetian citizens were the dominant subgroup among the Latins operating
in Thessalonike in the twelfth century. This was presumably also the case in the last decade
before the Fourth Crusade, despite the extension of Pisan and Genoese privileges to the
provinces in 1192.20
Genoa was the third maritime power whose citizens were active in the empire in the
second half of the twelfth century, yet there is no evidence of Genoese traders or settlers in
Thessalonike until after the Fourth Crusade. We may nevertheless assume that Genoese
ships occasionally anchored there on their way to and from Constantinople, as suggested
by two of them engaging in navigation along the Greek coast in 1171. One of these vessels
is attested at Halmyros and the other at Euripos, present-day Chalkis in Euboea, close to
the mainland.21 It should be noted, though, that in that period Genoese ships also sailed
between their home-city and the empires capital via Crete and the central Aegean, a mar-
15
Survey by Lilie, Handel und Politik, 21316; S. Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio nel XII secolo. I rapporti economici
(Venice, 1988), 5253, 8687, 9394. Transit through Thessalonike is also implied by a land journey from
Halmyros to Constantinople in 1161: R. Morozzo della Rocca and A. Lombardo, eds., Documenti del commercio
veneziano nei secoli XIXIII (Turin, 1940), nos. 15152.
16
On the resumption of Venetian trade in the empire, see Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, 2227; Jacoby, Italian
Privileges, 356.
17
See S. Borsari, Pisani a Bisanzio nel XII secolo, in Studi di storia pisana e toscana in onore del Prof. Cinzio Vi-
olante, Biblioteca del Bollettino Storico Pisano, Collana storica 38 (Pisa, 1991), 6566, 68; Jacoby, Italian Privi-
leges, 366. On trading facilities, see also below.
18
See Borsari, Pisani a Bisanzio, 6566.
19
On the presence of Latins at that time, see below, p. 90.
20
On these privileges, see Jacoby, Italian Privileges.
21
C. Imperiale di SantAngelo, ed., Codice diplomatico della Repubblica di Genova (Rome, 193642), 2: 21314
note 1, 215 note 2.
itime route bypassing Thessalonike.22 It is likely, therefore, that the Genoese displayed less
interest in the city than their rivals. The conjunction of the navigation pattern and the lack
of extensive privileges until 1192 presumably accounts for the absence of Genoese settlers
from Thessalonike.
John Kinnamos reports that sometime before 1171 Emperor Manuel I imposed a
clear-cut choice upon Venetians permanently settled in the empire. He compelled them
to declare whether they were his bourgesioi (subjects) or whether they retained their con-
dition of visiting traders and Venetian allegiance, with all the privileges and obligations de-
riving from either status. In that context bourgesioi, a hellenized Western term, bore a dual
legal meaning as in Western usage, to which Kinnamos explicitly alludes. Burgenses stood
then for both permanent residents and a lords subjects, in contrast to mercatores, visiting
merchants.23 Some fifteen years later Archbishop Eustathios of Thessalonike used bourge-
sioi in a much looser sense by applying the originally Western term to Latins in general.
He reported that during the Norman siege of 1185 some individual treacherously con-
tacted the enemy from a tower located close to the neighborhood of the bourgesioi.24 A sit-
ing of that neighborhood to the east of the walled city, near the ancient harbor called Kel-
larion,25 is totally excluded, since the contact was established from within the city.
Moreover, this could only be achieved if the tower faced the enemy camping in the coun-
tryside, which implies that the tower was inserted within the urban rampart. Finally, con-
sidering the Latin involvement in maritime trade, the twelfth-century Latin neighborhood
must have been situated in the vicinity of the harbor. In short, we may locate it in the south-
western part of Thessalonike, close to both the wall protecting the western flank of the city
and the harbor.26
22
See D. Jacoby, Byzantine Crete in the Navigation and Trade Networks of Venice and Genoa, in L. Bal-
letto, ed., Oriente e Occidente tra medioevo ed et moderna. Studi in onore di Geo Pistarino, Universit degli Studi di
Genova, Sede di Acqui Terme, Collana di Fonti e Studi 1.1 (Acqui Terme, 1997), 53239, repr. in Jacoby, Byzan-
tium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean, no. II.
23
John Kinnamos, Epitome rerum ab Ioanne et Alexio Comnenis gestarum, ed. A. Meineke, CSHB (Bonn, 1836),
28182 (6.10). The same meanings appear in the crusader states of the Levant: see D. Jacoby, Les Vnitiens
naturaliss dans lEmpire byzantin: Un aspect de lexpansion de Venise en Romanie du XIIIe au milieu du
XVe sicle, TM 8 (1981): 219, repr. in idem, Studies on the Crusader States and on Venetian Expansion (Northamp-
ton, 1989), no. IX. They exclude the interpretation of Laiou, Mechanisms, 17374, who suggests that
Manuel I granted the bourgesioi a special regime. There were also Pisans who became imperial subjects: see
Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, 4950. Not surprisingly, some Venetians and Pisans sought to take advantage of both
the privileges granted to their nation and the status of Byzantine subject. It is important to note that, despite
Manuels injunction, we later find Latin permanent residents who were not imperial subjects. On the whole is-
sue, see D. Jacoby, The Byzantine Outsider in Trade (c. 900c. 1350), in Smythe, Strangers to Themselves (as
above, note 1), 13537.
24
Eustazio di Tessalonica, La espugnazione di Tessalonica, ed. S. Kyriakidis, Istituto Siciliano di Studi Bizan-
tini e Neoellenici, Testi 5 (Palermo, 1961), 92.79, text reproduced with same pagination in Eustathios of
Thessalonike, The Capture of Thessaloniki, with English translation by J. R. Melville-Jones, ByzAus 8 (Canberra,
1988). P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 11431180 (Cambridge, 1993), 149, considers that the
bourgesioi of Thessalonike mentioned by Eustathios were all resident Latins who had become imperial subjects.
This may be excluded, considering what happened in Constantinople: see end of previous note. Moreover, if
this had been the case, it would be difficult to explain why all privately held or owned Pisan premises in Thes-
salonike were confiscated in 1182, on which see above, p. 89.
25
As suggested by Ch. Bakirtzes,H qalavssia ojcuvrwsh th'" Qessalonivkh" (Parathrhvsei" kai; problhvmata),
Buzantinav 7 (1975): 31213; on Kellarion, see ibid., 32122 and fig. 14.
26
As suggested already by J.-M. Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments du IVe au VIe sicle. Contribution l-
tude dune ville palochrtienne, BEFAR 254 (Paris, 1984), 44. On Thessalonikes harbor, see Bakirtzes, H qalavs-
DAVID JACOBY 91
Unfortunately, a more precise siting of the twelfth-century Latin neighborhood can-

not be determined. Its localization in the area covered by the Frangkomacala'" or Frank-
ish quarter of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries may be safely dismissed.27 Since the
modern Catholic church is located some 400 m from the western city wall,28 such an iden-
tification would imply that the Latin neighborhood of the twelfth century extended over
a broad area covering almost the entire northern flank of the harbor. This is excluded,
especially in view of the size of the Latin presence in twelfth-century Thessalonike, un-
doubtedly much smaller than in contemporary Constantinople.29 Moreover, despite the
almost continuous Western economic activity in the city, it is unclear whether a Latin
neighborhood existed without interruption from the twelfth to the eighteenth century, as
we shall see below, and even if it did, there is no way to ascertain whether there was conti-
nuity in its location.30 Finally, since the volume of Western activity and presence in Thes-
salonike fluctuated over time, it is obvious that the extent of the Latin neighborhood must
have similarly varied.
In all likelihood, this specific urban area served as residence for both settlers and vis-
iting merchants, who presumably conducted much of their business in its premises. The
twelfth-century imperial policy applied in provincial cities with respect to foreigners was
far more flexible than in Constantinople.31 There is no evidence that it included the as-
signment of specific quarters with well-defined boundaries, space limitations with respect
to residence, or impediments to the purchase of real estate, as in the capital.32 Yet the ab-
sence of imperial intervention in these matters also had its drawbacks, since the Latin
neighborhood in twelfth-century Thessalonike lacked any particular privileged status. It
sia, 31521. On the quarters of the maritime powers in Constantinople along the Golden Horn, see P.
Magdalino, Constantinople mdivale. tudes sur lvolution des structures urbaines, Travaux et mmoires du Cen-
tre de recherche dhistoire et civilisation de Byzance, Collge de France, Monographies 9 (Paris, 1996), 7890;
idem, The Maritime Neighborhoods of Constantinople: Commercial and Residential Functions, Sixth to
Twelfth Centuries, DOP 54 (2000): 20926. Some different topographical interpretations appear in D. Jacoby,
The Venetian Quarter of Constantinople from 1082 to 1261: Topographical Considerations, in C. Sode
and S. Takcs, eds., Novum Millennium. Studies on Byzantine History and Culture Dedicated to Paul Speck (Aldershot,
2001), 15370. Significantly, in Halmyros one of two contiguous plots of land bought by Venetians respectively
before 1150 and 1156 was located on the seashore: L. Lanfranchi, ed., S. Giorgio Maggiore, Fonti per la Storia
di Venezia, Sez. II: Archivi ecclesiastici (Venice, 196774), 2: 46370, nos. 23133.
27
This localization appears in O. Tafrali, Topographie de Thessalonique (Paris, 1913), 9495, 144, followed by
Kyriakidis in Eustazio di Tessalonica, Espugnazione, 174, and Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments, 44.
28
See Bakirtzes, H qalavssia, fig. 1.
29
On the size of the quarters of the major maritime powers in the capital, see the suggestions of P. Schreiner,
Untersuchungen zu den Niederlassungen westlicher Kaufleute im byzantinischen Reich des 11. und 12.
Jahrhunderts, ByzF 7 (1979): 17981.
30
It is noteworthy that there was no continuity in the location of the Jewish quarter in Thessalonike: see be-
low.
31
Incidentally, this was also the case with respect to Byzantine traders and the economy in general: see
N. Oikonomids, Le marchand byzantin des provinces (IXeXIe s.), in Mercati e mercanti nellalto medioevo: Larea
euroasiatica e larea mediterranea. Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sullalto medioevo, Spoleto, 40
(1993): 65560; idem, The Economic Region of Constantinople: From Directed Economy to Free Economy, and
the Role of the Italians, in G. Arnaldi and G. Cavallo, eds., Europa medievale e mondo bizantino. Contatti effettivi e pos-
sibilit di studi comparati, Istituto Storico Italiano per il Medio Evo, Nuovi studi storici 40 (Rome, 1997), 22138.
32
See Jacoby, Byzantine Outsider in Trade, 13536. Note that the separate neighborhoods of the Amalfi-
tans and the Venetians in Dyrrachion existed before 1082, when Alexios I assigned for the first time a quarter
to Venice in Constantinople: A. Ducellier, La faade maritime de lAlbanie au moyen ge. Durazzo et Valona du XIe
au XVe sicle (Thessalonike, 1981), 7073.
may be assumed, therefore, that the Latins themselves determined the location of their
residences and trading facilities in the city. The fondaco and houses held by the Pisans be-
fore 1182 had either been privately rented for a prolonged period or, more likely, had been
privately purchased or built.33 There is good reason to believe that the Venetians had sim-
ilar premises, despite the absence of evidence in this respect. From the existence of the
Pisan fondaco in Thessalonike we may gather that the Pisans and the Venetians resided and
operated in separate, though contiguous areas within the Latin neighborhood. Such a
spontaneous concentration along national lines is also attested for Dyrrachion and
Halmyros.34 Their presence, whether short-term or lengthy, implied the continuous ser-
vice of a Latin clergy of low rank, as in Constantinople and in various provincial cities of
the empire.35 The Venetian monastery of S. Nicol di Lido, which held property granted
by Venice in various Byzantine cities, had a dependency in Thessalonike in 1165, accord-
ing to an overlooked reference included in a document of 1296.36 We may safely assume
that this property was located within the Latin neighborhood. It is likely that the Pisans
too had their own ecclesiastical institution in the same urban area, since they had two
churches in Halmyros.37
The occupation of Thessalonike by Boniface of Montferrat in 1204 had a threefold im-
pact on Latin presence in the city. It introduced new social elements, resulted in an in-
crease in the number of settlers, and reinforced Latin ecclesiastical presence. In addition
to traders, there were now settlers belonging to the western nobility as well as commoners
who were not necessarily engaging in commercial pursuits. Some knights serving in Boni-
faces contingent of crusaders, who hailed from Lombardy, Tuscany, Provence, Burgundy,
and Germany, established themselves in the city.38 To those known by name we should add
many others. Niketas Choniates reports that Boniface confiscated the wealthiest houses of
Thessalonike and awarded them to his vassals.39 Although some of these left later for their
fiefs in Romania or for their homes in the West, others are attested in the city in the fol-
lowing years.40 The reinforcement of the Latin clergy, headed by successive Latin arch-
bishops, was accompanied by the seizure of Greek ecclesiastical property.41 In 1210 Pope
Innocent III confirmed the grant of the monastery of Philokalos to the Order of the Tem-
33
On the renting of such premises by foreigners in the Palaiologan period, see below, p. 96
34
See respectively above, note 32, and D. Jacoby, Migrations familiales et stratgies commerciales vniti-
ennes aux XIIe et XIIIe sicles, in M. Balard et A. Ducellier, eds., Migrations et diasporas mditerranennes.
Byzantina Sorbonensia 19 (Paris, 2002), 36061.
35
See R.-J. Lilie, Die lateinische Kirche in der Romania vor dem vierten Kreuzzug, BZ 82 (1989): 20211;
Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, 3642.
36
B. Lanfranchi Strina, ed., Codex Publicorum (Codice del Piovego), I (12821298), Fonti per la storia di
Venezia, sez. I, Archivi pubblici (Venice, 1985), 207, no. 28: an old book which had been copied there was later
kept in the library of the Venetian S. Nicol di Lido. On dependencies of this monastery elsewhere in the em-
pire, see Borsari, Venezia e Bisanzio, 3641.
37
On which see Borsari, Pisani a Bisanzio, 6566.
38
See J. Longnon, Les compagnons de Villehardouin. Recherches sur les croiss de la quatrime croisade (Genve,
1978), 22747, and the review of that work by M.-L. Favreau, in BZ 72 (1979): 8487; also J. Longnon, L Em-
pire latin de Constantinople et la principaut de More (Paris, 1949), 6970, 1069, 12223, 16263.
39
Niketas Choniates, Historia, ed. J. A. Van Dieten, CFHB II (BerlinNew York, 1975), I, 600, esp. lines 5657.
40
See above, note 38.
41
See R. Janin, Lglise latine Thessalonique de 1204 la conqute turque, REB 16 (1958): 20714;
G. Fedalto, La chiesa latina in Oriente, vol. 1, 2d ed. (n. pl., 1981), 29091. Three Latin archbishops are known
by name. On the first one, Warin, see Longnon, Les compagnons de Villehardouin, 18788.
DAVID JACOBY 93
plars, made a few years earlier by Cardinal Benedict of Santa Susanna. The latter had been
sent by the pope to conduct talks and reach an accommodation with the Greek Church
and passed through Thessalonike either between June and November 1205 on his way to
Constantinople, between January and the summer of 1207 on his return journey to Rome,
or possibly even on both occasions. In any event, since Greek monks remained in the
monastery of Philokalos, it would seem that in fact the Templars benefited only from the
latters revenue.42 The Cistercians received the monastery tou Chortatou near Thessa-
lonike, yet held no property in the city itself.43 The demographic and ecclesiastical devel-
opments generated by the Latin conquest of 1204 came to an abrupt end when the ruler
of Epiros, Theodore Doukas, conquered Thessalonike in 1224.
We may safely assume that Venetian trade and settlement in Thessalonike, attested be-
fore 1204, continued during the twenty years of Latin rule over the city, despite the close
relations between Boniface of Montferrat and Genoa.44 Venices dominance in the eco-
nomic life of Constantinople after the Fourth Crusade presumably exerted some impact
in Thessalonike, a port of call for Venetians sailing between their own city and the Golden
Horn.45 The relations between Venice and Bonifaces successor, King Demetrius, appear
to have been smooth. In March 1224 the young king, gone west to obtain military assis-
tance, testified in Venice that he had witnessed King Bela of Hungary and others seizing
by force the goods of three Venetian merchants.46 A single document illustrates Venetian
trade in Thessalonike in the Latin period. It records a commercial contract concluded in
the city in October 1206 between three Venetians, none of whom lived there, namely
Filocalo Navigaioso, duke of Lemnos, Gilio da Foligno, a resident of Constantinople, and
Foscari Raguseo of Venice.47 It is not excluded that some Venetians exported grain pro-
duced in Thessalonikes rural hinterland, although Venetian involvement in that activity
is not directly attested before 1268.48
The treaty of 1210 between Venice and Michael I Doukas of Epiros guaranteed free-
dom of trade in the latters territories, according to the terms in force in the empire dur-
42
PL 216: 328, doc. CXLV; see also Janin, Lglise latine Thessalonique, 214. For the dating of Benedicts
passage through Thessalonike, see D. Jacoby, The Jewish Community of Constantinople from the Komne-
nan to the Palaiologan Period, VizVrem 55.2 (80) (1998): 37, repr. in idem, Byzantium, Latin Romania and the
Mediterranean, no. V.
43
See W. Haberstumpf, Dinastie nel Mediterraneo orientale. I Monferrato e i Savoia nei secoli XIIXV (Turin,
1995), 17788.
44
On which see below, p. 95.
45
See D. Jacoby, Venetian Settlers in Latin Constantinople (12041261): Rich or Poor? in Ch. A. Malte-
zou, ed., Plouvsioi kai; ptwcoi; sth;n koinwniva th'" eJllhnolatinikh'" Anatolh'" (= Ricchi e poveri nella societ del-
lOriente grecolatino), Biblioteca dellIstituto ellenico di Studi bizantini e postbizantini di Venezia 19 (Venice,
1998), 181204, repr. in Jacoby, Byzantium, Latin Romania and the Mediterranean, no. VII.
46
The testimony is recorded in a dated notarial charter: R. Cessi, ed., Deliberazioni del Maggior Consiglio di
Venezia (Bologna, 193150), 1: 5657, 51 (hereafter Cessi, DMC).
47
Reference in a document of 1210: Morozzo della Rocca and Lombardo, Documenti del commercio veneziano,
no. 519. On Filocalo Navigaioso, see G. Saint-Guillain, Deux les grecques au temps de lEmpire latin. Andros
et Lemnos au XIIIe sicle, Mlanges de lcole franaise de Rome. Moyen ge 113 (2001): 6039.
48
See below, note 77. The grain on board a Genoese ship anchoring at Negroponte in 1251 may well have
originated in Thessalonike. On this cargo, see M. Balard, Les Gnois en Romanie entre 1204 et 1261.
Recherches sur les minutiers notariaux gnois, MlRome 78 (1966): 484, repr. in idem, La mer Noire et la Ro-
manie gnoise (XIIIeXVe sicles) (London, 1989), no. I. It would seem that the Genoese were already exporting
grain from the empire by the 1140s: Jacoby, Byzantine Crete, 532, 535.
ing the reign of Manuel I Komnenos.49 The treaty must have been extended to Thessa-
lonike after the citys conquest by Theodore Doukas in 1224.50 As reported in June 1228,
the ship of the Venetian Marco Minotto ran aground on the island of Corfu, ruled by
Theodore. The islands governor confiscated the salvaged goods and money belonging to
the merchants, contrary to a specific clause included in the agreement of 1210. The inci-
dent soured relations between Venice and Theodore. In reprisal Venice decreed on 13 Au-
gust of the same year an embargo on trade with Theodores territories.51 We do not know
how long it remained in force, nor whether it affected Venetian trade in Thessalonike.52
There was no reason for Venetian settlers to abandon the city, nor for traveling Venet-
ian merchants to bypass it after its capture by John III Vatatzes in 1246. Venices treaty of
1219 with Theodore I Laskaris of Nicaea, which points to Venetian trade between Con-
stantinople and the Greek state in Asia Minor,53 appears to have been followed before 1261
by at least two further agreements, as implied by a letter of Emperor Andronikos II sent
to Venice in 1319. One of these treaties, which have not been preserved, was concluded
with John III Vatatzes between 1221 and 1254, the other with Theodore II Laskaris be-
tween 1254 and 1258.54 They must have been beneficial to Venetian interests in Thessa-
lonike, yet there are no notarial documents illustrating Venetian trade or presence in the
city under these two rulers.55
We have noted that the Pisans had property in the Latin neighborhood of Thessa-
lonike and that they resided and traded there alongside the Venetians before the Latin
conquest of 1204. They are not attested in the city during the Latin period, nor after the
renewal of Byzantine rule in 1224. It is nevertheless likely that they continued to visit the
city on their way to and from Constantinople, where they pursued their trade, though on
a reduced scale compared with the late twelfth century.56 Pisans also appear in the Empire
49
G. L. Fr. Tafel and G. M. Thomas, eds., Urkunden zur lteren Handels- und Staatsgeschichte der Republik
Venedig (Vienna, 185657) (hereafter TTh), 2: 12023. On this treaty and its economic context, see Ducellier,
La faade maritime, 13236. On Venetian trade with Epiros, see also A. Schaube, Handelsgeschichte der romanis-
chen Vlker des Mittelmeergebiets bis zum Ende der Kreuzzge (Munich, 1906), 26667.
50
On Venetian trade from 1223 to 1227 with Albania, then under the rule of Epiros, see Ducellier, La faade
maritime, 18285.
51
Cessi, DMC 1: 19697, 94 (10 June 1228); 202, 113 (13 August 1228). F. Bredenkamp, The Byzantine Em-
pire of Thessaloniki (12241242) (Thessalonike, 1996), 14347, contends that the embargo induced Theodore I
to conclude a truce of one year with Narzot of Toucy, governor of the Latin Empire. This may be ruled out, since
the agreement was reached by 14 September 1228: text in Cessi, DMC 1: 20910, 140. It is hardly plausible
that the news of the embargo decreed one month earlier reached either Theodore or Constantinople before
that date. Moreover, Venice did not underwrite the agreement, as claimed by Bredenkamp.
52
D. M. Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros (Oxford, 1957), 106, asserts that trade relations were reestablished only
under Theodores brother Manuel Doukas, who ruled over Thessalonike from 1230 until ca. 1237, yet fails to
provide evidence supporting his view.
53
TTh 2: 2057.
54
G. M. Thomas and R. Predelli, eds., Diplomatarium veneto-levantinum (Venice, 188099) (hereafter DVL),
2: 141. S. Brezeanu, La politique conomique des Lascarides la lumire des relations vnto-nicennes, in
E. Stanescu et N.-S. Tanosoca, eds., tudes byzantines et post-byzantines, vol. 1 (Bucharest, 1979), 3954, offers an
unwarranted negative view of Venetian-Nicaean trade relations, which incidentally does not take into account
the evidence mentioned here.
55
Despite an intensive search in Venice, I have been unable to discover any such document drafted between
1206 and 1274. Those issued in these specific years are mentioned here.
56
See S. Borsari, I rapporti tra Pisa e gli stati di Romania nel Duecento, RSI 67 (1955): 47786; D. Jacoby,
The Urban Evolution of Latin Constantinople (12041261), in N. Necipog lu, ed., Byzantine Constantinople:
Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life (Leiden, 2001), 283.
DAVID JACOBY 95
of Nicaea around 1240.57 The absence of information regarding their activity in Thessa-
lonike requires an explanation, which will be offered below.
The rule of Boniface of Montferrat, which began in 1204, appears to have favored Ge-
noese trade in Thessalonike, in any event in the short term. Genoese ships are attested there
in 1205 and 1206. In the spring of 1205 Boniface captured the former emperor Alexios III
Angelos in Thessaly. He first left him at Halmyros, yet later took him along when he returned
to Thessalonike. Still in the same year he sent Alexios to his own estate of Montferrat in Italy
on board a ship from Portovenere leaving Thessalonike for Genoa.58 The following year two
merchants sailed from Genoa to Thessalonike, where they were expected to repay the mar-
itime loans they had obtained, and Bonifaces daughter was brought to the city with an escort
of four ships undoubtedly carrying merchants and goods.59 We have noted that Genoese
ships occasionally used Crete as a transit station before the Fourth Crusade.60 The Genoese
Enrico Pescatore invaded Crete in 1206, yet failed to capture it. His defeat by Venice in 1211
opened the way to the latters occupation of the island.61 The Genoese must have largely, if not
entirely, avoided Crete after these developments, which were followed by periods of inter-
mittent warfare between their city and Venice. As a result the importance of Thessalonike as
a Genoese stopover in Romania must have increased. Genoese activity in Constantinople was
resumed by 1232 and appears to have become more intensive than commonly assumed in the
following years.62 Significantly, a Genoese shipping contract of 1254 envisaged the unloading
of goods in either Negroponte, Thessalonike, or Constantinople.63 The Genoese presence
in this city did not cease even after the outbreak of a new war between Venice and Genoa in
1256. Indeed, there were some Genoese settlers dispersed among the Latins remaining in
Constantinople soon after the city reverted to Byzantine rule in 1261.64 We may assume that,
similarly, Genoese merchants pursued their activity in Thessalonike in these years.
The Byzantine recovery of Constantinople in 1261 robbed Venice of its dominant and
privileged position in the city and generated a massive exodus of Venetians, though it
would seem that not all of them left.65 Venices relations with the empire in the period ex-
tending to 1302 were characterized by a climate of tension, mutual suspicion, and inter-
mittent conflict, partly interrupted by temporary truces in 1268, 1277, 1285, and 1302.66
57
See Borsari, Rapporti, 48788.
58
L. T. Belgrano and C. Imperiale di SantAngelo, eds., Annali Genovesi di Caffaro e de suoi continuatori
(Rome, 18901929), 2: 95. This chronicle records the presence of the ship in Thessalonike. On the capture of
Alexios III, see R.-J. Loenertz, Aux origines du Despotat dpire et de la Principaut dAchae, Byzantion 43
(1973): 37073.
59
Balard, Gnois en Romanie, 47273.
60
See above, pp. 8990.
61
On these events, see D. Jacoby, Changing Economic Patterns in Latin Romania: The Impact of the West,
in A. E. Laiou and R. P. Mottahedeh, eds., The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World
(Washington, D.C., 2001), 2078.
62
See Jacoby, Venetian Settlers, 19899; idem, Urban Evolution, 283.
63
Ed. E. H. Byrne, Genoese Shipping in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1930), 12528,
no. XXXVII.
64
Georges Pachymrs, Relations historiques, ed. A. Failler, vol. 1, CFHB 24 (Paris, 1984), 221.410.
65
See D. J. Geanakoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus and the West, 12581282: A Study in Byzantine-Latin
Relations (Cambridge, Mass., 1959), 11314; Jacoby, Urban Evolution, 29495; idem, Venetian Settlers,
18889.
66
For an overview of these relations, see D. Jacoby, La Venezia doltremare nel secondo Duecento, in
G. Cracco and G. Ortalli, eds., Storia di Venezia dalle origini alla caduta della Serenissima, II. L et del Comune
(Rome, 1995), 26673. The agreement of 1265 was not ratified by Venice: see below.
Not surprisingly, these treaties devote much attention to Constantinople, yet none at all or
little to Thessalonike. In 1265 Emperor Michael VIII was clearly suspicious of Venetian
intentions and therefore offered Venice a place for the lodging of its citizens outside the
kastron or walled city of Thessalonike.67 He promised that Venice would have precedence
over any other western maritime nation, should he grant them property in Thessalonike
proper.68 It is unclear whether these facilities were intended for visiting merchants only or
for all Venetians, in which case the emperors undertaking would imply that Venetian set-
tlers had left or had been compelled to leave the city in 1261. The draft of the treaty also
provided that the Venetians would be free to conduct religious services according to the
Latin rite in the churches they would hold in their places of residence, and that these
churches would not be subject to the authority of the imperial Church.69 The proposed
treaty illustrates Venetian interest in the full resumption of trade in Thessalonike, yet
Venice did not consider it satisfactory and therefore refused to ratify it.70
Surprisingly, neither Thessalonike nor any other city except Constantinople is men-
tioned in the Venetian-Byzantine treaty of 1268, which on the whole offered the Venetians
better conditions than those of 1265. They were allowed to rent houses, ovens, and bath-
houses wherever they would reside, ubi fuerint dicti Veneti et habitabunt. It is unclear whether
the Latin version of the treaty, the only one to survive, implies the renewed presence of
settlers in Thessalonike and elsewhere, or refers in more general terms to all Venetians.
In any event, these were allowed to use their own weights and measures in transactions
among themselves. Churches would be put at their disposal, as illustrated for instance in
Constantinople, which implies that the Venetian ecclesiastical institutions existing in
Thessalonike, presumably until 1261, had been confiscated. The clause concerning reli-
gious services and the relations with the Greek Church was similar to the one included in
the projected treaty of 1265, yet was limited to the period covered by the truce.71 This im-
portant restriction, which has been overlooked until now, implies that the envisaged dis-
positions regarding the churches were temporary.
The list of Venetian claims for compensation compiled in March 1278 offers precious
information about Venetian traders and their operations in Thessalonike in the previous
decade and illustrates the serious difficulties they sometimes encountered. The wide-
spread activity of pirates and corsairs, among them Latins, clearly hampered trade. Some
67
This proposal was similar to the one he had made to the Genoese in 1261, see below, p. 114. Draft of the
treaty with Venice in TTh 2: 6289, Greek and Latin versions, and see esp. 70 and 81; new ed. of both ver-
sions by M. Pozza and G. Ravegnani, I trattati con Bisanzio, 12651285, Pacta veneta 6 (Venice, 1995), 2647,
no. 2, and see esp. 3336, 56. While the Greek version mentions tovpon eij" kavqisma, the Latin one, which is
more explicit, refers to the construction of dwellings: terram et locum pro faciendo . . . seium [= sedium] et man-
sionem. In Constantinople too Michael VIII offered Venice land outside the walled city, on the opposite side of
the Golden Horn: TTh 3: 70 and 8182; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 3435, 5. See also R. Janin,
Constantinople byzantine, 2d ed. (Paris, 1964), 248.
68
TTh 3: 70 and 82; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 3435, 5. Here again there is a discrepancy
with respect to the city between the Greek version, which uses ejnto;", and the Latin one, which reads prope, i.e.,
near and not within. The Greek version is clearly the more reliable.
69
TTh 3: 73 and 84; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 3840, 9. The churches would be put at their
disposal, as illustrated for instance in Constantinople and implied by the treaty of 1268: see below.
70
The treaty was less favorable to Venice than assumed by Geanakoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus, 182
83, who suggests other factors that may have motivated Venices refusal to ratify it: ibid., 18385.
71
TTh 3: 96; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 60, no. 4, 56.
DAVID JACOBY 97
of these Latins resided in Thessalonike and used the city as their base for attacks in the
Aegean.72 Two of them were called knights: Rolandus cavalerius, also mentioned as miles
of Thessalonike, who operated with a Greek crew, presumably in cooperation with his
nephew Pardo, and one Lanfrancus chavallari.73 Johannes Senzaraxon, or madman, also
appears to have been a Latin, despite his Greek surname, or rather nickname, and the fact
that he is mentioned as a Byzantine subject, since one of his three nephews was called Ray-
mondinus. He too operated with a Greek crew.74 Another pirate by the name of Prando is
identified as Pisan.75 Several Venetian residents of Negroponte on their way from that city
to Thessalonike were robbed of their goods, which included oil, honey, pitch, and western
woolens.76
According to the list of claims, the Venetians suffered in Thessalonike proper from the
hostility of imperial officials and other individuals. There were cases of illegal taxation and
other exactions, among them on grain for export to Venice, illegal seizures of merchan-
dise, and administrative impediments delaying, hindering, or preventing the unloading
or sale of goods, some of which were thrown into the sea. Pietro Venier was robbed of his
unloaded ship anchoring in the harbor and imprisoned for six months. There was also
looting after shipwreck.77 We should beware of considering these incidents as the rule.
Venetian traders would have stopped visiting Thessalonike had this been the case. Indi-
rectly and paradoxically, then, the Venetian complaints seem to reflect an expanding traf-
fic, an assumption enhanced by the appearance of Venetian residents and consuls in the
city in the same period.
Indeed, in the 1270s we find some Venetians who resided in Thessalonike for lengthy
periods or had settled there. According to an unpublished document, a Venetian ship
from Negroponte was immobilized in Thessalonike from 1271 to the spring of 1274. It is
unclear why it remained there. Three Venetians, one Genoese, and two other Latins from
Negroponte who had served as sailors on board ran off with the advance payment they had
72
See P. Charanis, Piracy in the Aegean during the Reign of Michael VIII Palaeologus, AIPHOS 10 (1950):
12736, repr. in idem, Social, Economic and Political Life in the Byzantine Empire (London, 1973), no. XII;
H. Ahrweiler, Byzance et la mer. La marine de guerre, la politique et les institutions maritimes de Byzance aux VIIeXVe
sicles (Paris, 1966), 36970; G. Morgan, The Venetian Claims Commission of 1278, BZ 69 (1976): 41238;
Ch. A. Maltezou, Qessalonivkh: Ormhthvrio koursavrwn stav tevlh tou' 13ou aijwvna, in Buzantinhv Makedoniva, 324
1430 m.C. Dieqnev" Sumpovsio, Etaireiva Makedonikw'n Spoudw'n (Thessalonike, 1995), 20916, on the organiza-
tion and operations of the corsairs and their cooperation with the authorities in Thessalonike.
73
TTh, 3: 181, 188, 216, 217, 22324, 251, 261, and for the last one, 236; see Morgan, Venetian Claims,
422. The two individuals were clearly Latins. On their surname, see Maltezou, Qessalonivkh, 211. Some
Byzantine Greeks also bore the patronymic surnames Kaballavrio" or Kaballarhv": PLP 1002444. Alexios
Chavalari, possibly an imperial official, is mentioned in a Venetian document of 1389: ed. J. Chrysostomides,
Venetian Commercial Privileges under the Palaeologi, StVen 12 (1970): 351.
74
On his operations, see Morgan, Venetian Claims, 421. The other nephews were called Nicolas and Bar-
tolomeus, names that could be either Greek or Latin. On family connections between them, see TTh 3: 178,
191, 204, 218. G. Makris, Studien zur byzantinischen Schiffahrt, Collana storica di fonti e studi, diretta da G. Pis-
tarino, 52 (Genoa, 1988), 199200, postulates that the names of the nephews indicate that Johannes Sen-
zaraxon was a gasmoulos, an unwarranted deduction.
75
TTh 3: 26263; he is possibly identical with Pari Pisanus, mentioned ibid., 264.
76
TTh 3: 199, no. II, and 241, no. XVI; Morgan, Venetian Claims, 42829, nos. 18, 62. The merchant in-
volved in the second case was Rinaldo de Niola, burgensis of Negroponte, whose career can be partly recon-
structed: see Jacoby, Migrations familiales, 370.
77
TTh 3: 16869, 17778, 260, 27880 (grain exports); Morgan, Venetian Claims, 432, 434, 435, respec-
tively nos. 176, 182, 233, 24852.
received on account of their wages, as well as with various goods.78 It is likely that they
stayed in Thessalonike for some time in order to remain beyond the reach of Venetian jus-
tice. One of the Venetian owners of the vessel, Jacopo Ansaldo, also remained in the city to
pursue his trading. In 1276, thus around five years after his arrival, he owned or had
rented a house and a warehouse in which he kept grain and had some horses used for
transportation. In February 1277 he complained to the citys governor that he had not
been fully paid for woolens sold to a Greek. After being rebutted by the governor, who was
a business partner of that Greek, he threatened to turn to the Venetian consul in the city
and request that the latter order reprisals against the merchant. The governor displayed
utter contempt toward the consul and Jacopo Ansaldo and, moreover, sent people to the
latters home to seize some of his goods.79 The information regarding this merchant reveals
that he imported woolens in order to buy grain from producers, store it in Thessalonike,
and either ship it himself from there or else serve as commercial agent or middleman in
transactions involving other Venetians. He was clearly not the only one acting in that way.
The Venetian export of grain from Thessalonike appears to have been conducted by
traders based either in Venice or in Negroponte.80
Growing Venetian trade and the presence of settlers in Thessalonike account for the
appearance of a Venetian consul in the city, attested in 1273 or early 1274, several decades
earlier than commonly assumed.81 It is not excluded that at first he was chosen from
among the merchants visiting the city or the few individuals established there in order to
deal with internal litigation. Carentano Zane, the first consul known by name, may have
already been elected by the authorities in Venice.82 This was certainly the case with Pietro
Michiel, who in 1276 was serving as consul.83 It should be stressed, however, that the con-
suls authority was not recognized by the empire until 1277.84 In August 1287 the Maggior
Consiglio of Venice allocated the sum of 20 solidi grossi to cover the impending journey of
the newly elected consul to Thessalonike.85 Two years later the holder of the office had re-
turned ill to Venice and was remaining there. As an emergency measure the merchants
78
Archivio di Stato di Padova, Archivio Diplomatico, b.18, no. 2630, 5 August 1274.
79
TTh 3: 27172. Incorrect dating by Morgan, Venetian Claims, 433, no. 193. Since the Venetian year be-
gan in March, the reference is to 1277. The incident took place one year before the last February preceding
the compilation of the report in March 1278.
80
Respectively TTh 3: 27880, nos. VIXI, of 1277, and no. XII, of 1272. See Jacoby, La Venezia
doltremare, 270, where I deal with the export of grain from Thessalonike and Herakleia in Thrace, and not
import to, as mistakenly printed.
81
Thiriet, Vnitiens Thessalonique, 32325, is clearly wrong in postponing the organization and devel-
opment of Venetian presence in Thessalonike to the period following 1303, an interpretation reproduced in
F. Thiriet, La Romanie vnitienne au Moyen Age. Le dveloppement et lexploitation du domaine colonial vnitien (XIIe
XVe sicles), BEFAR 193 (Paris, 1959), 33940 [reprinted in 1975, with additional bibliography].
82
TTh 3: 27980: more than four years before the report of March 1278.
83
TTh 3: 270: annum suum consulatui (sic!) in principio, a rather clumsy formulation. The reference is to the
beginning of his term of office one and a half years or so before the claims list was completed, i.e., in Septem-
ber 1276 at the latest. The full name of the consul is mentioned elsewhere, in connection with a letter he sent
to Piero Badoer, Venetian bailo in Constantinople from 1276 onward: ibid., 188; on Badoer, see Ch. A. Malte-
zou, O qesmo;" tou' ejn Kwnstantinoupovlei benetou' bai?lou (12681453) [= The Institution of the Venetian Bailo in
Constantinople (12681453)] (Athens, 1970), 102. The dating by Morgan, Venetian Claims, 431, no. 122, is in-
correct.
84
See below, pp. 99100.
85
Cessi, DMC, 3: 179, 88.
DAVID JACOBY 99
leaving for Thessalonike were empowered to elect a consul from among themselves. It was
understood that the latter would serve until being replaced by a new consul chosen in
Venice according to the common procedure.86 The whole arrangement implies that the
Venetians residing in Thessalonike at that time were few in number or that they lacked the
social standing required for the office of consul. In any event, the continuity of the latter
supposes a certain volume of regular Venetian traffic and continuous presence in Thessa-
lonike.
This is also conveyed by the Venetian-Byzantine treaty of 1277, which reflects Venices
growing interest in the city. Venice was granted the church of the Armenians and three
houses close to it, one for the lodging of the consul, one for his two councillors, and an-
other to serve as warehouse for the Communes goods. In addition, Emperor Michael VIII
promised the use of twenty-five rent-free houses, the number being increased or restricted
according to the number of merchants arriving in the city. The arrangement with respect
to these houses was thus flexible, renewable at each seasonal arrival, and limited to the du-
ration of the merchants stay. As explicitly stated, unused houses would be returned in the
meantime to their owners.87 It is unclear whether the imperial treasury paid the rent for
these houses or whether the latter were requisitioned by imperial order for a specific pe-
riod. In any event, contrary to the common view, the emperor did not transfer these
houses to Venetian ownership, nor did he grant Venice any quarter in Thessalonike.88 It is
highly significant in our context that the disposition regarding the houses was similar to
the one envisaged for Constantinople, whereas in other Byzantine cities the Venetians
would have to pay for rented facilities.89 With respect to Constantinople, though, the
treaty of 1277 mentions a well-defined urban area corresponding to the pre-1204 Vene-
tian quarter, in which the allotted houses would be located.90 No such topographical defi-
nition was provided for Thessalonike, which emphasizes the difference between the two
cities with respect to Venetian residence. Incidentally, the treaty of 1277 renewed the
clauses dealing with the Venetians use of their own weights and measures and the use of
churches.91 The subsequent treaties of 1285, 1302, and 1310 merely confirmed the terms
of 1277 regarding Thessalonike, the latter clauses implicitly.92
Significantly, the treaty of 1277 did not include any provisions regarding Venetians al-
ready established or those wishing to establish themselves in Thessalonike and therefore
does not provide any indication about settlers. It is clear, though, that the latters presence
was one of the factors that induced Venice to obtain various important concessions from
Michael VIII. The emperor recognized anew the status of the Venetian bailo in Constan-
tinople and, for the first time, also that of Venices official representatives elsewhere in the
86
Ibid., 243, 86.
87
MM 3: 8889 (Greek); TTh, 3: 140 (Latin); new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 8890, no. 7, 4.
88
As argued by Geanakoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus, 301; A. E. Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins. The
Foreign Policy of Andronicus II, 12821328 (Cambridge, Mass., 1972), 63, and D. M. Nicol, Byzantium and Venice:
A Study in Diplomatic and Cultural Relations (Cambridge, 1988), 199200.
89
See above, note p. 96.
90
MM 3: 88; TTh 3: 139; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 8789, no. 7, 3. On the area, see Jacoby,
Venetian Quarter, 15459.
91
MM, 3: 8889; TTh, 3: 141; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 8890, no. 7, 4, 67; 11516, no. 8,
4, 67.
92
TTh 3: 32728, 34546; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 13940, no. 10, 4, 67, and ibid., 157
58, no. 11, 4, 67; DVL 1: 8285.
empire. As mentioned earlier, in Thessalonike it was a consul. Moreover, like the Venetian
bailo in Constantinople, the other officials would determine who enjoyed Venetian status
and would exercise authority over all Venetians.93 It was understood that these included
both settlers and visiting merchants, regardless of whether they were citizens, subjects, or
foreigners who had acquired Venetian nationality. The granting of Venetian status to for-
eigners was a device widely used by Venice in the eastern Mediterranean at that time. It is
likely, therefore, that some naturalized Greeks were to be found among the Venetians re-
siding in Thessalonike.94 On the other hand, the problem of the Venetian gasmouloi, in-
dividuals of mixed Venetian-Greek parentage, was raised only with respect to Constanti-
nople, which suggests that there were few of them, if any, in Thessalonike.95 Three factors
may account for the difference between the two cities in this respect, namely the small
number of Venetians residing in Thessalonike in the previous period, the early Byzantine
recovery of the city in 1224, and the absence in the latter of Venetian political authority,
contrary to that enjoyed by the Commune in Constantinople from 1204 to 1261.
The Byzantine recognition of the consuls authority in Thessalonike, stated in 1277
though without mentioning his office by name, was an important political achievement for
Venice and surely reflects increased Venetian interest in the city. However, it should not
mislead us with respect to the volume of Venetian presence and trading. The office of con-
sul in Thessalonike, granted for two years, remained of low rank compared with other sim-
ilar Venetian offices overseas.96 It was subordinate to the authority of the Venetian bailo in
Constantinople and carried no salary, except in special circumstances mentioned below,
though its holder enjoyed some revenue accruing from certain payments or taxes. The
consul in Thessalonike was allowed to conduct trade, an activity prohibited to Venetian
state officials in higher positions.97 The fairly low level of official Venetian representation
93
MM 3: 9091; TTh 3: 142; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 9395, no. 7, 9. The first bailo in Con-
stantinople was appointed in 1268: see Maltezou, O qesmov", 100101.
94
On Venetian status and naturalization, see Jacoby, Vnitiens naturaliss, 21735. For a specific case of
naturalization in Thessalonike, see below, p. 108.
95
MM 3: 89; TTh 3: 140, 328, 346; new ed. Pozza and Ravegnani, Trattati, 9091, no. 7, 5, 115, no. 8, 5,
140, no. 10, 5, 158, no. 11, 5. The reference is to gasmouloi under the authority of the Venetian bailo. On the
issue of these gasmouloi, see Jacoby, Vnitiens naturaliss, 22122.
96
A two-year service for officials posted overseas appears to have been the rule since the first half of the 13th
century: see D. Jacoby, Lexpansion occidentale dans le Levant: Les Vnitiens Acre dans la seconde moiti
du treizime sicle, JMedHist 3 (1977): 231, repr. in idem, Recherches sur la Mditerrane orientale du XIIe au XVe
sicle. Peuples, socits, conomies (London, 1979), no. VII. Morgan, Venetian Claims, 420, asserts that three
consuls served in Thessalonike in 127576, which is excluded. Two of them, Mainardi Benincasa (and not Be-
nenca, as in TTh) and Tommaso Contarini, are mentioned together as issuing letters of confirmation, which
does not imply that they had served at the same time: TTh 3: 191. For a similar case involving three former
baili of Negroponte, see ibid., 162.
97
The prohibition against conducting trade while serving in certain offices was already enforced by 1272:
Cessi, DMC, 2: 35960, VIII, III. The description of the consuls office by Thiriet, Vnitiens Thessa-
lonique, 325, partly repeated with some variations in idem, Romanie vnitienne, 340, is mistaken on several
counts. As a rule the consulship was not granted per gratiam to those who offered themselves to serve, as clearly
stated in the case of Giuliano Zancaruol, for whom an exception was made: see below, p. 102. The consuls were
duly elected in Venice, and not appointed, except in special circumstances as in 1289: see above, pp. 9899.
There is not a single piece of evidence pointing to Venetian settlers in Thessalonike obtaining the office. Fi-
nally, the consul did not receive any salary, again except in special circumstances: see below, p. 102. It follows
that a resolution of 1278 stating that a consul elected by merchants receives no salary was anyhow not relevant
for Thessalonike. For its text: Cessi, DMC 3: 68, LXXXXVIIII.
DAVID JACOBY 101
in the city clearly points to the relatively minor function of the latter in Venices long-
distance maritime commerce, the reasons for which will soon be examined.
Considering the nature of the consulship in Thessalonike, it may be assumed that
those interested in it either had already conducted trade in the past with the city or else
intended to expand their activity there by taking advantage of their function. Moreover,
once they left the office they could easily exploit the trading connections they had estab-
lished. While serving as consul in 1273 or 1274 Carentano Zane sold both in Thessalonike
proper and in its hinterland the western woolens he imported. Interestingly, he sent his
servant to the Macedonian city of Melnik with some pieces of textile, for which the kom-
merkion was extracted at an unspecified place, although the Venetians were exempt from
that tax. In September 1277, some three years after leaving office, Zane exported grain
from Thessalonike.98 His activity points once more to the connection between Venetian
imports of woolens and purchases of grain for export.99 The Venetians acted exclusively
as wholesalers of woolens, and this appears also to have been the case with the servant sent
inland by Carentano Zane, mentioned earlier. On the other hand, the retail trade in
woolens was in Greek hands.100 With respect to this commodity, the division of market ac-
tivity between Venetians and local Greeks was maintained throughout the entire Byzan-
tine period. It is clearly stated in 1425, when the Thessalonians demanded from Venice a
return to past practices.101
It may be taken for granted that there were no Venetian settlers, visiting merchants,
or consuls in Thessalonike in the period extending from the summer of 1296 to late 1302,
during which Venice and the empire were at war.102 The renewal of Venetian trade in the
city must have come soon afterwards. Venetian ships were operating along the Macedo-
nian coast in 1307 and reaching Thessalonike as a matter of routine.103 There was a tem-
porary halt in 1310, when Venice put pressure on Emperor Andronikos II. In May of that
year it prohibited the sailing of Venetians on board armed vessels to Thessalonike, the Dar-
danelles, and the Black Sea until the conclusion of a new treaty with the empire, which
took place in November.104 The export of grain from Thessalonike is regularly mentioned
in the following years.105
Contemporary sources offer some evidence regarding Venetian consuls in Thessa-
lonike, some of whom were residents of Romania, and the problems they and other Vene-
tians encountered. Emanuele Mazamano of Negroponte, who served as consul in 1313 or
1314, was robbed by Thessalonians of goods evaluated at more than 700 hyperpera.106 He
98
TTh 3: 27980. The first of these activities took place more than four years before the report of March
1278.
99
A similar pattern appears at Chiarenza, the main port of the Frankish Peloponnese, where woolens were
imported to finance the purchase of silk: see Jacoby, Changing Economic Patterns, 228.
100
See examples above, p. 98, and below, p. 111.
101
See below, p. 111.
102
On which see Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins, 10412.
103
Ibid., 2089.
104
F. Thiriet, Dlibrations des assembles vnitiennes concernant la Romanie (ParisThe Hague, 196671), 1: no.
214; Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins, 236.
105
A. E. Laiou-Thomadakis, The Byzantine Economy in the Mediterranean Trade System: Thirteenth
Fifteenth Centuries, DOP 3435 (198081): 183, repr. in eadem, Gender, Society and Economic Life in Byzantium
(Aldershot, 1992), no. VII. On the export of other commodities in that period, see below, p. 105.
106
Ed. Thiriet, Dlibrations, 1: 300, no. 326, whose reading Mazamara is erroneous.
was succeeded in 1316 by Marco Celsi of Venice, to whom the government denied the rev-
enue deriving from the measuring of oil, allotted to previous consuls, because he had mis-
managed some business deals in the past.107 While in office Celsi traded in valonia, the
acorn cups of the oak used in tanning and dyeing.108 He was followed in 1318 by Giuliano
Zancaruol, a Venetian settled in Crete, whose stationing in Thessalonike was considered
very useful since he spoke Greek. For that reason he was awarded the income deriving
from the renting out of the houses granted by the empire for the accommodation of visit-
ing merchants, in addition to an annual salary of 50 Venetian pounds. The resolution
adopted by the Maggior Consiglio regarding his election clearly stresses the exceptional
nature of the conditions from which he benefited.109 Despite this specification, the latter
also appear to have been granted to the following consuls. In 1328 the Venetian bailo in
Constantinople, Marco Corner, was ordered to compensate the consul in Thessalonike,
Nicol Celsi, for the loss of revenue accruing from the renting out of the houses and to
transfer the latter to the consuls authority.110 A proposal submitted to the Senate to grant
a salary to the consul posted in Thessalonike, coupled with a prohibition against trading
while in office, was defeated in 1324.111 Nevertheless, this instance, as well as some of the
previous ones, point to a slight upgrading of the consuls office, undoubtedly related to an
increase in Venetian presence and trading in the city in these years.
A list of Venetian complaints based on various reports, some supplied by former Vene-
tian consuls in Thessalonike, was compiled before March 1320. Individual Greeks and es-
pecially imperial officials involved in trade and intent on furthering their personal inter-
ests mistreated Venetian merchants and inflicted heavy damage upon them, similar to that
reported in the Venetian claims list of 1278. The officials compelled the merchants to pay
taxes from which they were exempt and prevented, hindered, or delayed the purchase
or unloading of goods. One of the officials, mentioned as capitaneus of the city, acted
that way in order to ensure the sale of grain he himself had imported to Thessalonike.
Some Greeks refused to pay fully for the goods they had received, did not submit to the
jurisdiction of the Venetian consul when the plaintiff was Venetian, as prescribed by the
Venetian-Byzantine treaties, and assaulted the Venetians if they protested.
Although the Venetians had the right to dwell freely in the empire wherever they
wished, they were denied this right by force in Thessalonike, as in Constantinople, Ainos,
and unspecified Byzantine islands. In addition, as stated in 1320 and 1322, the Byzantine
authorities in Thessalonike did not always implement the clauses of the treaties regarding
the accommodation and the church to which visiting Venetian merchants were entitled.
Occasionally they denied them reasonable quarters and provided only small buildings
107
Ed. ibid., 302, no. 354. The correct reading is presumably utilitatem metri (and not meri) olei. On the use
of metrum as a measure for oil in Thessalonike, see the trade manual of Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, La prat-
ica della mercatura, ed. A. Evans (Cambridge, Mass., 1936), 161. One should remember that the Venetians had
been granted the use of their own weights and measures among themselves: see above, p. 96. On metrum for
oil and wine in the empire, see M. F. Hendy, Studies in the Byzantine Monetary Economy, c. 3001450 (Cambridge,
1985), 33437. It would seem that Celsi had invested some of the Communes revenue in transactions that
ended in losses. In 1330 he nevertheless held a higher office in Venice: R. Cessi and P. Sambin, Le deliberazioni
del Consiglio dei Rogati (Senato), Serie mixtorum, vol. 1 (Venice, 1960), 427, XIII, 184.
108
DVL 1: 134.
109
Ed. Thiriet, Dlibrations, 1: 305, no. 400.
110
Cessi and Sambin, Deliberazioni, 1: 352, X, 320. For the identity of the bailo, see Maltezou, O qesmov", 110.
111
Cessi and Sambin, Deliberazioni, 1: 285, VIII, 30.
DAVID JACOBY 103
with insufficient space. As a result, the merchants were compelled to rent dwellings at their
own cost, sometimes poor-quality and foul-smelling houses belonging to fishermen and
other low-ranking individuals.112 In 1332 Andronikos III agreed to pay compensation for
the expenses incurred by visiting merchants because the imperial authorities in Thessa-
lonike had failed to allot houses for them to the Venetian consul.113 From the evidence just
mentioned it is clear that these were not necessarily the same houses each time. As for the
Venetian settlers, in the absence of adequate evidence it is impossible to determine
whether they all resided in the same urban section, nor where the latter was located. In
short, it is unclear whether there was any permanent Venetian neighborhood in Thessa-
lonike in the Palaiologan era.
The volume and nature of Venetian trade and presence in Thessalonike in that period
were closely related to the citys evolving function within the larger context of long-
distance commerce and navigation. This function was affected by several factors. A major
one was the substantial intensification of western trade in the Black Sea after the Byzan-
tine recovery of Constantinople in 1261.114 To be sure, transportation costs from the Black
Sea to Venice were heavier than from Thessalonike, and periods of crisis, tension, and
armed conflict temporarily disrupted or interrupted the flow of goods from that region.115
Nevertheless, it appears that on the whole the Black Sea offered a more abundant, stable,
and varied response to the growing Italian demand for grain and raw materials for the ex-
panding cotton and silk industries in Italy.116 Moreover, from the 1280s to the 1340s the
112
DVL 1: 164, 166, 16768, and 134, a detailed list compiled by Marco Celsi, consul in Thessalonike from
1316 to 1318. On this consul, see above, pp. 1012. On the issue of compensation, see DVL 1: 146, 159. On
Byzantine officials in trade, see also Jacoby, The Byzantine Outsider in Trade, 141; Makris, Studien, 25256.
113
DVL 1: 23031: pro satisfactione domorum debitarum secundum formam tregarum ipsarum consuli comunis Vene-
ciarum existenti in Thesallonichi (sic!), quas non habuit ut debebat.
114
Since the present paper is not directly concerned with this issue, it will suffice to cite only a few studies
among the numerous ones dealing with it: Thiriet, Romanie vnitienne; M. Balard, La Romanie gnoise (XIIe
dbut du XVe sicle), BEFAR 235 (Rome, 1978); idem, Gnes et la mer Noire (XIIIeXVe sicles), RH 270
(1983): 3152, repr. in idem, La mer Noire, no. V; idem, Byzance et les rgions septentrionales de la mer Noire
(XIIIeXVe sicles), RH 288 (1993): 1938; K.-P. Matschke, Zum Charakter des byzantinischen Schwarz-
meerhandels im 13. bis 15. Jahrhundert, Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift der Universitt Leipzig 19 (1970): 44758;
N. Oikonomids, Hommes daffaires grecs et latins Constantinople (XIIIeXVe sicles) (MontralParis, 1979);
Laiou-Thomadakis, The Byzantine Economy, 177222; S. P. Karpov, L impero di Trebisonda, Venezia, Genova
e Roma, 12041461. Rapporti politici, diplomatici, commerciali (Rome, 1986); idem, La navigazione veneziana nel
Mar Nero, XIIIXV sec. (Ravenna, 2000). See also next note.
115
See S. Karpov, [The] Black Sea and the Crisis of the Mid XIVth Century: An Underestimated Turning
Point, Thesaurismata 27 (1997): 6577.
116
On the importance of the Venetian grain trade in the Black Sea, see the previous two notes and Chryso-
stomides, Venetian Commercial Privileges, 31626. M. Balard, Le commerce du bl en mer Noire (XIIIe
XVe sicles), in Aspetti della vita economica medievale. Atti del convegno di Studi nel X Anniversario della morte di Fed-
erigo Melis (Florence, 1985), 1723, repr. in Balard, La mer Noire et la Romanie gnoise, no. VI. On cotton: M. F.
Mazzaoui, The Italian Cotton Industry in the Later Middle Ages, 11001600 (Cambridge, 1981), 23, 40, 4344. On
silk: D. Jacoby, Genoa, Silk Trade and Silk Manufacture in the Mediterranean Region (ca. 11001300), in
A. R. Calderoni Masetti, C. Di Fabio, and M. Marcenaro, eds., Tessuti, oreficerie, miniature in Liguria, XIIIXV se-
colo, Istituto internazionale di Studi liguri, Atti dei Convegni 3 (Bordighera, 1999), 2728; L. Mol, La comu-
nit dei Lucchesi a Venezia. Immigrazione e industria della seta nel tardo medioevo, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere
ed Arti. Memorie, Classe di Scienze Morali, Lettere ed Arti 53 (Venice, 1994), 15960, 20810, 21418; on col-
orants, see also D. Cardon, Du verme cremexe au veluto chremesino: Une filire vnitienne du cramoisi au
XVe sicle, in L. Mol, R. C. Mueller, and C. Zanier, eds., La seta in Italia dal Medioevo al Seicento. Dal baco al
drappo (Venice, 2000), 6373.
Black Sea was also a source of spices and other precious oriental commodities.117 It is
highly significant that the Venetian state galleys sailing from Venice to that region, a trans-
portation line inaugurated in 1301, entirely bypassed Thessalonike. The galleys anchored
on the way at Negroponte, proceeded on the shortest possible course across the Aegean to
Constantinople and the Black Sea, their ultimate destination, and followed the reverse
itinerary on the home journey.118 The navigation route followed by these ships provides a
clear indication that Thessalonikes role in long-distance traffic began to decline as early
as the second half of the thirteenth century.
This role was further restricted by fourteenth-century political and military develop-
ments in Thessalonike proper and in its Balkan hinterland.119 The presence of the Cata-
lan Company in Macedonia from the summer of 1307 to the spring of 1309, the civil wars
of the fourteenth century within the empire, the Serbian conquests of the 1340s and
1350s, and the Turkish raids beginning in the 1370s impaired Thessalonikes role as en-
trept and market. At times the exploitation of the Macedonian hinterland and the flow
of goods from the Balkans were severely reduced, became irregular, or were even inter-
rupted. To be sure, a large quantity of grain was exported from Thessalonike to Ragusa
in 1339,120 and between 1355 and 1357 the city still benefited from the produce of
Chalkidike, whether grain, cotton, or silk.121 Yet from 1341 onward it became increasingly
dependent upon grain imports by sea.122 In 1350, during the empires war with King
Dusan of Serbia, John VI requested Venetian grain deliveries.123 In the following decades
villages around Thessalonike were devastated and largely emptied by Turkish military op-
erations. Murad I repopulated the countryside with Muslims from northwestern Anatolia
in 1385, and Bayazid I acted similarly in 1393.124 Early fifteenth-century land cultivation
close to Thessalonike and in the Chalkidike peninsula, even when continuous for short pe-
riods of time, was mainly directed toward local consumption and not sufficient to uphold
the function of Thessalonike as a major outlet of Balkan produce. This is also illustrated
by the fairs held in the city or in its vicinity, most of them small, judging by the fiscal rev-
117
Balard, Gnes et la mer Noire, 3152.
118
See D. Stckly, Le systme de lincanto des gales du march Venise (fin XIIIemilieu XVe sicle) (Leiden, 1995),
10119.
119
On the Balkan trade, see K. Dieterich, Zur Kulturgeographie und Kulturgeschichte des byzantinischen
Balkanhandel, BZ 31 (1931): 3757; more specifically, on the orientations of Thessalonikes trade with the
Balkans, A. Laiou, H Qessalonivkh, hJ ejndocwvra th" kaiv oJ oijkonomikov" th" cw'ro" sthvn ejpochv tw'n Palaiolovgwn,
in Dieqnev" Sumpovsio Buzantinhv Makedoniva, 3241430 m.C. (Qessalonivkh 2931 Oktwbrivou 1992) (Thessa-
lonike, 1995), 18487, 19394.
120
B. Krekic, Dubrovnik (Raguse) et le Levant au moyen ge (ParisThe Hague, 1961), 19495, no. 186; Laiou,
H Qessalonivkh, 18788.
121
According to a Greek account book: P. Schreiner, ed., Texte zur sptbyzantinischen Finanz- und Wirtschafts-
geschichte in Handschriften der Biblioteca Vaticana, ST 344 (Vatican City, 1991), 79106, no. 3; dating and siting,
ibid., 8081.
122
Not exclusively, however, as stated by Laiou, H Qessalonivkh, 18990. See previous note.
123
Text in Chrysostomides, Venetian Commercial Privileges, 333.
124
For the Ottoman sources, see V. Dimitriades, Ottoman Chalkidiki: an Area in Transition, in A. Bryer
and H. Lowry, eds., Continuity and Change in Late Byzantine and Early Ottoman Society (BirminghamWashing-
ton, D.C., 1982), 4143; S. Vryonis, Jr., The Ottoman Conquest of Thessaloniki in 1430, ibid., 298, based on
Ioannes Anagnostes, Dihvghsi" peri; th'" teleutaiva" aJlwvsew" th'" Qessalonivkh". Monw/diva ejpi; th'/ aJlwvsei th'" Qes-
salonivkh", ed. G. Tsaras (Thessalonike, 1958), 62; J. Lefort, Population et peuplement en Macdoine orien-
tale, IXeXVe sicle, in V. Kravari, J. Lefort, and C. Morrisson, eds., Hommes et richesses dans lEmpire byzantin
(Paris, 198991), 2: 7582.
DAVID JACOBY 105
enue they yielded.125 Moreover, when Thessalonike was cut off from its hinterland as a re-
sult of civil wars or foreign conquests, it also lost its centrality as regional administrative
center.
It is clear, then, that Thessalonikes maritime function suffered from increasing con-
traction in the Palaiologan period. To be sure, its sea traffic with Constantinople was fur-
thered to some extent by political instability in the Balkans and the dangers along the Via
Egnatia after the outbreak of the second civil war in 1341.126 Yet Thessalonike ceased to be
a major port of call and transshipment station and was relegated to a secondary role within
the framework of trans-Mediterranean traffic. It operated mainly within the short- and
medium-range trade and transportation networks of the Aegean region which connected
it to Constantinople, Chios, and Negroponte.127 It is this city which replaced Thessalonike
as major transit station in the western Aegean, in which goods were collected for export to
more distant destinations or for distribution in the region. This important and decisive
shift has been entirely overlooked until now.128
The primacy of Negroponte over Thessalonike within the trans-Mediterranean trade
system is illustrated by the nature of trade and traffic between the two cities, recorded in
the Venetian claims lists of 1278 and the early 1320s, already mentioned earlier.129 On
their outbound voyage, Venices state galleys and private ships sailing to Constantinople
unloaded Western woolens and other commodities at Negroponte and there collected
cargo on their return journey.130 The goods intended for Thessalonike financed the pur-
chase of grain, cotton, silk, and wax, the main exports from the city according to two con-
temporary trade manuals, the Venetian Zibaldone da Canal, completed in the 1320s at the
latest, and the Florentine manual of Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, compiled in the follow-
ing decade.131 Growing Western demand may have stimulated the expansion of cotton and
silk cultivation in Macedonia in the late thirteenth and in the fourteenth centuries.132
125
On land cultivation and fairs, see A. Harvey, Economic Conditions in Thessaloniki between the Two Ot-
toman Occupations, in A. Cowan, ed., Mediterranean Urban Culture, 14001700 (Exeter, 2000), 11821. For the
sake of comparison, see 14th-century fairs of varying importance in the Peloponnese: Jacoby, Changing Eco-
nomic Patterns, 21415.
126
See N. Oikonomides, The Medieval Via Egnatia, in E. Zachariadou, ed., The Via Egnatia under Ottoman
Rule (13801699), Halcyon Days in Crete 2 (Rethymnon, 1996), 1416.
127
On the first two destinations, see also below, p. 106.
128
By Thiriet, Romanie vnitienne, 282, 33941, as well as by more recent studies.
129
See above, pp. 9697, 102. The list of the early 1320s enumerates merchants residing in Negroponte who
had been attacked by pirates based in Thessalonike, Skopelos, and Smyrna, which implies navigation in the
Aegean. Their destinations are not stated, yet most likely were Thessalonike, as we may indirectly gather from
a specific case in which Constantinople is mentioned: DVL 1: 183, 185.
130
Resolutions of the Venetian Senate on 20 May 1344 and 4 June 1345 illustrating the role of the state gal-
leys in that traffic: Baron Blanc, ed., Le flotte mercantili dei Veneziani (Venice, 1896), 114 and 12223.
131
A. Stussi, ed., Zibaldone da Canal. Manoscritto mercantile del sec. XIV, Fonti per la storia di Venezia, Sez. V,
Fondi vari (Venice, 1967), 69; Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 93, 153, 203. The export of kermes, an ex-
pensive dyestuff, is documented later: see below, note 156.
132
Mazzaoui, Italian Cotton Industry, 43, refers only to cotton exports in the 15th century. Yet evidence on cot-
ton cultivation in Chalkidike appears in the account book compiled between 1355 and 1357, mentioned ear-
lier: Schreiner, Texte, 85, no. 3, line 69; commentary, ibid., 1023. For later evidence, see below, p. 108. The
trade manuals just mentioned provide indirect evidence about silk production in the hinterland of Thessa-
lonike. This production is also documented in the 1280s, the 1350s and the 1380s: see respectively below, p.
114, above, p. 104, and below, p. 114. K.-P. Matschke, Tuchproduktion und Tuchproduzenten in Thessalonike
und in anderen Stdten und Regionen des spten Byzanz, Buzantiakav 9 (1989): 6884, passim, refers to the
Venetian traders and especially the owners and operators of small private ships based
in Negroponte were the main, though not the only, beneficiaries of the growing traffic be-
tween their city and Thessalonike. Indeed, in 1343 we also find Greeks from both Negro-
ponte and Thessalonike jointly owning a griparia, which in all likelihood had previously
been involved in traffic between their respective cities.133 The small vessels from Negro-
ponte occasionally carried Greek merchants and their goods. In 1316 some of these
Greeks were robbed of their cargo, worth the substantial sum of 8,000 hyperpera, and in
addition were seized and sold into slavery. Other Greek merchants from Thessalonike
were not paid for goods delivered to Venetians, who presumably had carried them to Ne-
groponte.134 The important role of the Venetians settled in this city in trade with Thessa-
lonike, their acquaintance with conditions in the latter, and their interests there account
for the occasional choice of consuls from their midst, mentioned above.
There were also ships sailing between Venice and Thessalonike. After 1335 they are
regularly mentioned with respect to the timetable of their return voyage and the obliga-
tion of the merchants to present their goods before departure to the consul posted in the
city. The references to that practice are particularly precious since they continue during
the Zealot revolution, which lasted from 1342 to 1349.135 It follows that Venetian traders
and settlers pursued their activity in Thessalonike in these years. The seizure and de-
struction of property occurring there were directed only against specific members of the
citys social and economic elite. They did not affect the Churchs assets nor foreigners, as
illustrated by our documents. The citys economy maintained some degree of vitality, de-
spite restrictions imposed by the simultaneous civil war. Industrial production, including
the manufacturing of textiles, trade, the movement of ships in Thessalonikes harbor, as
well as medium-range traffic with Negroponte, Chios, and Constantinople continued.136
There were also Greek pirates operating out of Thessalonike.137
In the following years Turkish pirates often endangered the small vessels engaged
in transportation between Negroponte and Thessalonike. In 1359 several merchants of
Venice accustomed to send their woolens and other goods to Thessalonike via Negroponte
demanded that their cargo be carried from that port on board the state galley protecting
Euboea, in return for the payment of a freight charge. The request was granted, provided
the vessel was not required for naval operations. The following year the Venetian Senate
production of silk and silk textiles in Macedonia and Thessalonike in the Palaiologan period. I shall return else-
where to that topic.
133
The small ship was sold in 1343 to a Venetian residing in Modon: A. Nanetti, ed., Documenta veneta Coroni
& Methoni rogata. Euristica e critica documentaria per gli oculi capitales Comunis Veneciarum (secoli XIV e XV), vol.
1, Fondazione Nazionale Ellenica delle Ricerche, Istituto di Ricerche Bizantine, Fonti 3 (Athens, 1999), 110
11, no. 1.111.
134
DVL 1: 127; the dating is based on the indiction year.
135
References for the years 134045 in Thiriet, Vnitiens Thessalonique, 328 and note 3; Blanc, Flotte
mercantili, 80, 86, 96, 106, 119.
136
K.-P. Matschke, Thessalonike und die Zeloten. Bemerkungen zu einem Schlsselereignis der spt-
byzantinischen Stadt- und Reichsgeschichte, BSl 55 (1994): 3038. On textiles produced in Thessalonike in
that period, see below, pp. 11516. In view of Thessalonikes direct links with Constantinople, oriental goods
could reach the former either directly or via Negroponte or Chios. Golden Horde ceramics were inserted in
the Vlatadon monastery of Thessalonike between ca. 1350 and 1370: see H. Philon, Thessaloniki, Andalusia
and the Golden Horde, BalkSt 26 (1985): 299303, 30720.
137
See Matschke, Thessalonike und die Zeloten, 34 and note 95.
DAVID JACOBY 107
fixed the freight of these goods in order to prevent any overcharge.138 The arrangement
was still in force in 1374.139 We do not know how long it was implemented, yet it had ceased
to be by 1407.140 Incidentally, it is clear that the western woolens brought by Venetians to
Thessalonike were not exclusively intended for local consumption and must have been
partly reexported further inland, as noted earlier with respect to Melnik.141 It is likely that
their continuous import on a fairly large scale, more than any other factor, prevented the
development of a large and sophisticated woolen industry in Thessalonike, similar to that
operating in the city in the early Ottoman period.142 The local manufacture of woolens and
mixed fabrics in the Palaiologan period appears to have been restricted to medium- and
low-grade products and carried out on a fairly limited scale.143
The presence and activity of Venetians in Thessalonike is further attested in the 1360s
and 1370s. In 1363 Venice envisaged that all its citizens and subjects, settlers included,
would leave the empire with their goods, should Emperor John V refuse to ratify a new
treaty agreed upon by his ambassadors and fail to rescind new measures damaging Vene-
tian interests. It is noteworthy that Constantinople and Thessalonike are the only cities
specifically mentioned in that decree.144 The presence of a Venetian consul and Venetian
settlers in Thessalonike is also attested by a request of 1371 for their intervention in the
freeing of an imprisoned Ragusan merchant.145 In February 1375 the Venetian Senate
recorded that the settlers were being harmed by imperial officials.146
The Ottoman occupation of Thessalonike from 1387 to 1403 ensured anew the regu-
lar flow of goods from Macedonia and further regions of the Balkans and must have gen-
erated an increase in Venetian trade and presence in the city. Some Venetian merchants
were imprisoned in Thessalonike in 1393 and released in the following year, in reprisal
for action taken by the Venetian authorities in Negroponte. These had retained a ship
loaded with grain and other goods belonging to Thessalonian merchants, in all likelihood
Greeks exporting grain from their city rather than importing it.147 Incidentally, there is
good reason to believe that Greek trading in the Aegean was far more intensive than re-
138
Thiriet, Vnitiens Thessalonique, 33031 and text 331 note 1. The issue was not protection of the
small vessels by the galley, as stated in the summaries of the relevant documents by F. Thiriet, Rgestes des
dlibrations du Snat de Venise concernant la Romanie (ParisThe Hague, 195861), nos. 347 and 361.
139
According to a testimony edited by M. Koumanoudi, Contra deum, jus et justitiam. The Trial of Bar-
tolomeo Querini, Bailo and Capitano of Negroponte (14th c.), in Ch. A. Maltezou, ed., Bisanzio, Venezia e il
mondo franco-greco (XIIIXV secolo). Atti del Colloquio Internazionale organizzato nel centenario della nascita di Ray-
mond-Joseph Loenertz o.p., Venezia, 12 dicembre 2000 (Venice, 2002), 250, 272, 6, lines 1820: Tommaso Bar-
barigo and other merchants of Venice volebant dictam galeam pro mitendo panos Salonichum.
140
See below, p. 108.
141
See above, p. 101.
142
Laiou, H Qessalonivkh, 191, considers the lack of proper communication between the city and its hin-
terland and the resulting lack of wool supplies as one of the main reasons, yet has not taken the imports of fin-
ished products into account. On the volume of these imports, see a figure cited below, p. 108.
143
Matschke, Tuchproduktion, 6976.
144
Ed. Thiriet, Dlibrations, 1: 32324, no. 698: cives, subditi et mercatores. In such a context the term merca-
tores was exclusively applied to traveling traders (see above, p. 90), which implies that the two other terms re-
ferred to or, in any event, included settlers.
145
Krekic, Dubrovnik, 211, no. 293.
146
Text in Chrysostomides, Venetian Commercial Privileges, 347: Veneti nostri de Salonico molestantur in Sa-
lonico per officiales ipsius domini imperatoris.
147
Thiriet, Rgestes, 1: nos. 838 and 857.
flected by the overwhelmingly Western documentation that has survived.148 Two some-
what later instances of Venetian trading in Ottoman Thessalonike are reported by the
lord of Andros, Pietro Zeno, who participated in the negotiations of Gallipoli leading to
the treaty of 20 February 1403 between the Ottoman prince Suleyman and several Chris-
tian powers.149 During these negotiations he was approached by a noted merchant from
Thessalonike involved in intensive trading with Negroponte, who claimed to be a Vene-
tian citizen.150 More likely, though, this individual called Agani was a naturalized Vene-
tian. His strange surname may be a distortion of Ganhvth" or Ganivth", due to a Venetian
scribe unfamiliar with Greek names.151 Agani mentioned that the goods of Ordelaffo
Falier, who seems to have resided in Venice, had been confiscated when he died soon af-
ter arriving in Thessalonike. The local Turkish authorities claimed that the safe-conduct
he had obtained was valid only during his lifetime. Agani estimated the value of the
goods at between 2,000 and 3,000 ducats.152 The case had not yet been settled by 1407,
when Jacopo Loredan was instructed to request 4,000 ducats as compensation from
Prince Suleyman.153 Regardless of whether we adopt the lower or higher figure, the sum
invested in that single trading venture implies fairly large Venetian business operations
in Thessalonike in the first period of Ottoman rule over the city.
Venetian exports of cotton from Thessalonike appear to have been routine in these
years, both before and immediately after the renewal of Byzantine dominion over the city
in 1403. As it had often done in the past, Venice extended several times the period of the
year during which cotton could be brought to Venice, in 1406 because of lack of ships and
unfavorable political circumstances.154 The safety of the vessels sailing between Negro-
ponte and Thessalonike was again discussed in 1407. It was decided then that the Euboea
galley should accompany these vessels, be allowed to carry gold and silver, and remain in
Thessalonike no more than four full days. If the amount of goods was small, the galley
would be replaced by a galeota, a medium-sized oared ship of the galley type.155 Another
proposal, which was rejected, envisaged the transportation of woolens brought from
Venice on board the galley, provided four hundred pieces of cloth or more were shipped,
as well as gold and silver, with a stop at Thessalonike for two days only.156 From the refer-
ence to the four hundred pieces we may gather that the volume of woolens imported to
the city in a single season was generally larger. The figure is worthy of attention.
148
See above, p. 106, on Greek merchants from Thessalonike at an earlier period, and Matschke, Thessa-
lonike und die Zeloten, 3336, on their importance in the 1340s.
149
On this treaty, see below, p. 120.
150
Ed. of Zenos report by G. Dennis, S. J., The Byzantine-Turkish Treaty of 1403, OCP 33 (1967): 8384,
6, repr. in idem, Byzantium and the Franks, 13501420 (London, 1982), no. VI.
151
The two Greek surnames are listed in PLP, respectively nos. 3543 and 91593.
152
Dennis, Byzantine-Turkish Treaty, 8384, 67, where Ordelaffo Falier is described as being young.
He should not be confused, therefore, with a namesake and contemporary in charge of the Venetian arsenal
at Candia in 1402: F. Thiriet, ed., Duca di Candia. Ducali e lettere ricevute (13581360; 14011405), Fonti per la
storia di Venezia, Sez. I, Archivi pubblici (Venice, 1978), no. 25.
153
Thiriet, Rgestes, 2: no. 1243.
154
K. N. Sathas, ed., Documents indits pour servir lhistoire de la Grce au Moyen Age (Paris, 18901900), 2: 131,
135, 161, 21920, 226, 257, 267, respectively nos. 357, 364, 395, 460, 472, 520, 533.
155
On the galeota, see J. H. Pryor, Geography, Technology and War. Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediter-
ranean, 6491571 (Cambridge, 1988), 6667; Balard, Romanie gnoise, 552.
156
Sathas, Documents, 2: 17576, no. 410. Silk and kermes are also mentioned in the same context, yet these
commodities were obviously exported from Thessalonike.
DAVID JACOBY 109
The two proposals of 1407 offer confirmation about some of the goods handled in
Thessalonike by Venetians, yet also provide new evidence of special interest in this respect.
The reference to gold and silver hints at Venetian business ventures connected with the
operations of Serbian and Greek merchants between the city and the Serbian mining cen-
ter of Novo Brdo, beginning in the 1370s.157 By 1407 Thessalonike had become a bullion
market in which Venetians exchanged their gold ducats for silver, which was shipped to
areas using silver-based currencies, as we may gather from somewhat later evidence.158
There is ample evidence about the dispatch of silver bullion from Venice on board state
galleys sailing eastward from the 1320s onward.159 In Venice the silver trade was closely su-
pervised by government officials.160 This was apparently not the case, at least not to the
same extent, in Byzantine Thessalonike. It is likely, therefore, that silver could be bought
there at lower prices, provided the bullion market was closely monitored by merchants and
bankers. Venetian settlers were instrumental in that respect, in view of their continuous
presence in the city and their activity as local agents, which furthered the interests of trav-
eling merchants. Venetian settlers are again directly attested in Thessalonike in 1418.
Bertuccio Diedo, Venetian bailo in Constantinople, introduced new taxes on their goods,
presumably during a vacancy in the consuls office. On 15 January 1419 he was ordered to
cancel them.161
Two Venetian citizens, the Greek brothers Giorgio and Demetrio Filomati (Filomavth"
in Greek), were deeply involved in the affairs of Thessalonike in the first decades of the fif-
teenth century. They are worthy of particular attention, in view of both their functions and
their ethnic identity.162 It was apparently their father who emigrated before 1400 from
Candia to Venice, where he obtained full Venetian citizenship, only seldom awarded to
Greeks. The family nevertheless remained faithful to the Greek Church. In 1418 or some-
what earlier Venice elected Giorgio Filomati as consul in Thessalonike. For some unknown
reason he was ejected from that position in 1418 by the bailo in Constantinople, Bertuccio
Diedo, yet was reinstated in it by a resolution of the Venetian Senate, adopted on 15 Jan-
uary 1419 at the request of his brother Demetrio.163 Giorgio drowned in the vicinity of Ne-
groponte in the autumn of 1422 and was succeeded as Venetian consul by Demetrio, who
served in that office until Venice occupied Thessalonike on 13 September of the following
157
See K.-P. Matschke, Zum Anteil der Byzantiner an der Bergbauentwicklung und an den Bergbauertr-
gen Sdosteuropas im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert, BZ 8485 (199192): 5765.
158
Matschke, ibid., 64, is somewhat hesitant about bullion and speaks of a money market, yet Venetian mer-
chants did not export silver coins: see below, p. 111.
159
F. C. Lane and R. C. Mueller, Money and Banking in Medieval and Renaissance Venice, vol. 1, Coins and Mon-
eys of Account (Baltimore, Md.London, 1985), 36571; R. C. Mueller, The Venetian Money Market: Banks, Panics
and the Public Debt, 12001500 (Baltimore, Md., 1997), 84, 137, 162, 446.
160
Lane and Mueller, Money and Banking, 15260; Mueller, Venetian Money Market, 193.
161
Thiriet, Rgestes, 2: no. 1725. Bertuccio Diedo was appointed bailo in Constantinople in 1418: see Malte-
zou, O qesmov", 121.
162
For what follows on the Filomati family, see D. Jacoby, I Greci ed altre comunit fra Venezia ed
oltremare, in M. F. Tiepolo and E. Tonetti, eds., I Greci a Venezia: Atti del Convegno Internazionale di Studio,
Venezia, 57 novembre 1998, Istituto Veneto di Scienze, Lettere ed Arti (Venice, 2002), 5759. I use here the Ital-
ian version of the brothers names. They were not naturalized Venetians, as I mistakenly stated in Jacoby,
Vnitiens naturaliss, 22526, but full citizens.
163
Thiriet, Rgestes, 2: no. 1725. The action of the bailo against Giorgio caused the vacancy in the consuls of-
fice mentioned above.
year.164 Interestingly, on 3 February 1431, thus less than one year after the Turkish con-
quest of the city on 29 March 1430, Demetrio was sent anew as consul to Thessalonike, ap-
parently at his own request. As stated on that occasion, the presence of a consul was indis-
pensable for the activity of the Venetians in the city.165
It is clear that both brothers had traded with Thessalonike before 1419 and took
advantage of their official function to further their commercial interests in the city. Their
jointly owned ship sank in 1422 with Giorgio on board while sailing on a trading venture
to Thessalonike. Early in 1423 Demetrio brought an action for 1,000 ducats against the in-
surers of the ship, because they refused to honor their obligations.166 We may safely assume
that Thessalonikes insertion within the wide commercial network of the family continued
beyond the Turkish occupation of the city in 1430.167 The election of these Greeks who
were Venetian citizens as consuls in Thessalonike was presumably motivated by the con-
junction of two factors: the interest of Latins in the office may have reached a low point
just before and just after the Venetian occupation of Thessalonike, and the Greeks had the
advantage of better linguistic access to local traders.
In 1423 the despot Andronikos Palaiologos, who ruled over Thessalonike, offered the
city to Venice on behalf of the citys population. The proposal was transmitted to the Venet-
ian bailo of Euboea, who entrusted Andreas of Nauplia, a Greek resident of Negroponte,
to convey it to Venice. Significantly, the Thessalonians bypassed Demetrio Filomati, who
was acting as Venetian consul in Thessalonike at that time, as noted above, which proves
once more the relatively low standing of his office in the Venetian administrative hierarchy
overseas. Andreas of Nauplia must have conducted business with Thessalonike, since the
Venetian Senate consulted him about the state of affairs in the city before reaching a deci-
sion.168 Four additional individuals were also requested to offer their advice.169 One of
them was Giorgio Valaresso, who apparently resided in Venice. In the year following
Venices occupation of Thessalonike he was involved there in the import of wheat and bar-
ley from Crete on behalf of the government, which reimbursed him in February of the fol-
lowing year.170 It is likely that he had privately carried out similar operations before 1423,
which would explain why he was called to the Senate. Francesco di Benedetto Trevisan im-
ported woolens and conducted other business in Constantinople in the years 143739, as
revealed by the account book of the Venetian Giacomo Badoer, who operated there at that
time.171 He too must have engaged in the early 1420s in trade with Thessalonike, which he
probably used as a stopover on the way from Venice to further destinations. These three
164
Thiriet, Rgestes, 2: no. 1863, and 3: no. 2225. Contrary to Thiriet, Vnitiens Thessalonique, 332 note
2, the brothers did not receive lifelong appointments to the office of consul. Dating of the Venetian takeover
by P. Schreiner, Die byzantinische Kleinchroniken, CFHB 12 (Vienna, 197579), 2: 42324.
165
Thiriet, Rgestes, 3: no. 2225. Dating of the Turkish conquest by Barker, Manuel II, 374.
166
See B. Imhaus, Le minoranze orientali a Venezia, 13001510 (Rome, 1997), 108. The reconstruction of the
case presented here is mine. The ship was known to have sunk by December 1422: see Thiriet, Rgestes, 2: no.
1863. As noted earlier, Giorgio drowned precisely in that year.
167
On the familys trading in that period, see above, note 162.
168
Sathas, Documents, 1: 133.21134.7, no. 86; in 135.3738 he is mentioned as fidelem nostrum et civem
Nigropontis.
169
170
171
U. Dorini and T. Bertel, eds., Il libro dei conti di Giacomo Badoer (Costantinopoli, 14361440), II Nuovo Ra-
musio 3 (Rome, 1956), 111, line 35; 484, line 28; 767, lines 810.
DAVID JACOBY 111
cases provide additional illustrations of the range of Venetian trade with Thessalonike on
the eve of the Venetian period.172
The six and a half years of Venetian rule, from September 1423 to March 1430, wit-
nessed an increase in the Venetian presence in the city. In addition to Venetian officials
there was also a garrison, composed of Venetian and foreign men of arms. In 1425 the
Greeks of Thessalonike complained about their behavior.173 On the other hand, the pres-
ence of the Roman Church remained modest, in contrast to its intrusion during the twenty
years of Latin domination following the Fourth Crusade. Venice had promised in 1423 to
maintain the local municipal institutions and privileges, as well as the status of the Ortho-
dox Church and its clergy. Although it severely reduced the operation of ecclesiastical ju-
risdiction, it was careful to maintain good relations with the Greek archbishop Symeon.174
When the latter died in 1429, some six months before the fall of Thessalonike to the Turks,
he was deeply mourned by the entire population, including the Latins, according to the
Diegesis of John Anagnostes.175
The Venetian mercantile activity and presence must have been reinforced by Venetian
rule over Thessalonike and the citys complete dependence upon Venetian grain supplies,
brought in by sea from various regions.176 Some settlers, who had previously limited them-
selves to the wholesale of woolens, intruded into the retail trade at the expense of local
Greek merchants. At the latters request the Venetian government reaffirmed in 1425 their
exclusive right to that activity at the customary location.177 The three Thessalonian traders
who in 1426 bought grain in Crete and shipped it to their city were presumably Venetian
settlers.178 Significantly, it is only within the period of Venetian occupation, more precisely
from 1424 to 1430, that the state galleys sailing between Venice and the Black Sea an-
chored at Thessalonike.179 In 1428 and 1429 Guglielmo Querini entrusted respectively
200 and 450 gold ducats to a merchant sailing on such a galley, who was ordered to buy
silver at Thessalonike and deliver it to Guglielmos brother at Trebizond. In 1430 the lat-
ter took along woolens on a private ship to make similar purchases in Thessalonike.180 It
172
The two other individuals, Pietro Querini and Pietro Zeno maior, cannot be securely identified among
several contemporary namesakes. One may wonder, though, whether Pietro Querini was the individual re-
siding in Crete who in 1429 obtained a license for the extraction of alum in that island: see D. Jacoby, Lalun
et la Crte vnitienne, ByzF 12 (1987): 13133, repr. in idem, Trade, Commodities and Shipping, no. X. In any
event, it is clear that he was also engaging in other business ventures.
173
Archivio di Stato di Venezia (hereafter ASV), Senato, Misti, reg, 55, fol. 141v., 13: i cavalieri del ducha e
del capetano were horsemen and not gentlemen, as in K. M. Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (12041571), vol.
2, The Fifteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1978), 24. A facsimile reproduction of the entire document appears in
K. D. Mertzios, Mnhmei'a makedonikh'" iJstoriva" (Thessalonike, 1947), after p. 48.
174
Sathas, Documents, 1: 133.2634, 135.32136.1, 137.33138.33, no. 86. See D. Balfour, Politico-Historical
Works of Symeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica (1416/17 to 1429). Critical Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary,
WByzSt 13 (Vienna, 1979), 16872. On the nature of some local privileges, see E. Patlagean, Limmunit des
Thessaloniciens, in EUYUCIA. Mlanges offerts Hlne Ahrweiler, Byzantina Sorbonensia 16 (Paris, 1998), 1:
591601, esp. 599. On the whole issue, see D. Jacoby, Thessalonique de la domination de Byzance celle de
Venise. Continuit, adaptation ou rupture? Mlanges Gilbert Dragon=TM 14 (2002): 30318.
175
Ioannes Anagnostes, Dihvghsi", 10.2123, 4.
176
Thiriet, Vnitiens Thessalonique, 332; Vryonis, Ottoman Conquest, 3068.
177
ASV, Senato, Misti, reg. 55, fol. 42r. See Jacoby, Thessalonique, 31415.
178
Thiriet, Dlibrations, 2: no. 1299.
179
See Stckly, Le systme de lincanto, 103, 11213.
180
See G. Luzzatto, Studi di storia economica veneziana (Padua, 1954), 17778.
would seem that these operations were prompted by a rise in the price of certified silver
bars in Venice in these same years and the prospect of cheaper purchases in Thessa-
lonike.181 Incidentally, these operations imply that the Turks did not hermetically cut off
the city from the Balkan hinterland and its silver mines, as one would assume on the basis
of other sources.
A number of Venetians were captured and enslaved by the Turks after the latters oc-
cupation of Thessalonike in 1430. The names of some prominent ones were recorded by
the bailo of Euboea in his report about the fall of the city and in the instructions approved
by the Venetian Senate on 29 April 1430 regarding peace negotiations with the Turks.182
In addition, these instructions refer to the liberation from captivity of other citizens and
subjects (alii cives et fideles nostri), obviously Venetian settlers among them. One of these was
Ambrogio de Martinengo, scion of a family originating in Brescia, a city under Venetian
rule since 1426. It is noteworthy that this individual, who therefore was considered Venet-
ian, had brought his wife and sons to Thessalonike, presumably during the Venetian pe-
riod. There is good reason to believe that other Venetian merchants had acted similarly.
By October 1438 Ambrogio de Martinengo and his wife had been ransomed and were in
Italy. Pope Eugenius IV, the Venetian Gabriele Condulmer, intervened then to collect the
money needed for the release of their two sons. Presumably somewhat later the pope is-
sued an appeal for funds required for the ransoming of fourteen Greek monks of the
monastery of St. Basil in Thessalonike.183 It has been suggested that they had recognized
papal supremacy after the Council of Florence, held in 143839, which would explain the
popes efforts on their behalf.184
The peace treaty concluded between Murad II and Venice on 4 September 1430, some
six months after Thessalonikes occupation, provided that the Venetians would enjoy com-
mercial freedom and customary conditions in the sultans territories.185 The treaty does
not refer specifically to resident Venetian traders, yet we may safely assume that the dis-
patch of a consul to Thessalonike in the year following the Turkish conquest was partly mo-
tivated by the prospect that some former Venetian residents would return to the city and
be joined by new settlers.186 This indeed occurred in the following years. The presence of
Venetian settlers in Thessalonike is expressly stated in a resolution adopted by the Venet-
ian Senate in 1436.187 In 1438 and 1439 Giacomo di Marin Cocco, who resided in the city,
conducted business with the Venetian Giacomo Badoer, who operated in Constantinople
as noted above. Together with a relative, Giovanni Cocco, and Niccol Contarini, both of
whom also appear to have been established in Thessalonike, he was involved in 1439 in the
181
On the rise in Venice, see Mueller, Venetian Money Market, 18993.
182
Respectively in Mertzios, Mnhmei'a, 9293, and J. Valentini, Acta Albaniae Veneta saeculorum XIV et XV
(PalermoMunich, 1967), 14: 6468, no. 3355.
183
The first document has been published by N. Iorga, Notes et extraits pour servir lhistoire des croisades au
XVe sicle (Paris, 18991902), 2: 352. The second document, in Archivio Segreto Vaticano, reg. 270, fol. 245r.,
is summarized by Mertzios, Mnhmei'a, 9495, with facsimile reproduction after 96.
184
See Janin, Lglise latine Thessalonique, 21516, who, however, does not repeat this suggestion in his
later work, Les glises et les monastres des grands centres byzantins (Bithynie, Hellespont, Latros, Galsios, Trbizonde,
Athnes, Thessalonique) (Paris, 1975), 356.
185
DVL 2: 34345.
186
On that consul, see above, p. 109.
187
Thiriet, Rgestes, 3: no. 2429, 9.
188
According to the latters account book: Dorini and Bertel, Il libro dei conti di Giacomo Badoer, 572, lines 11
12; 650, lines 13; 65253, esp. 652, line 25 (Contarini and Giacomo Cocco che abita a Salonichi); 711, lines 89.
DAVID JACOBY 113
shipment of salted pork meat to Badoer.188 In 1454 the Venetian consul in Thessalonike,
Bernadotto da Vicenza, was compelled to pay 1,200 ducats levied from resident Venetian
merchants, as compensation for goods robbed in the Aegean from an Ottoman subject of
the city.189
Except for a small group of Ottoman officials, there was no sizable clientele for im-
ported goods in Thessalonike in these years, in contrast to the previous period. The citys
population consisted mainly of impoverished Greeks who had been redeemed from cap-
tivity and of Turks who had been forcibly resettled in the city.190 The supply of the local
market, therefore, was not the main objective of the Venetian residents and of their trav-
eling counterparts. More importantly, they wished to take advantage of the resumption of
the citys regular connections with its Balkan hinterland and of the increased flow of com-
modities from that region, generated by the Ottoman conquest of Thessalonike. However,
Serbian silver was not included among these commodities, since it was sent to more active
markets, namely Adrianople and Serres.191
We may now turn to the citizens and subjects of other Italian maritime powers and to
their activity in Thessalonike in the Palaiologan period. Pisa maintained its quarter,
church, and consul in Constantinople after the Byzantine recovery of the city in 1261.
Pisans traded in the empires capital and extended their operations into the Black Sea.
This activity is documented as late as 1394, yet was carried out on a small scale.192 Pisans
are also documented in Latin Romania, especially at Chiarenza, the main port of the
Frankish Peloponnesos, from the 1270s until the second decade of the fourteenth century.
Some of them were possibly settlers.193 Thessalonike must have served as port of call for
some of the ships sailing between Pisa and Constantinople. Moreover, the Pisan trade man-
ual compiled in 1278 compares the Thessalonian weight used for grain with that of Pisa,
which suggests that Pisan merchants were involved around that time in the export of that
commodity.194 Yet there is no direct evidence regarding Pisan activity or presence in Thes-
salonike in the thirteenth century, except for a pirate based there in the 1270s.195 The ab-
sence of such evidence is clearly due to the massive loss of Pisan notarial charters bearing
on the eastern Mediterranean in that period. Yet it must also reflect a general decline of
Pisan operations in Byzantium, in contrast to those carried out at that time in other regions
of the eastern Mediterranean. It is noteworthy that sources other than notarial charters as
well as indirect evidence point to vigorous Pisan trading and shipping with Egypt, the cru-
sader Levant, and the Armenian kingdom of Cilicia until the later thirteenth century.196
189
190
See below, p. 122.
191
See Matschke, Bergbauentwicklung, 64.
192
See Geanakoplos, Emperor Michael Palaeologus, 13334, 208, 299 and note 94; W. Heyd, Histoire du com-
merce du Levant au moyen ge (Leipzig, 188586), 1: 47273; C. Otten-Froux, Documents indits sur les Pisans
en Romanie aux XIIIeXIVe sicles, in M. Balard, A. E. Laiou, and C. Otten-Froux, Les Italiens Byzance,
Byzantina Sorbonensia 6 (Paris, 1987), 159 and 16970, 17780, 18284, 18891, respectively nos. 3, 9, 11,
12, 16; M. Balard, I Pisani in Oriente dalla guerra di Acri (1258) al 1406, in Studi di storia pisana e toscana in
onore del prof. Cinzio Violante = Bollettino storico pisano 60 (1991): 68.
193
See Jacoby, Changing Economic Patterns, 227.
194
R. Lopez and G. Airaldi, eds., Il pi antico manuale italiano di pratica della mercatura, in Miscellanea
di studi storici, vol. 2, Collana storica di fonti e studi diretta da G. Pistarino 38 (Genoa, 1983), 120, line 1.
195
See above, p. 97 and note 75.
196
See D. Jacoby, Pisa e lOriente crociato, in G. Garzella and M. L. Ceccarelli Lemut, eds., Pisani viri in
insulis et transmarinis regionibus potentes. Pisa come nodo di comunicazioni nei secoli centrali del medioevo (Pisa, 2003)
References to exports from Thessalonike to Pisa and Florence, specifically of wax and
cotton to the first of these cities, appear in the trade manual of Pegolotti, compiled between
1330 and 1340.197 A later trade manual of the 1380s, composed by a member or employee
of the Datini firm of Prato, refers in addition to the export of grain to Pisa and of silk to
Florence.198 These works hint at Pisan activity in Thessalonike when it was under Ottoman
rule, a period witnessing the continuation of Pisan trade in Romania, including in Con-
stantinople, as noted earlier. Florence occupied Pisa in 1406 and replaced it as a Mediter-
ranean maritime power, yet there is no evidence of Florentine merchants in Thessalonike
in the following years. The city is not even mentioned in a trade manual composed in 1396
in Genoa by Saminiato de Ricci and updated until 1424 in Florence by an agent of Gio-
vanni di Bicci de Medici, considered the founder of the Medici bank.199 In 1436 Floren-
tine galleys began to sail to Constantinople, yet on the way they anchored at Negroponte
and bypassed Thessalonike.200 This pattern of navigation was similar to the one followed
by the Venetian state galleys, except from 1424 to 1430.201
Genoa was Venices main rival in the eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea in the
Palaiologan period. By the treaty of Nymphaeum, concluded in 1261, Emperor Michael
VIII promised Genoa commercial facilities, a church, a bathhouse, and an oven in various
localities of the empire. One of them was Kassandreia, at the neck of the Pallene peninsula
in the theme of Thessalonike. Thessalonike proper was not included, although it was un-
der the emperors rule.202 Kassandreia was a minor trading station in which the Genoese
were clearly not interested, and there is no evidence that they ever traded or settled there.203
The documentation regarding Genoese commerce and presence in Palaiologan Thes-
salonike is extremely meager. A Genoese resident of Negroponte deserted the Venetian
ship on which he had served as sailor after its arrival in Thessalonike in 1271. Unpublished
(in press); idem, The Supply of War Materials to Egypt in the Crusader Period, Jerusalem Studies in Arabic and
Islam 25 (2001): 117, 12122, 12425.
197
Pegolotti, La pratica della mercatura, 203.
198
C. Ciano, ed., La pratica di mercatura datiniana (secolo XIV) (Milan, 1964), 52. The section of that man-
ual referring to Thessalonike is reproduced in the one completed in 1440 in Florence by Giovanni Uzzano
which, therefore, does not offer any new data: G. F. Pagnini del Ventura, Della decima e di varie altre gravezze im-
poste dal comune di Firenze (Lisbon-Lucca, 17651766), II, vol. IV, 88. On the relation between the two manuals
in that respect, see U. Tucci, Per unedizione moderna della pratica di mercatura dellUzzano, in Studi di sto-
ria economica toscana nel Medioevo e nel Rinascimento in memoria di Federigo Melis. Biblioteca del Bolletino Storico
Pisano, Collana storica 33 (Ospedalwetto [Pisa], 1987), 38081.
199
A. Borlandi, ed., Il manuale di mercatura di Saminiato de Ricci (Genoa, 1963).
200
In 1439 Florence obtained the Pisan loggia and church in Constantinople. See Heyd, Histoire du commerce,
2: 298301; M. E. Mallett, The Florentine Galleys in the Fifteenth Century (Oxford, 1967), 6668.
201
See above, pp. 1034, 111.
202
Ed. C. Manfroni, Le relazioni fra Genova, limpero bizantino e i Turchi, Atti della Societ Ligure di Storia
Patria 28 (1898): 793, 800; new ed. by S. Dellacasa, I Libri Iurium della Repubblica di Genova, vol. 1.4, Fonti per
la storia della Liguria 11 (Genoa, 1998), 274, 279, no. 749: in partibus Salonichi aput Cassandriam, and in . . . Cas-
sandria. See I. Sevcenko, The Zealot Revolution and the Supposed Genoese Colony in Thessalonica, in Pros-
fora; eij" St. Kuriakivdhn (Thessalonike, 1953), 60710, repr. in idem, Society and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium
(London, 1981), no. III. Several later studies nevertheless cling to the common erroneous interpretation that
Genoa was granted assets in Thessalonike proper.
203
On Kassandreia, see ODB 2: 1109, s.v.; J. R. Melville-Jones, Lixola di Caxandria, Thesaurismata 27
(1997): 12538, esp. 12937 for the period covered here. A pirate was based at Kassandreia in the 1270s: TTh
3: 205. The city served as operational base for the Catalan Company from the summer of 1307 to the spring
of 1309: see Laiou, Constantinople and the Latins, 2089, 221, 226.
DAVID JACOBY 115
documents drafted in the Italian city of Lucca in 1284 attest to the import of silk from Mac-
edonian Berrhoia (seta de Veria), which must have been shipped from Thessalonike and
transited to Genoa, the main supplier of raw materials to the Lucchese silk workshops.204
A contract of 1289 mentions the sailing of a Genoese tarida from Caffa or Tana in the Black
Sea to Chios and Thessalonike.205 Genoas requests for compensation submitted to the em-
pire in 1294 mention the confiscation of goods, personal belongings, and money from a
group of its traders by the despot of Thessalonike. A sum of 3,684 hyperpera was still out-
standing, which implies trade investments on a far larger scale. In another case, the gov-
ernors officials had seized a horse belonging to a Genoese, which seems to imply that he
resided in the city, engaged to some extent in land trade, and acted as commercial agent
or middleman.206 Additional Genoese commercial investments in Thessalonike are at-
tested between 1277 and 1317. Only fairly intensive trading carried out both by settlers
and visiting merchants would account for the presence of a Genoese consul called Cestino
Codino in the city in May 1305.207 In 1319 Venice complained that an imperial official in
the city had confiscated grain from a Venetian trader and passed it on to a Genoese who
was his own friend.208 In 1339 Genoese and merchants from Romania purchased on be-
half of Ragusa large quantities of grain in Constantinople and Thessalonike.209 It is un-
clear, however, whether the Genoese were involved in the operation in the latter city.
It should be noted that the Genoese conducted intensive trading in western Greece
from the first half of the thirteenth century onward and that some of them settled in
Thebes, Negroponte, and Chiarenza. One of their main incentives was the quest for silk
textiles and raw materials used in the latters manufacture, namely silk fibers and kermes.
Yet the Genoese displayed far less interest in Thessalonike than the Venetians. The latter
took advantage of their colonies in western Greece and nearby islands to expand their
trade and achieve commercial supremacy in western Romania at the expense of the Ge-
noese and other competitors. This process was also furthered by the Genoese themselves,
namely by their focus on commercial expansion in the Black Sea,210 as well as by their rule
over the island of Chios from 1304 to 1329 and again from 1346 onward, which enhanced
the safety of their traffic through the Aegean. The Venetian-Genoese war of 135055 gen-
erated the definitive shift of their trade and navigation routes from the Balkans and the
waterway along the latters shore, with stopovers such as Thessalonike, to the central and
eastern Aegean. By the mid-fourteenth century the Aegean was divided into two zones,
204
See above, p. 105 and note 132, on silk production in Macedonia.
205
For 1284: Lucca, Archivio di Stato, Notarile, reg. 15, Bartolomeo Fulceri, fol. 370v, 467r; for 1289:
M. Balard, ed., Gnes et Outremer, I. Les actes de Caffa du notaire Lamberto di Sambuceto, 12891290 (ParisThe
Hague, 1973), 72, no. 28.
206
G. Bertolotto, ed., Nuova serie di documenti sulle relazioni di Genova con lImpero bizantino, Atti della
Societ Ligure di Storia Patria 28 (1897): 512, 531.
207
For the relevant documentation, see Balard, Romanie gnoise, 164; idem, The Genoese in the Aegean
(12041566), in B. Arbel, B. Hamilton, and D. Jacoby, eds., Latins and Greeks in the Eastern Mediterranean after
1204 (London, 1989), 160. Yet the evidence bearing on Genoese trade in Thessalonike does not stop in 1317,
as argued by Balard.
208
DVL 1: 134, last clause, the language of which is somewhat confusing. Although the comerclari are men-
tioned in the plural, the transfer is mentioned with respect to a single official.
209
Krekic, Dubrovnik, 19495, no. 186.
210
See above, note 117.
one dominated by Genoa and the other by Venice.211 We may safely assume, therefore, that
while Genoese trade and presence in Thessalonike continued, their volume declined and
was fairly limited from then on.
The evidence bearing on the Genoese in Thessalonike in subsequent years is ex-
tremely meager. In 1349 two Genoese traders concluded in Chios an agreement regard-
ing a certain quantity of linen cloth and fustians produced in Thessalonike, evaluated at
some 1,900 hyperpera. We do not know whether they had bought these textiles in the city
or whether the latter had been brought to Chios by Thessalonian traders.212 In 1410 two
Genoese, Giovanni Accursio and Filippo Galea da Finale, resided in Thessalonike after it
had reverted to Byzantine rule, the latter traveling on business to Chios.213 In 1425, two
years into the Venetian period, the Greek inhabitants demanded that Genoese merchants
visiting the city pay commercial taxes, yet the Venetian Senate upheld the exemption
which they had enjoyed under Byzantine rule.214 The phrasing of both the request and the
answer implies that such visits had not been infrequent in the past, when Thessalonike was
in Byzantine hands, and that they were expected to continue. Most Genoese trading in the
city were presumably based in Chios, the others being merchants passing through that
island.
The subjects of the kingdom of Aragon, generally known to the Byzantines as Kate-
lanoi, are the last Latin subgroup to be examined here. We have no direct information
about them in Thessalonike until the fourteenth century. It stands to reason, though, that
some of those who traded in Constantinople in the preceding two centuries stopped on
their way in Thessalonike. This warrants some attention to their appearance in the impe-
rial capital. The well-known Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela mentions Sefaradim, or
Spaniards, among the foreign traders he encountered in Constantinople in the early
1160s.215 Their activity is confirmed by the grant of a quarter to Spanish and Provenal
merchants, which may have been connected with the negotiations conducted between
King Alfonso II of Aragon and Emperor Manuel I in the years 117680.216 The quarter,
which lacked direct access to the shore of the Golden Horn, was partly occupied by the
211
See Jacoby, Changing Economic Patterns, 22324, 22628. There is no evidence that Genoa ever con-
templated competing with Venice in Thessalonike and failed in its attempt to support the activity of its citizens
in the city, as argued by Balard, Genoese in the Aegean, 16061.
212
Ph. P. Argenti, The Occupation of Chios by the Genoese and Their Administration of the Island, 13461566 (Cam-
bridge, 1958), 3: 528, no. 47. The textiles were to be shipped to Pera. On this venture, see also Matschke,
Tuchproduktion, 7072. On maritime trade between Thessalonike and Chios in that period, see above, pp.
1056. There is no reason to believe that the textiles passed through a transit station, an additional course sug-
gested by Matschke.
213
According to a deposition of 1412, edited by G. G. Musso, Navigazione e commercio genovese con il Levante
nei documenti dellArchivio di Stato di Genova (Secc. XIVXV), con appendice documentaria a cura di Maria Silvia
Jacopino (Rome, 1975), 26668, no. 24.
214
ASV, Senato, Misti, reg. 55, fol. 141r, 10. See Jacoby, Thessalonique, 316.
215
M. N. Adler, ed. and trans., The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela (New York, 1907), 20 and trans., 12. For the
dating of his journey through the empire, see D. Jacoby, Benjamin of Tudela in Byzantium, in P. Schreiner
evcenko on His Eightieth Birthday by His
and O. Strakhov, eds., Chryse Porta / Zlatyia Vrata: Essays Presented to Ihor S
Colleagues and Students (Cambridge, Mass., 2002) = Palaeoslavica 10.12 (2002), 18082.
216
On which see E. Marcos Hierro, Die byzantinisch-katalanischen Beziehungen im 12. und 13. Jahrhundert unter
besonderer Bercksichtigung der Chronik Jakobs I. von Katalonien-Aragon, MiscByzMonac 37 (Munich, 1996), 134
38; D. Durant i Duelt, Una ambaxaida catalana a Constantinoble el 1176 i el matrimoni de la princesa Eu-
dxia, Anuario de estudios medievales 30 (2000): 96377. However, neither of these two authors refers to the
quarter, which is mentioned only in 1224: TTh 2: 255.
DAVID JACOBY 117
Venetians soon after the conquest of Constantinople in 1204, and its division between
Venice and the Latin Empire was finalized in 1224.217 There is no trace of it at a later date.
From these pieces of information we may infer that the commercial and maritime activity
of the subjects of Aragon in Constantinople and, more generally, in the empire remained
fairly limited until the Palaiologan period.
It clearly expanded under the reign of Emperor Michael VIII. In 1281 the merchants
of Barcelona, with the approval of King Peter III of Aragon, appointed one of their own
as resident consul in Constantinople. He was to exercise his authority over the kings sub-
jects, whether visiting or settled in Constantinople or elsewhere in the empire.218 In 1292
Emperor Andronikos II seized several visiting Catalans and their goods in retaliation for
the raids carried out on Byzantine territories by Roger de Lluria, admiral of King Freder-
ick III of Sicily.219 At the behest of the Catalan consul in Constantinople, the emperor
granted commercial privileges to the subjects of Aragon in 1296.220 However, the latters
trade with Constantinople was interrupted in 1305 by the outbreak of hostilities between
the empire and the Catalan Company, and resumed only sometime before 1316.221 In 1320
Andronikos II granted Catalan merchants a further reduction in trade dues, which sug-
gests an expansion of their activity in the empire, confirmed by some notarial deeds and
an account book of 13411342.222 Nevertheless, in the following years of the fourteenth
and in the first half of the fifteenth century, they displayed a limited interest in Romania,
compared with their heavy investments in trade with the Levant.223
Thessalonike occasionally served as a stopover for Catalan traders and ships sailing to
Constantinople or Levantine ports or returning from these destinations.224 These traders
were presumably those who imported Spanish ceramics to Thessalonike between ca. 1350
and ca. 1370.225 In 1370 Catalan merchants carrying woolens manufactured in Barcelona
217
See Jacoby, Venetian Quarter, 163.
218
See M. T. Ferrer i Mallol, Sobre els orgens del Consolat de Mar a Barcelona el 1279 i sobre els cnsols
dUltramar a bord de vaixells. Un exemple de 1281, Anuario de estudios medievales 23 (1993): 14449; S. P. Ben-
sch, Early Catalan Contacts with Byzantium, in L. J. Simon, ed., Iberia and the Mediterranean World of the
Middle Ages: Studies in Honor of Robert I. Burns S.J., I. Proceedings from Kalamazoo (Leiden, 1995), 13840 and
15658, doc. 1.
219
Letter of James II, king of Aragon, to Roger de Lluria: H. Finke, ed., Acta aragonensia. Quellen zur
deutschen, italienischen, franzsischen, spanischen, zur Kirchen- und Kulturgeschichte aus der diplomatischen Korrespon-
denz Jaymes II. (12911327) (BerlinLeipzig, 1908), 2: 741, no. 458.
220
Ed. C. Marinesco, Notes sur les Catalans dans lEmpire byzantin pendant le rgne de Jacques II (1291
1327), in Mlanges dhistoire du moyen ge offerts Ferdinand Lot (Paris, 1925), 5089. The chrysobull grants priv-
ileges to traveling merchants and is not addressed to the community of resident merchants, as stated by
Bensch, Early Catalan Contacts, 142.
221
Bensch, Early Catalan Contacts, 15054, yet for the resumption of trade, see Marinesco, Notes sur les
Catalans, 5056.
222
See ibid., 5067 and 51213, new ed. of the chrysobull of 1320. For the following decades, see D. Duran
i Duelt, Manual del viatge fet per Berenguer Benet a Romania, 13411342. Estudi e edici (Barcelona, 2002).
223
See E. Ashtor, Levant Trade in the Later Middle Ages (Princeton, N.J., 1983), passim.
224
See M. Del Treppo, I mercanti catalani e lespansione della corona dAragona nel secolo XV (Naples, 1972), 15
16, 55. Note that in 1352 the Catalan fleet returning from operations in the Bosphoros sailed from Constan-
tinople to Negroponte, the southern Peloponnese, and Crete, thus bypassing Thessalonike on the way: see
A. Luttrell, John Cantacuzenus and the Catalans at Constantinople: 13521354, in Martinez Ferrando, archivero:
Miscelnea de estudios dedicados a su memoria. Asociacin Nacional de Bibliotecarios, Archiveros, y Arquologos (Barcelona,
1968), 271, repr. in Luttrell, Latin Greece, the Hospitallers and the Crusades, 12911440 (London, 1982), no. IX.
225
On which see Philon, Thessaloniki, Andalusia and the Golden Horde, 3036, 31214, and above, note
136.
agreed about a journey leading to Theologo (ancient Ephesos), capital of the Turkish emi-
rate of Aydin, Thessalonike, and Constantinople.226 In 1381 a Barcelonese cocha anchor-
ing in Chios was to sail to Thessalonike, return to Chios, and proceed from there via The-
ologo, Alexandria, and Beirut to Barcelona.227 In 1385 several Catalan merchants were
arrested in Thessalonike, and their goods as well as the cocha on which they sailed were
confiscated. The action was taken to compensate for the misdeeds of other Catalan mer-
chants, accused of having evaded the obligations they had contracted in Pera toward
Manuel II several years earlier. In 1386 King Peter IV of Aragon wrote two letters on be-
half of his wronged subjects to the emperor, who ruled independently over Thessalonike
from 1382 to 1387.228 In 1409 a Catalan vessel arrived in the city via Sicily, another from
Tunis in 1412, while a third one stopped in 1414 in Naples, Sicily, and Chios before reach-
ing Thessalonike.229 On 28 November of that year Emperor Manuel II sent a letter to King
Ferdinand I of Aragon with a home-bound Catalan ship anchoring at Thessalonike, pos-
sibly the same vessel as the one just mentioned.230 In sum, the subjects of Aragon appear
to have traded intermittently in Thessalonike, none of them settling there. Significantly, in
the first half of the fifteenth century we witness the establishment of Catalan consuls in sev-
eral ports of Romania, namely at Chios in 1404, at Modon in 1407, and at Candia in 1419,
yet Thessalonike was not among them.231
Ragusa was under Venetian rule from 1205 to 1358. In 1234 Manuel Doukas of Epiros
awarded freedom of trade to Ragusa in his own territory. Yet the stringent restrictions
which Venice imposed upon the city in 1232, confirmed in 1236 and 1252, directed Ra-
gusas trade toward the Balkans inland and practically ruled out any activity in Thessa-
lonike at that stage.232 Conditions changed in the fourteenth century. Ragusas land trade
through the Balkans and especially its maritime trade were intimately connected with
Venetian commerce and largely evolved in the regions in which Venetian merchants were
dominant. Ragusan merchants conducted intensive trade with Thessalonike either by
land or by sea, reflected by the commercial deals they concluded with local Greeks and by
the numerous couriers traveling between their own city and Thessalonike.233 A small num-
226
J. M. Madurell Marimn and A. Garca Sanz, eds., Comandas comerciales barcelonesas de la baja edad media,
Anejos del Anuario de estudios medievales 4 (Barcelona, 1973), 2: 25354, no. 124.
227
E. Basso, ed., Notai genovesi in Oltremare. Atti rogati a Chio da Giuliano de Canella (2 novembre 138031 marzo
1381), Accademia Ligure di Scienze e Lettere 1 (Athens, 1993), 9697, no. 41.
228
A. Luttrell, La corona de Aragn y la Grecia catalana: 13791394, Anuario de estudios medievales 6 (1969):
22526, repr. in idem, Latin Greece, no. XI. The dating of the arrest is based on one of the letters: Rubi i Lluch,
Diplomatari, 63435, no. DXCVIII. On Manuels rule in Thessalonike, see Barker, Manuel II, 4259.
229
See Del Treppo, Mercanti catalani, 613.
230
Ed. C. Marinesco, Manuel II Palologue et les rois dAragon. Commentaire sur quatre lettres indites
en latin, expdies par la chancellerie byzantine, Acadmie roumaine, Bulletin de la Section historique 11 (1924):
200201, no. II; see Barker, Manuel II, 33334.
231
See Del Treppo, Mercanti catalani, 56. However, there may have been earlier appointments of Catalan
consuls in the region: see D. Durant i Duelt, Monarquia, consellers i mercaders. Conflictivitat en el consolat
catal de Constantinoble a la primera meitat del segle XV, in M. T. Ferrer i Mallol and D. Coulon, Lexpansi
catalana a la Mediterrnia a la baixa edat mitjana, Anuario de estudios medievales, Annex 36 (Barcelona, 1999), 35
and note 33.
232
See Krekic, Dubrovnik, 2629.
233
See A. E. Laiou, In the Medieval Balkans: Economic Pressures and Conflicts in the Fourteenth Cen-
tury, in S. Vryonis Jr., ed., Byzantine Studies in Honor of Milton V. Anastos (Byzantina kai Metabyzantina 4) (Malibu,
Calif., 1985), 141, 14346, repr. in Laiou, Gender, no. IX; Krekic, Dubrovnik, 6770.
DAVID JACOBY 119
ber of Ragusans apparently resided in Thessalonike, among them Junius de Bona or

Bunic, attested in the city in 1373 and 1377, who from there conducted business on a large
scale, including with the mining center of Novo Brdo in Serbia.234 The Ragusans had no
consul of their own in Thessalonike. While under Venices rule they relied on Venetian of-
ficials when the need arose. In 1340 the Venetian ambassador to Constantinople, Giovanni
Gradenigo, was instructed to obtain compensation for the goods robbed from a Ragusan
merchant, a Venetian subject, who had died in Thessalonike.235 Surprisingly, though, the
intervention of the Venetian consul in the city was also sought in 1371, although by then
Ragusa was again independent. He was asked to obtain the release of a Ragusan merchant
imprisoned by the Byzantine authorities.236
We know that some Armenians resided in villages close to Thessalonike in 1185.237 The
Venetian-Byzantine treaty of 1277 reveals that the Armenians had a church of their own
in the city, which was to be handed over to Venice.238 A small Armenian community must,
nevertheless, have continued to exist in the following decades, since an Armenian bishop
of Thessalonike attended in 1307 the church synod held at Sis in Cilician Armenia.239 Sev-
eral monasteries on Mount Athos had metochia or subordinate monastic establishments
of their own in Thessalonike. We do not know whether those of Iviron were in the hands of
Greek or Georgian monks, or else members of both groups.240 The Serbian monastery of
Hilandar also owned a metochion, attested from 1316 to 1351.241 The Russian monks of St.
Panteleimon on Mount Athos had one, devoted to St. Zenas. After a fire destroyed the
archives of the Rossikon, Andronikos II confirmed their rights and possessions in 1311,
yet without explicitly naming the metochion.242 It is unclear whether these metochia reflect
the presence of ethnic-cultural groups other than the monks, nor whether they acted as
foci of collective identity around which individuals of similar origin tended to aggregate.
It is likely that the toponym Sqlabomevsh, attested in 1117 only, apparently points to a Slav
market at a much earlier period, yet we do not know whether it reflected a concentration
of Slavs in Thessalonike.243
The first Turkish occupation of Thessalonike, which lasted from 1387 to 1403, wit-
nessed the establishment of a new foreign group within the urban space, namely Turks.
234
Krekic, Dubrovnik, 15354; 21314, nos. 306, 307; 216, no. 321. See also Matschke, Bergbauentwick-
lung, 6263.
235
Incomplete summaries by Thiriet, Rgestes, 1: no. 98, and Krekic, Dubrovnik, 153 note 3.
236
Krekic, Dubrovnik, 153 and 211, no. 293.
237
Eustazio di Tessalonica, Espugnazione, 124.2526.
238
MM 3: 89; TTh 3: 140.
239
Mansi 25: 140.
240
On these metochia, see J. Lefort, N. Oikonomids, D. Papachryssanthou, and V. Kravari, eds., Actes dIvi-
ron. III, De 1204 1328, Archives de lAthos 18 (Paris, 1994), 3940; one of them is recorded as being in the
hands of the Georgian monks: ibid., 2122.
241
M. Zivojinovic, V. Kravari, and Ch. Giros, eds., Actes de Chilandar. I, Des origines 1319, Archives de lAthos
20 (Paris, 1998), 230, no. 33, lines 115, dated 1316, with reference to an earlier document; see also Intro-
duction, 35, 48, 51. See also M. Z ivojinovic, Solinski metoc manastira Chilandara (= Le mtoque de Chi-
landar Thessalonique), ZRVI 37 (1998): 11119, in Serbo-Croatian with French summary.
242
P. Lemerle, G. Dagron, and S. C irkovic, eds., Actes de St. Pantlmon, Archives de lAthos 12 (Paris, 1982),
95, no. 10, lines 3738; further reference in 1353, yet without the name of the metochion: 100, no. 11, lines
2829.
243
N. Oikonomids, ed., Actes de Docheiariou, Archives de lAthos 13 (Paris, 1984), 7375, no. 4, lines 27 and
84, and commentary 79.
Their presence, which has been overlooked until now, was not limited to administrative
personnel and a military garrison. These were presumably stationed in the citys acropo-
lis where, according to Archbishop Symeon, the church of the Savior was converted into a
mosque.244 The Turkish population also included immigrants not fulfilling any official
functions, a feature common to many conquered cities. Indeed, such Turks settled in
Thessalonike, as we learn from somewhat later sources that will soon be adduced. They
were apparently not numerous, and most of them must have established themselves in the
vicinity of the monastery of St. John the Baptist, the only ecclesiastical institution outside
the acropolis taken over for Muslim religious services. The monastery was apparently lo-
cated in the citys center somewhat south of the Roman agora.245 The assertion of Arch-
bishop Symeon that many churches and monasteries in the city had been desecrated dur-
ing the first Turkish occupation is not confirmed by other sources and appears to be an
intentional overstatement.246
One would assume that the Turkish residents were compelled to leave Thessalonike
when Bayazids son Suleyman transferred the city to Byzantine rule in the spring of 1403.
To be sure, the treaty concluded shortly before 20 February of that year at Gallipoli be-
tween the Turkish prince and several Christian powers, including Emperor John VII on
behalf of Byzantium, provided for the handover of Thessalonike, Kalamaria, Chalkidike,
and the littoral of the Thermaic Gulf to the empire and for the evacuation of all Turks set-
tled in these territories.247 However, it also stipulated that Turks who had legally bought
property would retain the assets they owned.248 In other words, it was envisaged that some
Turks would remain under Byzantine rule. This disposition has been interpreted as re-
ferring to the rural areas recovered by the empire.249 In fact, it dealt with all the territo-
ries, including Thessalonike.
The presence of Turkish residents in the city after 1403 is indeed confirmed, both di-
rectly and indirectly. According to a testimony recorded in Genoa, a female slave pur-
chased by the Genoese Filippo Galea da Finale, established in Thessalonike, had fled and
returned to her former Turkish master and was seen several times in the streets of the city
in 1410.250 It follows that the Turk too resided there. This individual case was not isolated,
as revealed by some Venetian sources dealing with agreements between Byzantine rulers
and the Ottomans. Manuel II either ratified the treaty concluded at Gallipoli between
244
Since no church of that name is known in the acropolis, Balfour, Works of Symeon, 25153, suggests that
Symeon meant the upper city. This interpretation may be safely rejected. It is excluded that Symeon, who was
obviously familiar with the citys topography, would have used acropolis for another section of the city.
245
On the monastery of St. John the Baptist, see Balfour, Works of Symeon, 253. Suggested siting in M. L.
Rautman, Ignatius of Smolensk and the Late Byzantine Monasteries of Thessaloniki, REB 49 (1991): 159
60 and note 91.
246
As rightly argued by Balfour, Works of Symeon, 251, 253.
247
The treaty survives in an Italian version, cited in DVL 2: 29093, no. 159, and by Dennis, Byzantine-
Turkish Treaty, 7780; see also ibid., 81 note 1, for the identification of the regions. Dating of the treaty by
Barker, Manuel II, 22425 and note 43, and on the handover of the city, ibid., 454. However, the occupation
of the acropolis took place somewhat later, on 17 June 1403: see Balfour, Works of Symeon, 116.
248
Relevant passage expressing Suleymans obligations in DVL 2: 291, and Dennis, Byzantine-Turkish
Treaty, 78 3, reads as follows: et in quele contrade tuti queli Turchi che habia possession, io li die cazar via de la; et in
questi luogi tuti queli, si Griesi como Turchi, che habia comprado alguna cossa per la soa moneda, che li sia soy.
249
See N. Oikonomides, Ottoman Influence on Late Byzantine Fiscal Practice, SdostF 45 (1989): 34.
250
See above, p. 116.
DAVID JACOBY 121
John VII and Suleyman or possibly concluded another one with the prince later in 1403,
on almost identical terms.251
It would seem, though, that there was an additional agreement specifically regarding
Thessalonike, which has been overlooked until now. This is implied by a Venetian document
of 1425, which refers to an understanding reached between the Byzantine despot in charge
of the city and the Ottomans regarding jurisdiction over the Turks staying there.252 It is likely
that this agreement was concluded by John VII shortly after he became despot of Thessa-
lonike in the autumn of 1403, rather than by him at a later period or by his successor,
Manuels third son Andronikos, who ruled over the city from 1408 to 1423.253 The agree-
ment stipulated that the Ottomans were entitled to maintain a resident kadi in Thessalonike,
who would be the sole judge in cases involving Turks among themselves. These clearly in-
cluded traders on business, peasants established in the rural hinterland of Thessalonike
who came to sell their products, and settlers who had been allowed to remain in the city.254
The agreement in this respect conformed with the one concluded in 1391 between Emperor
Manuel II and Bayazid for Constantinople, which in addition determined the granting of a
quarter for Turkish merchants in the empires capital.255 However, the willingness of John
VII to accept the presence of a resident kadi in Thessalonike, expressed in all likelihood in
the autumn of 1403, was in stark contrast to Manuels expulsion of the Turks from Con-
stantinople around that time.256 It suggests that as despot of Thessalonike John VII con-
ducted a somewhat independent policy in matters regarding the city over which he ruled.
The agreement of 1403 concerning the kadi was still in force when Venice occupied
Thessalonike in 1423. Around two years later the Venetian Senate instructed Fantin
Michiel, captain-general of the sea, to conduct negotiations with Murad II. He was to de-
mand that the sultan recognize the Venetian possession of Thessalonike and its depen-
dencies on the same terms he had formerly agreed to with respect to the despots rule over
the city. However, he was to obtain important restrictions regarding the judicial authority
of the kadi over the Turks. It would be limited to financial disputes, the Turks would be al-
251
See Dennis, Byzantine-Turkish Treaty, 7677.
252
Summary in N. Iorga, Notes et extraits pour servir lhistoire des croisades au XVe sicle, ROL 5
(1897), 19296, esp. 194 (= Iorga, Notes (as above, n. 183), 1: 39195, esp. 393).
253
On the dating of Johns arrival in the city, see Barker, Manuel II, 24345, and on the beginning of An-
dronikos rule, ibid., 27879. In any event, the agreement must have been reached before 1409, when Suley-
mans political position and ability to bargain were weakened, on which see ibid., 252.
254
On Turks settled in the rural hinterland of Thessalonike, see above, p. 104.
255
See Barker, Manuel II, 85 and 8586 note 2. N. Necipoglu, Ottoman Merchants in Constantinople dur-
ing the First Half of the Fifteenth Century, Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 16 (1992): 15859. Contrary to
Barkers interpretation, however, the evidence assembled in that note definitely points to a resident kadi. The
entry of 16 October 1391 in the Genoese expense account for Pera is convincing in that respect: Iorga, ed.,
Registres de comptes de la colonie gnoise de Pra, in Notes et extraits, ROL 4 (1896): 71 (= Iorga, Notes,
1: 52). It refers to the [kadi] qui moram facit in Constantinopoli. In medieval Latin, moram facere means residing,
and not making a delay, as translated by Barker; significantly, the verb facere appears in the present tense.
Moreover, the renewed demand of Bayazid in 1399 regarding the kadi in Constantinople does not imply that
the agreement had not been implemented, as argued by Barker, followed by S. Reinert, The Muslim Presence
in Constantinople, 9th15th Centuries: Some Preliminary Observations, in Ahrweiler and Laiou, Studies (as
above, note 1) 14447, who suggests that the kadi was not installed in Constantinople until 1399. Bayazids de-
mand was necessary because he wished to ensure that John VII, a new ruler, would abide by the sultans ear-
lier agreement with Manuel II.
256
On which see Barker, Manuel II, 250. Manuel II had arrived in the capital in June 1403: ibid., 237.
lowed to turn to a Venetian court even in such matters, and criminal cases involving them
would be tried exclusively by the Venetian authorities of Thessalonike.257 It follows that the
kadi posted there exercised jurisdiction in criminal matters, although as a rule this was not
the case in Islamic countries.258 Murad II at first accepted the Venetian proposal in No-
vember 1426, yet later refused to ratify the agreement he had reached with Venice.259 As
a result the kadi must have retained his extensive judicial prerogatives. These, however, did
not extend over all the Turks present in Thessalonike. From 1423 to 1426 the Turkish pre-
tender Mustafa, who claimed to be the son of Sultan Bayazid I, was stationed with his men
in the city. These Turks did obviously not consider themselves subjects of the sultan, nor
would they have submitted to the kadis jurisdiction.260
One may wonder until when Turks continued to reside in Thessalonike under Venet-
ian rule. A contract drafted in the city on 10 May 1432 may offer some indication in this
respect. The local monastery of Nea Mone had previously leased a workshop with a press
for the extraction of linseed oil, situated in the quarter of St. Menas, to a Turk whose name
is not mentioned. The contract stipulated the transfer of the facility from the Turk to Con-
stantine Manglavites.261 It is likely that this individual was one of the Greeks resettled in
Thessalonike by Murad II. Shortly after the conquest, the sultan had ordered all the for-
mer residents who had left before the siege to return to the city and had issued a similar
decree with respect to those who had been ransomed from Turkish captivity. Turkish ad-
ministrators and soldiers were evidently stationed in Thessalonike, yet, according to the
extant sources, no other Turks were resettled there in the period immediately following
the conquest. It is only two or three years later, after returning to Thessalonike, that Mu-
rad II decided to transfer to the city about one thousand Turks from Yenitse, a measure
promptly carried out, either in 1432 or 1433.262
The Turk who had leased the oil press before May 1432 deserves particular attention
in our context. We may assume that he was not one of the Ottoman officials or men of arms
established in the city soon after the conquest of 1430. Indeed, it is unlikely that the
monastery of Nea Mone would have canceled or failed to renew a contract with a Turk be-
longing either to the sultans administration or armed forces, for fear of reprisals by that
individual or the Ottoman authorities.263 On the other hand, it is clear that the Turkish op-
erator of the press was already established in Thessalonike before the forceful resettlement
of the Turks ordered by Murad II. It would seem, therefore, that he also resided there dur-
257
Iorga, Notes et extraits, ROL 5 (1897): 31718 (= Iorga, Notes, 1: 41718): possit tenere unum [cadi] suum
in civitate Salonichi, pro jus reddendo Teucris pro differenciis solummodo que forent inter ipsos, pro pecuniis solummodo, et
non in nulla alia re; same clause in Venetian dialect: Sathas, Documents, 1: 184.1420, no. 117. The earlier agree-
ment concluded between the Ottomans and the despot is also mentioned with respect to the return of fugitive
slaves to the territory from which they had escaped: ibid., 184.2124.
258
See E. Tyan, Histoire de lorganisation judiciaire en pays dIslam, 2d ed. (Leiden, 1960), 342429, 600603.
This important study, however, does not deal with the Ottoman judicial system, nor have I found any other
study on that subject relevant for the early Ottoman period. In Thessalonike the absence of Ottoman officers
exercising criminal justice explains the intrusion of the kadi in that sphere.
259
See Setton, The Papacy and the Levant, 2: 2627.
260
Barker, Manuel II, 374; Balfour, Works of Symeon, 18283.
261
P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, N. Svoronos, and D. Papachryssanthou, eds., Actes de Lavra. III, De 1329 1500,
Archives de lAthos 10 (Paris, 1979), 18385, no. 168, lines 47: para; Touvrkou tino".
262
See Vryonis, The Ottoman Conquest, 300304, 31112. The absence of new Turkish settlers soon af-
ter the conquest may also be inferred from the fact that only two churches were turned into mosques at that
time.
263
These Turks would not have operated the facility by themselves, yet would have subleased it to a Greek.
DAVID JACOBY 123
ing the last siege of the city and at the time of the conquest.264 At first glance this appears
to be excluded, yet one should take into account that Venice constantly sought to appease
the Ottomans, despite the heavy pressure they exerted upon Thessalonike and the occa-
sional blockade of the city between 1423 and 1430. The expulsion of Turkish settlers
would have clearly antagonized the Ottomans. It follows that some Turks resided in Thes-
salonike throughout the entire Venetian period and remained there after the Ottoman
conquest, and that the leaseholder of the oil press was one of them. That conquest opened
the city to Turkish settlement on a much larger scale than before, whether as a result of the
demographic policy implemented by the Ottoman rulers or spontaneous immigration. A
population census carried out in Thessalonike in 1478 lists 862 Turkish and 1,275 Greek
households.265
The Jews were the oldest minority group in the city, and the only one whose continu-
ous presence since antiquity may be taken for granted. The evidence concerning them is
more abundant than for any other internal minority group, thanks to the conjunction
of Jewish and Byzantine sources, the latter including writings reflecting Byzantine atti-
tudes toward the Jews, in addition to Venetian documents dealing with taxation. The Jews
were clearly set apart by creed, religious and legal limitations, some degree of internal ju-
risdiction regarding civil matters among themselves, recognized by the state, as well as by
special taxation, in any event in Thessalonike, as we shall see below. To these one should
add cultural traits such as particular customs, a calendar of their own, and, finally, the use
of Hebrew as an expression of collective self-identity and a medium of communication
with Jews residing beyond the boundaries of the empire.266
The Jewish traveler Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Thessalonike in the early 1160s,
estimated at five hundred the number of Jews living in the city, among them silk workers.
This community, one of the largest he encountered in the empire, was headed by an offi-
cial appointed by the imperial authorities. Benjamins report implies that the latter im-
posed residential segregation upon the Jews.267 His testimony in this respect is confirmed
by Archbishop Eustathios of Thessalonike, who between 1185 and 1191 complained that
during the time of his immediate predecessors the Jews had been permitted to spread
throughout the city and that some of them resided in Christian houses decorated in the
past with holy images. He did not know whether this process had occurred as a result of
oversight, with the tacit agreement of the authorities, or in the wake of an imperial decree
allowing for the relaxation of residential restrictions.268 Whatever the case, the develop-
ment attested by Eustathios may be ascribed to the two decades or so following Benjamin
264
Incidentally, during the last siege of Thessalonike some inhabitants driven by famine mixed bran made
from crushed linseed . . . with a little barley or sometimes wheat flour: trans. Balfour, Works of Symeon, 174
75. This supposes the existence of a number of such oil presses in the city.
265
See H. W. Lowry, Portrait of a City: The Population and Topography of Ottoman Selnik (Thessaloniki)
in the Year 1478, Divptuca 2 (198081): 27782. On the period between 1430 and 1478, see Vryonis, The Ot-
toman Conquest, 31321.
266
See Jacoby, Les Juifs de Byzance, 10354; Laiou, Mechanisms, 16871, 179, yet about taxation see
below; N. de Lange, Hebrews, Greeks or Romans? Jewish Culture and Identity in Byzantium, in Smythe,
Strangers to Themselves (as above, note 1), 10618.
267
Adler, The Itinerary of Benjamin of Tudela, 13, and trans., 11. See D. Jacoby, Les quartiers juifs de Con-
stantinople lpoque byzantine, Byzantion 37 (1967): 18283, repr. in idem, Socit et dmographie Byzance et
en Romanie latine (London, 1975), no. II.
268
G. L. F. Tafel, ed., Eustathii metropolitae Thessalonicensis opuscula (Frankfurt am Main, 1832), 340.4447,
letter 32, to the patriarch of Constantinople. It is clear that the Jews living in former Christian houses had con-
of Tudelas visit in Thessalonike. It is unclear whether residential segregation was reim-

posed as a result of the archbishops intervention or at some later time before the Latin
conquest of 1204. Incidentally, Eustathios also mentions the presence of Jews in two vil-
lages close to Thessalonike at the time of the Norman siege of the city in 1185.269
The continuity of the Jewish community of Thessalonike in the early thirteenth cen-
tury is illustrated shortly after the Latin occupation of the city in 1204. As noted earlier,
Benedict Cardinal of Santa Susanna, sent by Innocent III as papal legate to conduct talks
with the Greek Church, passed through Thessalonike in 1205 on his way to Constanti-
nople, in 1207 on his return journey to Rome, or possibly even on both occasions. He was
accompanied by Nicholas of Otranto, who served as his interpreter. Nicholas reports in his
Discourse against the Jews, completed some fifteen years later, that he conducted reli-
gious disputations with the Jews of Thebes, Thessalonike, and Constantinople, the three
most important Jewish communities of Romania at that time.270 According to a Jewish au-
thor writing ca. 1270, Theodore Doukas of Epiros initiated in 1229 some violent action
against the Jews of his territories, apparently confiscating their wealth to finance his mili-
tary operations. The same source reports that Emperor John III Vatatzes, who captured
Thessalonike in 1246, ordered the forceful conversion of the Jews in 1253 or 1254.271 For
lack of evidence we cannot ascertain to what extent these events affected the Jews of Thes-
salonike. It is noteworthy that in Constantinople Emperor Michael VIII reverted to the
traditional Byzantine policy applied before 1204 regarding the residential segregation of
the Jews, and that the Jewish quarter of Vlanga attested in his reign maintained its exis-
tence until the Ottoman conquest of 1453.272 One may assume, therefore, that the same
policy was implemented in Thessalonike from the early Palaiologan period onward, al-
though the existence of a Jewish quarter is attested only much later.
We have already noted the letter which Demetrios Kydones sent in 1368 to the patri-
arch of Constantinople, Philotheos Kokkinos, in which he referred to the latters Jewish
origin.273 The letter provides indirect evidence regarding the existence of the Jewish com-
munity in Thessalonike at the time of the patriarchs birth around 1300. In 1329 the Jew-
ish scribe Adoniyah, son of Abba Kalomiti, completed in Thessalonike the copy of a He-
brew commentary on the Guide to the Perplexed by Maimonides.274 His work implies the
presence of a wealthy patron, member of a group of Jewish intellectuals in the city. The
Greek surname of the scribe points to the latters Romaniote origin. He must have be-
longed to the Kalomiti family attested in Negroponte between 1279 and 1351, and was ap-
parently the son of a leader of that citys Jewish community.275 The intensive trade relations
cealed the Christian images. On the dating of Eustathios writings, see P. Magdalino, Eustathios and Thessa-
lonica, in C. N. Constantinides et al., eds., FILELLHN. Studies in Honour of Robert Browning, Istituto ellenico
di Studi bizantini e neoellenici di Venezia, Bibliotheke 17 (Venice, 1996), 22629.
269
Eustazio di Tessalonica, Espugnazione, 124.2526.
270
See Jacoby, The Jewish Community of Constantinople, 3738.
271
See Bowman, Jews of Byzantium, 1318, on the nature and dating of these persecutions; the Jewish source
is translated ibid., 22831, no. 24. There is no corresponding Byzantine evidence.
272
See Jacoby, Quartiers juifs, 18996, 21618, and idem, The Jewish Community of Constantinople,
3840.
273
See above, p. 87.
274
See Bowman, Jews of Byzantium, 67, and trans. ibid., 252, no. 47.
275
Significantly, Adoniyah Kalomiti refers to his father Abba as naguid and head [of the community]. The
latters prominent position is attested for the years 132931, thus precisely at the time in which the scribe
DAVID JACOBY 125
between Negroponte and Thessalonike, mentioned earlier, may have been conducive to
his migration, which provides a further illustration of the fairly well attested currents of
Jewish mobility within Romania in the fourteenth century.276
Somewhat later evidence on Jewish presence in Thessalonike is provided by a verdict
of the patriarchal court of Constantinople, issued between July 1337 and February
1338.277 The verdict deals with the accusations of a local Greek by the name of Chionios
against some members of the citys Orthodox clergy. Chionios had apparently served in the
judicial branch of the imperial administration before embracing Judaism. This would ac-
count for the fact that after his conversion some Jews voluntarily submitted to his arbitra-
tion in civil litigation between themselves, the precise nature of which is not specified, in
order to avoid the jurisdiction of the rabbinical court of their own community.278 At one
point Chionios denounced to the ecclesiastical authorities local Greeks who had attacked
the Jews and insulted their creed, which implies that he held the clergy responsible for in-
citement. The inquest regarding Chionios accusations had at first been postponed be-
cause the seat of the citys archbishop was vacant. Since Gregory Koutales is attested in that
function in December 1334 and Ignatios Glabas succeeded him from 1336 to 1341, the
proceedings must have begun in 1335 rather than in 1336 and the events reported in the
verdict must have occurred within these years or somewhat earlier.279 In any event, the ver-
dict illustrates the existence of a well-organized Jewish community in Thessalonike with its
own judicial court around 1335, its religious influence in some Christian circles, as well as
the antagonism its presence raised in the ranks of the local clergy and laity.280
worked in Thessalonike. On the family, see D. Jacoby, Venice and the Venetian Jews in the Eastern Mediter-
ranean, in G. Cozzi, ed., Gli Ebrei e Venezia (secoli XIVXVIII) (Milan, 1987), 43 and 5455, notes 5152, repr.
in Jacoby, Studies, no. X; S. Borsari, Ricchi e poveri nelle communit ebraiche di Candia e Negroponte, in
Maltezou, Plouvsioi, 22122. However, Borsari, ibid., 21819, 221, confuses the Kalomiti with another Jewish
family residing at Negroponte; for the distinction between the two, see my study cited above in this note.
276
See D. Jacoby, Quelques aspects de la vie juive en Crte dans la premire moiti du XVe sicle, Actes du
Troisime Congrs international dtudes crtoises (Rethymnon, 1971), vol. 2 (Athens, 1974), 10812, repr. in idem,
Recherches sur la Mditerrane orientale, no. X; Jacoby, Quartiers juifs, 21314.
277
H. Hunger, O. Kresten, E. Kislinger, and C. Cupane, eds. and trans., Das Register des Patriarchats von Kon-
stantinopel, 2. Teil: Edition und bersetzung der Urkunden aus den Jahren 13371350, CFHB 19.2 (Vienna, 1995),
10417, no. 111, with German translation. The English one by Bowman, Jews of Byzantium, 26869, no. 58, is
marred by serious mistakes, which have led him to unwarranted interpretations ibid., 6869. I have added
here some new perspectives to the analysis of the verdict by F. Dlger, Zur Frage des jdischen Anteils an der
Bevlkerung Thessalonikes im XIV. Jahrhundert, in The Joshua Starr Memorial Volume (New York, 1953), 129
33, repr. in idem, PARASPORA. 30 Aufstze zur Geschichte, Kultur und Sprache des byzantinischen Reiches (Ettal,
1961), 37883.
278
This procedure was recognized by Justinianic and later Byzantine law: see Laiou, Mechanisms, 168
69, 171.
279
On Ignatios Glabas and his term of office, see PLP 4222. His predecessor, Gregory Koutales, is attested
as archbishop in 1334. PLP 13616 suggests that he served in that capacity between 1334 and 1336, obviously
on the assumption that he was succeeded almost immediately by Glabas. However, the year 1336 for his death
is highly doubtful, in view of the vacancy mentioned in the verdict concerning Chionios, on which see above.
The chronology of Koutales term should thus be corrected.
280
Several authors of the 19th and 20th centuries, too numerous to be cited here, speak of the arrival in
Thessalonike of Jews from Hungary after their supposed expulsion from that country in 1360 or 1376 and as-
cribe to 1376 the founding of the first Ashkenazi synagogue following western Jewish rite in the city. However,
none of them refers to primary sources. N. Berend, At the Gate of Christendom. Jews, Muslims and Pagans in Me-
dieval Hungary, c. 1100c. 1300 (Cambridge, 2001), 325, mentions a brief expulsion in the 1350s, yet in a per-
sonal communication stresses that the contention that Jews were expelled from Hungary in these years rests
The first Turkish occupation of Thessalonike, which lasted from 1387 to 1403, did not
disrupt the continuity of the local Jewish community. Patriarch Matthew I of Constan-
tinople refers in 1401, in a letter sent to the archbishop of Thessalonike, to the ajllovtrioi
who, in addition to the Christians, disapprove of the behavior of the hieromonk
Nathanael. In this specific context, the term ajllovtrioi appears to stand for Jews.281 In the
summer of 1403, thus around the time Thessalonike reverted to Byzantine rule, a Jew
from Toledo calling himself the Spaniard finished the copy of a manuscript for his per-
sonal use. He may have remained in Thessalonike for a short time only, since he had pre-
viously worked in Negroponte in 1401 and was in Modon in the winter of 1404.282 His ap-
pearance in Thessalonike nevertheless implies the presence of other Jews in the city, from
whom he had borrowed his model. It also raises the possibility that some Jews who had left
Catalonia after the persecutions of 1391 had settled in the city. Such immigrants are at-
tested in the following years in Crete and somewhat later in Constantinople.283
A document of 1420 preserved in the Athonite monastery of Dionysiou offers indirect
yet precious evidence regarding the location and nature of Jewish residence in Thessa-
lonike. It mentions within a specific topographic context the ancient (or former) Jewish
neighborhood gutted by fire, situated northeast of the church of the Forty Martyrs. This
church was located to the north and close to the leophoros and about the middle of the lat-
ters east-west course through the city, which approximately corresponded to the present
Egnatia Street.284 A fourth- or fifth-century inscription from a Samaritan synagogue has
been found to the west of the Panagia ton Chalkeon church, more or less in the area de-
scribed by our document. It has been suggested, therefore, that there may have been top-
ographical continuity in Jewish residence from the early Byzantine period to sometime be-
fore 1420.285 This is highly doubtful for two main reasons. First, it is not at all certain that
the Samaritans resided in the fourth or fifth century in the same urban region as the Jews.
In addition, one should note that the Panagia ton Chalkeon church was built in the
eleventh century in a vacant area.286 This implies either the absence of structures in the
previous period or the disappearance of earlier buildings and therefore precludes Jewish
residential continuity in that urban section. In any event, a more precise location than the
one suggested above cannot be established, since the siting of the Omphalos quarter men-
tioned in relation to the Jewish neighborhood has not been convincingly established.287
Neither the date nor the circumstances of the fire mentioned in 1420 are known. The
on very shaky ground and has been undermined by recent archaeological excavations. In any event, there is
no evidence that Hungarian Jews arrived in Thessalonike.
281
MM 2: 515.30, and see also 521.15. For the interpretation of the term in that context, see Dlger, Zur
Frage, 133 and note 14.
282
The colophon mentions Tammuz, the tenth month of the Jewish calendar which falls in July and August,
and the Jewish year 5163; trans. and note on the scribe in Bowman, Jews of Byzantium, 296, no. 108. On the
date at which Thessalonike reverted to Byzantine rule, see above, p. 120.
283
See Jacoby, Quelques aspects, 111; idem, Quartiers juifs, 21314.
284
N. Oikonomids, ed., Actes de Dionysiou, Archives de lAthos 4 (Paris, 1968), 112, no. 19, lines 811: th'"
palaia'" purikauvstou Ebrai?do"; proposed location ibid., 11112.
285
J. M. Spieser, Les inscriptions de Thessalonique, TM 5 (1973): 14950, no. 1.
286
Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments, 86.
287
Despite the attempt by Oikonomids, Actes de Docheiariou, 80. See his conjectural reconstruction of the
topography of Palaiologan Thessalonike, ibid., 79, fig. 4, yet in view of the clues provided by the document
cited above, note 284, his siting of Omphalos is clearly erroneous.
DAVID JACOBY 127
reference to the gutted neighborhood implies that the latter had not been rebuilt and that
the Jews had established themselves elsewhere, whether in a vacant urban space or in a
thinly populated area. It has already been suggested above that the imperial policy of Jew-
ish residential segregation in Thessalonike was renewed in the early Palaiologan period.288
The term Ebrai?" used in 1420 appears to confirm that policy, since it implies a concen-
trated Jewish residence. We may assume, therefore, that after the fire the Byzantine au-
thorities, rather than the Jews themselves, determined the site of the new Jewish neigh-
borhood. The concentration of the Jews in the same urban area seems to imply that all of
them were imperial subjects and that there were no Venetian Jews in Thessalonike in the
years immediately preceding 1423, contrary to the latters presence in Constantinople. In-
deed, in the capital most Venetian Jews resided in a section of the Venetian quarter.289
The location of the new Jewish neighborhood created in Thessalonike sometime be-
fore 1420 is unknown. Ottoman evidence from the sixteenth century onward is irrelevant
in this respect.290 Nor is the location of the Jewish house to the north of the leophoros and
close to the Incantadas, recorded in the nineteenth century, of any relevance for the Byzan-
tine period.291 Indeed, the entire Jewish population of Thessalonike was deported to Con-
stantinople-Istanbul by the Turkish authorities around 1455, and no Jews were to be
found in Thessalonike in the following decades, as illustrated by Ottoman population cen-
suses carried out from 1478 to 1490.292 The Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews settling in the
city from ca. 1490 onward established themselves to the south of the leophoros.293 There is
no way to ascertain whether or not the area they chose corresponded to the site of the
neighborhood attested in 1420. Whatever the case, it is clear that the continuity of Jewish
presence in Thessalonike until ca. 1455 was not synonymous with the topographical con-
tinuity of the citys Jewish neighborhood.294 Nor does the continuous presence of the Jews
in Thessalonike until ca. 1455 entail that they maintained their participation in the local
manufacture of silk textiles, in which they had been involved in the twelfth century.295 Un-
288
See above, p. 124.
289
On the Venetian Jews and their neighborhood in the capital, see Jacoby, Quartiers juifs, 20514, and
idem, Vnitiens naturaliss, 220, 224, 22728, 23031.
290
Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments, 87, seems nevertheless to rely on it.
291
On this house, see ibid., 8687.
292
On deportation shortly after 1453, see Lowry, Portrait of a City, 26164; dating to ca. 1455 by J. Hacker,
The Srgn System and Jewish Society in the Ottoman Empire during the Fifteenth to the Seventeenth Cen-
turies, in A. Rodrigue, ed., Ottoman and Turkish Jewry, University Turkish Studies 12 (Bloomington, Ind.,
1992), 910. To the census of 1478, used by Lowry, one should add those of 148890 as well as Jewish sources,
all examined by J. Hacker, The Jewish Community in Saloniki and Its Components in the Fifteenth and Six-
teenth Centuries: A Chapter in the History of the Jewish Community in the Ottoman Empire and Its Relations
with the Authorities (Ph.D. diss., Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 1978), 9398, 168 (in Hebrew). The com-
munity of Thessalonian Jews in Istanbul is registered in a population census carried out in 1540: see Lowry,
Portrait of a City, 262. However, it split later at an unknown date into two communities, registered as Great
Selnik and Little Selnik: see U. Heyd, The Jewish Communities of Istanbul in the Seventeenth Century,
Oriens 6 (1953): 300, 304, 306, 311.
293
On the influx of Jews to Thessalonike since the late 15th century and the location of their quarter, see
Lowry, Portrait of a City, 261, 269, 277. Hacker, The Jewish Community in Saloniki, 9798, 169, 22325,
provides evidence from Jewish sources and data from Ottoman censuses carried out in the first half of the 16th
century. Since there was no compulsory residential concentration of Jews in the Ottoman period, some of them
established themselves to the north of the leophoros.
294
Such was also the case in Constantinople: see Jacoby, Quartiers juifs, 167227.
295
On which see above, p. 123.
fortunately, there is not a single shred of evidence regarding their economic pursuits be-
tween 1204 and ca. 1455.
In the Byzantine period the Jews of Thessalonike had paid an annual sum of 1,000 hy-
perpera to the imperial treasury. This is implied by a petition they submitted to Venice in
1425, two years after the latters takeover of their city.296 We do not know when this collec-
tive tax had been imposed, yet it is likely that it had been levied for a long time. It obvi-
ously did not exempt the Jews from taxes paid by other Byzantine subjects on an individ-
ual basis, for instance in commercial transactions. No other urban minority group in the
empire is known to have paid a yearly collective tax to the imperial treasury in the Palaiolo-
gan period.297 The Thessalonian Jews were thus subjected to a special fiscal regime, which
was clearly discriminatory.298 We may safely assume that the Jews bore a disproportionate
fiscal burden, compared with the citys other inhabitants. The sum they paid, therefore,
does not offer any indication regarding their numbers, nor regarding their role in the
citys economy.299 Indeed, the amount of the collective tax reported in 1425 had remained
constant for many years, regardless of demographic fluctuations within the Jewish com-
munity and the state of wealth of its individual members. It is hardly plausible, though,
that the Jews were numerous at the onset of Venetian rule in 1423.300
After taking hold of Thessalonike, Venice maintained at first the amount of the tax
imposed upon the local Jewish community in the Byzantine period. It is likely that the
worsening economic conditions prevailing in the city caused by Turkish pressure, which
continued in the following years, as well as the heavy tax induced the most prosperous
members of the community to emigrate.301 As a result there was an increase in the fiscal
burden resting on the remaining Jews, already affected by the economic contraction. In
1425 their representatives requested a reduction of the collective tax they had paid in the
past when they were numerous. They argued that the authorities should take into ac-
count the fiscal capacity of the communitys individual members, who were now few in
numbers and poor. The Venetian government agreed to lower the yearly sum to 800 hy-
perpera should the city gates be closed or, in other words, should the city be cut off from
its hinterland for a lengthy period.302 The economic conditions in Thessalonike wors-
296
See below, p. 128 and note 302.
297
On the other hand, some ethnic groups settled in rural areas of the Peloponnese and Thrace paid col-
lective taxes, yet their nature and purpose were quite different: see Laiou, Mechanisms, 180.
298
Contrary to Laiou, Mechanisms, 179. Note also the collective fine imposed upon the Jews of Constan-
tinople in the 1090s: see Jacoby, The Jewish Community of Constantinople, 3235. The nature of the pay-
ment imposed upon the Jews of Zichna in the Palaiologan period is unclear. I shall not deal here with Jewish
taxation in Byzantium in general, a vexing issue about which much has been written without achieving a con-
sensus. For a summary of views other than mine, see Bowman, Jews of Byzantium, 4148, and Laiou, at the be-
ginning of this note.
299
Contrary to Harvey, Economic Conditions, 122, who argues that they were a significant factor.
300
As claimed, for instance, by Vryonis, The Ottoman Conquest, 308.
301
The right of Thessalonians to leave their city and settle elsewhere was expressly mentioned in the agree-
ment which the despot Andronikos concluded on their behalf with Venice in 1423: Sathas, Documents, 1:
135.3334, 136.13, 138.24, no. 86. An official of the archbishopric was among those who left between the
Venetian takeover of 1423 and 1425: S. Kugas, ed., Notizbuch eines Beamten der Metropolis in Thessa-
lonike aus dem Anfang des XV. Jahrhunderts, BZ 23 (1914): 152, no. 82.
302
ASV, Senato, Misti, reg. 55, fol. 142r, 19. Partial transcription of the clause with some errors in Mertzios,
Mnhmei'a, 59, note 1, and inaccurate English translation in Bowman, Jews of Byzantium, 306, no. 122.
DAVID JACOBY 129
ened after 1425, and Jewish emigration apparently continued in the following four years.
Interestingly, a Jew with the toponymic surname Salonicho appears in 1428 as a resident
of Candia,303 yet it is impossible to determine whether he had left Thessalonike for Crete
in those years or earlier, or still whether he had inherited his surname from his fore-
fathers.
In 1429 the Jews complained about the extortion of exorbitant fees for the opening of
the city gates whenever a Jewish funeral procession headed for their cemetery. In response
to that grievance the Venetian Senate ordered that no more than the customary fee should
be charged.304 The main Jewish request, however, dealt once more with a reduction of the
collective tax. The Jews claimed that the latter, already curtailed to 800 hyperpera, should
be entirely abolished until the return of peace with the Turks. The rejection of this pro-
posal by Venice is not surprising, in view of the heavy burden resting on its finances in
Thessalonike. Indeed, in addition to current expenses for the citys defense, the treaty it
signed in 1427 with the admiral of Gallipoli, Sarudja bey, who represented Sultan Murad
II, stipulated an annual payment of around 4,000 ducats to the Turks from the revenue
collected in the city. Venice also granted some 500 ducats and about 250 more in the fol-
lowing years to each of two Turkish vizirs.305 The Commune adopted the alternative pro-
posal of the Thessalonian Jews, already submitted in 1425, namely that the amount of
their collective tax would be determined by their numbers and their individual financial
condition. However, the Ottomans occupied Thessalonike before the projected fiscal cen-
sus could be carried out. Incidentally, according to John Anagnostes, the Jews too
mourned the citys archbishop Symeon when he died in 1429, a fact that points to the lat-
ters tolerant attitude toward them.306
It is not excluded that Thessalonikes Jewish community was somewhat reinforced by
immigrants from Negroponte in the first two decades of renewed Ottoman rule. In 1459
Venice requested the return of Jews from that Venetian colony who, it asserted, had fled
to Turkish territory because of the plague and had been compelled by the Ottoman au-
thorities to settle in Constantinople.307 On the other hand, emigration must have weak-
ened the community in that same period. According to the seventeenth-century Evliya
elebi, who apparently had access to a fifteenth-century source presently missing, only
fifty Jewish households were deported from Thessalonike to Constantinople-Istanbul.308
This was apparently the entire Jewish population remaining in Thessalonike around 1455
since, as noted above, no Jews were to be found in the city in the following decades.
303
Mentioned by N. Iorga, Documents concernant les Grecs et les affaires dOrient, tirs des registres des
notaires de Crte, RHSEE 14 (1937): 99.
304
ASV, Senato, Misti, reg. 57, fol. 131rv, 21. Partial transcription of the clause in Mertzios, Mnhmei'a, 81,
note 2.
305
Sathas, Documents, 1: 18385, no. 117; . A. Zachariadou, La part des Turcs dans les revenus des
colonies latines de Romanie, in M. Balard et A. Ducellier, eds., Coloniser au Moyen Age (Paris, 1995), 349.
306
See above, note 175.
307
Thiriet, Rgestes, 3: no. 3088. A further reference to former Jewish residents of Negroponte appears in
1462: Valentini, Acta Albaniae, 24: 46263, no. 110t. Significantly, when the Diegesis deals with Murads settle-
ment policy in Thessalonike, in the years following the Turkish occupation of the city in 1430, it refers to Chris-
tians and Turks, yet omits Jews: see Vryonis, The Ottoman Conquest, 3014.
308
See Lowry, Portrait of a City, 26263.
Slaves were a permanent component of Thessalonikes population, yet did not consti-
tute a coherent minority group. Their precise ethnic or geographic origin was concealed
in many cases by the Christian names they were given, the spurious ethnic identity as-
cribed to them, or the references to the places from which they had been brought to Thes-
salonike.309 Some of them worked in households or were presumably employed in manu-
facture and local trade.310 Others, far more numerous, stayed in the city for short periods
only. We have already noted that Thessalonike served as a base for piratical operations,
which often entailed the enslavement of captives. In addition, the frequent upheavals in
the citys Balkan hinterland resulted in a constant stream of slaves. According to John VI
Kantakouzenos, the Byzantines refrained from turning Bulgarian prisoners of war into
slaves, Serbs and Bulgarians acting similarly in the wars between themselves.311 There is,
nevertheless, reason to believe that individuals belonging to these nations and Vlachs
reached Thessalonike as slaves in the second half of the fourteenth century, as a result of
Turkish military operations in the Balkans. The city was an important market and distri-
bution center for slaves, who were shipped to various destinations around the Mediter-
ranean. Sale transactions and documents granting manumission sometimes state Thessa-
lonike as place of origin, yet in fact it merely served as a transit station. Slaves supposedly
originating in Thessalonike were sold in Venice, Ragusa, Candia,312 Famagusta,313 as well
as in Rhodes and other places.314 In any event, whether resident or in transit, the slave
could not join any minority group existing in Thessalonike.
The investigation of internal and external foreigners in Thessalonike in the late

Byzantine period is a frustrating experience. We know hardly anything about the common
foreigners, men and women, who at best have left scanty literary or documentary traces of
themselves. The study of foreign groups proves to be somewhat more rewarding. Their
relative importance varied over time. The sources bearing on their activity and presence
309
For a case of spurious and concealed identity, see Balard, Romanie gnoise, 797; Laiou, Medieval
Balkans, 145.
310
H. Kpstein, Zur Sklaverei im ausgehenden Byzanz. Philologisch-historische Untersuchung (Berlin, 1966), 111
13, finds no evidence for the empire in this respect after the 10th century, yet has not covered all the available
documentation. See K.-P. Matschke, Geldgeschfte, Handel und Gewerbe in sptbyzantinischen Rechen-
bchern und in der sptbyzantinischen Wirklichkeit. Ein Beitrag zu den Produktions- und Austauschver-
hltnissen im byzantinischen Feudalismus, Jahrbuch fr Geschichte des Feudalismus 3 (1979): 19293 and note
88. Incidentally, when the despot Constantine Palaiologos, son of Andronikos II, left Constantinople for Thes-
salonike in the winter of 132122, he had with him a slave in charge of his gold and silver table utensils:
Nikephoros Gregoras, Byzantina historia, ed. L. Schopen and I. Bekker (Bonn, 182955), 1: 354.1013. He was
thus not a cook, as stated by Kpstein, Zur Sklaverei, 105. For the dating of the journey, see Laiou, Constanti-
nople and the Latins, 290.
311
See Laiou, Medieval Balkans, 150.
312
Ch. Verlinden, Lesclavage dans lEurope mdivale, vol. 2, Italie-Colonies italiennes du Levant-Levant latin-
Empire byzantin (Ghent, 1977), 554, 738, 827, 830; S. McKee, ed., Wills from Late Medieval Crete, 13131420
(Washington, D.C., 1998), 1: 240, no. 187: Maria Salonicha, mentioned in the will of a goldsmith living in Can-
dia in 1351 or 1352.
313
A. Lombardo, ed., Nicola de Boateriis, notaio in Famagosta e Venezia (13551365), Fonti per la storia di
Venezia, Sez. III, Archivi notarili (Venice, 1973), 5455 and 8081, respectively nos. 50 and 76: Andreas de
Salonichi, around twelve years old, and Anna de Sallonichi, no age stated, in 1361.
314
A. Luttrell, Slavery at Rhodes: 13061440, 9395, repr. in idem, Latin Greece, no. VI: in 1347, 1351, and
1358.
DAVID JACOBY 131
in the city are fragmentary, scattered, and unevenly distributed. The conjunction of both
factors results in a gross imbalance in the amount of information regarding each of them.
The evolving commercial function of Thessalonike in the period examined here un-
derlines what should be obvious and is too often forgotten. Geographic conditions create
a potential framework for economic activity, yet the latters nature and volume are deter-
mined by the particular historical circumstances and by human action over time. Geo-
political factors and economic incentives largely determined the volume of foreign trade,
shipping, and settlement of external foreigners in Thessalonike, yet also to some extent
the size of Jewish community. We have noted that the restructuring of long-distance trade
and maritime networks in the early Palaiologan period resulted in an increasing contrac-
tion of Thessalonikes role in trans-Mediterranean commerce and in a growing orientation
of the citys economy toward its Balkan hinterland. The intermittent political and eco-
nomic instability in that region in the fourteenth and in the first decades of the fifteenth
century further undercut the citys commercial function and its appeal, as both destina-
tion and transit station for traders and prospective settlers. On the other hand, the new
geopolitical balance achieved between the major sea powers in the Aegean enabled the
Venetians to consolidate their domination in maritime trade with Thessalonike and
turned the Genoese into a minor partner in that context.
The Jews and the Venetians are the only foreign groups for which a somewhat coher-
ent long-term view emerges. The presence of the Jews was continuous throughout the cen-
turies we have covered. They were subject to residential segregation under Byzantine rule,
and the site of their quarter before 1420 can be more or less determined, yet we do not
know anything about their economic pursuits. We are best informed about the Venetians,
whose activity and presence in the city were continuous, save for short interruptions due
to political circumstances. The number of Venetian settlers and visiting merchants in
Thessalonike was higher than that of any other external foreign group, Negroponte
serving as their main transit station to and from Thessalonike. Moreover, the Venetians
were the only foreign group with an official representative of their nation stationed in the
city almost continuously, which was the case from the 1270s onward.315 Genoese trade in
Thessalonike appears to have been more or less continuous, even after the mid-fourteenth
century, though on a limited scale and in connection with Chios. In certain periods there
were also a few Genoese settlers in Thessalonike. Serbian commerce from the 1370s on-
ward was primarily stimulated by land trade in the Balkans and the exploitation of silver
mines in Serbia. Merchants from the Iberian peninsula traded only intermittently in Thes-
salonike. The Turkish settlers were latecomers in the city, where their establishment was
closely linked to specific political events.
On the whole the evidence yields rather disappointing results and raises many ques-
tions that remain unanswered. There are no quantitative data enabling an assessment of
the size of foreign groups at any moment, nor of their relative importance with respect to
the citys population. The sources provide hardly any insights into the economic coopera-
tion and social interaction between the individual members of foreign groups and local
inhabitants, or between these groups and the Greek population as a whole. We know of
ecclesiastical and popular animosity against the Jews, which occasionally erupted into vi-
315
Only one Genoese consul is known to have served in Thessalonike: see above, p. 115.
olence. In the short period of Venetian rule there was some tension between local Greek
and Venetian traders and discontent with the behavior of Venetian troops. Yet we are un-
able to evaluate the impact of foreign groups on the economy of Thessalonike, nor per-
ceive whether they had any impact on the cultural or artistic evolution of the city. It is to
be hoped that further exploration of the numerous unpublished notarial documents pre-
served in western archives will shed more light on these issues.
The Hebrew University, Jerusalem


Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
The Aristocracy in Late Byzantine Thessalonike:
A Case Study of the Citys Archontes
(Late 14th and Early 15th Centuries)
LU
NEVRA NECIPOG
hessalonike, the second city of the Byzantine Empire and the major administrative,
T economic, and cultural center of medieval Macedonia, was also a major geographical
center of the aristocracy, second perhaps only to Constantinople in this respect too. There
were several factors that made the city of Thessalonike a particularly attractive home for
the Byzantine aristocracy. In the first place, it was a prosperous urban center which, on
account of its geographic location, possessed a vast and fertile agricultural hinterland.1
Thanks to the documents of Mount Athos, we know that many of the landed possessions
of the Thessalonian aristocracy were situated in this hinterland, especially in Chalkidike,
not far from their urban residencesan advantage that the Constantinopolitan aristoc-
racy naturally did not enjoy. Herein lies, in large part, the economic foundation of the con-
siderable local power wielded by the aristocrats of late Byzantine Thessalonike, at least
as far as the first half of the Palaiologan period is concerned when the countryside still
constituted the primary source of wealth in the Byzantine world. Second, besides the agri-
cultural wealth of its hinterland, Thessalonike owed its prosperity also to the fact that it
was a port town with a thriving commerce. This, too, suited the interests of the citys aris-
tocracy, particularly from about the middle of the fourteenth century onwards, when, as
modern scholarship of the last twenty years has demonstrated, the Byzantine aristocracy
on the whole began to get more heavily involved in commercial enterprises.2 Finally, like
some other cities of the empire in the Palaiologan period, Thessalonike enjoyed certain
I am extremely grateful to David Jacoby, Alice-Mary Talbot, and two anonymous reviewers who read this
paper and offered valuable suggestions.
1
On the connections between Thessalonike and its hinterland during the Palaiologan period, see A. Laiou,
H Qessalonivkh, hJ ejndocwvra th" kaiv oJ oijkonomikov" th" cw'ro" sthvn ejpochv tw'n Palaiolovgwn, in Dieqnev" Sumpovsio
Buzantinhv Makedoniva, 3241430 m.C. (Thessalonike, 1995), 18394.
2
On this general phenomenon, see especially N. Oikonomids, Hommes daffaires grecs et latins Constan-
tinople (XIIIeXVe sicles) (MontrealParis, 1979), 120 ff; A. E. Laiou-Thomadakis, The Byzantine Economy in
the Mediterranean Trade System, ThirteenthFifteenth Centuries, DOP 3435 (1982): 199ff; eadem, The
Greek Merchant of the Palaeologan Period: A Collective Portrait, Akad.Aqh.Pr. 57 (1982): 105 ff (both repr.
in A. E. Laiou, Gender, Society and Economic Life in Byzantium [Aldershot, Hampshire, 1992], nos. VII and VIII);
and most recently K.-P. Matschke and F. Tinnefeld, Die Gesellschaft im spten Byzanz: Gruppen, Strukturen und
Lebensformen (CologneWeimarVienna, 2001), 158 ff, with extensive references to earlier bibliography.
134 THE ARISTOCRACY IN LATE BYZANTINE THESSALONIKE
imperial privileges and immunities, which seem to have encouraged some degree of au-
tonomy and self-government, providing thereby the citys aristocrats with further means
to extend their power locally in political as well as in economic terms.3
Although there are some important works on the late Byzantine aristocracy,4 a study
devoted exclusively to the Thessalonian aristocracy in the same era has not been under-
taken to this date. Yet, considering that a notable feature of the Palaiologan period was the
growing power and importance of the local aristocracies in the provincial cities of the
Byzantine Empire,5 and in view of the special position of Thessalonike among the latter,
such a study remains a desideratum. The present paper cannot possibly fulfill this major
task within the limits provided. Therefore, rather than offering a comprehensive treat-
ment of the aristocracy in late Byzantine Thessalonike, I restrict my discussion to an anal-
ysis of certain individuals and families who belonged to the middle and lower strata of this
social group, hence excluding the high aristocracy. Such a choice, as arbitrary as it might
seem, can be justified on several grounds. First of all, it is noteworthy that quite a large
proportion of the representatives of the high aristocracy who appear in the sources as res-
idents of Thessalonike are actually outsiders rather than locally rooted citizens. They in-
clude, in the first place, the imperial governors (kephalai) and commanders who were sent
from Constantinople for purposes of central administration, and whose presence in the
city was generally of short duration. While some among them are known occasionally to
have established firm links with Thessalonikeas, for instance, Nikephoros Choumnos,
kephale of Thessalonike in 1309/10, who bought houses in the city which he leased after-
wards,6 and whose son George likewise served as governor of Thessalonike in 1327/287
this group of people essentially belonged to the aristocracy of the capital, and as such they
should not concern us here. Second, modern scholarship on the Byzantine aristocracy or
3
On the privileges of Thessalonike, see O. Tafrali, Thessalonique au quatorzime sicle (Paris, 1912), 24, 49, 66
71, 150, 157; G. I. Bra tianu, Privilges et franchises municipales dans lEmpire byzantin (BucharestParis, 1936),
1089, 11522; Lj. Maksimovic, The Byzantine Provincial Administration under the Palaiologoi (Amsterdam, 1988),
24857. Although the precise nature and content of these privileges are not all that clear, Manuel II acknowl-
edged their importance in his public speech of 1383, where, addressing the citizens of Thessalonike as the
descendants of Philip and Alexander, he stated that they were accustomed to greater freedom compared with
the inhabitants of other Macedonian and Anatolian cities, and that they were exempt even from the tribute all
free Byzantines had to pay to the emperor: B. Laourdas, O sumbouleutiko;" pro;" tou;" Qessalonikei'" tou'
Manouh;l Palaiolovgou, Makedonikav 3 (1955): 296, line 24297, line 11, 298, lines 415. For some practical ap-
plications of the fiscal privilege referred to by Manuel II, all dating from the first half of the 14th century, see
now E. Patlagean, Limmunit des Thessaloniciens, in EUYUCIA. Mlanges offerts Hlne Ahrweiler, 2 vols.
(Paris, 1998), 591601, esp. 592. It is also to be noted that the agreement concerning the transfer of Thessa-
lonike to Venetian rule in 1423 was concluded with the condition that the privileges and customs of the citys
inhabitants were to be respected: C. N. Sathas, ed., Documents indits relatifs lhistoire de la Grce au Moyen ge,
vol. 1 (ParisVenice, 1880), 133, 13538 (no. 86); K. D. Mertzios, Mnhmei'a makedonikh'" iJstoriva" (Thessalonike,
1947), 72.
4
G. Ostrogorsky, Observations on the Aristocracy in Byzantium, DOP 25 (1971): 17ff; A. E. Laiou, The
Byzantine Aristocracy in the Palaeologan Period: A Story of Arrested Development, Viator 4 (1973): 13151
(repr. in eadem, Gender, Society and Economic Life, no. VI); D. S. Kyritses, The Byzantine Aristocracy in the Thirteenth
and Early Fourteenth Centuries (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University Microfilms International, 1997); Matschke and
Tinnefeld, Gesellschaft, 1862, 158ff.
5
See, for instance, Laiou, Byzantine Aristocracy, 14550; E. A. Zachariadou, Efhvmere" ajpovpeire" giav auj-
todioivkhsh stiv" Ellhnikev" povlei" katav tovn IDV kaiv IEV aijwvna, Ariavdnh 5 (1989): 34551.
6
J. F. Boissonade, ed., Anecdota nova (Paris, 1844; repr. Hildesheim, 1962), 29; cf. Kyritses, Byzantine Aris-
tocracy, 192; PLP 30961.
7
See PLP 30945.
LU
NEVRA NECIPOG 135
on the social history of the Palaiologan period has already brought to light a fair amount
of information concerning some of the great aristocratic families of late Byzantine Thes-
salonike, whereas those families and individuals from the middle and lower ranks of the
citys aristocracy remain in relative obscurity, which therefore makes the study of the lat-
ter groups more interesting and appropriate, albeit more challenging. Challenging, be-
cause people from these latter groups are in general much less visible in the sources com-
pared to members of the high aristocracy. Nonetheless, sufficient data can be pieced
together, from literary and documentary sources, concerning one particular subgroup
that played a key role in the government of the city, the so-called archontes, a group of lo-
cal officeholders who dominated civic life in Thessalonike and constituted the citys ruling
elite.8 Thus this paper presents a case study of the archontes of late Byzantine Thessalonike,
whose social, economic, and political characteristics are examined in the context of con-
temporary historical developments.9 In terms of chronological scope, on the other hand,
the focus is mainly on the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuriesthe period
roughly from the end of the Zealot movement until the final capture of the city by the Ot-
tomans in 1430since, in the current state of our knowledge, there is hardly anything new
to be added to what existing scholarship on the two major civil wars of the first half of the
fourteenth century has disclosed in relation to the Thessalonian aristocracy.
Nearly two decades have transpired since the publication of Michael Angolds Ar-
chons and Dynasts: Local Aristocracies and the Cities of the Later Byzantine Empire,
which drew attention to the decisive role played by the archontes in the provincial cities of
Byzantium between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries. The final section of this paper
also included a short discussion of the growing bitterness produced by archontic power,
which started becoming evident in the urban centers of the empire during the initial
decades of the fourteenth century and which finally exploded with the Zealot uprising in
mid-fourteenth-century Thessalonike. Before concluding, Angold briefly alluded to sub-
sequent developments in the same city:10 The Zealots finally gave way in 1350. . . . The
8
That the archontes constituted a local elite is beyond any doubt. To what extent they can be considered an
aristocratic group depends, on the other hand, on how one defines the aristocracy. If we adopt the conven-
tional definition of the aristocracy as bearers of official distinctions, such as offices, titles, or honorific epithets,
then the archontes are certainly to be included in the category of aristocrats due to their role in the civil ad-
ministration of provincial cities as holders of local government offices. For a review of different definitions of
the aristocracy, including the one above, see Kyritses, Byzantine Aristocracy, 712; for different meanings of the
term archon in the Byzantine Empire, see ODB 1:160. Thus I prefer to categorize the archontes as aristocrats of
middle and lower rank rather than simply identify them as a local elite, given that elites include a group
much broader and less precisely delineated than the aristocracy. On these two terms, see J.-C. Cheynet,
Laristocratie byzantine (VIIIeXIIIe sicle), JSav (JulyDecember 2000): 281. The misleading term gen-
try, which is sometimes used to designate the archontes, has been deliberately avoided in this paper since the
archontes were an essentially urban group, unlike the gentry: see M. Angold, Archons and Dynasts: Local Aris-
tocracies and the Cities of the Later Byzantine Empire, in The Byzantine Aristocracy, IX to XIII Centuries, ed. M.
Angold (Oxford, 1984), 238. Equally misleading is the designation nobility of second rank used for archontes
and archontopouloi in ODB 1:161, as there was no nobility in Byzantium.
9
This study will not deal with the ecclesiastical archontes of Thessalonike, although as a group they may have
shared similarities with the lay archontes. For some earlier observations on the archontes of Thessalonike, see
Tafrali, Thessalonique, 2223, 7580; B. T. Gorianov, Pozdnevizantiiskii feodalizm (Moscow, 1962), 8687, 25253,
269 f, 349.
10
Angold, Archons and Dynasts, 23649; 24849 for the passage quoted. On the so-called Zealot move-
ment, see now K.-P. Matschke, Thessalonike und die Zeloten. Bemerkungen zu einem Schlsselereignis der
sptbyzantinischen Stadt- und Reichsgeschichte, BSl 55 (1994): 1943; Kyritses, Byzantine Aristocracy, 35887.
archontes returned to power and exacted their revenge. In Thessalonica, at least, there was
no restoration of social harmony. The archontes were more than ever fractious and self-
seeking, scornful of the needs of the poor and resentful of the power wielded over them
by imperial princes, such as Manuel Palaiologos, who established his court at Thessalonica
from 1382 to 1387.
In fact, throughout the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, social tensions as-
sociated with the conduct of the archontesboth in relation to the central government and
in relation to the local populationpersisted in Thessalonike. On various occasions fol-
lowing Manuel Palaiologos reign in the city,11 the archontes continued to display a firm de-
sire to dissociate themselves from central authority. Disturbances and open acts of resis-
tance occurred whenever people linked to the imperial government were appointed to the
city, as was the case in 1403 and again in 1408.12 Although we can only presume, but can-
not be absolutely certain of, the archontes actual role in these two disturbances, more ex-
plicit is a statement made in the fifteenth century by Archbishop Symeon of Thessalonike,
who refers to the opposition of the archontes against the court officials in Constantinople,
adding that the latter in turn were opposed to the burghers (oiJ ajstoiv) of Thessalonike.13
This highly articulated separatism of the archontes of Thessalonike was by no means a
unique or isolated phenomenon in late Byzantium; it must be seen in conjunction with the
progressive decline of the power and authority of the Palaiologan state, in the course of
which provincial cities steadily acquired a considerable degree of independence from the
capital,14 which consequently brought greater power into the hands of the local aristoc-
racy. So it is within the broader context of decentralization that we must analyze the par-
ticular behavior of the archontes of Thessalonike and evaluate the key role they assumed in
the internal and external affairs of the city.
Contemporary observers of events in Thessalonike frequently bring up the theme of
social conflicts in their writings, making specific reference to the tensions especially be-
tween the archontes and the common people. In this respect, one of the most striking de-
scriptions of the archontes has come down to us from the pen, once again, of Symeon of
Thessalonike. In his lengthy Discourse on the Miracles of St. Demetrios, which he com-
posed in the 1420s, the archbishop writes: The archontes live wantonly, hoard their wealth,
and exalt themselves above their subjects, freely performing injustices, not only offering
nothing to God, but also stealing away from God. They believe this to be their power, and
11
For the general history of this period, see G. T. Dennis, The Reign of Manuel II Palaeologus in Thessalonica,
13821387 (Rome, 1960); J. W. Barker, Manuel II Palaeologus (13911425): A Study in Late Byzantine Statesman-
ship (New Brunswick, N.J., 1969), 4360.
12
D. Balfour, ed., Politico-Historical Works of Symeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica (1416/17 to 1429) (Vienna,
1979), 44, 48; cf. 115 note 59, 12223 (hereafter Symeon-Balfour). In 1403, Demetrios Laskaris Leontares,
Emperor John VIIs envoy charged with taking over Thessalonike from the Ottomans, was the target of resis-
tance and intrigues (ejpiboulaiv). The disturbance (tarachv) of 1408 occurred on the occasion of Emperor
Manuel IIs trip to the city to install his minor son Andronikos as despot and Demetrios Laskaris Leontares as
the latters regent.
13
Ibid., 53, lines 3031: kai; kata; tw'n ejn toi'" basileivoi" me;n oiJ proevconte" tou' koinou', kat ajstw'n de; pavlin
ejkei'noi.
14
Maksimovic, Provincial Administration, 24867; Zachariadou, Efhvmere" ajpovpeire" giav aujtodioivkhsh,
34551; N. Oikonomids, Pour une typologie des villes spares sous les Palologues, in Geschichte und
Kultur der Palaiologenzeit, ed. W. Seibt (Vienna, 1996), 16975. For earlier signs of the trend toward urban
autonomy, see A. P. Kazhdan and A. W. Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries
(BerkeleyLos AngelesLondon, 1985), 5253; P. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I Komnenos, 11431180
(Cambridge, 1993), 150 ff.
LU
NEVRA NECIPOG 137
they consider the poor citizens and their subordinates as scarcely human. But the poor,
too, imitating those in authority, arm themselves against each other and live rapaciously
and greedily.15 Symeon then continues with an account of various religious offenses, com-
mitted both by the civil authorities and the subjects, wherefore, he claims, God has pun-
ished the Thessalonians by their present misfortunes, that is, the Ottoman attacks and the
citys helplessness before them. But the common people, not realizing this, blame the ar-
chontes for all their troubles and are prepared to rise up in rebellion against them, expect-
ing that they might thus live freely and uncontrolled. Despite all its rhetoric and moral
overtones, this passage, marked by Symeons critical and disapproving attitude toward the
archontes (whom he holds responsible even for the reprehensible actions of the common
people), reveals how much the populace felt oppressed in the early fifteenth century by
the conduct of their local governors. And one major consequence of this oppression, as the
archbishop sadly acknowledges, was that the common people were inclined on the whole
to give up their own masters (despovtai) of the same faith and race in favor of either Ot-
toman or Venetian sovereignty.16
It must be granted that in virtually all periods and provinces of the Byzantine Empire
parallels can be found of abuses and oppression exercised by the archontes over the lower
classes. Indeed, the problem assumed the aspect of a conventional and proverbial theme,
finding one of its best expressions in the Byzantine saying, Even the most miserable of the
archontes will bully the people under him, transmitted by Eustathios of Thessalonike in the
twelfth century.17 Thus we may rightly question whether or not such conventional state-
ments do reflect existing practices. But, as demonstrated by Helen Saradi in two impor-
tant articles on the archontike dynasteia, the problem is brought up not only in purely theo-
retical, moralistic, and theological contexts, but is also confirmed in notarial documents as
well as other legal sources.18 It seems reasonable, therefore, to accept its presence as a real
issue in Byzantine society, and try then to evaluate the existing references in the light of
the particular historical and social conditions in which they occurred.
And so, coming back once again to Symeons testimony, the archbishop informs us that
in the early 1420s, shortly before the cession of Thessalonike to Venice,19 there was a strong
15
Symeon-Balfour, 47, lines 914: Kai; a[rconte" me;n kataspatalw'si, qhsaurivzousiv te kai; uJperaivrontai kata;
tw'n uJpo; cei'ra, pa'n ajdikiva" e[rgon ajnevdhn diaprattovmenoi, ouj movnon oujde;n ajpodidovnte" Qew/', ajlla; kai; ta; tou' Qeou'
ajfarpavzonte" kai; tou'to ei\nai ajrch;n hJgouvmenoi eJautw'n kai; to; tou;" penomevnou" kai; uJp aujtou;" mhde; fuvsew"
ajnqrwpivnh" scedo;n ei\nai nomivzein: ptwcoi; de; pavlin to; a[rcon mimouvmenoi kat ajllhvlwn oJplivzontai kai; aJrpaktikw'"
kai; pleonektikw'" zw'si.
16
Ibid., 47, lines 1438; cf. 11920.
17
Angold, Archons and Dynasts, 249 and note 67.
18
H. Saradi, The Twelfth-Century Canon Law Commentaries on the ajrcontikh; dunasteiva: Ecclesiastical
Theory vs. Juridical Practice, in Byzantium in the 12th Century; Canon Law, State and Society, ed. N. Oikonomides
(Athens, 1991), 375404; H. Saradi, On the Archontike and Ekklesiastike Dynasteia and Prostasia in
Byzantium, with Particular Attention to the Legal Sources: A Study in Social History of Byzantium, Byzantion
64 (1994): 69117, 31451.
19
On the Venetian regime in Thessalonike (142330), see Mertzios, Mnhmei'a, 30 ff; P. Lemerle, La domi-
nation vnitienne Thessalonique, in Miscellanea Giovanni Galbiati, vol. 3 (Milan, 1951), 21925; A. E. Vaca-
lopoulos, A History of Thessaloniki, trans. T. F. Carney (Thessalonike, 1972), 6575; K. M. Setton, The Papacy and
the Levant (12041571), vol. 2, The Fifteenth Century (Philadelphia, 1978), 1931. For a discussion of Symeon of
Thessalonikes eyewitness account of these years, which was unavailable to the authors above, see Symeon-
Balfour, 163 ff. To this list may now be added a forthcoming article by D. Jacoby, Thessalonique de la domina-
tion de Byzance celle de Venise. Continuit, adaptation ou rupture?, in Mlanges Gilbert Dragon=TM 14 (2002):
30318. I am grateful to the author for having sent me the manuscript of his article prior to its publication.
opposition among the lower classes particularly to the policy of resistance pursued against
the Ottomans by members of the citys governing body. This opposition was spurred by two
interrelated considerations on the part of the lower classes. First of all, the resistance pol-
icy which prolonged the years of warfare had only helped to intensify their hardships; sec-
ond, it was supported and executed by the local governors who, in the opinion of the lower
classes, were merely considering their own interests and not those of the masses: Now
on top of this the majority were shouting against and bitterly reproaching those in au-
thority and me myself, accusing us of not striving to serve the welfare of the population as
a whole. They actually declared that they were bent on handing the latter over to the infi-
del.20 The lower classes were further aggravated because the archontes and some wealthy
Thessalonians who supported the cause of war against the Ottomans made no financial
contributions toward the citys defense needs. Their reluctance could not have resulted
from their lack of means for, as we have already seen, Symeon explicitly criticized the ar-
chontes of Thessalonike for living wantonly and hoarding their wealth. Earlier, too, during
the Ottoman blockade of 138387, we have evidence that burying money was commonly
practiced by the wealthy citizens.21 According to Isidore Glabas, one of the prerequisites
for winning the struggle against the Ottomans in the 1380s was to convince those with
financial resources to contribute to military expenditures.22 Four decades later, in 1423,
when a military commander, who was sent from Constantinople to assist the Thessaloni-
ans against the Ottomans, suggested the establishment of a common fund for defense pur-
poses to which each member of the Senate and of the citizen body should contribute out
of his own assets, his main target must no doubt have been the upper classes who could
afford to pay the necessary sums. But it was precisely these people who, in apprehension
of a forceful exaction of their money, opposed the Constantinopolitan generals proposal.
The reaction of the lower classes to the conduct exhibited by the rich was to protest and
riot in favor of surrender to the Ottomans.23 Their outrage, provoked in the first place by
the unwillingness of the rich to contribute to the war cause, is likely to have been accom-
panied and enhanced by the fear that the civil authorities might turn to the populace to
make up for the resources that could not be procured from the well-to-do. Such a policy
seems to have been applied in 1383, when in comparable circumstances a new tax was im-
posed even on the poor citizens of Thessalonike due to the inadequacy of other sources of
revenue.24
A similar atmosphere of social discontent was witnessed in Thessalonike in 1393, when
the hostility of the common people toward the archontes had reached such an intensity that
the latter, anticipating the outbreak of a popular movement against their rule, wanted to
resign.25 In this case, too, the overriding grievance of the populace was that they were be-
20
Symeon-Balfour, 5556 (text), 157 (trans.).
21
A. C. Hero, Five Homilies of Isidore, Archbishop of Thessalonica: Edition, Translation, and Commen-
tary (M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 1965), Homily 1.12 (hereafter Isidore-Hero); Tafrali, Thessalonique,
evcenko for having made available to me the thesis cited here.
108 note 2. I owe special thanks to I. S
22
Isidore-Hero, Homily 5.15.
23
Symeon-Balfour, 57; cf. 16163. For members of the Senate among the archontes of Thessalonike, see be-
low, p. 144 and Table 1.
24
Isidore-Hero, Homily 1.11.
25
B. Laourdas, ed., Isidwvrou Arciepiskovpou Qessalonivkh", Omilivai eij" ta;" eJorta;" tou' Agivou Dhmhtrivou
(Thessalonike, 1954), Homilies 4 and 5, see esp. 6465 (hereafter Isidore-Laourdas).
LU
NEVRA NECIPOG 139
ing oppressed by their political leaders. At this date Thessalonike was under Ottoman rule.
However, as the Ottomans granted the city a semi-autonomous status following its sur-
render in 1387, administrative functions had remained in the hands of the local Greek
magistrates who were expected to pay regular visits to the Ottoman court. Consequently,
the social tensions and civil discords from the Byzantine period, in particular the conflicts
between the common people and the archontes, were perpetuated through the years of
the first Ottoman domination (13871403). It is one of Symeons predecessors, Arch-
bishop Isidore Glabas, who informs us about the social conflicts of 1393 and also provides
evidence for the uninterrupted role of the archontes in the administration of Ottoman-
occupied Thessalonike.
A notable feature of Isidores account is his favorable and positive attitude toward the
archontes, which sharply contrasts with Symeons account composed about three decades
later. It is true that at an earlier date Isidore had voiced some complaints against certain
municipal governors who declined to give assistance to poor and wronged citizens, and
also against those who executed orders for the secularization of ecclesiastical property.26
Yet, in principle, he considered it proper, useful, and necessary for all Thessalonians to re-
vere, to love, and to give support to the archontes.27 Fearing that the disagreements between
the people and the archontes might lead to some form of political change, he composed two
homilies in 1393, one to instruct the citizens to put an end to their disturbances, and the
other to persuade the archontes not to resign from their posts.28 He argued that the archontes
deserved respect for all the tasks and troubles they shouldered on behalf of the people:
they were the ones who acted as mediators between the Thessalonians and the Ottomans,
who bore the latters insults and maltreatment, who left their families behind, traveled
through dangerous lands on embassies to the Ottoman court, and thus enabled the in-
habitants to continue to live in peace.29 Drawing a comparison between those who govern
the state and the common people who work with their hands (i.e., craftsmen, artisans, and
peasants), Isidore suggested that the latter were unfit to take part in the administration of
the city since they did not have the benefit of education that distinguished the ruling elite
from themselves.30 He advised the archonteswhom he qualified as the distinguished,
the honorable, the few select citizensto act as befitted their own class and to ignore
the complaints of the people as incoherent utterings.31
Clearly, then, there is a strong divergence between the views expressed by Isidore and
those expressed by Symeon with regard to the archontes of Thessalonike. But this diver-
gence need not necessarily be taken as evidence that the archontes in power during the fi-
nal decade of the fourteenth century differed fundamentally from the ones who held of-
fice in the early decades of the fifteenth century, at least in terms of their treatment of and
attitude toward the common people. From the distinction Isidore draws between those
who were created by God as fit for governing and those who knew how to use different
26
Ibid., Homily 3.3839; Isidore-Hero, Homily 1.11; C. N. Tsirpanlis, Sumbolh; eij" th;n iJstorivan th'"
Qessalonivkh". Duvo ajnevkdotoi oJmilivai Isidwvrou ajrciepiskovpou Qessalonivkh", Qeologiva 42 (1971): 56870.
27
Isidore-Laourdas, Homily 2.39, lines 1518.
28
Ibid., Homilies 4 and 5, respectively.
29
Ibid., Homily 4.5758.
30
Ibid., Homily 5.61, 63.
31
Ibid., Homily 5.6364, 61.
tools yet had no education, it is obvious that he is not talking about the actual archontes in
office in 1393, but that he is referring in abstract and idealized terms to a traditional rul-
ing class to which the archontes belonged. Symeon, on the other hand, who is more precise
than Isidore, seems to be pointing a direct finger at the specific archontes of his own day.
In any case, since the tensions between the people and the local magistrates appear in the
writings of both, there is no reason for supposing that there was a change in the social con-
ditions existing within Thessalonike. Isidore feared, however, that such a change might
take place and, therefore, focusing on the positive attributes of the archontes as a class,
praised and defended them. Symeon, not interested in the theoretical attributes of a su-
perior ruling class, seems to have looked at the actual state of affairs and reported his ob-
servations in a more or less realistic and critical manner, openly revealing his bitterness
toward both the archontes and the common people who imitated them. A letter written by
Demetrios Kydones in 1372 confirms, moreover, that the wrongdoings and abuses that
Symeon attributed to the archontes were pretty much in effect during Isidores own gener-
ation too. Advising the megas primikerios Demetrios Phakrases to make use of the local dy-
natoi in the defense of Thessalonike against a Turkish attack during that year, Kydones
urged his addressee to warn the notables that the present situation is not an occasion for
grasping at some advantage, nor should they further provoke those who are desperate.32
The writings of Isidore Glabas and Symeon, informative and significant as they are,
provide us in the end with no more than a vague, and to a large extent impressionistic,
portrait of the archontes of Thessalonike, who are always mentioned collectively, with no
explicit reference to individual members of the group.33 But with the help of prosopogra-
phic data compiled mainly from fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Athonite documents,
it has been possible to uncover the identities of some fifty archontes of Thessalonike (see
Table 1).34 As can be observed from this list, most of them belong to well-established
families of Thessalonike with strong local interestsincluding the Angeloi, Deblitzenoi,
Kasandrenoi, Kokalades, Maroulai, Melachrinoi, Prebezianoi, Rhadenoi, Spartenoi,
Stavrakioi, Tarchaneiotai, and Hyaleadesthough, with possibly few exceptions, almost
none can be linked with the highest echelons of the Thessalonian aristocracy. In addition,
several family names show continuity over time: for example, Kokalas (ca. 1320 and 1336),
Kyprianos (134861 and 1414), Metochites (137376 and 1421), Prinkips (14079 and
1421), and possibly Komes (1366 and 140419). Some other cases of recurring family
names, yet without any indication of continuity over time, may be noted as well: Nicholas
and Petros Prebezianos (1366), George and Andronikos Doukas Tzykandyles (137381
32
R.-J. Loenertz, ed., Dmtrius Cydons. Correspondance, vol. 1 (Vatican City, 1956), letter 77, p. 110, lines 27
31; English trans. in Dennis, Reign of Manuel II, 5556. On the particular use of the term dynatoi to denote the
local notables in provincial cities during the Palaiologan period, see Kyritses, Byzantine Aristocracy, 9 note 5. For
Demetrios Phakrases, see PLP 29576.
33
See note 56 below for an exception.
34
The table is by no means intended to be exhaustive, and comprises two categories of people. In the first
place, it includes all individuals who are specifically designated as archon in the available documents pertain-
ing to Thessalonike (altogether 37 people). As a second category, it includes a select group of fifteen individu-
als who are not explicitly called archon, but have been chosen on the basis of their official titles or other inter-
nal evidence suggesting that they were local magistrates. This second group could certainly be expanded, but
I have been selective in my sampling so as to minimize error.
TABLE 1. ARCHONTES OF THESSALONIKE (14TH15TH CENTURIES)
Unless marked with an asterisk, (*), the persons included in this table are specifically designated as archon in the documents.
Date Name Other Title or Occupation Document1 PLP no.
131424 Manuel Kampanaropoulos Ivir. III, 73, 78, 81 10825
131426 Theodore Chalazas myrepsos, depotatos Ivir. III, 73, 78, 81, 84 30363
ca. 1320 Constantine Kokalas* fiscal official, oikeios Ivir. III, 76
ca. 1320 Michael Stavrakios* oikeios Ivir. III, 76 26710
1320 Theodore Brachnos exarchos ton myrepson Ivir. III, 78 3205
1327 Demetrios Sgouros megalyperochos Zogr., 25 25051
1327 George Allelouias megalyperochos Zogr., 25 676
1327 Athanasios Kabakes megalyperochos, chrysepilektes Zogr., 25, 28 10015
133336 Alexios Hyaleas* megas adnoumiastes, eparchos, oikeios Chilandar, 123; Reg.Patr., 111 29470
1336 George Kokalas* megas adnoumiastes, oikeios Reg.Patr., 111 92485
1341 Manuel Phaxenos (brother-in-law Lavra III, 156, app. XII 29609
of Agape Angelina Sphratzaina
Palaiologina)
1341 Theodore Doukas Spartenos oikeios Lavra III, app. XII 26498
(brother of Agape Angelina
Sphratzaina Palaiologina)
134861 George Kyprianos Xnophon, 30; Dochei., 36, 38 92473
135666 Manuel Ko(u)llourakes oikeios, doulos Dochei., 36, 38; Maked. 5 (1963): 92439
p. 137
136166 Symeon Choniates Dochei., 36, 38 31244
1366 Demetrios Phakrases megas primikerios, doulos Dochei., 38 29576
1366 Demetrios Glabas [Komes?] megas droungarios, doulos Dochei., 38 91685
1366 Nicholas Prebezianos Dochei., 38 23700
1366 Petros Prebezianos Dochei., 38 23703
136678 Manuel Tarchaneiotes oikeios, doulos Dochei., 38; Zogr., 44; Lavra III, 27499,
149 27501
1373 Laskaris Kephalas* doulos Dochei., 41 11677
137376 Laskaris Metochites* megas chartoularios, doulos, apographeus Dochei., 41, 42; Chilandar, 154; 17983
Vatop., pp. 35, 38, 40
137381 George Doukas Tzykandyles* judge, doulos Dochei., 41, 48 28126
(continued )
TABLE 1. Continued
Unless marked with an asterisk, (*), the persons included in this table are specifically designated as archon in the documents.
Date Name Other Title or Occupation Document1 PLP no.
1379 John Pezos Gr.Pal. 6 (1922):p. 283 22245
137984 Demetrios Phoberes apographeus Gr.Pal. 6 (1922):p. 283; Dochei., 49 29998
137984 John Maroules apographeus Gr.Pal. 6 (1922):p. 283; Dochei., 49 17153
ca. 1381 . . . . tos Palaiologos* doulos Dochei., 48 21410
ca. 1381 Andronikos Doukas Tzykandyles* doulos Dochei., 48 28125
ca. 1381 Demetrios Talapas* kastrophylax, doulos Dochei., 48 27416
1381 Manuel Deblitzenos doulos, oikeios Dochei., 47, 48, 49 91757
1381 Manuel Kasandrenos Dochei., 47 11316
1381 George Angelos Dochei., 47 91034
1404 Constantine Ibankos* judge, doulos Dochei., 51 7973
140419 Bartholomaios Komes (son-in-law of Dochei., 51, 57, 58 92399
Manuel Deblitzenos)
14069 Paul Gazes apographeus, doulos Gr.Pal. 3 (1919):p. 337; Xropot., 3452
29; Dochei., 53; Diony., 11; Lavra
III, 161
14069 Michael Ka. . . . .tes apographeus Gr.Pal. 3 (1919):p. 337; Xropot.,
29
14079 George Prinkips apographeus, doulos Xropot., 29; Dochei., 53; Diony., 23746
11; Lavra III, 161
1409(?) John Aprenos* Esphigm., 31 1209
1414 John Kantakouzenos* Dochei., 54 92318
1414 Theodore Doukas Kyprianos* Dochei., 54 92474
1415 John Douk(a)s Melachrinos* doulos Diony., 14 17665
141521 Stephanos Doukas Rhadenos apographeus, kephale of Kassandreia, Gr.Pal. 3 (1919):pp. 33536; Gr.Pal. 23999
doulos 6 (1922):pp. 8687; Dochei., 56; St.
Pantl., 18; Lavra III, 165; Diony.,
20; Athena 26 (1914):p. 274
141521 John Rhadenos apographeus, doulos Gr.Pal. 3 (1919):p. 336; Dochei., 56; 23991
Lavra III, 165; Diony., 20
141821 Constantine Palaiologos Oinaiotes apographeus, doulos Gr.Pal. 6 (1922):pp. 8687; Dochei., 21028
56; Lavra III, 165; Diony., 20
1421 Demetrios Hidromenos apographeus, doulos Diony., 20; Gr.Pal. 6 (1922):pp. 86 8077
87
1421 John Angelos Philanthropenos archon th'" sugklhvtou, oikeios Ivir. IV, 97 29767
1421 Thomas Chrysoloras archon th'" sugklhvtou, oikeios Ivir. IV, 97 31158
1421 Demetrios Palaiologos Prinkips archon th'" sugklhvtou, oikeios Ivir. IV, 97 23747
1421 Michael Palaiologos Krybitziotes archon th'" sugklhvtou, oikeios Ivir. IV, 97 13840
1421 Andronikos Metochites archon th'" sugklhvtou, oikeios Ivir. IV, 97 17978
1421 Michael Angelos Trypommates archon th'" sugklhvtou, oikeios Ivir. IV, 97 29382
1421 Theodore Diagoupes archon th'" sugklhvtou, oikeios Ivir. IV, 97 7822
1
Except when indicated otherwise, the references are to document numbers.
Abbreviations:
Chilandar Actes de Chilandar, I: Actes grecs, ed. L. Petit, in VizVrem 17 (1911)
Diony. Actes de Dionysiou, ed. N. Oikonomids (Paris, 1968)
Dochei. Actes de Docheiariou, ed. N. Oikonomids (Paris, 1984)
Esphigm. Actes dEsphigmnou, ed. J. Lefort (Paris, 1973)
Gr.Pal. Grhgovrio" oJ Palama'"
Ivir. III, IV Actes dIviron, vols. 34, ed. J. Lefort, N. Oikonomids, D. Papachryssanthou, V. Kravari, with the collaboration of H. Mtrvli (Paris, 199495)
Lavra III Actes de Lavra, vol. 3, ed. P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, N. Svoronos, D. Papachryssanthou (Paris, 1979)
Maked. Makedonikav
Reg.Patr. Das Register des Patriarchats von Konstantinopel, 3 vols., ed. H. Hunger and O. Kresten (Vienna, 19812001)
St. Pantl. Actes de Saint-Pantlmn, ed. P. Lemerle, G. Dagron, S. C irkovic (Paris, 1982)
Vatop. Crusovboulla kai; gravmmata th'" monh'" Batopedivou, ed. W. Regel (St. Petersburg, 1898)
Xnophon Actes de Xnophon, ed. D. Papachryssanthou (Paris, 1986)
Xropot. Actes de Xropotamou, ed. J. Bompaire (Paris, 1964)
Zogr. Actes de Zographou, ed. W. Regel, E. Kurtz, B. Korablev, in VizVrem 13 (1907)
and ca. 1381, respectively), John Rhadenos and Stephanos Doukas Rhadenos (141521).
Occasionally kinship ties can be traced between archontes who bear different family names,
as in the case of the brothers-in-law Manuel Phaxenos and Theodore Doukas Spartenos
(1341), or that of Manuel Deblitzenos (1381) and his son-in-law Bartholomaios Komes
(140419). It is not certain, but Symeon Choniates (136166) may have been the grand-
father of George Angelos (1381), and the latter, in turn, Manuel Deblitzenos brother-
in-law.35 Thus, on the basis of these preliminary observations, we can conclude that a se-
ries of interrelated local families yielded successive generations of archontes, forming what
appears to have been a tightly linked, more or less homogeneous social group.
More than half of the archontes listed in Table 1 are qualified in the documents as oikeioi
and/or douloi, sometimes of the emperor, sometimes of the despot of Thessalonike, and
sometimes of both. While there is nothing unusual about the application of these honorific
epithets to civil dignitaries, which was standard procedure in the Palaiologan period, be-
ing an oikeios or doulos was nonetheless a mark of distinction and undoubtedly enhanced
the archontes sense of belonging to the elite of their society.36 Noteworthy also is that the
last seven individuals listed in our table were all members of the Senate of Thessalonike in
1421. The presence of Senate members among the archontes of Thessalonike is confirmed
in another Athonite document dating from 1414, which makes reference to two a[rconte"
th'" sugklhvtou, but unfortunately does not disclose their names.37 Besides people of civil-
ian status, moreover, we can also identify some individuals of military status in Table 1:
for example, one megas primikerios (Demetrios Phakrases, 1366), one megas droungarios
(Demetrios Glabas [Komes?], 1366), one megas chartoularios (Laskaris Metochites, 1373
76), and one kastrophylax (Demetrios Talapas, ca. 1381). Manuel Deblitzenos, too, belonged
to a family of soldiers and was himself a military man.38 It would have been useful to cal-
culate the ratio of civilians to holders of military rank within our sample group of archontes,
yet the fragmentary nature of the evidence makes it virtually impossible to engage in such
statistical endeavors. Nevertheless, it should be noted that none of the abovementioned
military posts, with the sole exception of megas primikerios, are very high-ranking ones,
which is in correspondence with the social status of the archontes whom we have defined as
aristocrats primarily of middle and low rank.
The names of some of these archontes themselves or of their family members reappear
in a Venetian document of 1425, dating from the period of the Venetian domination in
Thessalonike. This document lists fifty-nine Thessalonians, described as gentilomeni e gen-
tilomeni pioli, whose names are reproduced in Table 2.39 They were all granted raises of
35
See N. Oikonomides, The Properties of the Deblitzenoi in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, in
Charanis Studies: Essays in Honor of Peter Charanis, ed. A. E. Laiou-Thomadakis (New Brunswick, N.J., 1980), 195
note 27; Actes de Docheiariou, ed. N. Oikonomids (Paris, 1984), 260.
36
On these epithets, see J. Verpeaux, Les oikeioi. Notes dhistoire institutionnelle et sociale, REB 23
(1965): 8999; Kyritses, Byzantine Aristocracy, 1520; ODB 3:1515, 1:659.
37
Docheiariou, no. 54, line 11.
38
On the military character of this family, see Oikonomides, Deblitzenoi, 177 f.
39
For the document, which is dated 7 July 1425, see Mertzios, Mnhmei'a, with facsimile reproduction fol-
lowing p. 48 and modern Greek translation on pp. 4661. The relevant section containing the names is found
on pl. 2a3a of facsimile and pp. 4952 of the translation. As a separate category below the gentilomeni e gen-
tilomeni pioli (who are alternatively designated by the Latin word nobiles), the document refers to seventy un-
named stratioti of Thessalonike whose salaries were increased by 10 aspra per month: ibid., pl. 4a; cf. pp.
LU
NEVRA NECIPOG 145
TABLE 2. NOBLES AND SMALL NOBLES OF THESSALONIKE (1425)

(From Venetian document of 7 July 1425 reproduced in Mertzios, Mnhmei'a (as in note 3),
following p. 48: pl. 2a3a)
Name Monthly Salary (in aspra)
1. Thomas Alusiano [Alousianos] 300
2. Georgius Jalca [Hyaleas] 300
3. (Calo)jani Radino [Rhadenos] 300
4. Thomas Grusulora/Chrussulora [Chrysoloras] 300
5. Michali Democrati [Dermokaites?] 300
6. Michali Caromaffi 200
7. Theodorus Calatola 150
8. Jani Falca [Jalca?, i.e., Hyaleas] 100
9. Manoli Jalca [Hyaleas] 40
10. Dimitri Vuironi [Vryonis?] 80
11. Jani Ramata [Rhamatas] 80
12. Georgius Aramando [Amarantos?] 50
13. Andronicus Amarando [Amarantos] Raised from 80 to 120
14. Jani Aliati [Aliates] same
15. Ducha Milca [Jalca?, i.e., Hyaleas] same
16. Michali Jalca [Hyaleas] same
17. Georgius Gassi [Gazes?] same
18. Manoli Melita [Melitas] same
19. Inavissi (?), brother-in-law of Aliati [Aliates] same
20. Simon, son of chier Simon Raised from 70 to 100
21. Manoli Calamca same
22. Georgius Laschari Defala same
23. Dimitri Melachino [Melachrinos] same
24. Argiropolus Mamoli [Argyropoulos Mamales?] same
25. Pasqualis Lascari [Laskaris] same
26. Michali Plomino same
27. Manoli Mamoli [Mamales?] same
28. Dimitri Caroleo same
29. Dimitri Lascari [Laskaris] same
30. Jani Melacrino [Melachrinos], son of Georgius Algriopolo
[Argyropoulos] same
31. Constantin Algroopolo [Argyropoulos] same
32. Ducha Melacrino [Melachrinos] same
33. Georgius Melacrino [Melachrinos] same
34. Michali Amarando [Amarantos] Raised by 20 aspra
35. Georgius Macrino [Makrenos] same
36. Alexius Melacrino [Melachrinos] same
37. Georgius Camandora [Tzamantouras] same
38. Digieni Senex [Presbytes?] same
39. Lucas Arimati same
40. Rali Enbiristi same
41. Pachi Masgida [Masgidas] same
42. Michali Trachanioti [Tarchaniotes] same
43. Braichus Masgida [Masgidas] same
44. Andronichus Digeni [Digenes] same
45. Ducha Cavassilla [Kabasilas] same
(continued )
TABLE 2. Continued
Name Monthly Salary (in aspra)
46. Alexius Digeni [Digenes] same
47. Angelus Theodorus same
48. Jani Gramatico [Grammatikos] same
49. Vassi Covazi (?) same
50. Jani Digieni [Digenes] same
51. Angelus Miropuno (?) same
52. Andronichus Machitari [Machetares] same
53. Nicola Crussaffi [Chrysaphes] same
54. Dimitri Placichaliti [Platyskalites] same
55. Ducha Cotiassi same
56. Jani Pesso [Pezos?] same
57. Jani Vassilico [Basilikos] same
58. Dimitri Algiropolo [Argyropoulos] same
59. Georgio Radino [Rhadenos] Raised by 40 aspra
varying amounts in the monthly salaries they received from Venice for the services they
provided in the defense of Thessalonike against the Ottomans. Among them, (Calo)jani
Radino (no. 3), one of the three ambassadors sent to Venice in 1425 to request, among
other things, these raises, can be identified with the apographeus John Rhadenos (141521)
in Table 1. Listed among the nobles and small nobles of Thessalonike in the pay of
Venice, we also find one Georgio Radino (no. 59), who was presumably someone related to
John Rhadenos, but remains otherwise unknown from any other source. Second, Thomas
Grusulora/Chrussulora (no. 4), another ambassador present at Venice in 1425, is no doubt
the senatorial archon Thomas Chrysoloras attested in an Athonite document of 1421, as
shown in Table 1. Third, Ducha Melacrino (no. 32) may be identified with John Douk(a)s
Melachrinos (1415), who figures in Table 1. Four additional members of the Melachrinos
family appear as well in the Venetian document of 1425 (nos. 23, 30, 33, 36). One of them,
Jani Melacrino, is reported, moreover, to be the son of George Argyropoulos, member of
a prominent Thessalonian family with three further representatives in the same source
(nos. 31, 58, 24). Other archontic patronymics from Table 1 that recur in the Venetian
document of 1425 include Hyaleas40 (nos. 2, 8?, 9, 15?, 16), Laskaris (nos. 25, 29, 22),
Tarchaniotes (no. 42), Angelos (no. 47), and possibly Gazes (no. 17) as well as Pezos (no.
56). The cross-references between the names listed in Tables 1 and 2 thus indicate that a
significant proportion of the Greek nobles and small nobles to whom the Venetians paid
salaries for their participation in the defense of Thessalonike against the Ottomans came
from the same families, and in some cases were the very same individuals, as the archontes
5253. On the general social status of the stratiotai in late Byzantium, see M. C. Bartusis, The Late Byzantine
Army: Arms and Society, 12041453 (Philadelphia, 1992), 36465.
40
The name of this family appears in the document as Jalca, which is no doubt a misreading for Jalea, i.e.,
Hyaleas, on the part of the Venetian scribe who must have copied the names from a list. Cf. Jacoby, Thessa-
lonique, 308 and note 29. It is also feasible that Falca and Milka (nos. 8 and 15, respectively, in Table 2)
represent further corruptions of Jalca caused by the scribes carelessness and lack of familiarity with Greek
names.
LU
NEVRA NECIPOG 147
who occupied government posts in the city prior to the establishment of the Venetian
regime. This, after all, should not be so surprising since we know from Symeon that in
1423 the despot Andronikos Palaiologos had agreed to the cession of Thessalonike to
Venice, acting in response to the counsel of those who shared governmental functions
with him and the very magnates of our body politicin other words, the archontes.41
The documentary sources, in addition to allowing us to identify a substantial number
of archontes and their network of family ties, also provide data with regard to the economic
character of this urban elite. It is not clear from the Byzantine documents what kinds of
material compensation they received for holding government offices, yet our prosopo-
graphic survey suggests that the bulk of their income derived from other sources of rev-
enue. Many archontes or their extended families were in fact landowners in possession of
large- to medium-size holdings in the surrounding countryside, primarily in Chalkidike.42
In addition, several possessed urban properties (such as houses, shops, or workshops) in-
side Thessalonike.43 It is quite likelyyet difficult to demonstrate statisticallythat in the
period we are concerned with, when communications between Thessalonike and the sur-
rounding countryside were cut off due to the Ottoman threat, and many landowners in the
area are known to have suffered major losses in the face of enemy attacks, urban proper-
ties situated within the city, along with the income derived from their exploitation, may
have acquired much greater importance. We are all familiar today with the plight of the
Deblitzenos family, thanks to the late Nicolas Oikonomides, who made known to us in
the 1980s how the members of this Thessalonian family, including the archon Manuel De-
blitzenos himself and his heirs, were dispossessed of their lands and became impoverished
under the impact first of Serbian and then of Ottoman incursions.44 Likewise, the only
piece of property that the archon George Prinkips presumably inherited from his father
was an entirely ruined and deserted vineyard, the rest of the familys landed possessions
having been lost due to the devastation caused in the countryside during the Ottoman
blockade of 138387.45 By contrast, it is known that some members of the Argyropoulos
family who leased from the monastery of Iviron several gardens situated in the vicinity of
the Golden Gate of Thessalonike, just outside the city walls, managed them successfully
and greatly increased their productivity after 1404. In 1421, the monks of Iviron, no
longer wanting all the profits to accrue to the Argyropouloi, took the gardens back from
41
Symeon-Balfour, 55, lines 2021: oiJ su;n ejkeivnw/ de; th'" ajrcontikh'" moivra'" . . . kai; aujtoi; de; oiJ th'" politeiva"
hJmw'n prw'toi. For an analogous identification of the Greek archontes of the Morea as gentiles hombres, gentil homme
grec, or nobiles in the different versions of the Chronicle of the Morea, see D. Jacoby, Les archontes grecs et la
fodalit en More franque, TM 2 (1967): 468 note 240.
42
E.g., the archontes Manuel Phaxenos, Theodore Doukas Spartenos, Manuel Tarchaneiotes, and Manuel
Deblitzenos cited in Table 1, above, as well as various members of the archontic families of Kokalas (PLP
14090, 14094), Stavrakios (PLP 26702, 26703), Maroules (PLP 17156), Kasandrenos (PLP 11312, 11313), An-
gelos (PLP 91030, 91031), Gazes (PLP 3444), Melachrinos (PLP 17633), and Rhadenos (PLP 23987, 23992).
43
Manuel Deblitzenos owned several houses and small shops in the city: Docheiariou, 26364 (no. 49). A cer-
tain Maroules who owned some properties in the Omphalos quarter of Thessalonike may perhaps be identi-
fied with the archon John Maroules: ibid., 263; cf. PLP 17143 and 17153. House-owners are also attested
among members of the archontic families of Allelouias (PLP 674), Melachrinos (PLP 17627), etc.
44
Oikonomides, Deblitzenoi, 17698; Docheiariou, nos. 26, 4751, 5758.
45
MM 2: no. 471, 22123. I have assumed that the George Prinkips mentioned in this patriarchal act of
1394 is the same person as the archon George Prinkips attested in several Athonite documents between 1407
and 1409: see Table 1 above; cf. PLP 23741 and 23746.
them.46 It is quite likely that the favorable location of the gardens near the city walls was a
factor that facilitated this successful case of individual entrepreneurship on the part of the
Argyropouloi.
Among the archontes we also come across representatives of typical urban middle-class
professions, some of whom were evidently connected with the guildlike associations of
Thessalonike:47 for example, the chrysepilektes Athanasios Kabakes (1327), the myrepsos Theo-
dore Chalazas (131426), and the exarchos ton myrepson Theodore Brachnos (1320). More-
over, Theodore Chalazas bears the name of a family among whose members professional
money dealers are attested in early fifteenth-century Thessalonike, thus suggesting that
some archontes may have been engaged in business and banking. The evidence for this is
contained in the notebook kept by an anonymous Thessalonian church official, where we
find a reference to a money changer (katallavkth") called Chalazas and his brother-in-law
Platyskalites, likewise a money changer who bears the family name of a noble listed in
Table 2 (no. 54).48 The same source informs us, furthermore, that this Platyskalites had a
stepbrother, Michael Metriotes, who made a journey to Tana at the end of the fourteenth
century. In view of the commercial importance of Tana, Michael Metriotes trip there is
most likely to have been for trading purposes.49 From the notes kept by the anonymous
church official, we also learn about a financial operation involving the transfer of funds
from Constantinople to Thessalonike in the 1420s, which was handled by two archontes
from the capital and a third person in Thessalonike, a certain Alousianos, who may well
be Thomas Alousianos in Table 2 (no. 1).50
Incidentally, a certain Rhadenos, who served Manuel II as counselor in Thessalonike
during 1382/387, was the son of a wealthy merchant and had two brothers who engaged
in business, even though he himself does not seem to have been associated with the fam-
ilys business affairs.51 On the other hand, the archon Nicholas Prebezianos, whose name
appears in an act of the monastery of Docheiariou dated 1366 (see Table 1), may have en-
gaged in trade himself, for among the fragments of the Greek account books published by
46
Actes dIviron, vol. 4, ed. J. Lefort et al. (Paris, 1995), nos. 97 and 98. On this case, see K.-P. Matschke, Die
Schlacht bei Ankara und das Schicksal von Byzanz. Studien zur sptbyzantinischen Geschichte zwischen 1402 und 1422
(Weimar, 1981), 15975.
47
On these associations, see Oikonomids, Hommes daffaires, 109, 11112. For the three archontes mentioned
here, refer to Table 1 above.
48
S. Kugas, Notizbuch eines Beamten der Metropolis in Thessalonike aus dem Anfang des XV. Jahrhun-
derts, BZ 23 (1914): 153 ( 86). The involvement of Thessalonian archontes in business and banking, suggested
here, runs parallel to the phenomenon discussed by K.-P. Matschke, Notes on the Economic Establishment
and Social Order of the Late Byzantine Kephalai, ByzF 19 (1993): 13943, where the author presents evidence
for the connection between provincial municipal administration and commercial/financial enterprise in the
Palaiologan period.
49
Kugas, Notizbuch, 153 ( 86); cf. M. Th. Laskaris, Qessalonivkh kai; Tavna, in Tovmo" Kwnstantivnou
Armenopouvlou (Thessalonike, 1952), 33140.
50
Kugas, Notizbuch, 14849 ( 53, 58); cf. Jacoby, Thessalonique, 308.
51
Loenertz, ed., Dmtrius Cydons, vol. 2, letters 177, 169, 248, 202. Cf. G. T. Dennis, Rhadenos of Thes-
salonica, Correspondent of Demetrius Cydones, Byzantina 13 (1985): 26172; F. Tinnefeld, Freundschaft
und PAIDEIA: Die Korrespondenz des Demetrios Kydones mit Rhadenos (13751387/8), Byzantion 55 (1985):
21044; Matschke and Tinnefeld, Gesellschaft, 17172, 192, 2024, 260 note 261. For a female pawnbroker
from this family in the early 15th century, see Kugas, Notizbuch, 144 ( 9). For archontes among the Rhade-
noi in 15th-century Thessalonike, see Table 1, also Table 2 (nos. 3, 59). For landowning members of the same
family in early 14th-century Thessalonike, see note 42 above.
LU
NEVRA NECIPOG 149
Peter Schreiner, a businessman (cloth merchant?) by the name of kyr Nicholas Prebezianos
is attested in Thessalonike during 135657.52 It should be noted that the author of this
account book, a landowning merchant who was the nephew of the latter, is identified
through his brothers name as a Kasandrenos53 and might have possibly belonged to the
same branch of this well-known Thessalonian family from which stemmed the archon
Manuel Kasandrenos, active in Thessalonike in 1381 (see Table 1). Kasandrenos business
circle in the 1350s included at least two other individuals who may also have been con-
nected with archontic families: one Tzykandyles, who traded in various commodities in-
cluding wheat, barley, caviar, fish, and different items of clothing,54 and one George Gazes,
who traveled to Serres with wheat he acquired from Kasandrenos.55
Finally, we may include here evidence concerning the international enterprises of an-
other prominent Thessalonian called John Rhosotas, given that in one of his letters Isi-
dore Glabas names a certain Rhosotas among the notables of Thessalonike.56 John Rho-
sotas had a business agent called Theodore Katharos, and the realm of activity of these
two men together encompassed Venice, Dubrovnik, and Novo Brdo. In 142425, Theodore
Katharos can be traced in Dubrovnik, where he was acting as Rhosotas agent. At an ear-
lier date Theodore had made a deal in Venice with a Ragusan merchant, to whom he en-
trusted a certain amount of money and merchandise. The Ragusan was then arrested and
died in prison at Venice. Hence in Dubrovnik Theodore was mainly occupied with trying
to recover the money the deceased merchant owed, which he claimed amounted to slightly
more than 3,875 ducats. It seems that Theodore did not possess sufficient proof, and
in the end he lost about one-third of this huge sum of money.57 During his visit to Dubrov-
nik, he may have been involved in other enterprises too, as suggested by a document of
1424 which mentions a Teodorus Grecus who exported cloth from there to Serbia.58 It is not
clear whether Theodore acted alone or once again as John Rhosotas agent in the last-
mentioned enterprise. Yet several sources demonstrate that a certain Caloiani Rusota, who
may be identified with John Rhosotas of Thessalonike, held a prominent place at the Ser-
bian court in the 1420s and 1430s, where he actively engaged in business and banking,
providing loans particularly to Ragusan merchants who were dealing in Serbia. He served
furthermore as customs officer at Novo Brdo until his death in 1438.59 If these two men
are identical as suggested, this raises of course the question of when John Rhosotas left
52
P. Schreiner, Texte zur sptbyzantinischen Finanz- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte in Handschriften der Biblioteca Vati-
cana (Vatican City, 1991), 85 ( 61, 63). See ibid., 84 ( 53), for Nicholas brother, kyr Manoles Prebezianos,
who traded in cloth (from Serres).
53
Ibid., 82 ( 4), 86f; cf. 81, 98. For a discussion of this text and the individuals in question here, see also
Matschke and Tinnefeld, Gesellschaft, 166 ff.
54
Schreiner, Texte, 83, 84, 87, 88 ( 26, 45, 50, 100, 125, 136).
55
Ibid., 84 ( 48). A rather obscure entry, on the other hand, concerns a certain Masgidas whose family
name figures twice in the Venetian list of 1425 (Table 2, nos. 41 and 43): ibid., 84 ( 56).
56
Sp. Lampros, Isidwvrou mhtropolivtou Qessalonivkh", Oktw; ejpistolai; ajnevkdotoi, Nevo" Ell. 9 (1912): 380.
Cf. PLP 24579. Apart from Rhosotas, Glabas also names a Tzymisches (PLP 27949) and a Klematikos (PLP
11798) as notables of Thessalonike.
57
B. Krekic, Dubrovnik (Raguse) et le Levant au moyen ge (Paris, 1961), nos. 686, 688, 690, 691, 697, 699, 702,
708, 709, 718, 721.
58
Ibid., no. 695.
59
Ibid., nos. 808 and 810; M. Spremic, La Serbie entre les Turcs, les Grecs, et les Latins au XVe sicle,
ByzF 11 (1987): 438 note 16; K.-P. Matschke, Zum Anteil der Byzantiner an der Bergbauentwicklung und an
den Bergbauertrgen Sdosteuropas im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert, BZ 8485 (199192): 5767.
Thessalonike, to which a precise answer cannot be given. It is possible, though not so sig-
nificant from our point of view, that Rhosotas may have already established himself in Ser-
bia while Theodore Katharos was acting on his behalf in Dubrovnik.60 Supposing this were
the case, it is of far greater significance for our purposes that Rhosotas did not totally dis-
engage himself from his native city and delegated the management of part of his affairs to
a fellow Thessalonian. In any event, without his prior international enterprises and for-
eign contacts, his rise to prominence at the Serbian court would have been quite unlikely.
The involvement of the archontes in trade and banking that has emerged in the dis-
cussion above is important, since it gives us concrete evidence concerning a major source
of their wealth, which, according to our rhetorical and narrative sources, they refused to
channel toward defense needs. A portrait of Thessalonian society found in a fifteenth-
century text attributed to John Argyropoulos likewise gives the impression of the existence
of an affluent upper class that remained indifferent to the demands brought on by the war
with the Ottomans and continued to spend money in pursuit of a wanton, carefree, and
relatively luxurious lifestyle. The text in question is an invective against a certain Kata-
blattas, who was a native of Serres but spent the years between ca. 1403 and 1430 in Thes-
salonike, having fled there from Bursa after a period of service in the Ottoman army as a
foot soldier.61 Katablattas became a school instructor in Thessalonike and also served as a
scribe in the citys tribunal. Most importantly for us, he had close ties with people from the
upper levels of Thessalonian society, including members of the ruling elite. He frequently
visited the palace of the despot Andronikos, had contacts with the citys senators, gave
public speeches, and seems to have enjoyed a certain degree of influence with Andronikos
as suggested by the request of a woman who asked him to write a letter to the despot on
her behalf. The texts depiction of the social gatherings (e.g., banquets, weddings, hunting
parties) attended by Katablattas, elaborately focusing on all the singing, dancing, drink-
ing, and eating that took place on these occasions, corresponds closely with the wanton
lifestyle attributed by other contemporary sources to the milieu in which Katablattas was
active. Therefore, while it is important to keep in mind that the work at hand is an invec-
tive and that some of the accusations found in it against Katablattas may be false or exag-
gerated, there is no reason to reject the authenticity of the general image of Thessalonian
upper-class society it conveys. It is also noteworthy that the text mentions a certain Rhoso-
tas who gave a big party in Thessalonike on the occasion of his daughters wedding, some-
time between 1403 and 1430.62 Whether this last piece of evidence concerns the afore-
mentioned John Rhosotas or, as seems more likely, one of his kinsmen in Thessalonike, it
lends in either case further support to our hypothesis that links the financial resources and
sumptuous lifestyle of the citys archontic families in these critical times to profits from
trade and banking.
To conclude, this quest for the archontes of Thessalonike has taken us almost full circle
from literary sources of a rhetorical, moralistic nature, through a series of documentary
60
Matschke suggests, for instance, that Rhosotas move to Serbia may have coincided with the first Ottoman
occupation of Thessalonike: Zur Bergbauentwicklung in Sdosteuropa, 6263.
61
P. Canivet and N. Oikonomids, La Comdie de Katablattas: Invective byzantine du XVe s., Divptuca 3
(198283): 597. For the identification of the author and the dates given above, see ibid., 9, 1521. The por-
tion of the text that corresponds to Katablattas years in Thessalonike is on pp. 3551.
62
Ibid., 49.
LU
NEVRA NECIPOG 151
sources, finally to another type of literary source, an invective. It is hoped that in the
course of these wanderings among literary and documentary sources, the archontes of
Thessalonike have emerged as a more tangible group than they were before. Yet two fur-
ther tasks still remain to be undertaken in the future. The first is to conduct a comparison
with the archontes of other cities, such as Serres63 and Ioannina, so as to gain a wider and
more complete overall perspective on this important and powerful segment of the late
Byzantine aristocracy. The second task will be to broaden our perspective still further and
incorporate the high aristocracy into the study of the archontes, so as to fulfill the ultimate
goal of constructing a comprehensive portrait of the Thessalonian aristocracy in the late
Byzantine period.
Bog
azii University-Istanbul
63
On the archontes of Serres, see now A. Laiou, Koinwnikev" dunavmei" sti" Sevrre" sto 14o aiwvna, in Oi Sevrre"
kai h Periochv tou" apov thn Arcaiva sth Metabuzantinhv Koinwniva (Serres, 1998), 209 ff.

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
Intellectuals in Late Byzantine Thessalonike
FRANZ TINNEFELD
n all periods of Byzantine history the intellectuals formed a rather small but influential
I social group. The Palaiologan period, however, the last one of Byzantine history before
the fall of Constantinople, was distinguished by a special intensity of intellectual life.1
The notion intellectuals can be understood in a wider and in a narrower sense. In
the wider sense, I define as a Byzantine intellectual any person sufficiently trained in the
grammar, vocabulary, and style of ancient Greek, particularly Attic, authors to read and to
write in that language, which was not identical with the everyday spoken language, but as
a rule was used for written expression. Consequently, an intellectual in the wider sense was
not only any person of whom written texts, or at least letters, have survived, but also any
person known only as an addressee of letters or other literary works, which implied his/
her ability to read and understand them and respond to them on a similar level, and even
any person whose position in the hierarchy of the civil service required literacy. In the nar-
rower sense, I term an intellectual any person who had a special reputation for his/her eru-
dition or, through rhetorical activity, influence in public life. Since we are generally better
informed about the latter persons, scholarly attention is, as a rule, more focused on these.
This is also true for the present study, which is confined to intellectuals in Thessalonike
during the late Byzantine period. As an intellectual in Thessalonike I define any person
who lived for some time in the city and during that time participated in an intellectual
activity.
In the late Byzantine period, from 1246 to 1387 or 1423, Thessalonike and, from the
mid-fourteenth century, Mistra in the Peloponnesos were the only cities in the empire that
competed to a certain extent with the capital, Constantinople. This is especially true of
Thessalonike as it was time and again a residence of Byzantine empresses, princes, and even
emperors, who perhaps encouraged achievements in intellectual life to some extent,2 al-
though we have little evidence on this influence. Another characteristic of late Byzantine
Thessalonike was the active role its citizens played in public life. This also implied discord,
splitting into groups and parties, and competing for political influence and power. Evi-
1
Cf. E. Fryde, The Early Palaeologan Renaissance (1261c. 1360) (LeidenBostonCologne, 2000); K.-P.
Matschke and F. Tinnefeld, Die Gesellschaft im spten Byzanz. Gruppen, Strukturen und Lebensformen (Cologne
WeimarVienna, 2001), chap. 5, Die Gruppe der literarisch Gebildeten in der sptbyzantinischen Gesell-
schaft, 221385.
2
K. Konstantinides, OiJ ajparce;" th'" pneumatikh'" ajkmh'" sth; Qessalonivkh kata; to;n 14o aijw'na, Dwdwvnh 21
(1992): 13350, at 135 (with references to earlier publications on the matter).
154 INTELLECTUALS IN LATE BYZANTINE THESSALONIKE
dence for this is in some special cases provided by historians of the period, but can even
more be derived from several appeals of the intellectuals to the citizens to live in harmony.
Since in earlier times as well outstanding intellectuals lived in the city, as for instance
the famous metropolitan Eustathios in the late twelfth century, it is no wonder that in en-
comia of the late period Thessalonike is sometimes praised as a traditional and permanent
center of intellectual life which particularly implied rhetorical activity. Although the praise
often seems to be exaggerated, it is perhaps worthwhile to quote as an example the fol-
lowing passage from an encomium of St. Demetrios, the patron of Thessalonike, written by
the well-known fourteenth-century theologian Nicholas Kabasilas Chamatos.3 The city
[Thessalonike] has many adornments, but the most important one and that which affords
it the greatest distinction is its rhetorical force, a characteristic that is admired [there]
more than in other cities. This city has such a special relationship with Hellenic speech and
is so rich in this grace that on the one hand it is sufficient to secure its own happiness; but
in addition this city can also impart [this grace] to other cities, transplanting words like
colonies founded by the rulers of ancient Athens. Consequently there is none, I think, of
all the Hellenes in our empire who does not call this city his ancestor and the mother of
his Muses, since by claiming such descent he appears respectable. Continuing this enco-
miastic passage on his hometown, Kabasilas refers to its rhetoricians, philosophers, and
authors of belles lettres who in his opinion can be found in Thessalonike more than in any
other city, and he asserts that these intellectuals have the power to influence the style of
any Hellene who wants to write like Euripides, even if he had not been previously inspired
by the Muses. Then Kabasilas also mentions the divine philosophy of the monks and their
life on the holy mountain, Athos. There is, obviously, in his opinion no strict borderline be-
tween profane and spiritual education; profane and spiritual philosophers are consid-
ered and honored side by side in one passage.
From the modern point of view there is no common characteristic between philoso-
phers and monks, but under the influence of the Christian fathers the understanding of
the terms was different in Byzantium. The notion filosofiva, which since the time of the
ancient Greek philosophers meant investigation into the crucial questions of human ex-
istence, was from early Christian times understood in a double sense, since the church fa-
thers distinguished between pagan philosophy (e[xwqen filosofiva) on the one hand and
the true philosophy of Christian belief and imitation of Jesus Christ on the other. A con-
sequence of this distinction is that first the martyrs and then the monks as the uncompro-
mising followers of Christ were called philosophers.4 But even if we do not adopt the
Byzantine point of view, we should nevertheless include Byzantine theological and even
spiritual authors in the category of intellectuals, since they shared with the others a basic
literary and linguistic education. In this connection I refer to a passage from a letter of
3
Nicholas Kabasilas, Prosfwvnhma eij" to;n e[ndoxon tou' Cristou' megalomavrtura Dhmhvtrion to;n Murobluvthn,
in Th. Ioannou, Mnhmei'a aJgiologikav (Venice, 1884), 67114, at 70. This work is mentioned as just completed
in one of Kabasilas letters; cf. P. Enepekides, Der Briefwechsel des Mystikers Nikolaos Kabasilas. Kommen-
tierte Textausgabe, BZ 46 (1953): 1846, at 31, letter 3, line 19f. According to R.-J. Loenertz, Chronologie
de Nicolas Cabasilas 13451354, OCP 21 (1955): 20531, at 22426 (repr. in idem, Byzantina et Franco-Graeca,
vol. 1, ed. P. Schreiner [Rome, 1970], 30328, at 321 f ), letter 3 could be dated to 1351/52.
4
F. Dlger, Zur Bedeutung von filovsofo" und filosofiva in byzantinischer Zeit, in Tessarakontaethri;"
Qeofivlou Boreva, vol. 1 (Athens, 1940), 12536; repr. in F. Dlger, Byzanz und die europische Staatenwelt (Ettal,
1953; repr. Darmstadt, 1964), 197208. Cf. also G. Podskalsky, Theologie und Philosophie in Byzanz (Munich,
1977), 1822.
FRANZ TINNEFELD 155
Emperor Manuel II, written to Metropolitan Gabriel of Thessalonike around 1410, where
the emperor is concerned about the decay of education and literary activity in his time, es-
pecially since education, in his opinion, is necessary to understand the doctrines (dovgmata)
of faith, and this understanding is, on the other hand, necessary for a pious life.5
I begin this discussion of intellectuals in late Byzantine Thessalonike with a short gen-
eral survey on the most important figures, followed by a more detailed account of the
intellectual activities of these authors, divided into the following four categories: (1) ex-
change of letters as a basic source for intellectual life, (2) scholarly activities, (3) teaching,
and (4) public speeches and sermons, especially as a source for political and social com-
mitment of intellectuals.
After the Byzantine reconquest of Thessalonike in 1246, the first outstanding intellec-
tual in the city seems to have been a certain John Pothos Pediasimos, whose identity was
recently reconsidered in a convincing manner from a puzzle of source material by Costas
Constantinides.6 Pediasimos, born in Thessalonike in the 1340s, seems to have acquired
only an elementary and perhaps a secondary education in his hometown. At any rate, for
studies on a higher level he went to Constantinople, where he finally was appointed con-
sul of the philosophers (hypatos ton philosophon), probably by Emperor Michael VIII.7 He
became a deacon of the Orthodox church around 1270, ca. 1280 chartophylax of the me-
tropolis of Achrida (Ochrid), and in 1284 megas sakellarios of the metropolis of Thessalonike.
From that time on he lived in Thessalonike, until his death between 1310 and 1314. From
the fact that he pursued his higher studies in the capital, we may assume that before the
1280s intellectual life in Thessalonike was not yet very well developed. From Pediasimos
correspondence we learn of a few intellectuals in Thessalonike, such as Demetrios
Beaskos, Petros Tziskos, and George Phobenos, who were, however, less important.8 In the
next generation we find already several outstanding intellectuals in the city. The oldest of
them was Joseph Rhakendytes, the Philosopher, born on Ithaca around 1260, who seems
to have lived mostly in Thessalonike during the years 13001308, and again from 1326 un-
til his death ca. 1330.9 For some time he was the teacher and spiritual guide of Thomas
with the family name Magistros, a native of Thessalonike, who was born ca. 1275 and be-
came a monk, named Theodoulos, in a monastery of the city between 1324 and 1328;10
he was active in a number of intellectual fields, primarily in philology. A contemporary of
Magistros was Demetrios Triklinios, born ca. 1280, known as the only serious textual
5
G. T. Dennis, The Letters of Manuel II Palaeologus: Text, Translation, and Notes (Washington, D.C., 1977), 149,
letter 52.
6
C. N. Constantinides, Higher Education in Byzantium in the Thirteenth and Early Fourteenth Centuries (1204
ca. 1310) (Nicosia, 1982), 11725. Cf. also PLP 22235, and K. Konstantinides, OiJ ajparcev", 14244.
7
Constantinides, Higher Education, 120 and note 28; R. Romano, Costantino Acropolita, Epistole (Naples,
1991), 216, letter 121, lines 1518.
8
Constantinides, Higher Education, 120 f. The five preserved letters of John Pediasimos have been edited by
M. Treu, Theodori Pediasimi eiusque amicorum quae extant (Potsdam, 1899), 4448.
9
D. Stiernon, Joseph le Philosophe, DSp 8 (1974), 138792; M. Treu, Der Philosoph Joseph, BZ 8 (1899):
164, with the edition of an encomium on Joseph, composed by Theodore Metochites. Metochites refers to
Josephs presence in Thessalonike and its environs on pp. 818. According to A. Hohlweg, Johannes Aktuar-
ios, LebenBildung und AusbildungDe methodo medendi, BZ 76 (1983): 30221, at 304 and note 20,
Joseph was not born ca. 1280, but very probably already ca. 1260.
10
PLP 16045. St. K. Skalistes, Qwmav" Mavgistro". O bivo" kai to evrgo tou (Thessalonike, 1984), 30 f, gives con-
vincing reasons for the fact that Magistros is his family name. The year of his birth is discussed by R. Aubre-
ton, Dmtrius Triclinius et les recensions mdivales de Sophocle (Paris, 1949), 19, and by Skalistes, ibid., 28 f, both
of whom argue for 1275. Skalistes also discusses the time he became a monk, ibid., 46 f.
philologist of the whole Byzantine period; he seems to have lived in Thessalonike, al-
though there is no sure evidence for this.11 Isidore Boucheir,12 born in Thessalonike
shortly before 1300, was active there as a teacher and spiritual guide during a longer pe-
riod before his patriarchate in 134750.
Between 1330 and 1350 two outstanding lawyers composed their law handbooks in
Thessalonike, the monk Matthew Blastares13 and Constantine Harmenopoulos.14 Gregory
Palamas,15 the leader of a spiritual movement, hesychasm, and creator of a special theo-
logical system, was born in Asia Minor and only in his last years came in closer touch with
Thessalonike. Although he was named metropolitan of the city in 1347, he could not get
to his see before 1350, but even then he did not live there permanently, before he died in
1357. The theologian Neilos Kabasilas,16 probably born in Thessalonike around 1300,
mastered also Western theology and seems to have been the most influential teacher of
Demetrios Kydones during his younger years, very probably in Thessalonike, although in
his later years Neilos lived in Constantinople. There he wrote a treatise against the
Latins, an attempt to refute scholasticism, but found a declared opponent in his former
student Kydones.17 Not earlier than 1360 Neilos became metropolitan of Thessalonike,
but died shortly after, ca. 1362, not having taken up residence there.
His student Demetrios Kydones,18 born in Thessalonike ca. 1324, spent his youth there
until 1345 and from 1347 lived in Constantinople, but until his late years kept in touch
with his friends in Thessalonike. The same seems to be true for his fellow student Nicholas
Kabasilas Chamatos.19 After having come to Constantinople at the invitation of Emperor
John Kantakouzenos, Nicholas seems to have stayed there most of his lifetime, but no less
than Kydones maintained connections with his hometown.20 A presumed relative of
Demetrios Kydones, George Gabrielopoulos Kydones, called the Philosopher, appar-
ently lived in the city only in his youth and never returned in his later years.21 The letters
11
PLP 29317; cf. Aubreton, Triclinius, 21.
12
PLP 3140. On his life and activities, cf. F. Tinnefeld, Demetrios Kydones, Briefe, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 19812003),
1.1: 15863. His assumed last name Boucheiras should be corrected to Boucheir; cf. ibid., 1.1: 160, note 1.
13
PLP 2808; bibliography on Blastares: Skalistes, Mavgistro", 287 note 50.
14
PLP 1347.
15
PLP 21546.
16
PLP 10102. Cf. also Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.1: 259 f.
17
There is no doubt that Kydones refers to Neilos as his teacher, although he does not mention his name,
in his Apology 1; cf. G. Mercati, Notizie di Procoro e Demetrio Cidone (Vatican City, 1931), p. 390, line 1006p. 394,
line 1088. In Constantinople, Neilos taught his nephew Nicholas Kabasilas Chamatos, according to a letter
of Nicholas, ed. P. Enepekides, Briefwechsel, 29, no. 1, line 1. R.-J. Loenertz, Chronologie, 208 and 215
(also idem, Byzantina et Franco-Graeca, 1: 306 and 312) corrected the dating of the letter convincingly from 1320
to shortly after 1347. On the controversy between Neilos and Kydones, cf. Podskalsky, Theologie und Philosophie,
180206; ODB 2: 1087 f, Kabasilas, Neilos. Neilos wrote his treatise against scholasticism (Peri; th'" tou' aJgivou
pneuvmato" ejkporeuvsew" kata; Lativnwn) after he had read the Summa contra gentiles and parts of the Summa the-
ologiae of Thomas Aquinas in the translation of Kydones. His treatise has only been partly edited so far by
E. Candal, Nilus Cabasilas et theologia S. Thomae de processione spiritus sancti (Vatican City, 1945). Neilos argu-
ments were refuted by Kydones (unedited) treatise in defense of Thomas Aquinas; cf. Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.1: 63,
no. 1, line 1.
18
For his biography cf. Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.1: 452. Demetrios younger brother Prochoros, also born in
Thessalonike and a highly educated intellectual, entered the Megiste Lavra on Mount Athos at a young age,
and from then, as far as we know, his connections with the city were rather loose.
19
PLP 30589.
20
Loenertz, Chronologie, 215 f or 312 f respectively.
21
Cf. F. Tinnefeld, Georgios Philosophos. Ein Korrespondent und Freund des Demetrios Kydones, OCP 28
(1972): 14171. Additions to his biography: Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.2: 310 f (II, BE); 3: 111 f (II, BE), 137 (X1, X4).
FRANZ TINNEFELD 157
of Demetrios Kydones addressed to a rhetor and politician Tarchaneiotes, whose first

name was very probably Manuel, document a long-lasting connection with a friend and
fellow student of Kydones youth in Thessalonike. Also Kydones extensive correspon-
dence with Rhadenos, a former student who mostly lived in Thessalonike, should be men-
tioned here.22
During the years 138287, the co-emperor Manuel II stayed in Thessalonike, in order
to defend the city against the Turks. This well-educated ruler, a student of Demetrios Ky-
dones, should certainly be included among the intellectuals in Thessalonike. His presence
in the city is well documented by numerous letters he received from Kydones, and also by
some letters he wrote to him.23 To believe Kydones, the level of education in Thessalonike
at the time of Manuels stay was rather low. In one of his letters to the emperor he regret-
ted that only a few people in his audience were educated enough to understand the re-
fined style of a speech of counsel Manuel had given to the citizens.24 But during that pe-
riod there was by no means a total lack of intellectuals in Thessalonike. Particularly a
certain Constantine Ibankos, who lived as a rhetorician, lawyer, and teacher in the city,
seems to have provided constant moral support and counsel to the emperor during those
years.25
Between 1380 and 1430 there were three intellectual metropolitans in Thessalonike
who determined the image of the intellectuals in this final phase. The first was Isidore
Glabas,26 born in 1342, monk since 1375, metropolitan of Thessalonike from 1380 until
his death in 1396. He was a highly educated man, as can be assumed from his work (ser-
mons, treatises, and letters, which show both his classical and theological education), but
we have no information about his studies or teachers. Glabas successor in the see of Thes-
salonike was Gabriel,27 son of a priest and diocesan official in Thessalonike. He became a
monk in his youth, in 1374 abbot of a monastery in Thessalonike, and after 1384 abbot of
the Chora monastery in Constantinople. He returned in 1394 to Thessalonike, which was
then in Turkish hands. From 1397 to 1416/19 metropolitan of the city, he tried successfully
to obtain from the Turks milder treatment for his flock and proved to be a distinguished
preacher, especially after Byzantine government was restored in 1403. The last of the in-
tellectual metropolitans in Thessalonike was Symeon.28 Born in Constantinople between
1370 and 1390, he was named metropolitan of Thessalonike in 1416/17. In 1423, when
the city was handed over to the Venetians, he went for some time to Mount Athos, but soon
returned and died in Thessalonike, shortly before its conquest by the Turks in March
1430. He was for a long time only known for his theological work, but since some of his
22
For Tarchaneiotes cf. F. Tinnefeld, Demetrios Kydones: His Cultural Background and Literary Con-
nections in Thessalonike, Macedonian Studies 6, n.s. 2 = 3 (1989): 3343, at 37; idem, Briefe, 1.1: 21821. For
Rhadenos: idem, Freundschaft und Paideiva: Die Korrespondenz des Demetrios Kydones mit Rhadenos
(13751387/8), Byzantion 55 (1985): 21044.
23
Cf. G. T. Dennis, The Reign of Manuel II Palaeologus in Thessalonica, 13821387 (Rome, 1960); Tinnefeld,
Briefe, vol. 3, passim; Dennis, Letters, nos. 3, 4, 6, 8, 10, 11.
24
Cf. Tinnefeld, Briefe, 3: 115, no. 265.
25
Cf. Dennis, Letters, XLVI.
26
B. Ch. Christophorides, O Arciepivskopo" Qessalonivkh" Isivdwro" Glaba'" kaiv tav koinwnikav problhvmata
th'" ejpoch'" tou, Ep.Ep.Qeo.Sco.Pan.Qes. 29 (198689): 51791. Christophorides (ibid., 532) names Glabas in
a line of intellectual bishops (lovgioi ejpivskopoi) of Thessalonike together with Eustathios (12th century), Gre-
gory Palamas, Neilos Kabasilas, Gabriel, and Symeon (ibid., 532).
27
Dennis, Letters, XLIIXLIV.
28
D. Balfour, Saint Symeon of Thessalonike as a Historical Personality, GOTR 28 (1983): 5572.
other writings on different subjects were published by David Balfour in 1979,29 we know
more about his pastoral and political activity.
After this brief outline I will try to specify the contributions of the Thessalonian intel-
lectuals in different fields of activity, beginning with some remarks on the exchange of let-
ters. A contemporary of John Pothos Pediasimos and his colleague in the ecclesiastical
service was John Staurakios, a hagiographer who appears in a document of 1284 as
chartophylax of the metropolis of Thessalonike in that year. Thirteen letters addressed to him
by his friend Patriarch Gregory of Cyprus have survived. He not only copied a manuscript
of Plato for him, but also was author of an encomium of St. Demetrios.30 From the scholar
Thomas Magistros we have only twelve letters.31 The report in the form of a letter which
he addressed to Joseph the Philosopher32 is of special interest. Here he praises Joseph not
only as his teacher, but also for his commitment toward the social problems of Thessa-
lonike, at the time when Joseph had just left for Constantinople in the winter of 1307/8.
The assumption of Jean Verpeaux that the letters and works of the statesman
Nikephoros Choumnos were read in a circle of intellectuals in Thessalonike, assembled
by Theodore Xanthopoulos, is obviously erroneous. The letter of Choumnos quoted by
Verpeaux alludes to such a circle, but there is no mention of Thessalonike, and since
Choumnos complains that Xanthopoulos did not visit him when he was ill, it is much more
probable that both of them lived in Constantinople, the more so since there is no positive
evidence at all that Theodore ever lived in Thessalonike.33 So it is also probable that
Choumnos other letters to Xanthopoulos34 were sent to an address in Constantinople.
That he lived in Constantinople is also confirmed by a poem of the statesman Theodore
Metochites dedicated to Theodore Xanthopoulos.35
Rich evidence about intellectuals in Thessalonike is available in the correspondence
29
D. Balfour, Politico-Historical Works of Symeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica (1416/1417 to 1429). Critical Greek
Text with Introduction and Commentary (Vienna, 1979).
30
Cf. Constantinides, Higher Education, 36 note 21, 121 note 40, 127. Staurakios also composed a rhetorical
metaphrasis of a hagiographical work (late 9th century) on Theodora of Thessalonike (9th century): E. Kurtz,
Des Klerikers Gregorios Bericht ber Leben, Wundertaten und Translation der heiligen Theodora von Thessalonich nebst
der Metaphrase des Joannes Staurakios (St. Petersburg, 1902). Cf. the review of P. Maas, BZ 12 (1903): 62023 (with
critical remarks on the style of Staurakios).
31
PG 145: 40326, 42946; Skalistes, Mavgistro", 186216. On the letter addressed to the abbot Isaac in
Thessalonike which contains a report on an embassy of Magistros to Constantinople, cf. Skalistes, Mavgistro",
19098, and M. Treu, Die Gesandtschaftsreise des Rhetors Theodulos Magistros, Jahrbcher fr classische
Philologie Suppl. 27 (1902): 530, at 518.
32
J. F. Boissonade, Anecdota Graeca e codicibus regiis, vol. 2 (Paris, 1830; repr. Hildesheim, 1962), 21228,
reprinted, with faulty Latin translation, in PG 145: 43146; cf. Treu, Der Philosoph Joseph, 47 f (with criti-
cal remarks on the quality of the edition). Skalistes, Mavgistro", 18689 (at 187, the year 1309).
33
J. Verpeaux, Nicphore Choumnos: Homme dtat et humaniste byzantin (ca. 1250/12551327) (Paris, 1959), 68;
J. F. Boissonade, Anecdota Nova (Paris, 1844; repr. Hildesheim, 1962), 3638, no. 31. According to PLP 20816,
Theodore Xanthopoulos lived in Constantinople. Cf. also A. Sideras, Die byzantinischen Grabreden (Vienna,
1994), 28890.
34
Boissonade, Anecdota Graeca, nos. 2, 3, 3135, 124 f, 130, 131, 13741, 14547, 150.
35
The poem has been edited, with English translation, by J. Featherstone, Theodore Metochitess Eleventh
Poem, BZ 81 (1988): 25364. Metochites refers to frequent conversations between Metochites and Xan-
thopoulos (p. 254 f, lines 134), undoubtedly in Constantinople where Metochites used to live, and also tells
us that Theodore passed his days in the church of Hagia Sophia at Constantinople (p. 259, lines 21243).
FRANZ TINNEFELD 159
of the outstanding scholar and author Nikephoros Gregoras.36 In the following I give an
overview of his most important correspondents. The sequence of his correspondence
with Thomas Magistros, reconstructed by Leone,37 is the following. In 1331/32 Gregoras
wrote a letter in a very learned style to him, to win his friendship. Magistros answered
with enthusiastic warmth and assured him that he had been already for a long time his
friend because of his extraordinary reputation. In his answer of 1332, Gregoras accepts
and returns this expression of friendship. But from two later letters we learn that Gre-
goras in vain had waited for further correspondence.38 Had Magistros enthusiasm so
soon cooled off, or were there other reasons for his silence, for instance, an illness? We do
not know.
From Gregoras two letters to Joseph the Philosopher39 we learn that the latter had re-
turned from Constantinople to Thessalonike early in 1326. The first of these letters (dated
1326/28) is testimony of the high reputation Joseph enjoyed by that time. This is particu-
larly documented by the remark that, if Joseph threw with closed eyes a stone into any
crowd of people, he would surely hit one of his admirers. Furthermore, Gregoras here ex-
presses his reverence for Josephs main work, the Synopsis of Sciences. Also the second
letter, written no later than 1330, is a witness to Gregoras reverence for Joseph.
Gregory Akindynos admiration for Gregoras was aroused by his friend Balsamon,
when he showed him in summer 1332 a letter from the scholar, containing learned infor-
mation on astronomy. Sometime before Akindynos had come from Pelagonia to Thessa-
lonike to study with Thomas Magistros and the archdeacon Gregory Bryennios,40 Akin-
dynos wrote a letter full of admiration to Gregoras and called him a sea of wisdom.41
Gregoras reaction was an appropriately warm one, and he even made a pun on the name
Akindynos with an allusion to Pindar.42 In a second letter to Gregoras from Thessalonike,
Akindynos expressed his delight at Gregoras promise to be his friend.43 Sometime after
1336, Gregoras sent one of his works to Akindynos teacher Bryennios and asked him to
hand it over to Magistros.44 There is also a letter of Bryennios from the late 1330s which
confirms receipt of Gregoras encomium of Emperor Andronikos III. Here Bryennios
stresses that he himself and other people, particularly the didaskalos who extremely re-
veres your works, admire the speech; this teacher is very probably Thomas Magis-
tros.45 The protonotarios Nicholas Lampenos, author of an encomium of St. Demetrios, sent
36
P. A. M. Leone, Nicephori Gregorae Epistulae, vol. 2 (Matino, 1982); idem, La corrispondenza di Niceforo
Gregora, Quaderni del Siculorum Gymnasium 8 = Studi di filologia bizantina 2 (1980): 183232.
37
Leone, La corrispondenza, 203 f.
38
Leone, Epistulae, 24347, no. 91 (Gregoras); 388 f, no. 3 (Magistros); 348, no. 142 (Gregoras). Gregoras
in vain waiting for letters: 161 f, no. 49 (Gregoras); 163, no. 51 (Gregoras).
39
Leone, La corrispondenza, 197 f; idem, Epistulae, 7176, no. 22; 15760, no. 46.
40
A. C. Hero, Letters of Gregory Akindynos (Washington, D.C., 1983), p. X. For Bryennios, sakelliou, archdea-
con, and dikaiophylax in the metropolis of Thessalonike 132851, cf. PLP 3253. For Balsamon of whom a letter
to Gregoras has survived (Leone, Epistulae, 403 f, no. 11) cf. PLP 2112.
41
Leone, Epistulae, 390 f, no. 4; Hero, Akindynos, 25, no. 1. On the question of which letter of Gregoras
Akindynos alludes to, cf. ibid., 309 f.
42
Leone, Epistulae, 25760, no. 99; cf. Leone, La corrispondenza, 215. Allusion to Pindar, Ol. 6.9 (ajkivn-
dunoi d ajretaiv): no. 99, line 15.
43
Hero, Akindynos, 410, no. 2.
44
Leone, Epistulae, 347, no. 141.
45
Leone, Epistulae, 404 f, no. 12. For the didaskalos cf. ibid., line 26.
his work to Gregoras for review.46 Perhaps identical with this Nicholas is Lampenos
Tarchaneiotes, an unreserved admirer of Gregoras style, who praises Gregoras speech on
the same saint.47 There are four letters of Gregoras to his fatherly friend and mentor Max-
imos, abbot of the Chortates monastery in Thessalonike, who like Gregoras was a native
of Herakleia in Pontos.48
The four letters of Gregory Akindynos to the Calabrian monk and humanist Barlaam
deserve special mention. In 1331 in Thessalonike the young Akindynos met him for the
first time, when Barlaam had left Constantinople after his disputation with Gregoras. Al-
though Akindynos maintained an amicable relationship with Barlaam, he never was his
disciple, and both of them stayed in Thessalonike for only a short time.49
The correspondence of Demetrios Kydones with his friend Tarchaneiotes and with
Emperor Manuel in Thessalonike has already been mentioned in the general survey. From
the correspondence of metropolitan Isidore Glabas with learned people of his time, cler-
ics and laymen, only eight letters have survived.50 But there is also one letter of Demetrios
Kydones addressed to him,51 from which we learn that Glabas had criticized the conver-
sion of Kydones to Roman Catholicism as well as his antihesychastic point of view and had
in vain attempted to win him over for the orthodox and hesychastic position.
We have two letters of Emperor Manuel to the metropolitan Gabriel, dating from
140810 and 1411 respectively.52 The first of these is a typical sample of an intellectual cor-
respondence: Manuel is sending him his oration On Sin and Penance to have it judged
by him, but his point is not the theological content; he apologizes only for the low stylistic
level in comparison to ancient literature and at the same time defends contemporary lit-
erary activity, although the quality of ancient style could never be reached any more.
Demetrios Chrysoloras, a member of Manuels literary circle in Constantinople, was
named mesazon of John VII in Thessalonike in autumn 1403 and stayed there until Sep-
tember 1408.53 From his correspondence with Manuel II in Constantinople during that
time we have five letters of the emperor.54 In letter 43 Manuel teases Chrysoloras about a
noble horse he had newly acquired and which would perhaps prevent him from continu-
ing his philosophical studies, a concern typical for the correspondence of intellectuals.
I now turn to the scholarly work of intellectuals insofar as it is likely to have been car-
ried out in Thessalonike. This seems to be true for a number of philological editions of and
46
Leone, Epistulae, 383 f, no. 1. The text of this speech seems to be lost (Leone, ibid., 303, note on line 26).
For Lampenos cf. PLP 14431. For other speeches in honor of St. Demetrios see above, text with note 30; be-
low, note 105, (1); text with notes 110, 111, 113, and in addition an encomium on St. Demetrios, composed by
Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos, born in Thessalonike, ed. D. G. Tsames, Filoqevou Kwnstantinoupovlew" tou'
Kokkivnou Agiologikav e[rga (Thessalonike, 1985), 3160.
47
Leone, Epistulae, 41114, no. 17. For Lampenos Tarchaneiotes, perhaps identical with Nicholas Lamp-
enos, cf. PLP 14432.
48
Leone, La corrispondenza, 196 f; idem, Epistulae, 65 f, no. 20b; 6771, no. 21; 26062, no. 100a; 262
64, no. 100b. For Maximos cf. PLP 16785.
49
Hero, Akindynos, XIXIII. On Barlaam cf. PLP 2284. Letters of Akindynos to Barlaam: Hero, ibid., 2054,
nos. 710.
50
Christophorides, Glaba'", 523, 532 f.
51
Tinnefeld, Briefe, 3: 4653, no. 244.
52
Dennis, Letters, 14850, no. 52; 16063, no. 57.
53
Ibid., XXXIV f.
54
Ibid., 116 ff, nos. 43, 44, 46, 48, 50.
FRANZ TINNEFELD 161
commentaries on ancient authors. So we can assume that John Pothos Pediasimos here
commented on Aristotles Analytica Priora and Posteriora and on De interpretatione.55 Also two
outstanding experts of textual philology seem to have lived and worked, at least for the
most part, in Thessalonike, Thomas Magistros and Demetrios Triklinios, although for
Magistros the evidence for residence there is more certain than for Triklinios. Both schol-
ars revised and commented on texts of the following ancient authors: Hesiod, Aeschylos,
Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Pindar, and Theokritos.56
Is it probable that they had at their disposal in Thessalonike the texts they edited and
wrote commentaries on? Our evidence on contemporary libraries in Thessalonike is very
scarce. Nikephoros Blemmydes remarks in his curriculum vitae that on a journey in 1239
he found rare books in Thessalonike as well as in other places;57 but we have only one spe-
cific allusion to a library in the city around 1270, a list given in cod. Vat. gr. 64.58 We can,
however, be sure that this library was not the only one in the city. At least Magistros very
probably had his own private library which he enriched by copies made for the special pur-
pose of commenting on the ancient authors. In the case of Pindar, for instance, Irigoin has
postulated a codex Thessalonicensis, written before 1138, which can be reconstructed
from the later manuscript tradition.59 This manuscript was the ancestor of the Pindar
manuscript which Magistros used for his own edition, preserved in full copy in the later
manuscript Vind. phil. gr. 318. The manuscript Magistros used is lost, but Vat. gr. 41 (first
quarter of 14th century) seems to be a copy from this manuscript at a time before Mag-
istros entered his scholia.60 There is also evidence that Demetrios Triklinios copied ancient
authors for his own use. Three autographs from his hand have survived:61 Neapol. II. F.
31 (Aeschylos, early 14th century), Oxon., New College 258 (Aphthonios, Hermogenes,
dated August 1308), and Venet. Marc. gr. 464 Z (Hesiod: part one, 20 August 1316; part
two, 16 November 1319).
Of the two philologists, Triklinios seems to have been by far the more qualified; by
present-day scholars he has been called the first modern textual philologist.62 As for
Magistros, I quote Alexander Turyn on his recension of Euripides: Thomas changes do
not contribute much to the glory of their author. Thomas did not understand adequately
the classical versification of iambic lines and the classical prosody. In many cases, he was
simply actuated by a desire to reduce a line of more than 12 syllables to a dodecasyllable.
The results were generally bad.63 There is no doubt, however, that Magistros had a high
55
Constantinides, Higher Education, 122.
56
Aubreton, Triclinius, 19; J. Irigoin, Histoire du texte de Pindare (Paris, 1952), 331. The third outstanding con-
temporary philologist, Manuel Moschopoulos, seems to have lived in Constantinople, where he began his work
as a student of Maximos Planoudes (Irigoin, ibid., 270).
57
Constantinides, Higher Education, 13.
58
According to Constantinides, Higher Education, 143, cod. Vat. gr. 64 contains a list of manuscripts, whose
owner states that he lived in Thessalonike and gives the date 1270. The voluminous codex itself contains texts
of epistolographers and other prose writers, including Dionysios of Halikarnassos. The list specifies ten vol-
umes of theological works and ca. twelve volumes with a mixture of medical and classical texts, including
Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides. Unfortunately the owner of the library does not reveal his name.
59
Irigoin, Pindare, 14656.
60
Irigoin, Pindare, 18085.
61
A. Turyn, The Manuscript Tradition of the Tragedies of Aeschylus (New York, 1943), 102 f; Aubreton, Triclinius, 21.
62
On the excellent evaluation of Triklinios by modern scholars, see F. Tinnefeld, Neue Formen der Antike-
rezeption bei den Byzantinern der frhen Palaiologenzeit, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 1
(1995): 1928, at 23 f.
63
A. Turyn, The Byzantine Manuscript Tradition of the Tragedies of Euripides (Urbana, Ill., 1957), 179.
opinion of his own ability as a philologist. This is documented by his remarks in his scho-
lia to ancient authors, where he arrogantly calls earlier scholiasts, his predecessors, igno-
ramuses (ajgnoou'nte") or uneducated people (ajmaqei'") and introduces his own interpre-
tation with ejgw; de; ou{tw("). In comparison with him, other contemporary scholiasts, for
instance Manuel Moschopoulos, show a more modest attitude.64
Two important works on law also seem to have been composed in Thessalonike. There
is first the canonist Matthew Blastares,65 monk and priest in the monastery of Kyr Isaac in
Thessalonike. In 1335 he completed his principal work, called Suvntagma kata; stoicei'on
(Alphabetical Treatise), an attempt at reconciling canon and civil law to a greater degree
than in the preceding nomokanones. Since he used several legal sources for his work, he
must have had a specialized library at his disposal. We know that his teacher was the edu-
cated clergyman Iakobos, founder of the Isaac monastery and later metropolitan of Thes-
salonike, who may have encouraged Blastares to compose his work.66 Ten years later, Con-
stantine Harmenopoulos completed his Provceiron novmwn (Handbook of Laws), a
compilation of secular law for easier reference. In a document from Chilandar monastery
of 1345 we find his signature, where he calls himself sebastov" and krith;" th'" Qessa-
lonivkh".67 There seems to have been a tradition of legal studies in Thessalonike before
Blastares and Harmenopoulos, since already in 1295 the dikaiophylax George Phobenos, a
friend of John Pediasimos, composed two legal texts and a short dictionary of legal terms.68
The anonymous compiler of the Hexabiblos aucta (late 14th century) had perhaps an even
more substantial library at his disposal,69 but unfortunately we have no evidence whether
he worked in Thessalonike or in Constantinople.
As for important works of theology of the late Byzantine period, we cannot say for cer-
tain whether any of them were composed in Thessalonike. There is, for instance, no doubt
that the learned contribution of Neilos Kabasilas to the debate on Western scholasticism70
was composed in Constantinople. The same seems to be true for the main works of his
nephew Nicholas Kabasilas.71 So we can only say that these outstanding theologians con-
tributed to the honor of Thessalonike, since they were born and brought up there.
64
Th. Hopfner, Thomas Magister, Demetrios Triklinios, Manuel Moschopulos. Eine Studie ber ihren Sprachgebrauch
in den Scholien zu Aischylos, SBWien 172, H. 3 (1912), 10, 15 f, 55.
65
On Blastares, see ODB 1: 295.
66
Constantinides, Higher Education, 127 and note 83.
67
K. G. Pitsakes, Kwnstantivnou Armenopouvlou Provceiron Novmwn h] Exavbiblo" (Athens, 1971), p. igV note 1,
argued for etymological and grammatical reasons for Armenopoulos. But in the signature of a Chilandar
record (L. Petit, Actes de Chilandar = VizVrem 17, Prilozhenie [1911], record no. 134, p. 282), the author of the
Hexabiblos spells his name Armenovpoulo" (Harmenopoulos). This personal record should be more relied upon,
provided that the reading of the edition is correct; this cannot be checked until the new edition in the Archives
de lAthos is complete (only the first volume, ed. M. Z ivojinovic et al. [Paris, 1998], has been published so far).
On the dating of the work to 1345, cf. M. Th. Fgen, Die Scholien zur Hexabiblos im Codex vetustissimus
Vaticanus Ottobonianus gr. 440, FM 4 (1981): 256345, at 26875.
68
Constantinides, Higher Education, 120 f, 127 and note 81, with a reference to the manuscript (Codex of
the Metochion of Panagios Taphos 25) in which the dictionary, unpublished so far, is preserved. For Phobenos
(Fobhnov") cf. also PLP 30004.
69
M. Th. Fgen, Hexabiblos aucta. Eine Kompilation der sptbyzantinischen Rechtswissenschaft, FM 7
(1986): 259333; on the library: 26777.
70
See above, note 17.
71
Nikovlao" Kabavsila", Eij" th;n qeivan leitourgivan kai; Peri; th'" ejn Cristw'/ zwh'" , ed. P. Chrestou (Thessalonike,
1979); Nicolas Cabasilas, La vie en Christ, ed. M.-H. Congourdeau, 2 vols. (Paris, 198990).
FRANZ TINNEFELD 163
There is also no doubt that most of the late Byzantine contributions to science were
written in the capital. But there seems to be at least some evidence that Isidore Glabas
composed his Method of Calculating the Easter Cycle when he was metropolitan of
Thessalonike.72 About the place where he wrote his astronomical work On the Eclipses of
Sun and Moon we are not sure since, as we saw, he also lived for some time in Constan-
tinople.73 But perhaps we should not waste our time with endeavors promising few results
to rescue one or another late Byzantine work for Thessalonike, since there still remain
to be discussed two categories of intellectual life closely related with the society of the city:
teaching and public speeches and sermons.
As for teaching, the first to be mentioned after the reconquest of Thessalonike in 1246
is again John Pediasimos. The clearest allusion to this activity of the scholar can be found
in the obituary letter of Constantine Akropolites already quoted. Here we read that the de-
ceased was even a teacher of the teachers (paideutw'n paideuthv"), and, furthermore, that he
was not only an outstanding scholar and philosopher, but also distributed his knowledge
to many others and so made the cities more honorable and the citizens flourishing. Al-
though Akropolites speaks about cities in the plural, it is clear that he means particularly
Thessalonike, since from there, as he says, came the news about Johns demise to the city
of Constantine.74
There cannot be any doubt either that Thomas Magistros worked a long time as a
teacher in Thessalonike. Clear testimonies of his teaching activity can be found in letters
of Gregory Akindynos. In one letter, Akindynos terms himself a student of Magistros and
calls Magistros his father and teacher,75 and in another letter of 1347, the last document
which attests Magistros to be alive, he calls him the admirable.76 From a treatise written
by Demetrios and Prochoros Kydones we know that the future patriarch Philotheos Kokki-
nos was also a student of Magistros.77 But we have no evidence that Demetrios or Pro-
choros Kydones was taught by him at any time.
Two persons are known who more or less can be called teachers of Kydones: Neilos
Kabasilas and Isidore Boucheir. The one who most influenced his intellectual skills seems
to have been Neilos Kabasilas. There is a passage in the so-called Apology 1 of Kydones
which, although it does not give a name, undoubtedly refers to Neilos.78 Kydones says that
this man, who was the most wise of his contemporaries, had been his friend from his early
youth (ajpo; neovthto" eujquv"). He was the first to teach him rhetoric and, when he became
72
Christophorides, Glaba'", 532 and note 19.
73
For both works cf. B. Christophorides, H ceirovgrafh paravdosh tw'n suggrammavtwn tou' ajrciepiskovpou
Qessalonivkh" Isidwvrou Glabav, Ep.Ep.Qeo.Sco.Pan.Qes. 25 (1980), 42943, at 441 f.
74
R. Romano, Costantino Acropolita, Epistole, 21517, no. 121, lines 68, 3032, and 1 f. Cf. Constantinides,
Higher Education, 124.
75
Hero, Akindynos, 234, no. 56, written 1345, line 75 f (cf. ibid., 408).
76
Ibid., 296, no. 74, line 40 f; for the date of the letter cf. ibid., 434.
77
Mercati, Notizie, 302, line 204303, line 222; cf. also 248 f. For the text referred to, cf. Tinnefeld, Briefe,
1.1: 72, no. 3.2.
78
Mercati, Notizie, 390, line 1006394, line 1088. Particularly the information that the man was an expert
on Thomas Aquinas (ibid., 391, line 1028 f ) is an important clue to Neilos Kabasilas (see note 17 above). Mer-
cati (390 note 6) also refers to a parallel passage in the unedited treatise of Kydones in defense of Thomas
Aquinas (see note 17 above) to confirm that no one other than Neilos could have been the teacher to whom
Kydones refers.
older, shared with him his studies of the lovgoi.79 We have no explicit evidence as to where
Neilos taught Kydones, but it is very probable that their first contacts go back to a time
when they both lived in Thessalonike. On the other hand, we have a letter from Nicholas
Kabasilas, probably written shortly after 1347, which attests that love for his admirable
uncle and for his studies convinced him to go to Constantinople.80 So we can assume that
at least sometime before this letter Neilos had come to reside in the capital. From a letter
of Kydones to be dated to 1356 we learn that Neilos probably had served for some time at
the imperial court and still lived in Constantinople.81 This letter documents an incipient
crisis in the relationship between Kydones and his teacher, since Neilos tried to refute
Western theology, whereas Kydones admired and defended its results.82
Another man who had some influence on Demetrios Kydones, without doubt in Thes-
salonike, was the future patriarch Isidore Boucheir. This man, probably born sometime
before 1300, already in his youth began teaching in his native Thessalonike, then became
a monk and lived for some time on Mount Athos. But when the holy mountain became
more and more threatened by pirates, he returned to Thessalonike around 1325. There
we hear about his activities as a teacher, but he probably imparted more spiritual than in-
tellectual instruction.83 A letter of Demetrios Kydones, written in 1346 in a small town in
Thrace, is the only testimony of their relationship. Here Kydones does not say explicitly
that he was his student, but that he had already for a long time trusted in him as a person
of wisdom and knowledge, and in an unpleasant situation hoped to get his spiritual advice
and consolation.84
The period of the Zealots (134249)85 had without doubt a negative influence on the
intellectual atmosphere of Thessalonike. Certainly our knowledge with regard to teaching
in Thessalonike after 1350 is very scarce. An obituary on George Synadenos Astras in a let-
ter of Kydones from 1365 refers only to a literary circle which Astras used to assemble in
his house during the short time he had lived in Thessalonike.86 We know from an encomi-
astic text87 that the metropolitan Gabriel received a classical education in his hometown of
Thessalonike, but this source is not reliable enough to derive from it any solid conclusions
on teaching in Thessalonike. We have also evidence of a certain Constantine Ibankos who
had taught Emperor Manuel II for some time, but we do not know whether this was in
Constantinople or Thessalonike. In any case, Ibankos is attested as a judge in the latter city
between ca. 1402 and 1420, and he also taught there in a school of higher level which was
79
Mercati, Notizie, 390, line 1006391, line 1018.
80
Enepekides, Briefwechsel, 29, no. 1, line 1 f. For dating this letter to a time shortly after 1347, see above,
note 17.
81
Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.1: 25761, no. 40, line 20 f and note 6, according to which the interpretation of the
passage on Neilos imperial service is not quite sure.
82
Kydones describes the controversy in his Apology 1, ed. Mercati, Notizie, 391, line 1018394, line 1088.
83
For his biography cf. Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.1: 15863.
84
Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.1: 15558, no. 16.
85
On the revolt and regime of the Zealots in Thessalonike, cf. R. Browning, The Commune of the Zealots
in Salonica, 13411350, IP 6 (1950): 50925 (in Bulgarian), but especially the recent article by K.-P. Matschke,
Thessalonike und die Zeloten, BSl 55 (1994): 1943. For fuller bibliography, see the article by J. W. Barker
in this volume.
86
Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.1: 379, no. 64, lines 2530.
87
L. Syndika-Laourdas, Egkwmion eij" to;n ajrciepivskopon Qessalonivkh" Gabrihvl, Makedonikav 4 (195560):
35270, at 354 f.
FRANZ TINNEFELD 165
perhaps oriented to law.88 Furthermore, we know that John Argyropoulos, born in Con-
stantinople ca. 1393, after losing his parents at an early age, came about 1403/4 to Thes-
salonike to live with his uncle who sent him to the ejgkuvklio" paideiva (secondary school) of
Alexios Phorbenos (oJ Forbhnou'). After he had finished the secondary level about 1407,
however, he returned for higher studies to Constantinople.89 From this we may conclude
that in the early fifteenth century opportunities for higher education were scarce in Thes-
salonike.
In connection with Thessalonikes inner tensions and external threats, a very impor-
tant activity of its intellectuals still remains to be described: rhetorical addresses to the cit-
izens, during an earlier period in speeches, later in sermons. The first speaker in our pe-
riod was not a native Thessalonian but the Byzantine statesman Nikephoros Choumnos,
born between 1250 and 1255, who in 1309 had been appointed governor (kefalhv) of
Thessalonike, when the city had just escaped the threat posed by the Catalan Company
and was in a difficult political situation. He stayed there no longer than one year, but dur-
ing this short time he proved to be a successful administrator. Shortly after his return to
the capital he wrote a Sumbouleutiko;" peri; dikaiosuvnh" (Speech of Counsel on Justice) ad-
dressed to the citizens of Thessalonike. The main subject of the speech, which was never
delivered in public but only sent to his friends in Thessalonike, is the problem of the in-
ternal tensions in the city, although it begins with a long encomium of the city and its citi-
zens, which has the function of a captatio benevolentiae.
The encomium includes a short ekphrasis of the city. Choumnos begins with the forests
and rivers in the plain west of the city, the springs, lakes, and fertile farm and pasture land
to its east, and the easy access to the city from both land and sea. Within the city he praises
its rich stock of trees and vines. Then he passes on to the fortifications, the city wall and
the Akropolis: The Akropolis on the top looms up hugely and is visible from a far dis-
tance. It appears to those who suddenly catch sight of it as if it were itself the whole city.
But the great city descends from there and spreads far away, as if it wanted to join the sea.
And indeed its wide circle gets the object of its desire and joins the sea; it spreads along its
shore, offers the best harbors, and leaves its admirers wondering whether such a wide
circle ever could be filled with people. Then he passes over to the buildings inside the city,
especially its churches which he calls more beautiful and splendid than in any other town,
but he also praises the height and technical perfection of the houses and the numerous
population which makes the circle of walls look small. In the second part of the speech,
Choumnos calls upon the citizens to practice more justice in order to secure harmony and
peace. Although his argumentation is mostly theoretical, he also touches upon current
problems of the city, such as the venality of the judges and the lawyers and the despair of
the exploited. So the sociopolitical tenor of the speech is unmistakable.90
88
Dennis, Letters, XLVI; P. Canivet and N. Oikonomids, [ Jean Argyropoulos], La Comdie de Katablattas.
Invective byzantine du XVe s.: dition, traduction et commentaire, Divptuca 3 (198283): 597, at 11 f.
89
Canivet and Oikonomids, Comdie, 1518. On Alexios oJ Forbhnou', cf. PLP 30015.
90
Text of the speech: J. F. Boissonade, Anecdota Graeca, 2: 13787. Copy of this edition: B. Nerantze-
Barmaze, Egkwvmia th'" buzantinh'" Qessalonivkh" (Thessalonike, 1999), 8696; modern Greek trans.: ibid., 97
105; introduction: ibid., 42 f. Description (ekphrasis) of the city: ed. Boissonade, ibid., 13943. Cf. the com-
ments of Verpeaux, Choumnos, 20 (no. XX), 49 f, 99 f. The ekphrasis is also mentioned by H. Hunger, Laudes
Thessalonicenses, Eortastikov" Tovmo" 50 Crovnia, 19391989, Etaireiva Makedonikw'n Spoudw'n (Thessalonike,
There are three rhetorical addresses of Thomas Magistros with political content. The
first on the duties of an emperor clearly shows the form of a speech; the second on the du-
ties of subjects is of an ambiguous nature.91 It starts like a treatise, but after a while the au-
thor several times uses an address in the second person, as if there were listeners.92 But
these texts have no special relationship with Thessalonike. So I will not dwell on them for
long and will refrain from a thorough interpretation, laying stress only on one aspect:
Thomas Magistros shows that he is a true intellectual when he develops a proper political
program of education. In his speech to the emperor, he recommends that he should give
an order that learned studies should be carried out everywhere in the world and that schol-
ars should be honored. It would also be desirable if the emperor himself were a learned
man, but being concerned with the government, he would perhaps not find the time for in-
tense studies. Nevertheless, he would deserve to be called a wise man if he organized edu-
cation (paideiva) in all the towns of his empire and kept companionship and had discussions
with wise men. To arouse a general desire for learned studies, he should convince everyone
that he could be a friend of the emperor only if he was a friend of the Muses. So, finally, the
empire would be a theater of the Muses and a hearth of studies, and the emperor would be
revered as the instigator of this development.93 No less in his treatise on the duties of sub-
jects in a state, Magistros develops a program of education: he recommends the choice of
responsible teachers to restrain young people from wicked desires and make them rejoice
in virtue, take interest in learned studies or in practical skills (tevcnai), and consider these
more desirable than dice and theaters. To achieve this result, it is necessary, he says, that the
parents, too, should be concerned about a good education for their children.94
Only Magistros third political text, the treatise or speech On Harmony, is clearly ad-
1992), 99113, at 108. As encomiastic topoi for Thessalonike in speeches of the late period, Hunger mentions
the label the first after the first city (sc. after Constantinople) (ibid., 101), the pun with the name Thessa-
lonike = victorious city (ibid., 103), and the concept of Thessalonike as a support of Constantinople in a
speech of Metropolitan Symeon (103 f ). There is another ekphrasis which refers only to one building in Thes-
salonike, the Theotokos Acheiropoietos church. It is inserted in an encomium by the lawyer Constantine
Harmenopoulos (for his last name, see note 67 above) of St. Demetrios, delivered in this church. Edition:
Demetrios Gkines, Lovgo" ajnevkdoto" Kwnstantivnou Armenopouvlou eij" th;n proeovrtion eJorth;n tou' aJgivou
Dhmhtrivou, Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 21 (1951) 14562, at 151, line 56153, line 106. Cf. also A. Xyngopoulos, AiJ peri;
tou' naou' th'" Aceiropoihvtou Qessalonivkh" eijdhvsei" tou' Kwnstantivnou Armenopouvlou, Panepisthvmion
Qessalonivkh", Episthmonikh; Epethriv" th'" Scolh'" Nomikw'n kai; Oijkonomikw'n Episthvmw'n 6 (1952) = Tovmo"
Kwnstantivnou Armenopouvlou, 126. Furthermore, there is a short encomiastic passage on Thessalonike in the
monody of Demetrios Kydones on the noblemen killed by the Zealots in 1345; see PG 109: 64052, at 641
44 (copy: Nerantze-Barmaze, ibid., 10810; modern Greek trans.: ibid., 11113; introduction: ibid., 4447);
Eng. trans.: J. W. Barker, The Monody of Demetrios Kydones on the Zealot Rising of 1345 in Thessaloniki,
in Melethvmata sth; mnhvmh Basileivou Laouvrda (Thessalonike, 1975), 28590, at 292 f. (For some excerpts, see
the introduction to J. W. Barkers article in this volume.) In this passage, Kydones first praises the citys size,
beauty, piety, agricultural fertility, churches, its busy marketplace, harbors, and walls ( 2), then the devo-
tion of its citizens and the role of St. Demetrios as its effective protector ( 3), and also its intellectual life,
especially its orators and philosophers, who make it a veritable school of general studies ( 4). Finally, there
are two encomiastic passages on Thessalonike from hagiographical works of Patriarch Philotheos Kokkinos,
of which Nerantze-Barmaze, ibid., reproduces the edition (ibid., 11618) and gives a modern Greek trans-
lation (ibid., 11922). Cf. Tsames, Filoqevou Kwnstantinoupovlew" tou' Kokkivnou Agiologikav e[rga, 64 f,
16264.
91
Peri; basileiva", PG 145: 44796; Peri; politeiva", PG 145: 495548.
92
PG 145: 520A, 521B524A, 525D.
93
PG 145: 492 AC.
94
PG 145: 544 AB.
FRANZ TINNEFELD 167
dressed to the Thessalonians.95 It was dated by a number of scholars to the time of the civil
war between Andronikos II and his grandson Andronikos III (132128), but Skalistes of-
fers convincing arguments to date it to the period of the Zealots (134249). It is true that
in no period was the call for harmony among citizens more related to the current situation
of the city than during that time.
As for funeral speeches preserved from the late period, most of them were delivered in
Constantinople. The first to be given in Thessalonike were the four monodies by Alexios
Lampenos, composed in 1307 and sometime after, on the demise of John Palaiologos, the
eldest son of Emperor Andronikos II and his second wife, Irene-Yolanda of Montferrat.96
A monody which was also without doubt delivered in Thessalonike was that of a certain
Staphidakis on Emperor Michael IX, who died there in October 1320. Staphidakis refers
expressly to Thessalonike as Michaels residence, says that he died there, and reflects the
mourning of the city on his sudden demise.97 We also know that Michael was buried in Thes-
salonike,98 so it seems that this monody was delivered there, and not in Constantinople.
Demetrios Kydones first appeared in public when he delivered, most probably during
a funeral ceremony in Berroia, a monody on the nearly one hundred supporters of John
Kantakouzenos who were killed in 1345 in Thessalonike as a result of the Zealot revolt.99
This monody is also a political speech in which Kydones expresses his deep concern for the
destiny of his hometown under the regime of the Zealots. Another monody, composed by
Theodore Potamios, has recently been related to the burial of Emperor John VII in 1408.100
Nicholas Kabasilas in 1351 addressed a memorandum to Empress Anna of Savoy and
her son John V in Thessalonike, in order to obtain the reintroduction of a former law
which had mitigated the situation of a certain group of debtors.101 Sometime between 1352
95
B. Laourdas, Qwma' Magivstrou toi'" Qessalonikeu'si peri; oJmonoiva", Episthmonikh; Epethri;" Scolh'"
Nomikw'n kai; Oijkonomikw'n Episthmw'n Panepisthmivou Qessalonivkh" (1969) = Afievrwma eij" Caravlampon
Frangkivstan, 75175. Cf. Skalistes, Mavgistro", 17278.
96
Sideras, Grabreden, 27477. John was first buried in Thessalonike, but later transferred to Constanti-
nople. There is also a monody on the death (ca. 1317) of Johns mother, Irene-Yolanda of Montferrat, com-
posed by Lampenos in Thessalonike, although she had died in Drama and was transferred to Constantinople
(Sideras, ibid., 25658, 279).
97
A. Meschini, La Monodia di Stafidakis (Padua, 1974), 20, line 13 f (residence of Michael in Thessalonike),
14, line 34; 18, line 23 (his sudden death); 20, lines 812 (his death in Thessalonike and the mourning of its
citizens). Cf. also the remarks on this speech by Sideras, Grabreden, 28082. Another monody on the demise of
Michael IX, composed by Theodore Hyrtakenos, was delivered in Constantinople; cf. Sideras, ibid., 259. Also
the poems on the death of Michael by Nikephoros Choumnos and Theodore Metochites were written in the
capital. For both cf. Verpeaux, Choumnos, 106 f. For Metochites cf. also Sideras, ibid., 58 f, 281.
98
P. Schreiner, Die byzantinischen Kleinchroniken (Chronica byzantina breviora), 3 vols. (Vienna, 197579), 1:76,
Chronicle 8, no. 11c (kai; katetevqh ejkei'se).
99
See above, note 90; cf. Tinnefeld, Briefe, 1.1: 9; Sideras, Grabreden, 3024.
100
The speech which is ascribed to a certain Theodore Potakios by the manuscripts, and was first edited by
S. Lampros in 1885, had already tentatively been connected with Theodore Potamios by K. Sathas in 1872.
Lampros proposed its dating to the burial of John V in 1391. The first to ascribe it, in a short remark, to the
burial of John VII in 1408 was G. T. Dennis, The Letters of Theodore Potamios, in G. T. Dennis, Byzantium
and the Franks (London, 1982), no. XII (first publication), 2 and note 6. His article was obviously not known to
P. Agapitos when he confirmed this opinion with detailed arguments in Kaiser Ioannes VII. Palaiologos als
Adressat einer Monodie des Theodoros Potamios, BZ 90 (1997): 16.
101
R. Guilland, Le trait indit Sur lusure de Nicolas Cabasilas, in Eij" mnhvmhn Spurivdwno" Lavmprou
(Athens, 1935), 26977; for the date cf. Loenertz, Chronologie, 22024 or 31720 respectively. The title of
Guillands article refers to a treatise, but actually the text is a memorandum. There is also a treatise, in which
Kabasilas principally argues against any income from interest (PG 150: 72750), but we do not know where it
was composed.
and 1354 he wrote, at the instigation of his father, an encomium of Empress Anna in the
form of a letter, which he sent from Constantinople to Thessalonike.102
During the years 138287 Manuel II stayed in Thessalonike in order to defend the city
against the Turks. In fall 1383 he delivered a speech of counsel to the citizens to encour-
age them to defend their freedom against the Turkish aggression.103 Demetrios Kydones
received a personal copy of the speech from Manuel and congratulated him in a letter,
where he also expressed his regret that only a few of the emperors audience were educated
enough to understand the refined style of the speech.104 This judgment by a son of the city
can be taken as an unfavorable testimony to the intellectual situation in Thessalonike dur-
ing these late years.
But a contemporary of Manuel, the metropolitan Isidore Glabas, had perhaps a better
chance to reach the souls of the citizens through his more popular sermons.105 Already in
the first homily which he delivered to his flock in 1380,106 he reverts to the problem of har-
mony among the citizens which had, as we saw, also been a subject of earlier political
speeches. From his point of view, social harmony is guaranteed and secured now through
the church and Christian charity, but he also points to the important role of civil servants
and judges. In his second occasional sermon he tackles the very acute problem of the so-
called unholy marriages between Byzantine women and Turks. He not only urges avoid-
ance of such marriages, but also their dissolution if such a marriage had taken place.107
Also in other sermons he called upon the citizens of Thessalonike to fight against the in-
fidels,108 but his major concern remained the situation of the poor and powerless people,
as can be shown by quotations from several of his sermons.109 During the time of his ab-
sence from Thessalonike (138489), the city was conquered by the Turks, in 1387. Never-
theless, Isidore returned to his see in the summer of 1389 and tried to cope with the diffi-
cult situation of a Christian bishop under Muslim rule. From this later period date his five
102
M. Jugie, Nicolas Cabasilas, pangyriques indits de Mathieu Cantacuzne et de lAnne Palologine,
IRAIK 15 (1911): 11221. On the date cf. Loenertz, Chronologie, 22426 or 32022 respectively.
103
B. Laourdas, O Sumbouleutiko;" pro;" tou;" Qessalonivkei" tou' Manouh;l Palaiolovgou, Makedonikav 3
(1955): 290307.
104
Tinnefeld, Briefe, 3: 11218, no. 265.
105
Editions of sermons: (1) B. Laourdas, Isidwvrou Arciepiskovpou Qessalonivkh" Omilivai eij" ta;" eJorta;"
tou' aJgivou Dhmhtrivou, Ellhnikav, Paravrthma 5 (Thessalonike, 1954) (5 sermons on St. Demetrios); (2) K. Tsir-
panles, Sumbolhv ei" thn istorivan th" Qessalonivkh". Duvo anevkdotoi omilivai Isidwvrou arciepiskovpou Qessalo-
nivkh", Qeologiva 42 (1971) 54881; (3) B. Christophorides, Isidwvrou Glabav Peristasiakev" omilive",
Ep.Ep.Qeo.Sco.Pan.Qes. 32 (Thessalonike, 1981); (4) B. Ch. Christophorides, Isidwvrou Glabav Arciepiskovpou
Qessalonivkh" Omilive", vol. 1 (Thessalonike, 1992) (edition of 13 homilies from Vat. gr. 651; see 7 f, on the ser-
mons unedited so far); (5) PG 139: 11164 (4 sermons on the holy Virgin). On the two manuscripts of Isidores
homilies (vol. 1: Paris. gr. 1192; vol. 2: Vat. gr. 651) and their contents, cf. A. Ehrhard, berlieferung und Bestand
der hagiographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche, vol. 3.1. Die spteren Homilien (Leipzig,
1943), 70913.
106
Ed. Christophorides 1981 (see note 105, no. 3), 3743; abstract of the sermon: Christophorides,
Glaba'", (as in note 26), 538 f.
107
Ed. Christophorides 1981 (see note 105, no. 3), 44 ff; discussion of the sermon: Christophorides,
Glaba'", (as in note 26), 540 f.
108
Christophorides, Glaba'", (as in note 26), 55254.
109
Christophorides, Glaba'", (as in note 26), 54144; for quotations from cod. Paris. gr. 1192, which con-
tains the homilies nos. 128 (plus three unnumbered homilies), unedited so far, see Christophorides 1992 (see
note 105, no. 4), 7 f.
FRANZ TINNEFELD 169
sermons on St. Demetrios.110 Here he summons the people of Thessalonike to be patient

and points to the fact that the Byzantine officials, both diplomats and civil servants, have
no less difficult a time getting along with the Turkish governors. As a source on this first
period of Turkish rule in Thessalonike, these sermons are of invaluable importance. Also
from his successor, Gabriel (13971416/19), a collection of sixty-six sermons has survived,
but as far as can be concluded from the seven on St. Demetrios which have been published
so far, they are of a more spiritual character.111 The most interesting of the St. Demetrios
sermons from the political point of view is the one which celebrates the defeat of the Ot-
tomans by Tamerlane near Ankyra in 1402 as an outstanding historical event.112
The last of the metropolitans whose works are important sources for the latest period
of Thessalonike was Symeon (1415/1629). Apart from some encyclical letters, four texts
in particular show his concern for the political situation of his diocese: first, in a long dis-
course, completed shortly before his death, he praises St. Demetrios as a miraculous pro-
tector of Thessalonike and gives, to illustrate this, a very interesting survey of Turkish-
Byzantine relations from 1387 to 1427.113 The other three texts worth mentioning in this
connection are: a defense of his flight to Mount Athos and Constantinople in 1422114 and
two advisory proclamations exhorting the Orthodox to resist the attacks of the Turkish
Antichrist on Christian faith and morals.115
At this point a few words should be said on these sermons, their significance, and their
understanding. Thessalonike was undoubtedly fortunate to have three such prominent
preachers during a very difficult period of time, when the city was in danger of conquest
by the Turks, and also afterward, under the Turkish occupation. Isidore, Gabriel, and also
Symeon were able to comfort the suffering populace during these years of troubles and
were very well accepted by their flocks. Nevertheless, there is reason to ask how they could
be so popular although they obviously gave their sermons not in the spoken, but in the ar-
tificial Attic language of educated writers. This problem is significant not only for the late
period, but also for earlier periods of Byzantium. As was pointed out in a recent collection
of papers,116 the levels of education, or to be more precise, oral and literate understand-
ing, in audiences can only be guessed at in most periods. . . . The majority of preachers,
however, seem to have assumed a reasonable degree of understanding in their audiences;
we can only guess whether this reflected the actual abilities of most members of the audi-
ence or whether homilies were generally directed only to an educated few. This statement
is also true for the sermons under discussion. But since they deal to a great extent with
current problems of the citizens, we can assume that at least their general contents were
accessible to a majority of the audience, and the details were perhaps imparted by oral ex-
change.
110
Ed. Laourdas, Omilivai (see note 105, no. 1). Discussion of the sermons: Christophorides, Glaba'", (as
in note 26), 57178.
111
Unique manuscript of the homilies: cod. Chalki 58. Edition: B. Laourdas, Gabrih;l Qessalonivkh"
oJmilivai, Aqhna' 57 (1963): 14178. Cf. also Ehrhard, berlieferung, 71417.
112
Ed. Laourdas, Gabrih;l, 16468; comments on the sermon; ibid., 177 f.
113
Balfour, Symeon, 3969 (Greek text), 10191 (commentary).
114
Balfour, Symeon, 7076 (text), 19399 (commentary).
115
Balfour, Symeon, 8390 (text), 20710 (commentary).
116
Preacher and Audience. Studies in Early Christian and Byzantine Homiletics, ed. M. B. Cunningham and
P. Allen (LeidenBostonCologne, 1998), 14 f (in the editors introduction).
From the time immediately after the final conquest of Thessalonike by the Turks in
1430, we have several texts which describe and deplore this event: a report and a monody
of John Anagnostes,117 and three anonymous workstwo monodies in strange hexame-
ters and a fragment of a monody in prose.118
I began my discussion of the intellectuals in late Byzantine Thessalonike with a gen-

eral survey of their most important representatives, then tried to give an impression of
their connections with other intellectuals as can be shown by their correspondence,
touched upon the question of their scholarly and teaching activities, and commented on
their public addresses either on special occasions or containing general remarks about the
political situation of the city. But before concluding this paper we should attempt to an-
swer the intriguing question, what was the role of Thessalonike in intellectual life as com-
pared with Constantinople? At least some educated natives of Thessalonike were con-
vinced that their hometown could compete with the intellectual level of any other city.
Thus Demetrios Kydones claimed in his monody that no other city had larger or finer en-
sembles of orators and philosophers, and Nicholas Kabasilas maintained a similar con-
viction.119 But those statements are undoubtedly exaggerated and caused by local pride.
Neither in the late period nor very probably at any earlier time were the opportunities for
intellectual development in Thessalonike equal to those in Constantinople. The main rea-
son is that two institutions in the capital granted it an unrivaled precedence over any other
city in the empire: the imperial court and the patriarchate. Although we can say that the
influence of the emperor and the patriarch on higher education has been exaggerated by
earlier Byzantiniststhere was very probably never an imperial university nor a patri-
archal academy either120we cannot doubt the fact that at least from time to time there
were emperors and patriarchs who promoted and patronized higher education, and this
is also true for the late period. Under several Palaiologan rulers, especially Michael VIII,
Andronikos II, and Manuel II, the imperial court gave an important incentive to teaching,
delivering orations, and other intellectual activities, and also several late Byzantine patri-
archs were anxious to have well-educated clerics.121 Even some monasteries in Constan-
tinople profited from this atmosphere to develop some intellectual activities and assemble
modest libraries.122 This stimulus of patronage was almost totally absent in Thessalonike;
although personal initiative was the principal impetus for intellectual activities also in
Constantinople, it seems to have been the only one in Thessalonike.
But in the late period we also find a second reason for the lower intellectual level of
Thessalonike: its political situation was less stable and consistent than that in the capital.
117
G. Tsaras, ed., Dihvghsi" peri; th'" teleutaiva" aJlwvsew" th'" Qessalonivkh". Monw/diva ejpi; th'/ aJlwvsei th'"
Qessalonivkh". Eijsagwghv, keivmeno, metavfrasi, scovlia (Thessalonike, 1958). Shortcomings of the edition are
criticized by J. Irmscher, BZ 52 (1959): 36467.
118
Sp. Lampros, Trei'" ajnevkdotoi Monw/divai eij" th;n uJpo; tw'n Touvrkwn a{lwsin th'" Qessalonivkh", Nevo" Ell. 5
(1908): 36991.
119
Kydones, Monody (see note 90 above), 644; trans. Barker (see ibid.), 293; for Kabasilas, see above, text af-
ter note 3.
120
According to Matschke and Tinnefeld, Gesellschaft, 302 and 311, it is recommended to speak only of
schools or institutions of higher education.
121
Cf. ibid., 30110 (imperial court), 31016 (patriarchate).
122
Cf. ibid., 31619.
FRANZ TINNEFELD 171
After it had been the capital of a crusader kingdom, from 1224 Thessalonike was governed
by Epirote rulers until it was recaptured by the Byzantine emperor John III in 1246.
Then it had almost a hundred years of relative peace, which facilitated the development
of intellectual activities. This prosperous phase was interrupted soon after 1340 by the
Zealot revolt, and we can say that after the end of this period of troubles in 1350 the citys
intellectual life never recovered.123 Without doubt the first conquest of the city by the
Turks in 1387 can be understood as another heavy blow against a free development of in-
tellectual activities. The situation was different in the capital. Although after 1350 Con-
stantinople suffered more and more from the tense foreign situation, it enjoyed a political
continuity until the end of the empire, which turned out to be favorable also for intellec-
tual life.
For these reasons it is no wonder that most of the relatively few literati who can be as-
signed to Thessalonike (as, for instance, John Pothos Pediasimos, Joseph Rhakendytes,
Isidore Boucheir, Neilos and Nicholas Kabasilas, and Demetrios Kydones) preferred to
study or reside temporarily (or for a longer time) in Constantinople. As a consequence,
there were fewer chances of finding a teacher in Thessalonike than in Constantinople. A
man like Thomas Magistros who continuously taught in Thessalonike seems to have been
an exception. There is no evidence on any continuity of schools in the city, and we have only
scattered information on teaching. Also the monasteries of Thessalonike were obviously
less important as places of intellectual activity than a number of monasteries in Constan-
tinople or on Mount Athos. The lawyer Matthaios Blastares was a monk of the monastery
of Kyr Isaac in Thessalonike, but can we therefore say that this monastery was an intellec-
tual center? Makarios Choumnos founded the Nea Mone monastery in Thessalonike soon
after 1360,124 but he ended up as an abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople.125
The later metropolitan Gabriel, who was the successor of Makarios as the abbot of the Nea
Mone, was, as we have seen, a productive preacher and doubtless an intellectual, but this
does not necessarily mean that his fellow monks shared his literary interests.
Another factor was that theological controversies tended to be waged in Constantino-
ple (or sometimes on Mount Athos) rather than in Thessalonike. This is especially true for
the two most important theological disputes in late Byzantium, the one between the hesy-
chasts/Palamites and their opponents and that between Unionists and Antiunionists.
Thessalonike was, of course, affected by the resonance of these quarrels, but it was never
their main scene of debate. Even natives of Thessalonike like Demetrios Kydones and Nei-
los Kabasilas lived in Constantinople when they debated on Western scholasticism.126 Also
Neilos nephew Nicholas Kabasilas, who likewise originated in Thessalonike, seems to
have lived mostly in Constantinople in later years.127
123
Cf ibid., 323: Die Wirren des 1342 ausgebrochenen Zelotenaufstandes fhrten in den folgenden Jahren
offenbar auch zu einem Niedergang des Geisteslebens. Cf. also the judgement of Demetrios Kydones on the
intellectual level of the Thessalonians during the presence of Emperor Manuel II in the city (see above, text
with note 24).
124
On this monastery cf. R. Janin, Les glises et les monastres des grands centres byzantins (Paris, 1975), 398 f.
125
On Makarios Choumnos cf. PLP 30956. He was abbot of the Stoudios monastery from 1368 until his
death ca. 1380.
126
See above, text with note 17.
127
He was a good friend of Kydones, and it deserves mention that their friendship was never affected by his
moderate inclination toward hesychasm, which Kydones detested.
From these considerations we can draw the conclusion that Thessalonike was never
more than a second city of the empire after Constantinople, also with regard to its intel-
lectual life. This was even more true in the latest period, when Mistra gained more and
more significance as a second political and intellectual center. Nevertheless, Thessalonikes
existence was important as a stimulus for the intellectuals in Constantinople, as can be
shown especially by the correspondence between intellectuals of both cities, proof of a
vivid exchange of views in late Byzantium. The outstanding examples are the correspon-
dence between Gregoras and intellectuals in Thessalonike128 and the remarkable ex-
change of letters between Demetrios Kydones in Constantinople and Emperor Manuel,
when the latter made a last but eventually unsuccessful attempt to avert the first conquest
of Thessalonike by the Turks in 1387.129
Institut fr Byzantinistik der Universitt Mnchen
128
See above, text with notes 3648.
129
See above, text with note 23.

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
Economic Concerns and Attitudes of the Intellectuals
of Thessalonike
ANGELIKI E. LAIOU
few initial remarks are necessary, in order to clarify the topic and my approach to it.
A First of all, the intellectuals to whom I refer are not only those commonly so consid-
ered, such as theologians or thinkers or men of letters, but also those educated men who
produced statements with a normative purpose. In the period and place under discussion,
this means primarily the jurists, Constantine Harmenopoulos and Matthew Vlastares in
the first instance. Second, I will leave out of the discussion most of the social issues and
concerns that were so prominent in the thought of Thessalonian intellectuals in the four-
teenth century as a result of the profound social upheavals that preceded the Zealot revolt,
were contemporary with it, or followed it. I will concede from the start that social and eco-
nomic concerns are often intertwined, especially in the medieval period when economic
thought was to varying degrees embedded in social and political structures of thought.
Nevertheless, the focus of my concern here is on issues of economic thought.1 Third, I do
not plan to take each of the intellectuals active in Thessalonike and investigate his eco-
nomic ideas. Rather, I will concentrate on a few economic issues and try to show how they
were treated by various intellectuals. I shall discuss three topics: the defense of private
property; freedom in exchange; and lending at interest, which Western medieval thinkers
and medievalists call usury.
THE DEFENSE OF PRIVATE PROPERTY AND THE RIGHTS OF THE STATE

Some intellectuals voiced concern about the property rights of individuals or institu-
tions, sometimes in contrast to the right of the state either to dispose of private property
at will or to take particular fiscal measures. The texts I have in mind are circumstantial in
nature, having been written to address specific events or practices; although they are not
treatises on ownership, they incorporate statements regarding it. These texts are Thomas
1
There exists an earlier treatment of the social and economic thought of intellectuals and jurists in Thes-
salonike, by C. Triantaphyllopoulos: H Exavbiblo" tou' Armenopouvlou kai; hJ nomikh; skevyi" ejn Qessalonivkh/
kata; to;n devkaton tevtarton aijw'na (Athens, 1960). I should like to thank two anonymous readers for useful com-
ments.
206 ECONOMIC CONCERNS AND ATTITUDES
Magistros treatises on the imperial office and on the rights of subjects, and Nicholas
Kavasilas still so-called Anti-Zealot Discourse.2
Thomas Magistros was a philologist and man of letters who took a profound interest
in the political affairs of his times. We may consider him a political theorist and one, fur-
thermore, who expressed a train of thought that argued for increased autonomy of the
cities; we assume that he had in mind Thessalonike in particular. His treatise on the im-
perial office (whose date, I think, must be before 1304) contains the traditional elements
that must govern relations between the good emperor and his subjects: the emperor must,
above all, show himself to be just, but also generous and philanthropic. But at the same
time, Magistros discusses critically certain practices current at the time, and makes sug-
gestions regarding the reciprocal duties of the emperor and his subjects, and for the bet-
ter governance of the empire. Much of what he writes in that respect is outside the scope
of this paper. However, his statements concerning what he considers abusive fiscal prac-
tices do have certain economic implications, since they touch on the issue of private prop-
erty.
I think it is correct to say that Magistros insists on the property rights of the subjects,
which are paramount. Indeed, he goes so far as to argue that even when the emperor
makes donations he is not giving of his own goods, but rather of those of his subjects,
whose administrator he is.3 The proximate cause, the circumstantial fact underlying
Thomas position, is the extension of fiscal exactions during the early Palaiologan period.
Extraordinary taxes were imposed while the state laid heavy claims on treasure trove and
on the property of those who died without children and without a testament. On the mat-
ter of treasure trove, where the Palaiologan state claimed ownership of the totality of the
goods thus discovered, Magistros counters that this constitutes forceful alienation of prop-
erty given by God to the individual who has recovered the treasure. Therefore, in his view,
the emperor, representing the state, behaves like a tyrant rather than as a good king.4 Sim-
ilarly, Thomas objection to the appropriation, by the state, of the property of people dy-
ing intestate and with no children is based on the property rights of individuals (and of the
church, which, according to law, had rights to one-third of the property of the deceased).5
As he put it, you appropriate the goods of others, without taking into account the rights
of the person who owns them . . . you inherit the property of others.6 His extensive cri-
tique of the imposition of extraordinary taxes is evidence of the same attitude, which priv-
ileges private property and seeks to limit the rights of the fisc: When, because of some
2 evcenko, Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse: A Reinterpretation, DOP 11 (1957): 79171. On

I. S
Thomas Magistros Peri; basileiva", see A. E. Laiou, Le dbat sur les droits du fisc et les droits rgaliens au
dbut du 14e sicle, REB 58 (2000): 97122; PG 145: 448 ff; his Peri; politeiva" is published in PG 145: 496
548.
3
PG 145: 456; Laiou, Dbat, 99.
4
PG 145: 479.
5
PG 145: 485; cf. Novel 12 of Constantine VII. in Zepos, Jus 1: 23538. Closer to the period under discus-
sion is Novel 26 of Andronikos II (confirmed in 1305, 1306, or 1307) on the division of the property of people
who die without direct issue; the most recent discussion of this document may be found in Laiou, Dbat,
11520.
6
PG 145: 485: tw'n me;n ajllotrivwn wJ" oijkeivwn ajntipoiouvmenoi, tou' de; kekthmevnou mhdevna mhdopwstiou'n
poiouvmenoi lovgon. . . . uJmei'" klhronomei'n ajxiou'te.
ANGELIKI E. LAIOU 207
need, you lack money, and you order the subjects to pay (extraordinary) taxes, is this not
the exercise of force and is it not opposed to the care that you owe them?7
In brief, Thomas Magistros defends the property rights both of private individuals
and of the church, at the same time trying to limit the fiscal rights of the state. It should be
mentioned, however, that this defense of private property is less a Roman, or modern,
defense, and more a medieval one. What he is trying to safeguard is, on the one hand, the
privileges given to pronoia holders and, on the other, the rights of the church as well as
those claimed by the inhabitants of the cities; many of these rights had been granted by the
fisc itself, whose weight Magistros wishes to reduce.8 He does, elsewhere, give special value
to private property. In his treatise on the rights of subjects (Peri; politeiva"), he argues that
the army of the cities must be composed only of property owners, those who own houses
and fields, and are well established in the city.9 Those who own nothing, he says, have noth-
ing they feel moved to protect, and they will easily turn traitor. This, however, is less an
economic argument and more a political one, similar to those advanced in eighteenth-
century England in favor of limiting the vote to property owners.
An eloquent defense of private property is offered by Nicholas Kavasilas in his Dis-
course traditionally labeled Anti-Zealot.10 How, he wonders, can a polity survive without
the ultimate good, liberty? It can survive only if the people in power imprison the subjects
or treat them as enemies. But if the subjects are enslaved, they cannot be useful to them-
selves or to the state. Because, and here is the telling argument, if one does not have secu-
rity of possessions, if private goods are not safe from state action, then the mere mention
of the state will cause people to tremble. No one, then, will work to gain money: not the
peasant and not the merchant, since they know that they are working for others. And when
that happens, from whom will taxes be collected?11 Bearing this in mind, good officials
have always tried to provide justice, liberty, and internal and external security.
This looks like a good but partial liberal argument: in order to function properly, pro-
ductive forces need an institutional framework which provides security and stability. A
person will not invest if he is not certain that profits will go to himself rather than to oth-
ers. Kavasilas thought does not extend to the other half of the modern liberal position:
that there should be no state interference in the economic process. So his is not an argu-
ment for a laissez-faire economy. In context, it constitutes defense of private property (a
medieval sort of private property, as often as not granted by the state), centered on a spe-
cific issue: Kavasilas does not think that the civil government should appropriate private
7
PG 145: 481: kai; mh;n kai; to; toi'" uJphkovoi", ejpeida;n hJstinosou'n katalabouvsh" ajnavgkh" ajporh'te crhmavtwn,
e[peit eijsfora;" ejpitavttein, . . . pw'" oujk ajtecnw'" bivaion, h] pw'" oujk e[xw th'" par hJmw'n ojfeilomevnh" toutoisi;
promhqeiva";
8
For a fuller justification of these arguments, see Laiou, Dbat, passim.
9
PG 145: 521.
10
The date remains uncertain. S evcenko, Anti-Zealot Discourse, 170, dates it ca. 1344, but there were ob-
jections to that date, and it may be that it should be pushed forward to the last third of the 14th century, that
is, after the battle of the Maritsa, as George Dennis suggested, and as S evcenko himself admits: idem, A Post-
script on Nicolas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse, DOP 16 (1962): 4038. Ath. A. Angelopoulos, Nikovlao"
Kabavsila" Camaetov". H zwh; kai; to; e[rgon aujtou' (Thessalonike, 1970), 89, dates it to after 1347, after Kavasilas
return to Constantinople from Thessalonike (on the argument that if it refers to events in Constantinople it
must been written there, and also that the author was too young in 1344).
11
Sevcenko, Anti-Zealot Discourse, para. 26, and see comment on pp. 17071. Cf. para. 10.
property, that is to say, the revenues or, even less, the capital of monasteries, in order to
provide for defense. But in the paragraph under discussion the author generalizes, and
this is why we are permitted to discuss his statement as affecting private property as a
whole.
These ideas reflect aspects of contemporary reality. Thomas Magistros protestations
are a response to increased fiscal burdens, while those of Kavasilas refer to a specific act of
alienation of the revenues of monastic holdings in the interest of common defense. They
also reflect the complex Byzantine view of property, a view which, in the fourteenth cen-
tury, comprises both the concepts of Roman law and those that arise from interlocking
rights: it is not by chance that both Kavasilas and his fictional interlocutors differentiate
between usufructor ownership of revenuesand dominium over estates.12
FREEDOM IN EXCHANGE
The question of freedom in exchange seems to have received some attention in four-
teenth-century Thessalonike. In brief, the general issue is as follows. Throughout the
Byzantine period, there were two potentially conflicting traditions and concepts regard-
ing exchange. One stems from Roman law and accepts that any contract between parties
that act freely and without fraud or constraint is a valid contract. The price at which goods
are sold is arrived at through negotiation between the contracting parties, who are allowed
to try to deceive one another up to a point. The other concept, deriving from the church
fathers and ultimately from Plato and Aristotle, is that of social and economic justice and
the protection of the weak. In law, this is incorporated in Justinianic or perhaps pre-
Justinianic legislation which states that, even if a contract is concluded by freely acting par-
ties, it becomes invalid if the sale price is minimal, that is, less than 50 percent of the true
price.13 This measure, originally conceived as protection of the seller from his own actions,
and constituting interference in the freedom of exchange, is known in legal scholarship as
(a measure against) laesio enormis, that is, excessive damage. In Byzantium the protection
was widely extended in the ninth and tenth centuries, to cover, for example, labor con-
tracts as well as the sale of land made at times of crisis (Novel of 934). By the eleventh cen-
tury, the protection it afforded was being eroded, and eventually ways were found to cover
up sales at a low price through the practice of partial donation of the thing sold.14
The Novel of 934, issued by Romanos I Lekapenos, had reversed land sales made at
a cheap price at a time of hardship.15 In his legal compilation, the Hexabiblos, finished
in 134445, Constantine Harmenopoulos placed, next to the law regarding laesio enor-
mis, a Novel which he attributes to the same Romanos I.16 The Novel is attested with
this attribution in only one other source, one of the many manuscripts of the Synopsis
Maior; scholars consider this text to be not imperial legislation but, rather, a judicial deci-
12 evcenko, Anti-Zealot Discourse, para. 12, 14, 16, and p. 161. On the complex Byzantine views re-
S
garding property, see A. Kazhdan, State, Feudal, and Private Property in Byzantium, DOP 47 (1993): 83
100.
13
C. 4.44.2 = Bas. 19.10.72; cf. C. 4.44.8 = Bas. 19.10.78 (77). Cf. A. E. Laiou, Koinwnikh; dikaiosuvnh: to;
sunallavttesqai kai; to; eujhmerei'n sto; Buzavntio, Akad.Aqh.Pr. 74 (1999): passim.
14
Laiou, Koinwnikh; dikaiosuvnh, 117.
15
N. Svoronos, Les novelles des empereurs macdoniens (Athens, 1994), no. 3, 72 ff.
16
Hexabiblos 3.3.71.
sion.17 Its tenor and dispositions are very different from those of the Novel of 934. In the
latter text, the emperor had made a very harsh ruling on those who, taking advantage of
the famine, had bought land at a price below half the just price. They were to be expelled
from these lands without recovering the money they had paid for it. If the price they had
paid was not minimal within the letter of the law, but nevertheless was so low that it could
be considered as resulting from the deception of and in harm to the seller, and if the rev-
enues the buyers had already derived from the land were equal to the price paid, then the
buyers would return the land without having claim to any moneys. If the revenues were
lower than the price paid, then the original seller would recover his land after paying
the difference. Harmenopoulos knew the Novel of 934, parts of which he summarized in
Hexabiblos 3.3.7, omitting, however, the provisions regarding sale at a minimal price. In-
stead, he mentions, in connection with laesio enormis, the misattributed Novel. In this, the
legislator is much kinder toward the buyer, basically allowing him to make use of the law
of the Basilics, that gives him the option of paying the full price and keeping the land or,
if he does not wish to exercise that option, permits the seller to recover the land after hav-
ing paid back the money he had received for it. Thus this supposed Novel reinforces the
provisions of the classic legislation concerning laesio enormis, but does not extend them, as
Romanos I had done. One wonders why the Novel is attributed to Romanos I, who had
issued the much harsher legislation; one interpretation might be that Harmenopoulos
here wishes tacitly to nullify the provisions of the Novel of 934.
A scholion to the Hexabiblos, furthermore, essentially does away with the protection af-
forded by the legislation on laesio enormis.18 In an effort to reconcile two passages of the leg-
islation,19 one of which affords the protection while the other one says that consensual sales
cannot be reversed, the scholiast draws a distinction between a sale that takes place vol-
untarily, which is not reversible, and one that is tainted with circumscription and decep-
tion (ajpavth), which is reversible. He considers that the laesio enormis applies to the second,
an unnecessary and unsubtle interpretation of the law. The law, in fact, does not forbid de-
ception, only deception after a certain point; indeed, the law assumes that such a sale could
be the result of circumscription, but not of fraud (dovlo"), which invalidates all contracts.
In the case of fraudulent practice or when there is no fraud but there is too low a price, the
law invalidates the sale automatically. The scholion, by drawing a distinction between vol-
untary sale and one which is the result of deception, places the burden of proof on the
seller, who has to show that, if he had sold his property at less than 50 percent of its just
price, he had done so because he was duped and did not know his rights. When both con-
tracting parties know their rights, according to the scholiast, the contract is valid even
though the price is minimal. The scholiast then explains why one might voluntarily sell at
below half the just price in an irreversible contract: it might be as a favor or by donation,
or because of the times and circumstances, or because a property with high capital value
17
J. Leunclavius, LX Librorum Basilikw'n . . . Ecloga sive Synopsis (Basel, 1575), App., 43. See the excellent
study by N. P. Matses, Epiv tino" uJpotiqemevnh" Neara'" Rwmanou' tou' Lekaphnou' (Athens, 1970). On the issue of
laesio enormis, see also Synopsis Maior A.XII.19 and scholion (u) (Zepos, Jus 5: 51).
18
Hexabiblos 3.3.73. (Bas. 19.10.76 (75) = C. 4.44, from the Codex Constantinopolitanus (1353).
19
One is Hexabiblos 3.3.73 = Bas. 19.10.76(75), which states that a sale which has been concluded with the
consent of the parties cannot be invalidated even if the seller offers double the purchase price to the buyer.
The other, the law on laesio enormis, is Hexabiblos 3.3.6972 = Bas. 19.10.72. Fraud and violence annul con-
tracts: Bas. 19.10.75, 19.8.8, 19.10.71, 19.1.42.
might, at that particular moment, be unproductive of revenue. Such cheap sales are not
reversible, as long as everyone knows his rights.
In his interpretation, the scholiast makes information the basis of proof, and thus viti-
ates the protection that the law had automatically afforded to the seller. The recurring
words dia; cavrin, sugkatabavsei kai; dwrea/' bring to mind the sales contracts of the period,
in which the seller of land, especially but not only to monasteries, includes in the contract
the statement that part of the value of the property has been donatedwhat I have called
the combined sales-and-donation contracts.20
Unfortunately, we do not know by whom the scholion was written. In any case, it must
have been composed before or in 1353, which is the date of the codex Constantino-
politanus, in which it appears. If my interpretation is correct, it shows that someone in
fourteenth-century Thessalonike (if that is where the commentary was written) was high-
lighting and justifying in legal terms a reality which was already in place, and in which
freedom in exchange was extensive, just as judicial or governmental interference was de-
clining. Perhaps this accords well with the defense of private property undertaken by other
intellectuals. It is a viable economic position, in fact a progressive one with regard to the
issue of free exchange. But it does, at the same time, indicate a diminution of social con-
cern, at least if one contrasts it with the intent of older legislation.
LENDING AT INTEREST
It is partly in the various anti-usury treatises that scholars have identified social con-
cern in the fourteenth century, and to this issue I will now turn. In a Christian society, dis-
cussion of lending at interest, with the heavy burden of both Old and New Testament
prohibitions, was inevitable; it was, however, much less heated, less acute, and certainly
less universally negative in Byzantium than in western Europe. This is an important is-
sue in the development of economic thought, and as such it is supremely pertinent to our
topic.
I have discussed Byzantine attitudes toward lending at interest elsewhere, but a few
salient points are worth repeating, by way of background.21 The Byzantines, although they
were heirs to the same Aristotelian and patristic texts as the Western Europeans of the
Middle Ages, had, generally speaking, a very different attitude toward lending at interest
from that of the canonists, theologians, and moralists of the Western early and high
Middle Ages. To put it in summary terms, lending at interest was, in actuality, permitted
to laymen in Byzantium, except for brief periods, while in western medieval Europe it was
not. In the Byzantine Empire, interest was permitted by civil law; canon law, while forbid-
20
See, for example, N. Oikonomids, Actes de Docheiariou (Paris, 1984), no. 42, lines 2434, 70: sale of land
at 600 hyperpyra, while the rest of the price is left to the monastery for the salvation of the soul of the parents
of the seller. Cf. ibid., no. 43, lines 67: this (the previous contract of document 42) is not really a sale, but a
donation. Cf. MM 4: 401, 39495, 4079, 41011, 41214.
21
See A. E. Laiou, God and Mammon: Credit, Trade, Profit and the Canonists, in N. Oikonomides, ed.,
Byzantium in the Twelfth Century: Canon Law, State and Society (Athens, 1991), 261 ff; eadem, The Church, Eco-
nomic Thought and Economic Practice, in R. F. Taft, S. J., The Christian East, Its Institutions and Its Thought
(Rome, 1996), 448 ff, and eadem, Nummus parit nummos: Lusurier, le juriste et le philosophe Byzance, CRAI
(1999): 583604.
ding interest-bearing loans to ecclesiastics, did not extend the prohibition to laymen, nor
did it preach such an extension. The great canonists of the twelfth century accepted that
laymen were allowed to charge interest, and only rarely made hortatory statements re-
garding laymen.22 The recognition, by the canonists, of the validity of civil law necessarily
limited the possibility of debate, and led to a different approach from that adopted in the
West. In the twelfth century, both canonists and the anonymous jurist of the commentary
in the Ecloga Basilicorum seem to have formulated an early theory of interest as profit ac-
cruing to capital, a more advanced formula, in economic terms, than those proposed in
western Europe in the twelfth century or even later.23
Byzantine theologians and moralists, starting with the church fathers of the fourth
century, had a good deal to say against lending at interest. Eustathios of Thessalonike is
one of those who were most vocal against this practice, even though a careful reading of
his work suggests that he was condemning immoderate interest rates rather than the prac-
tice per se and in toto.24 In brief, through the twelfth century, civil law (with a few short-
lived exceptions), as I have suggested, and canon law (with one possible exception) ac-
cepted the reality and the legality of interest-bearing loans, while some moralists and
theologians wrote against it, but with nothing like the complex argumentation and out-
right condemnation that we find in western Europe. An interesting debate is visible in the
twelfth century, but it concerns the legal and economic basis of interest-bearing loans
rather than the moral basis against it.
In Thessalonike of the fourteenth century, by contrast, there seems to have been vivid
concern about lending at interest, and a generally negative attitude, in the texts that have
survived. That there was a debate is suggested by Kavasilas oration against usurers in
which he replies to a number of arguments. But the position of those who defended lend-
ing at interest is known primarily from the polemical texts of their opponents.
A number of the theologians, moralists, and intellectuals of or in Thessalonike wrote
in scathing terms, either about greed (pleonexiva) generally, or about greed and usury specif-
ically. Nikephoros Choumnos, in his Qessalonikeu'si sumbouleutiko;" peri; dikaiosuvnh",25
like all good Byzantines, considered greed to be incompatible with justice, since in its
essence greed means that one tries to appropriate more than is fair, and thus, in a zero-
sum game, cheats others of what belongs to them.26 Choumnos calls greed the oldest evil,
while in one eloquent passage he specifies the evil as being the appropriation of the fruits
of the labor of othersa statement that in other texts is often attached to the taking of in-
terest in a loan.27
Similar statements may be found in the work of Thomas Magistros who, in a letter to
Patriarch Niphon (131014), tells the patriarch that because of his presence and polity, the
rich no longer increase their own property by inappropriate additions while forcing the
22
The exception is the commentary of Zonaras on canons 17 of Nicaea and 5 of Carthage: everyone should
eschew usury: G. A. Rhalles and M. Potles, Suvntagma tw'n qeivwn kai; iJerw'n kanovnwn, vol. 2 (Athens, 1852), 151
52, and vol. 3 (Athens, 1853), 3068.
23
Laiou, Nummus, 589 ff.
24
T. L. F. Tafel, Eustathii metropolitae Thessalonicensis opuscula (repr. Amsterdam, 1964), 72 ff.
25
J.-Fr. Boissonade, Anecdota Graeca, vol. 2 (Paris, 1830; repr. 1962), 13787.
26
Ibid., 157 ff.
27
Ibid., 159, 168.
indigent to weep and making them poorest of the poor.28 Toward the end of the century,
the homilies of Isidore of Thessalonike speak to the same points.29 Mostly, the problem of
usury was addressed in terms which are traditional and show little originality of thought,
especially on the economic aspects of the question. A look at Gregory Palamas will suffice
as an example.
In a sermon on Luke 6:32: kaqw;" qevlete i{na poiw'sin uJmi'n oiJ a[nqrwpoi, poiei'te aujtoi'"
oJmoivw" (as you would like men to do unto you, so do unto them), after having spoken of
the universality of the teaching, and said that it is an easy, just, and profitable command
which differentiates the behavior of Christians from that of others, Palamas becomes more
specific. To love only those who love us, and to lend where we are sure to receive our
money back does not gain us rewards in heaven, nor does it cleanse the soul from sin. To
not love even those who love us is a sinas for example when people rise against those in
authority, civil or ecclesiastical. Usury appears in this context. Those who lend expecting
to recover their capital within a certain time and charge interest, especially high interest,
are worse than sinners, for they disobey both the New Testament and the Old Law. The
emphasis on immoderate interest is common among Byzantine theologians who, more, I
think, than their Western counterparts, seem to condemn illegally high rates of interest
rather than interest in general.30 This is normal, perhaps, since they had to live with the
fact that civil law permitted interest-bearing loans. Lending to those who cannot return
the money, says Palamas, is a seed that will result in a crop that will multiply the benefit, in
the afterlife. A little more interesting is the statement that he who lends at interest mars
not only his own reputation but also that of his city, since he does not use to her benefit the
goods he has as her citizen and by virtue of being her citizen.31 Finally, here, as in earlier
texts, one is allowed a little uncertainty as to what exactly is being condemned. The gen-
eral tenor is the blanket condemnation of interest. However, when Palamas becomes more
specific, he seems to be talking about those who have no money (to whom no one wants to
lend) and those who are poor but not indigent (to whom creditors lend money at interest,
thus causing them to lose everything they possess). In other words the real condemnation
is on social grounds, or on grounds of justice as conceived by the Byzantines: it is not just
for one person to have surplus funds and not to share them with those who have no
money.32
28
PG 145: 369: nu'n ouj pevnhtav" ejsti pro;" eujpovrwn kakou'sqai, kaqavper ejn povlewn aJlwvsei karpoumevnwn tou;"
dustucei'" kai; ta; me;n sfevter aujtw'n ajtovpoi" ejpauxovntwn prosqhvkai", ejkeivnou" de; klaivein ajnagkazovntwn kai;
kaqistavntwn penhvtwn pevnhta".
29
See O. Tafrali, Thessalonique au 14me sicle (Paris, 1913), 112 note 1, 116 note 3, and B. Ch. Christo-
forides, Isidwvrou Glabav Arciepiskovpou Qessalonivkh" omilive", (vol. 1 [Thessalonike, 1992], no. 28, M 46 H
= K. N. Tsirpanlis, Sumbolh; eij" th;n iJstorivan th'" Qessalonivkh". Duvo ajnevkdotoi oJmilivai Isidwvrou ajrciepiskovpou
Qessalonivkh", Theologia 42 [1971]: 54881), no. 31 (pp. 85 ff ).
30
Sophokleous tou ex Oikonomon, Grhgorivou ajrciepiskovpou Qessalonivkh" tou' Palama' oJmilivai 22 (Athens,
1861), 46 ff. Cf. J. R. Melville Jones, ed., Eustathios of Thessaloniki. The Capture of Thessaloniki (Canberra, 1988),
154; Tn.L.F. Tafel, Eustathii metropolitae Thessalonicensis Opuscula (Frankfurt, 1832 [repr. Amsterdam, 1964]), 72
ff. Palamas makes reference to Luke 6:34, Deut. 23:19, 20, Levit. 25:37, and Psalm 14:5. The usurer destroys
the life of the borrower, and loses his own soul, for usury is the child of vipers.
31
This is by reference to Psalm 54:11.
32
Palamas also condemns both pleonexiva (greed, but with the additional meaning of desiring or having
more than ones just share) and filarguriva (avarice), in a traditional manner: cf., e.g., his sermon on
filarguriva, in C. Triantaphyllis and A. Grappoutos, Sullogh; Ellhnikw'n Anekdovtwn, vol. 1 (Venice, 1874),
11521.
The general attitude of our intellectuals then, is one of condemnation of the usurer on
social and moral grounds, since he, with his greed, causes his fellow men to suffer. There
is feeling in these texts, and indignation, but there is not much to interest the historian of
the economy or of economic thought.
Nicholas Kavasilas does introduce some novelties in the debate. Certainly, his two
works on the subject, his Oration against Usurers (Lovgo" kata; tokizovntwn) and his address On
Usury (Peri; tovkou), are the best-known texts on the subject from this period.33 The Ora-
tion against Usurers is also the fullest such text after those of the fourth-century fathers.34
In it, Kavasilas takes up various arguments that purportedly are used by usurers to justify
the practice of lending at interest. He defeats them all, to his own satisfaction. He argues
his case by reference to divine law and makes some interesting, and to my knowledge
unique, remarks about the tenor of civil law. He discusses the effects of usury mostly in
moral terms, somewhat less clearly and certainly less profoundly in economic terms. His
analysis is indebted to patristic writings.
Let us look more closely at some of his arguments. His oration starts almost in medias
res, with no introduction and no general statements, as if in the middle of an argument, or
as if it were a preamble to a law, although it is surely too lengthy for that. There are some,
he says, who argue that it is not mandatory to follow the law that forbids usury; those who
do follow the law are praiseworthy, but those who wish to contravene it may do so. This
looks like a direct reference to Novel 83 of Leo VI, which had rescinded the interest pro-
hibition legislated by his father, Basil I (Procheiros Nomos 16.14), and which had started with
the statement: it would have been excellent and salvific if the human race conformed to
the laws of the Holy Spirit and did not need human laws, and ended by saying he (Leo
VI) does not wish to blame (his fathers) law itself; however, that law is too perfect, and so
he rescinds it. Kavasilas says that not one of the ancient laws is so framed that one may con-
travene it at will, and continues with a reference to the Psalms, which forbid interest alto-
gether (Ps. 54:11, 12, 27:14). Economic arguments against the taking of interest are inter-
spersed in the discussion.
Those who charge interest, says Kavasilas, do not work or take any risks; they gain
without toil. It is an argument that, in various forms, has been used from the fourth cen-
tury until and including Karl Marx.35 But Kavasilas neither expands on it nor presents it
in an economic context, but rather sees it as a factor differentiating usury from adultery,
murder, and theft, all of which are also illegal, but carry risk, unlike usury. Equally unde-
veloped is the following argument: the usurer is profiting from the labor of others, to in-
crease his money.36 This is in the context of saying that even alms given by the usurer do
33
PG 150: 72750; R. Guilland, Le trait indit sur lusure de Nicolas Cavasilas, in Eij" mnhvmhn Spurivdwno"
Lavmprou (Athens, 1935), 26977. On Kavasilas, see Chr. Baltogou, H oikonomikhv skevyh tou Nikovlaou
Kabavsila, Buzantiakav 16 (1996): 191213, a disappointing discussion; M. Pantazopoulos, Rwmai>ko;n divkaion
ejn dialektikh'/ sunarthvsei pro;" to; Ellhnikovn (Thessalonike, 1979), 3: 139 ff; cf. Baltoglou, Economic Thought
in the Last Byzantine Period, in Ancient and Medieval Economic Ideas and Concepts of Social Justice, ed. S. Todd
Lowry (LeidenNew York, 1998), 42123, and K.-P. Matschke and F. Tinnefeld, Die Gesellschaft im spten Byzanz
(Cologne, 2001), 34755.
34
The date is traditionally thought to be 1351, but for no compelling reason. See below, 21718.
35
See Gregory of Nyssa, PG 44: 672; Zonaras commentary on canon 17 of Nicaea, in Rhalles and Potles,
Suvntagma, 2: 15152.
36
PG 150: 733.
not profit him, for what he gives is not legally his. Thus Kavasilas condemns usurers be-
cause they multiply their money, that is, they make a profit, by appropriating the fruits of
the labor of others. The connection between interest and lack of labor on the part of the
lender is an idea of patristic origin that seems to have found virtually no development
since the twelfth century.37
In Kavasilas, there is a little development of the idea, but not in a way that promotes
further thought. The usurer says, in his own defense, that by lending at interest he has
saved many people from poverty. Kavasilas contests the intent: it was not charity but love
of profit that made the usurer behave in this manner. In point of fact, the usurer aims at a
transfer of wealth, from the borrower to himself. Any increase in wealth has resulted from
the labor of the borroweragain, we have the condemnation of laborless profit. It should
be noted here that Kavasilas is clearly and unambiguously talking of productive loans. But
this does not lead him to any discussion or differentiation between consumption loans and
loans for production; this is not unique in Byzantine writings about usury, but certainly
there is less profundity here than in the twelfth century.
Finally, there is the argument presented by usurers that, while they might eschew
charging interest to the poor, they might reasonably demand it from the rich. This could
have become an economic argument regarding profit to capital, such as that developed
in the twelfth century. Kavasilas does not permit it to become so. He says simply that the
wealth of the creditor does not enter into it: all interest is illegal; sucking the blood out of
the poor is simply a much worse sin.38 The economic argumentation, then, is really rather
thin, much thinner than among the twelfth-century canonists.
The moral argument is not original or subtle either, and a reference to the sterility of
money depends entirely on a text of St. Basil. Usury is a mark of the human race, although
the command is to love ones fellow man. If the New Testament (Matt. 25:4146) con-
demns to eternal fire those who do not give to the needy from their own property, how
much more will the usurer be punished, who takes the property of others? Nor will alms-
giving profit the usurer, for he gives not of his own but of the property of others. People
should lend money without expecting gain, a good Old Testament statement. The usurer
harms not only himself but the city as well, just as the murderer or the thief does. Besides,
had not St. Basil, when famine struck, laid the blame at the foot of the usurers? Remit,
he had said, the heavy interest, so that the earth may bear its usual fruit. For when cop-
per and gold and sterile things give birth unnaturally, nature which naturally bears fruit
becomes sterile.39 This argument on the sterility of money, which originates perhaps with
Aristotle, certainly with the fourth-century fathers, and which led to so much productive
thinking in western Europe, is here presented without any originality.
One other line of thought, on the contrary, has some value. The usurers, says Kavasilas,
bring forth the argument that they do not deal unjustly with anyone, since they receive
from people who are willing. This is, in highly reduced form, an excellent argument deriv-
ing from Roman law, which accepts and defends the validity of contracts agreed upon by
free individuals, in the absence of fraud, violence, or constraint. But, counters Kavasilas,
37
Laiou, Nummus, 599 and note 47; PG 150: 733. This seems to be based on St. Basil and St. Gregory of
Nyssa.
38
PG 150: 740.
39
PG 150: 729, 73233, 73637, 748, and PG 31: 269.
these loan contracts are not truly freely arrived at; rather, people are forced by need, and
they choose the lesser evil against the greater one: they have borrowed money from the
usurer earlier, they cannot repay it, they fear he will not lend to them again, and so they suf-
fer him to eat away their property by charging interest.40 So this is a contract forced by need,
and not the result of the exercise of free will. The argument presented here could have been
one with major implications: it is connected with the very important question of what con-
stitutes force, and therefore invalidates contracts. Does economic need constitute constraint
of such a kind that the freedom of the will of the individual cannot be exercised? It is a ques-
tion to which the answer ever shifts, in medieval times as in modern. Occasionally, in Byzan-
tium, it had been accepted that economic need indeed invalidates contracts: see the Novel
of 934. But in the late period, as we know from the documentation of the patriarchal tribu-
nal in Constantinople, although people tried to show that economic need constituted force,
and therefore invalidated contracts, the argument was never accepted.41 Thus the contract-
ing individual, in the absence of physical or political force, was assumed to be acting of his
or her free will. Kavasilas does not develop an argument to the contrary. He introduces the
idea that contracts involving loans at interest are not entered upon with the free will of the
borrower, but he quickly dissolves this into a larger argument that the lender offends not
only the borrower but also the commonwealth, and God himself.42
More interesting is Kavasilas attitude to the civil laws. Here one may say that he is,
indeed, original, for the common attitude, certainly the attitude of the twelfth-century
canonists, was that the laws are to be observed which allow laymen to charge interest. To
justify their practices, Kavasilas usurers bring forth the civil law: imperial law permits
one to make profits in this fashion, which it would never have done, had it been a sin.43
He first responds by saying that divine law has greater validity anyway, but then he gets
into a real discussion. It is not every law, he says, that permits interest; some permit it and
some not, and so according to some laws the usurer is allowed to do this, while according
to others he is not. The reference to a law that disallows interest must be to the law of Basil
I that was later abrogated by Leo VI. The usurer continues by noting that Basil Is mea-
sure is new law, and that the old law had permitted interest. Kavasilas counters with an ar-
gument that starts off well and then breaks down: is every new law worse than the old one?
If so, then the usurer, who chooses which law to follow and therefore acts as a legislator, is
the newest lawmaker of all. Besides, there is the old law and the oldest law, that of God,
which forbids interest; at this point, the argument becomes specious.
Kavasilas argues further, on the basis of the laws which forbid clerics to charge inter-
est, and permit aristocrats to charge only very low interest, that civil law clearly disap-
proves of interest, for it allows it only or mostly to base individuals, not to the best ones.
The law, he says, allows the worst people to charge the highest interest rates, and the
better people to charge the lower ones. Thus the law, continues our author, likens inter-
est rates to the character of the lender, permitting rates appropriate to ones depravity
(mocqhriva).44 In that case, says the usurer, why do we have laws? The answer constitutes one
40
PG 150: 748.
41
See, e.g., MM 2: 36166 (1400).
42
Ibid.
43
PG 150: 740.
44
PG 150: 74144.
of the densest passages in this oration, and it makes reference to a number of the provi-
sions of the laws governing interest, even though the references are oblique. According to
Kavasilas argument, the laws exist so that usurers will not charge the high interest al-
lowed by ancient laws (could this be a reference to the pre-Justinianic law, or even to the
pre-Constantinian period, when interest was unlimited?) but will limit their demands. The
creditor may not receive higher interest even if the borrower is willing to pay it and has
signed a contract to that effect.45 Besides, the law states only the maximum interest al-
lowed, not the minimum. Therefore, it is possible for a borrower to pay no interest, if it has
been so agreed. Furthermore, in the case where there is no explicit mention of interest,
the creditor may not demand it later. This is clear reference to the Hexabiblos 3.7.4: In-
terest on the interest is not taken, nor interest which has not been agreed upon, that is, in-
terest about which there was no agreement at the beginning of the case. Kavasilas is here
using the provisions of civil law to prove that the law only halfheartedly permits interest;
or, as he puts it, you see that the law governing interest is not a law promulgated by men
who want interest, but by men who would abolish it.46
This is, as I have indicated, by far the most original part of the oration. It goes right to
the heart of the matter: civil law permitted interest, and throughout Byzantine history
canonists and theologians had to take that into account. Kavasilas stands the law on its
head; he argues against its validity, on the basis of the legislation of Basil I and disregard-
ing the fact that the latter was short-lived. He finds in the current legislation sufficient hes-
itation to allow him to say that the law itself is not such that one should obey it. We will see
that contemporary legal compilations provide grounds for such argumentation.
There is one other point of originality in this oration. Kavasilas internationalizes the
argument: the Byzantines, he says, are unique in permitting interest, for neither the Jews,
nor the barbarians who are currently occupying Palestine, that is the Muslims, nor the
various Latin races do so. Only in our parts, following a wisdom acquired I know not
where, the wise race of usurers has invented a new form of public salvation: iniquity . . .
and they try to persuade men to replace divine commands by their own desires.47 He is
absolutely correct, of course, for the Byzantines (along with the Syrian church) were the
only peoples of the Book to permit interest. The fact that he is aware of the practices of
Muslims, Jews, and western Christians is in itself interesting and may provide one element
of explanation for the extensive opposition to usury in the fourteenth century: the pres-
ence of foreign merchants, primarily Italians, who in their contracts avoided mention of
interest, as we know from sources outside Thessalonike. Our author had the experience
of Constantinople as well.
Kavasilas address on usury, addressed to Anna of Savoy probably in 1351 from Thes-
salonike where they both were, is more circumstantial than the oration we have just ana-
lyzed.48 The author is trying to persuade the regent, and through her the Emperor John
V, to reissue a law of Andronikos III, dating from the end of the civil war between the two
Andronikoi, which had remitted the interest (though not the capital) of the debts of the
45
Hexabiblos 3.7.9, 12.
46
PG 150: 744.
47
PG 150: 736.
48
Text and commentary in Guilland, Le trait (as above, note 33). For the date, see R.-J. Loenertz,
Chronologie de Nicolas Cabasilas, 13451354, OCP 21 (1955): 223 ff.
poorest creditors, the ones who had most suffered during the war.49 The concern here is
more social than economic or ideological. There is no general invective against the laws on
usury; indeed, Kavasilas insists that these laws retain their validity, which is different from
his argument in the oration. He adopts a moral and moralizing attitude, launching accu-
sations against the rich for acting unjustly, for enriching themselves while ruining others,
for behaving like wild animals, like robbers and thieves, all reminiscent of passages of
the oration.50 There is only one interesting, but very tendentious argument which has a
legal context. Kavasilas tries to argue that the interest (tovko") on a loan is like a deposit
(parakataqhvkh), in that the person who holds another mans property in deposit, if he has
lost it through the actions of robbers, that is outsiders, is not required to return the deposit
which he no longer holds in his possession. By analogy, the capital of a loan was meant to
profit the borrower, so he has to restore it, even if he has lost it. On the other hand, the
purpose of the interest was to benefit not the debtor, but rather the creditor. The money
the borrower may have held in connection with the interest was not for himself, but rather
was held by him in order to benefit the creditor. Therefore, interest is similar to deposit,
and in case of unexpected calamity the borrower cannot be held responsible for its loss.
No law that I know of is being textually reproduced here. Kavasilas meaning is clear,
however. The substance of the legislation on deposit is covered by Bas. 13.2.20 and
13.2.35.51 The closest parallel, in fact, is Procheiros Nomos 18.11, part of which is reproduced
in Hexabiblos 3.9.15, and which does say that if a person holding a deposit loses it because
of a robbery, his heirs are not held liable. In the absence of specific agreement to the con-
trary, the person is held liable only for losses that occur through negligence or fraud. The
extension by analogy of the provision regarding deposit to interest, is specious and gratu-
itous; there are specific legal provisions governing interest, and the legislator at no point
leaves an open question to which the answer has to be found in arguments by analogy.52
Nevertheless, the argument is not without interest. First of all, the very fact that Kavasi-
las is drawing this connection between deposit and interest may have some explanation,
which at the moment eludes me; whatever the explanation may be, it does not suggest that
his legal training was superb. Second, the interest is held to be the property of the credi-
tor, a concept that might be worth some consideration. Third, it is notable that Kavasilas
is making a legal argument, not the economic one which he could have made: he could
have argued, for example, that the expected profit from the loan did not materialize, and
therefore that interest as profit to money should not be charged. Finally, and most impor-
tantly, this argument by analogy does not condemn lending at interest in general, but only
provides a would-be legalistic justification for remitting the interest of those who had
fallen on hard times. The tenor, therefore, is very different from that of the oration against
usury, whatever modern scholars may have said to the contrary.53 This, incidentally, also
puts into question the chronology and the locality of composition of Kavasilas two texts
49
Guilland, Le trait, 274; cf. PG 150: 748 DE, where the borrowers also lose everything.
50
Guilland, Le trait, 274.
51
Also Hexabiblos 3.9.13, 15.
52
Pantazopoulos, Rwmai>ko;n divkaion, 3: 142 states that Kavasilas argument does not accord with Roman law,
which provides for regular and irregular (oJmalh; kai; ajnwvmalo") deposit. Kavasilas examines regular de-
posit, and then generalizes to apply the same terms to interest-bearing loans; in the latter, however, the debtor
is not relieved by chance events from the obligation to pay the interest.
53
See, for example, Angelopoulos, Nikovlao" Kabavsila", 9092.
against usurers. It is universally assumed that the undated oration and the address to
Anna of Savoy are approximately contemporary, written ca. 1351 and in Thessalonike.
The date must be correct as far as the address to Anna of Savoy is concerned. However, the
only reason for assuming contemporaneity between the two texts is the supposed similar-
ity between them. While statements regarding the unfortunate position of the borrowers
are, indeed, similar, the similarity ends here. The argumentation and the recommenda-
tions are quite different. Therefore, as far as I can see, there is no reason to assume either
the date or the place of composition of the oration. The question should be reexamined.
Meanwhile, it seems to me that the best and perhaps the only argument for contempo-
raneity lies in the opening statements of the oration, which, as I have already indicated,
sounds almost like the prooimion to a piece of anti-usury legislation. But this is a rather thin
argument.
In twelfth-century Byzantium, there had been creative thinking on interest by jurists,
canonists, and, in a roundabout way, commentators on Aristotle. By the fourteenth cen-
tury, western Europeans had already developed a very complex argumentation regarding
interest. One is reminded, by way of comparison, of the most complex text that existed in
Greek in the fourteenth century: the chapter on interest in Thomas Aquinas Summa The-
ologica, translated into Greek by Demetrios Kydones before 1363, presumably in Constan-
tinople;54 it is an impressively accurate translation. There are some differences with the
critical edition of the Summa Theologica, but since Kydones himself complained that he had
only one manuscript at his disposal, and could not compare it with other versions,55 one
should be very careful about ascribing the divergences to the intent of the translator.
There is a dizzying difference in the level of argumentation between this and Kavasi-
las texts. There are a few interesting parallels, such as the discussion of the force or con-
straint under which the borrower acts.56 Only in one area are Kavasilas arguments more
developed: that is the issue of civil law, and the licit charging of interest according to its
provisions.57 St. Thomas basic argument is that civil law lets a number of sins go unpun-
ished so as not to inhibit certain benefits that may arise from them, since man is imperfect
(ajtelei'" in the translation; Kavasilas often uses the adjective mocqhrov" as, for example, in
PG 150: 744A, D). He says that civil law does not consider interest just, only necessary. This
54
This is Summa Theologica IIII.78. The unpublished text of the translation was made available to me
through the kindness of Professor E. Moutsopoulos and Mrs. A. Leontsini. On the issue, cf. F. Kianka,
Demetrius Cydones and Thomas Aquinas, Byzantion 52 (1982): 264 ff, and the bibliography on p. 266 note;
St. G. Papadopoulos, Ellhnikai; metafravsei" Qwmistikw'n e[rgwn (Athens, 1967) ; A. Glykofridou-Leontsini, La
traduzione in greco delle opere de Tommaso dAquina, Nicolaus 3 (1975): 42932.
55
Kianka,Cydones and Aquinas, 285.
56
Parallels between the Summa Theologica (ST) and Kavasilas oration: (1) ST 78.2.2: Argument of usurers:
he who lends money does a favor (cavri") to the borrower. Response: if the return is given by contract, it is not
freely given. Kavasilas, PG 150: 733B: Some creditors say that the loans are like charity (ejlehmosuvnh), for they
profit the borrower. The response is rhetorical: is the creditor charitable for giving in order to gain, and for in-
creasing his wealth through the labor of others? (2) The closest equivalent: ST 78.1.7: To;n tovkon eJkousivw" oJ
daneizovmeno" divdwsin. Response: oJ didou;" tovkon oujc aJplw'" eJkousivw" divdwsin, ajlla; metav tino" ajnavgkh" kaqovson
dei'tai labei'n nomivsmata daneivw/ a{per oJ e[cwn a[neu tovkou ouj bouvletai dou'nai. Kavasilas 728B: Kai; tivna, fhsivn,
ajdikou'men, eij par eJkovntwn lambavnomen; Response: The injury is to God, for the borrowers do not pay interest
willingly, but are forced into it: ouj ga;r ajpo; gnwvmh" ejqelousivou proi>evnai t ajrguvrion, ajlla; fevrousin ajposterouv-
menoi kai; zhmiva" ajllavttontai zhmivan. . . .Oti ga;r grammateivoi" katevdhsa", kai; i{na mhv, crhvsasqai dehqevnto", aujqi"
ajpostrafh'", kataboskomevnou th;n oujsivan ajnevcontai. Finally, there is harm to the polity.
57
PG 150: 74045; ST 78, art. 1, no. 4.
is very much what Leo VI had stated. Kavasilas, as we have seen, includes a similar ar-
gument, but gives it short shrift, presenting its refutation much more forcefully, and he
also finds other reasons to play down the importance of civil legislation. The reason
Kavasilas is more interested in this issue is, of course, the much heavier import of civil law
in Byzantium than in the West.
Along with the theologians and men of letters, Thessalonike of the mid-fourteenth
century could also boast the presence of jurists. Two among them are of primary impor-
tance and influence: Constantine Harmenopoulos and Matthew Vlastares. Given the gen-
eral position of Byzantine civil law on the question of lending at interest, it is worth look-
ing at the legal compilation of Constantine Harmenopoulos, the Hexabiblos, which had a
long life and influence. In Book 3, Titles V (on loans and mortgages) and VII (on inter-
est) of the Hexabiblos, the author repeats and summarizes the classic Byzantine legislation
on interest. Harmenopoulos correctly understands the legal interest rates as ranging be-
tween 3, 4, 6, 8, and 12 percent per year (Hexabiblos 3.7.17). An incomplete scholion uses
the pound of gold (72 nomismata) as the basis for calculating interest rates; this calcula-
tion, in use since the eleventh century, results in a maximum rate of 16.67 percent per
year.58 The scholion provides a novel and erroneous explanation of the calculation on the
basis of the pound of gold. There are two original points which merit further discussion.
The first arises from a scholion to Hexabiblos 3.7.9, 11, 12, 13, on provisions that have to
do with the overpayment of interest under various conditions, on the payment of interest
agreed upon through stipulation (Hexabiblos 3.7.13), and on what happens when one has
agreed, by written contract, to pay either excessive or compound interest (Hexabiblos
3.7.12). The scholiast, writing on or before 1353, interprets what appear to be contradic-
tory provisions, and resolves the apparent contradiction. He introduces, not quite gratu-
itously but certainly without being forced to do so by the content of the laws, a strong state-
ment regarding the maximum level which accumulated interest may reach. If, he says, one
has paid interest which he owed or which he did not owe, whether it was legal or illegal,
when the original sum (kefavlaion) is doubled, then the loan is considered to have been
paid in full, both the capital and the legal interest.59 There is nothing terribly novel in this
provision, which is good Roman law; it is simply the repetition that is striking, as is the rep-
etition of the prohibition in two other clauses. We may have here a reflection of a situation
that did arise in contemporary Thessalonike;60 perhaps excessive interest or compound in-
terest over a period of time resulted in accumulated interest that exceeded the capital; this
58
It may be worth repeating the classic Justinianic/Byzantine calculation of interest rates. The basis of the
calculation is the rate of 1% per month (= 12% per year), called centesima (eJkatosthv), which is the maximum
rate permitted by Justinian I in 528, and which may be charged on sea loans and loans in kind. The other,
lower rates, are calculated as fractions of the centesima. Thus merchants and bankers may charge 8% (bes cen-
tesimae, a[cri dimoivrou eJkatosth'"). People of the rank of illustris and above may charge interest only up to 4%
(tertia pars centesimae, a[cri trivtou eJkatosth'"), and all others may charge only 6% (dimidia centesimae, a[cri" hJmivseo"
eJkatosth'"). Loans to pious foundations have a maximum interest rate of 3% (ajpo; tetavrtou eJkatosth'"). See
C. 4.32.28, Bas. 23.3.74. When some Byzantines start calculating on the basis of the pound of gold (72 nomis-
mata), so that the rate of 6%, for example, becomes 6 nomismata per pound (= 8.33%), there is a barely con-
cealed rise in the interest rates. On this development, see Laiou, God and Mammon, 26980.
59
This refers to Hexabiblos 3.7.23, but also to Hexabiblos 3.7.5 (when the interest has doubled the capital,
the interest payments cease).
60
The scholion appears in two manuscripts: the Codex Constantinopolitanus (1353) and the Codex
Bodleianus (1425).
not only was illegal but also, presumably, made it too difficult to pay off the debt, thus pos-
ing both economic and social problems.
The second novelty lies in the fact that, at the end of Title VII, after having discussed
legal interest rates and the conditions governing interest-bearing loans, the jurist, Har-
menopoulos, cites a law which is titled Novel of the Caesar Leo, forbidding interest
(Neara; tou' Kaivsaro" Levonto" to;n tovkon ajpagoreuvousa). The law is misattributed, for the
content makes it clear that it is the law not of Leo VI but of Basil I, which we have already
encountered (Procheiros Nomos 16.14). It had forbidden all lending at interest, on the basis
of the prohibitions posited by divine laws: hence the order that no one receive any in-
terest whatsoever for whatever reason, so that we do not contravene the law of God while
observing the (civil) law. Leo VI, on the other hand, while accepting the greater morality
of divine law, also cites the weakness of human nature, which makes it necessary that in-
terest (albeit a low one) be permitted by human law. Harmenopoulos, however, cites the
prohibition of Basil I, not mentioning the fact that it had been rescinded.61 The most re-
cent editor of the Hexabiblos, K. Pitsakis, writes that this is the most well known case of a
contradiction in the Hexabiblos, and attributes it to a habit of Harmenopoulos who some-
times juxtaposes classic law (cited first) and new law (cited second).62 There is something
more to say on the subject. We note that the mention of Leos (in fact, Basils) law is fol-
lowed by a reference to the fact that all clerics are prohibited from lending at interest, on
the basis of the seventeenth canon of the first council of Nicaea and the tenth canon of the
council in Trullo.63 Whoever wrote this was, I suggest, trying to reinforce the negative
points toward lending at interest which creep into the Hexabiblos through the citation of
Basils legislation.
One is forced to compare this novelty with the nomocanonical text of Matthew
Vlastares, the Suvntagma kata; stoicei'on (Alphabetical Treatise), written in Thessalonike in
close chronological proximity to the Hexabiblos (about ten years earlier). The purpose of
this compilation was to bring together and harmonize civil and ecclesiastical law; to har-
monize them means, to this learned monk, to place those civil laws which are useful . . .
together with the holy canons with which they are in alliance and with which they have
a common voice.64 Interest comes, logically enough, under letter T for tovko". First are
mentioned the canons of the Apostles, of St. Basil, and of the councils of Nicaea I, in
Trullo, Laodicea, Carthage, all of which forbade interest taking to clerics. Then we come
to the civil laws. The first law cited, without attribution, is that of Basil I which forbids all
interest. It is then followed by the old law, that is, the classic legislation which set the le-
61
I will not discuss here the various debates regarding the dating of the Procheiros Nomos and whether it was
issued by Basil I (the traditional view) or by Leo VI. The traditional dating has been disputed by A. Schminck,
Studien zu mittelbyzantinischen Rechtsbchern (Frankfurt, 1986); his arguments have been countered by Th. E. van
Bochove, To Date and Not to Date: On the Date and Structure of Byzantine Law Books (Groningen, 1996), 2956.
62
Hexabiblos 3.7.24. Cf. K. G. Pitsakis, Kwnstantivnou Armenopouvlou Provceiron Novmwn h] Exavbiblo" (Athens,
1971), 203 note 2. On interest legislation in the Hexabiblos, see S. Troianos, H peripevteia tou' buzantinou'
dikaivou sth;n Ellavda tou' 19ou ajiwvna: H perivptwsh tw'n tovkwn, in Praktika; 16ou Panellhnivou Istorikou'
Sunedrivou (Thessalonike, 1996), 219333.
63
Hexabiblos 5.7.25. According to Heimbach, this note also is a marginal gloss to the Codex Constantinop-
olitanus; it is not known, therefore, whether it originates from the pen of Harmenopoulos or another.
64
Rhalles-Potles, Suvntagma, 6, p. 5; Sp. Troianos, Oi phgev" tou Buzantinouv dikaivou, 2d ed. (Athens, 1999),
298.
gal rates.65 Presumably, in the eyes of Vlastares, the old law is superseded by the new law,
although he does not say so. We shall return to the law of Basil I one more time.
Vlastares, however, was not of a single mind, it would appear. For he then discusses the
old law. After having mentioned the legal interest rates, he says that as far as sea loans
are concerned, if the borrower assumes the risk the lender may charge only the legal rate,
that is, the hekatoste, which he correctly defines as 12 percent per year. But if the risk is as-
sumed by the lender, then he may go above the legal rate. This is, indeed, an intriguing
statement. To be sure, pre-Justinianic legislation had permitted those who lent money in
sea loans and assumed the risk to charge interest above the legal rate (C. 4, 33.14). This
was included in the Basilics (53.5.1619, Peri; daneismavtwn diapontivwn) which, however,
also repeats the Justinianic legislation that limits interest on sea loans to 12 percent per
year.
Furthermore, and this is the important point, the classic legislation (Bas. 23.3.74 = C.
4.32.26),66 which lists the various interest rates allowed by Justinian, specifically states that
in the past it had been permitted to charge higher interest in sea loans and loans in kind
(50% in the latter case). The present legislation, it continues, still allows higher interest
than for other loans, but this higher interest is limited to the hekatoste, that is, 12 percent.
Unexpectedly, Vlastares, despite this clear and unambiguous statement, and in contra-
diction to the law, says that the creditor who assumes the risk is allowed interest above the
legal interest, where legal is defined as the hekatoste.67 This is truly an exceptional posi-
tion, which seems almost like a conscious misinterpretation of the lawto cover current
practices? Interestingly, Harmenopoulos reading of the laws is the one intended by Jus-
tinianic legislation: he says that those making sea loans may charge the full 12 percent and
that the creditor who does not assume the risk may not charge this meivzona tovkon which
the 12 percent represents.68
Of all of the other legislation concerning interest, Vlastares mentions only two provi-
sions. First, he notes that the total interest may not exceed the amount of the capital; when
it does, the excess is counted against capital. Second, he cites the basic rule of Roman law,
that one may not charge interest on the interest (that is, compound interest is not allowed).
The text of Vlastares deserves some comment. First, the fact that canon law precedes
civil law is normal in such a text. Second, the admission that sea loans can carry more than
the legal interest, depending on who assumes the risk, is a reference to contemporary re-
alities.69 Third, while Vlastares admits the existence of legal interest, it is clear that he dis-
65
Rhalles-Potles Suvntagma, 6, T. 7, pp. 47376. According to Sp. Troianos, Peri; ta;" nomika;" phga;" Matqaivou
tou' Blavstarh, Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 44 (197980): 321, the source for the provisions is the Justinianic Code; T 7.
475.26476.12 is C. 4.32.26 (cf. Bas. 23.3.74); T 7.476.1618 is C. 4.32.26.4 (cf. Bas. 24.6.26); T 476.1920 is
C. 2.11.20, 4.32.28. (cf. Bas. 23.3.29). T476.1215 derives from the commentary of Valsamon on canon 17 of
the Council of Nicaea: Rhalles-Potles, Suvntagma, 2: 153, 1922.
66
Cf. Hexabiblos 3.7.23.
67
The 10th-century Eklogh; Novmwn summarizes the legal provisions on maritime loans in a way that makes
Vlastares interpretation possible: Zepos, Jus 4, Epitome legum 17: 8588. Vlastares does retain the Justinianic
disposition regarding interest on loans in nature (12%).
68
Hexabiblos 3.7.1819.
69
A document dated 1425 in K. D. Mertzios, Mnhmei'a Makedonikh'" Istoriva" (Thessalonike, 1941), 5556,
mentions an interest rate of 20% on sea loans as being normal, and of long usage in Thessalonike. The Vene-
tians found this excessive and lowered it to 15%.
approves, as a cleric must. This is proven both by the inclusion of the defunct legislation
of Basil I and by the fact that the two other provisions he mentions are restrictive ones. If
we now see the two texts of Harmenopoulos and Vlastares together, it may be that the
mention of Basils law in Harmenopoulos is not a routine matter, but rather a reminder to
his readers that there had, indeed, existed a civil law that forbade interest. We must also
connect this with Kavasilas statement that the new law, of Basil I, should supersede the
old, that is, Justinianic law, and thus that all interest should be forbidden. Kavasilas
had legal training of some sort, although not too much. His oration certainly was written
after the Nomocanon. It was probably written after the Hexabiblos, and it may have been in-
fluenced by these texts. In any case, the combination suggests very strongly that in Thes-
salonike of the mid-fourteenth century (or thereabouts) there was a strong juridical bias
against interest-bearing loans. It is irrelevant to our topic narrowly construed, but not to
the larger question, that the patriarchal court of Constantinople in the fourteenth century
mentions interests far above the legal ones, and also that the court was hostile to the charg-
ing of interest.70 It is not irrelevant to repeat that even Vlastares bows to real conditions,
in which money was dear.
We may now make some general observations. The middle to late fourteenth century
was a troubled time in Thessalonike because of the civil wars and the civil strife. This sit-
uation, which began in the 1320s, must be kept in mind. The economy was active and pro-
ductive in the first half of the century, until the start of the second civil war. Agriculture
seems to have been productive, diversified, and market-oriented, while Thessalonike was
a center of trade for cereals and cloth, among other commodities. But the political insta-
bility introduced elements of economic instability. This was a monetized economy, and
people borrowed money. They borrowed for productive purposes, to be sure. But by the
time of the civil war, profits were uncertain and there were reversals of fortune. Kavasilas
address to Anna of Savoy suggests all this, and also the existence of consumption loans,
since it talks of people who had lost everything except for a ruined house or rags on their
backs, which the creditors would request in satisfaction of their loans. Similar evidence
comes from Isidore of Thessalonike in a much worse economic environment. Credit
clearly was dear, a fact which must be seen in the context of the devaluation of the coinage.
Devaluation meant a decreasing real value of the interest payments, which normally leads
to higher interest rates, as the creditors try to compensate for the decreasing value;71 this
is rational behavior, but devaluation also undoubtedly created a psychology of instability
among creditors. There was as well, it seems, greater social stratification and a growing
gap between rich and poor in Thessalonike.
The economic thoughts and attitudes of the fourteenth-century intellectuals of or in
Thessalonike reflect the problems of the economy and the concerns of society. The econ-
omy was active in the first half of the century, and market principles were followed; but it
70
See MM 2: 38081, 31314; cf. N. P. Matses, O tovko" ejn th'/ nomologiva/ tou' Patriarceivou Kwnstanti-
noupovlew" kata; tou;" IDV kai; IEV aijw'na", Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 38 (1971): 83; E. Papagianni, H nomologiva tw'n ejkklhsi-
astikw'n dikasthrivwn th'" buzantinh'" kai; metabuzantinh'" periovdou sev qevmata periousiakou' dikaivou, vol. 1
(Athens, 1992), 48 and 97.
71
If we knew the exact interest rates charged (nominal interest) and the precise rate of devaluation, we
would be able to calculate by how much the real interest rates (nominal interest discounted by the expected de-
valuation rate) rose: i(nominal) E(dev) = i(real). We do not, however, have such exact information.
operated with an increasing degree of uncertainty. This led thinking people to speculate
on causes and remedies. Along with speculation on moral and political issues, there was
concern about the terms of exchange and credit. For the first time since the ninth century,
there were voices arguing for the prohibition of interest-bearing loans. That the argu-
ments were not entirely consistent, and that they mostly went in a different direction from
that which seems to have been followed in the matter of freedom of exchange is not, per-
haps, surprising; for we do not have here a developed economic theory but, rather, re-
sponses to contemporary realities.
Harvard University

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
Civic and Monastic Influences on Church Decoration
in Late Byzantine Thessalonike
SHARON E. J. GERSTEL
In loving memory of Thalia Gouma-Peterson
he analysis of style in late thirteenth- and fourteenth-century monumental decoration

T helps to assemble a cohesive group of painted churches sited primarily in greater
Macedonia and Serbia. Rooted in the strong painting tradition of Komnenian Thessa-
lonike,1 this late Byzantine style is characterized by voluminous figures drawn in thick line,
expressive facial features and vibrant gestures, bright colors with deep undertones, and
narratives infused with complex theological and liturgical references. That this new
style can also be traced in churches in the south of Greece and the Aegean islands,2 where
it competed with artistic practices forged by cross-cultural interactions, attests to its pop-
ular appeal and its dissemination beyond the boundaries of a restricted geographical area.
The inspiring hand behind this new or renewed Macedonian style was the painter
known to us as Manuel Panselinos, whose work at the Protaton church on Mount Athos of
ca. 1290 stands at the beginning of a long chain of related monuments.3 His works are as-
sociated with those of the painters Michael Astrapas, Eutychios, Kallierges, and a number
of still-anonymous figures that traveled the trade and communication routes connecting
Thessalonike with Chalkidike, greater Macedonia, Serbia, Thessaly, Thrace, and distant
Constantinople. Style has traditionally formed the connective tissue in constructing a cor-
pus of related monuments in the region. In this paper, however, I examine the represen-
1
For a discussion of a regional painting style in the Komnenian period, see E. Tsigaridas, Oi toicografive"
th" monhv" Latovmou Qessalonivkh" kai h buzantinhv zwgrafikhv tou 12ou aiwvna (Thessalonike, 1986).
2
See, e.g., A. Vasilake-Karakatsane, OiJ toicografive" th'" Omorfh" Ekklhsia'" sth;n Aqhvna (Athens, 1971);
M. Chatzidakis, Rapports entre la peinture de la Macdoine et de la Crte au XIVe sicle, in IX CEB, vol. 1
(Athens, 1955), 13748.
3
E. Tsigaridas addressed this topic at the 2001 Dumbarton Oaks symposium. See also E. Tsigaridas, O kur
Manouhvl Pansevlhno", in supplement to H Kaqhmerinhv: Eptav hmevre" (2930 April 2000): 211; idem, Forhtev"
eikovne" sth Makedoniva kai to VAgion VOro" katav to 13o aiwvna, Delt.Crist.Arc.Et. 21 (2000): 12355; M. Vasi-
lake, Uphvrxe Manouhvl Pansevlhno" ?, in Manuel Panselinos and His Age, Institute for Byzantine Research,
Byzantium Today 3 (Athens, 1999), 3954; A. Xyngopoulos, Manouhvl Pansevlhno" (Athens, 1956). For a con-
trast between stylistic trends in Thessalonike and Constantinople in this period, see M. Panayotidi, Les ten-
dances de la peinture de Thessalonique en comparaison avec celles de Constantinople, comme expression de
la situation politico-conomique de ces villes pendant le XIVe sicle, in Byzantium and Serbia in the 14th Cen-
tury, National Hellenic Research Foundation Institute for Byzantine Research, International Symposium 3
(Athens, 1996), 35162.
226 CIVIC AND MONASTIC INFLUENCES ON CHURCH DECORATION
tation and diffusion of specific subjects in order to explore how monumental decoration
in Thessalonikes churches may have been influenced by events that transpired in the city
in the fourteenth century, how ecclesiastical decoration may have responded to a civic or
regional piety that was distinctive of Byzantiums second city, and how the representation
of specific subjects within a limited number of churches may have proclaimed Athonite af-
filiation and influence.4 Common subject matter has been the criterion for assembling the
monuments discussed in this study. As we shall see, many of the churches cited have also
been linked, in the past, on stylistic grounds.
THE INFLUENCE OF CONTEMPORARY EVENTS

The large number of churches constructed in the early fourteenth century and the
high quality of their decoration attest to a large pool of patrons with the ability to hire the
best available artisans. A painted epigram bordering the sanctuary in St. Demetrios
records a crucial repair to the church and testifies to one of the few imperially sponsored
projects in the city at this time. The lower part of the inscription, which is ascribed to the
Constantinopolitan poet Manuel Philes, refers to renovations supported by Michael IX
Palaiologos, who died in Thessalonike in 1320: This sacred structure, [which was] tested
by time and which threatened to crumble in on itself, Michael, the crown-bearer, has bril-
liantly repaired. Finding its roof completely rotted and its tiles wholly damaged, so much
so that they could not repel the squalls of rain, he fashioned it anew so that it appears now,
from its foundations, as an astonishing wonder.5 Written sources and surviving monu-
ments suggest that projects of ecclesiastical construction and renovation, like that under-
taken by Michael, were a regular feature of urban life in the first decades of the century.
The remaining years, however, were punctuated by moments of crisis; the number of
monuments constructed in or recorded from the middle and late fourteenth century ta-
pers dramatically. The events that plagued the city in this period are well known, but the
litany bears repeating in this context: the bitter wars between Andronikos II and his
grandson, the Zealot uprising, the defense of hesychasm, severe outbreak of disease, and
the Turkish invasions. Some of these events are captured in the material remains of the pe-
riod. Fragments of a sarcophagus found in the Vlatadon monastery once housed the re-
mains of George Kapandrites, scion of one of the citys aristocratic families. An inscription
on its cover, originally inlaid with the familys coat of arms and monograms, laments the
loss of the young man to the plague (novsw/ takevnta loimikh'" ajrrwstiva").6 Excavations
4
This paper does not include a discussion of the program of Holy Apostles, which was most likely painted
by a workshop from Constantinople.
5
The verse begins with an invocation to the Virgin, who procured the crown for Michael, prince of Rome,
and gave him a life long and exempt of illnesses as well as victory over [his] enemies. In the inscribed sup-
plication Michael calls upon the archangels, apostles, hierarchs, and martyrs. The text, according to some
scholars, may refer rhetorically to figures that were depicted within the church. See. J.-M. Spieser, Inventaires
en vue dun recueil des inscriptions historiques de Byzance, I, Les inscriptions de Thessalonique, TM 5
(1973): 17173; M. Lascaris, Micah;l Q v oJ Palaiolovgo" ejn ejpigrafh'/ tou' Agivou Dhmhtrivou Qessalonivkh",
Arc.Ef.(195354), 410; G. and M. Soteriou, H basilikh; tou' Agivou Dhmhtrivou Qessalonivkh" (Athens, 1952),
22124.
6
The epigram on the sarcophagus has been ascribed to Manuel Philes. A. Xyngopoulos, To; kavlumma th'"
sarkofavgou tou' Gewrgivou Kapandrivtou, Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 11 (1935): 34660 (repr. in A. Xyngopoulos, Qessa-
SHARON E. J. GERSTEL 227
within the city walls have also yielded evidence of social unrest. The quick, multiple buri-
als within a fourteenth-century graveyard lying over the Roman hippodrome may reflect
substantial political upheaval or rampant disease.7 At least seven of the churches that still
stand in the citySt. Nicholas Orphanos,8 Hagia Sophia,9 St. Panteleimon,10 Taxiarches,11
the Vlatadon monastery,12 Panagia ton Chalkeon,13 and the Metamorphosis of the Sav-
ior14and perhaps several others, contain burials that can be dated to this time. These
burials demonstrate the desire of late medieval supplicants to be buried in close proxim-
ity to the sacred, even within earlier churches, and reveal a funerary function that may yet
hold implications for the reading of decorative programs and architectural additions to
them in this period.
Traces of the events that so preoccupied the fourteenth-century residents of the city
are less apparent in surviving works of ecclesiastical decoration. Chrysanthi Mavropoulou-
Tsioume has suggested that the graphic Massacre of the Innocents painted in the narthex
of Prophitis Elias (Fig. 1) conjures the bloody massacre of the citys aristocrats lamented by
Demetrios Kydones.15 Painted several decades after the Zealot uprising of 1345, the mas-
sacre is depicted in a highly emotional manner, bringing to life Kydones vivid description
of the slaughter of the citys aristocrats, who were forced to jump from the citys ramparts
only to be dismembered and abused by the rabble below: So, as some were thrusting the
victims off the top, others, holding swords below them, caught them in mid-air. One vic-
tims head would be shattered, anothers brains would spill out, and, upon tearing open
lonivkeia Melethvmata [Thessalonike, 1999], 6378); A. Xyngopoulos, To; ejllei'pon temavcion ejk tou' kaluvmmato"
th'" sarkofavgou tou' Gewrgivou Kapandrivtou, Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 16 (1940): 15760 (repr. in Xyngopoulos, Qessa-
lonivkeia Melethvmata, 14548); Spieser, Les inscriptions, 17374; Th. Pazaras, Anavglufe" sarkofavgoi kai
epitavfie" plavke" th" mevsh" kai uvsterh" buzantinhv" periovdou sthn Ellavda (Athens, 1988), 35.
7
A. Vavylopoulou-Charitonidou, Cramique doffrande trouve dans des tombes byzantines tardives de
lHippodrome de Thessalonique, in Recherches sur la cramique byzantine, ed. V. Droche and J.-M. Spieser
(Athens, 1989), 20926.
8
A. Xyngopoulos, Newvterai e[reunai eij" to;n Agion Nikovlaon Orfano;n Qessalonivkh", 6 (1964): 9098
(repr. in Xyngopoulos, Qessalonivkeia Melethvmata, 44858).
9
A. Xyngopoulos, Tucai'a euJrhvmata ejn Makedoniva/, Arc.Delt. 9 (192425): 6667 (repr. in Xyngopoulos,
Qessalonivkeia Melethvmata, 15), describes two tombs found in the chamber to the south of the bema. Tomb
B contained three fragments of woven clothing, which Xyngopoulos attributed to the Palaiologan period.
10
Unpublished. This information was kindly provided me by A. Tsigarida.
11
A. Xyngopoulos, Tevssare" mikroi; naoi; th'" Qessalonivkh" (Thessalonike, 1952), 1617.
12
D. Makropoulou, To buzantinov koimhthvrio th" monhv" Blatavdwn, in Cristianikhv Qessalonivkh: Stauroph-
giakev" kai enoriakev" Monev" (Thessalonike, 1995), 23744; eadem, Apov to usterobuzantinov nekrotafeivo th"
Monhv" Blatavdwn, H Qessalonivkh 1 (1985): 255309.
13
Arc.Delt. 43:B2 (1987): 397.
14
Arc.Delt. 37:B2 (1982): 287 and 38:B2 (1983): 281 describe the discovery of a tomb in the south conch
that contained a skeleton and two glazed ceramic vessels. For the original dedication of the church to the Vir-
gin, see E. Kourkoutidou-Nikolaidou, To egkaivnio tou naouv tou Swthvro", Qessalonivkh, H Qessalonivkh 1
(1985): 20517.
15
Ch. Mavropoulou-Tsioume, H mnhmeiakhv zwgrafikhv sth Qessalonivkh sto deuvtero misov tou 14ou aiwvna,
in Eujfrovsunon. Afievrwma sto;n Manovlh Catzhdavkh, vol. 2 (Athens, 1992), 663. For the identification of the
church in the Byzantine period, see G. Theocharides, Duvo neva e[ggrafa ajforw'nta eij" th;n Nevan Monh;n th'" Qes-
salonivkh", Makedonikav 4 (195560), 31551; V. Laurent, Le mtropolite de Thessalonique Gabriel (1397
1416/19) et le couvent de la Nea Moni, Ellhnikav 13 (1954): 25254; idem, Une nouvelle fondation de
Choumnos: La Nea Moni de Thessalonique, REB 13 (1955): 116; Th. Papazotos, The Identification of the
Church of Profitis Elias in Thessaloniki, DOP 45 (1991): 12127.
anothers belly, they would venture to probe things that no man has a right to see.16 With
the full publication of Thessalonikes monumental programs, scholars may obtain a better
understanding of how the Zealot revolt and other sociopolitical events may have affected
the decoration of the citys churches.
THESSALONIAN PIETY
In the absence of clear links to Thessalonikes civic history, I now turn to its religious life.
From the earliest years of the fourteenth century, monasticism played a large role in the
decorative programs of the citys ecclesiastical structures, even, significantly, in the few
structures that were sponsored by secular patrons. The chapel attached to the southeast
corner of the church of St. Demetrios reveals monastic influence, even if its patron was
a military commander stationed in the city. Restored in 1303 by Michael Glavas
Tarchaneiotes and his wife, Maria, the diminutive basilica is dedicated to St. Euthymios, the
founder of Palestinian cenobitic monasticism. Scholars have viewed the couples inability to
conceive a child as the motivating force behind the chapels unusual dedication to this
saint.17 Euthymios was indeed born to aged parents, and the first scene in the representa-
tion of his Life, located on the chapels west wall, shows his parents praying to conceive a
child. The majority of the illustrated scenes, however, depict his monastic vocation. Thalia
Gouma-Peterson has suggested that the representation of the Life of Euthymios within the
chapel demonstrates pictorially the importance of the monk in contemporary Byzantine
society.18 Many agree that the small chapel echoes the standard decorative program of
larger churches of the period;19 this view should be refined, however, to reflect the type of
program and its potential audience, that is, monastic. In addition to scenes from the
monastic Life of the titular saint, the program includes portraits of the sainted monks
Theodore the Stoudite and Stephen the Younger (Fig. 2). Such images are generally in-
cluded in chapels or churches intended for monastic use. These portraits complement the
monumental icon of Euthymios on the south pier flanking the sanctuary, a site generally re-
served for the image of Christ (Fig. 4). Demetrios, to whom the adjoining basilica is dedi-
cated, is represented on the north pier (Fig. 3). These panels have been viewed as a visual
expression of the military and monastic components that marked the empire of Andronikos
II.20 This may indeed be the case. However, there may be more to the decision to add a
chapel with an overtly monastic message to the empires principal shrine of St. Demetrios.
16
J. W. Barker, The Monody of Demetrios Kydones on the Zealot Rising in 1345 in Thessaloniki, in Es-
says in Memory of Basil Laourdas (Thessalonike, 1975), 298. Recently, R. Nelson has approached the scene of the
Massacre in the exonarthex of the church of the Savior at Chora in a similar manner. Quoting from the lament
written by Alexios Makrembolites over the loss of Asia Minor to the Turks, Nelson suggests that the detailed
scene may have resonated with the churchs patron, Theodore Metochites, originally from Nicaea. See R. S.
Nelson, Taxation with Representation: Visual Narrative and the Political Field of the Kariye Camii, Art His-
tory 22 (1999): 5682.
17
G. I. Theocharides, Micah;l Douvka" Glaba'" Tarcaneiwvth", Ep.Ep.Fil.Sco.Pan.Qe". 7 (1956): 2023.
18
Th. Gouma-Peterson, The Parecclesion of St. Euthymios in Thessalonica: Art and Monastic Policy under
Andronicos II, ArtB 58 (1976): 182.
19
E.g., see Th. Gouma-Peterson, The Frescoes of the Parekklesion of St. Euthymios in Thessaloniki: Pa-
urcic and D. Mouriki (Princeton, N.J., 1991),
trons, Workshops and Style, in The Twilight of Byzantium, ed. S. C
112.
20
Gouma-Peterson, The Parecclesion, 173.
1 Prophitis Elias, Thessalonike. Massacre of the Innocents (after Thessaloniki and Its Monuments [Thessalonike, 1985],
pl. 31)
2 Chapel of St. Euthymios, Thessalonike. St. Stephen the Younger (photo: courtesy of the Photographic
Archive, Benaki Museum, Athens)
3 Chapel of St. Euthymios, Thessalonike. St. Demetrios (photo: author)
4 Chapel of St. Euthymios, Thessalonike. St. Euthymios (photo: P. Papachatzidakes)
5 Protaton church, Mount Athos. Drawing of northwest chapel, north wall. Barlaam and Ioasaph (after
Djuric, Les conceptions hagiorites, fig. 13)
6a St. George, Omorphokklesia, near Kastoria. Ioasaph (after E. G. Stikas, Une glise des
Palologues aux environs de Castoria, BZ 51 [1958]: fig. 5)
6b St. George, Omorphokklesia, near Kastoria. Barlaam (photo: author)
7a, b Panagia Olympiotissa, Elasson. Barlaam and Ioasaph (after E. Constantinides, The Wall Paintings of the Panagia
Olympiotissa at Elasson in Northern Thessaly, vol. 2 [Athens, 1992], 186a, b)
8 Prophitis Elias, Thessalonike. Barlaam and Ioasaph (photo: author)

9 Protaton church, Mount Athos. Pachomios and the Angel; detail (photo: courtesy of the Photo-
graphic Archive, Benaki Museum, Athens)
10 St. George, Staro Nagoricino. St. Pachomios and the Angel (after G. Millet and A. Frolow, La
peinture du Moyen ge en Yougoslavie [Serbie, Macdoine, et Montngro], vol. 3 [Paris, 1962], pl. 116.3, 4)
11 Panagia Olympiotissa, Elasson. Pachomios and the Angel (after Constantinides, Panagia
Olympiotissa at Elasson, fig. 182)
12 Vatopedi monastery, Mount Athos. Heavenly Ladder (after E. Tsigaridas, The Mosaics and the
Wall Paintings, in The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopaidi: TraditionHistoryArt, vol. 1 [Mount
Athos, 1998], 274)
13 Protaton church, Mount Athos. Hosios David of Thessalonike (photo: courtesy of the Photographic Archive,
Benaki Museum, Athens)
14 Vlatadon monastery, Thessalonike. St. Gregory Palamas (photo: author)
15 Vlatadon monastery, Thessalonike. St. Gregory Palamas (photo: courtesy of the
Photographic Archive, Benaki Museum, Athens)
16 Vlatadon monastery, Thessalonike. Prayer of St. John Chrysostom (after G. A. Stogioglou,
H n Yessalonk patriarxik mon tn Blatdvn [Thessalonike, 1971], fig. 41)
17 Vatopedi monastery, Mount Athos, cod. 761. Prayer of St. John Chrysostom (after K. Weitzmann,
The Psalter Vatopedi 761: Its Place in the Aristocratic Psalter Recension, JWalt 10 [1947]: fig. 13)
18 Vatopedi monastery, Mount Athos, cod. 761. Saints of Thessalonike (after Weitzmann, The Psalter
Vatopedi 761)
19 Vatopedi monastery, Mount Athos, chapel of Hagioi Anargyroi. St. Gregory Palamas (photo: E.
Tsigaridas)
20 St. Demetrios, Thessalonike. St. Demetrios and Bishop (photo: Foto
Marburg/Art Resource, NY)
The addition of the Euthymios chapel (and subsequent monastic imagery) to the
churchs program came at a time in which Demetrios official biography was undergoing
subtle expansion. In the fourteenth century, encomiasts writing about the saint began to
endow him with the ascetic virtues prized by Byzantine monks.21 In praising Demetrios
virginity and purity, in emphasizing his hesychast attributes, and in comparing him to bib-
lical figures like Job, such authors as Nicholas Kabasilas, Gregory Palamas, and Philotheos
Kokkinos transformed him from a military exemplar into a powerful symbol of Orthodox
dogma and spirituality.22 These texts and others suggest that the fourteenth century wit-
nessed a refashioning of Demetrios identity within ecclesiastical circleshe was to be not
only the protector of the city but also the advocate of its monastic identity.
Monastic associations with the saint and his cult are further revealed in the extended
celebration of his feast in October. The festival of St. Demetrios played a central role in
the life of the fourteenth-century city. The actual celebration was modeled on Holy Week
of Easter,23 and the month of October was taken over by events preceding and following
the actual day of celebration; these were constructed to serve various factions of the citys
populace.24 Already in the twelfth century, monks were fully incorporated into the festi-
val honoring the saint. The Timarion describes the saints feast as celebrated over three
all-night vigils, with many priests and monks divided into two choirs constantly chanting
the hymn in honor of the saint.25 By the fourteenth century, judging from primary
sources, the third day of the extended festival was given over to Thessalonikes monastic
community.26 A homily delivered by Isidore, archbishop of Thessalonike (d. 1396), to the
monks gathered to honor the saint, contrasts the monastic life with the secular and com-
pares the brethren to the saint in terms of ascetic virtue.27 According to the fifteenth-
century diataxis written by Symeon of Thessalonike, the citys monks were also fully in-
corporated into religious processions in honor of the saint.28 Given the unusual
dedication and decoration of St. Euthymios and the inclusion of the monastic community
within celebrations in St. Demetrios, we might postulate that the chapel served as a small
monastic oratory within the citys largest shrine. The visual juxtaposition of Demetrios
portrait with that of Euthymios, one of the most venerated figures of Orthodox monasti-
21
A. Papadopoulos, Egkwvmia stovn Agio Dhmhvtrio katav thvn palaiolovgeia ejpochv kaiv oJ eJortasmov" tou' Agivou
.
sthv Qessalonivkh, in Cristianikhv Qessalonivkh Palaiolovgeio" ejpochv (Thessalonike, 1989), 134; idem, O a{gio"
Dhmhvtrio" eij" th;n eJllhnikh;n kai; boulgarikh;n paravdosin (Thessalonike, 1971), 11031; B. Laourdas, Egkwvmia
eij" to;n a{gion Dhmhvtrion kata; to;n devkaton tevtarton aijw'na, Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 24 (1954): 27590.
22
B. Laourdas, Nikolavou Kabavsila, Prosfwvnhma kai; Epigravmmata eij" a{gion Dhmhvtrion, Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 22
(1952): 100101; Gregory Palamas, Eij" to;n ejn aJgivoi" megalomavrtura kai; qaumatourgo;n kai; murobluvthn
Dhmhvtrion, PG 151: 53658; B. Laourdas, Filoqevou patriavrcou Kwnstantinopovlew", Egkwvmion eij" to;n Agion
Dhmhvtrion, Makedonikav 2 (194152): 55882. For a recent edition of Philotheos encomium, see D. Tsamis,
Filoqevou Kovkkinou ejgkwvmio sto;n Agio Megalomavrtura Dhmhvtrio to; Muroblhvth, Ep.Ep.Qeo.Sco.Pan.Qes. 26
(1981): 4983.
23
I. Phountoules, Idiorruqmive" th'" leitourgikh'" pravxew" th'" Qessalonivkh" katav tiv" ajrcev" tou' IE v aijwn' o",
in Cristianikhv Qessalonivkh: Palaiolovgeio" ejpochv (Thessalonike, 1989), 15355; B. Laourdas, Sumew;n Qes-
salonivkh". Akribh;" diavtaxi" th'" eJorth'" tou' Agivou Dhmhtrivou, Grhg.Pal. 39 (1956): 32641.
24
A. Papadopoulos, AiJ eJortai; tou' Agivou Dhmhtrivou ejn Qessalonivkh/, Grhg.Pal. 46 (1963): 361.
25
Timarion, trans. B. Baldwin (Detroit, 1984), 45.
26
Papadopoulos, AiJ eJortai;, 365.
27
Isidwvrou ajrciepiskovpou Qessalonivkh": Omilivai eij" ta;" eJorta;" tou' aJgivou Dhmhtrivou, ed. B. Lourdas in
Ellhnikav, Paravrthma 5 (1954): 3243.
28
Laourdas, Sumew;n Qessalonivkh", 329.
cism, suggests that the chapel was more than a votive offering intended to guarantee fer-
tility to an aging couple.
The ecclesiastical construction boom of the late Middle Ages made manifest Thessa-
lonikes reputation as a pious city. The picture painted by written sources is one of an in-
tense devotional life that engaged most of the citys inhabitants. In his lament, Kydones
asks in high rhetorical fashion, [What can we say about her] superlatively lovely and sa-
cred shrines and holy places that are everywhere within [the city], of such size and in such
profusion that there is nowhere else their like, neither in magnitude nor in multitude?29
In the city, he says there are no fixed hours for those who wish to pray, but since the
churches are open both day and night, one can come freely to send up his prayers and sup-
plications.30 Kydones praise of the size and number of the citys churches echoes words
written by Theodore Metochites in 1292. What distinguished the city for the young Meto-
chites was its ardor concerning the dogma of truth, the beauty of its churches, and its nu-
merous and great foundations.31 For Nicholas Kabasilas, Thessalonike owed its superior-
ity to Mount Athos, which stood as a pillar of spiritual direction for the city, an observation
to which I will return.32
Relatively few of the churches that would have been known to Kydones, Metochites,
and Kabasilas stand today, though written sources such as chrysobulls, praktika, and wills
demonstrate that more than fifty ecclesiastical structures were functioning in the four-
teenth century. These establishments included newly constructed churches as well as older
foundations that continued to serve the citys populace. Among these numbered the ven-
erable urban basilicas that were medieval parish churches or significant shrines, monas-
teries and monydria for both men and women, small chapels dedicated to healing saints and
to holy figures of local origin and importance, and metochia for Athonite and neighboring
monasteries.
The inclusion of monastic imagery within the decorative programs of Thessalonikes
churches can be partially attributed to an unusual pattern of patronage in the late period,
one that differed substantially from that in the empires other cities. In Constantinople,
Arta, and Trebizond, significant programs of the late period were primarily associated
with imperial patronage or with members of the bureaucratic and military elitepeople
like Michael and Maria Tarchaneiotes, who also restored a chapel in the capital.33 But
Thessalonikes great patrons in the late period were primarily high church officials.34
29
Barker, The Monody, 292; A. Vakalopoulos, H Monw/diva epiv toi" en Qessalonivkh/ pesouvsi (1346) tou
D. Kudwvnh kai ta istorikav stoiceiva th" gia thn yucologiva twn epanastathmevnwn mazwvn sth stavsh tou 1342 k.e.,
Qessalonivkh 4 (1994): 91.
30
Barker, The Monody, 292; Vakalopoulos, Monw/diva, 9192.
31
B. Laourdas, Qeodwvrou Metocivtou Eij" to;n a{gion megalomavrtura kai; muroblhvthn Dhmhvtrion, Makedonikav
4 (195560): 58.
32
Nikolavou Kabavsila: Prosfwvnhma eij" to;n e[ndoxon tou' Cristou' megalomavrtura Dhmhvtrion to;n murobluvthn,
in Th. Ioannou, Mnhmei'a aJgiologikav (Venice, 1884; repr. Leipzig, 1973), 71; A. Papadopoulos, Nikovlao"
Kabavsila" : Filomovnaco" kaiv Filomavrtu", in Praktikav Qeologikou' Sunedrivou eij" timh;n kai; mnhvmhn tou' sofw-
tavtou kai; logiwtavtou kai; toi'" o{loi" aJgiwtavtou oJsivou patro;" hJmw'n Nikolavou Kabavsila tou' kai; Camaetou' (Thes-
salonike, 1984), 183.
33
H. Belting, C. Mango, and D. Mouriki, The Mosaics and Frescoes of St. Mary Pammakaristos (Fethiye Camii) at
Istanbul, DOS 15 (Washington, D.C., 1978). For a catalogue of buildings constructed in Constantinople in this
period and their patrons, see V. Kidonopoulos, Bauten in Konstantinopel 12041328 (Wiesbaden, 1994).
34
M. L. Rautman, Notes on the Metropolitan Succession of Thessaloniki, c. 1300, REB 46 (1988): 147
59; A. Laiou, Saints and Society in the Late Byzantine Empire, in Charanis Studies: Essays in Honor of Peter Cha-
ranis, ed. A. E. Laiou-Thomadakis (New Brunswick, N.J., 1980), 84114.
Kabasilas comment about the spiritual direction offered by Mount Athos demonstrates
the central role played by the Holy Mountain in the life of the city, a role that affected
church patronage. Marcus Rautman, among others, has commented on the unusual posi-
tion held by the citys metropolitans in the foundation of its great monasteries.35 Many of
these metropolitans were recruited from monasteries on the Holy Mountain or retired to
Athos after relinquishing episcopal office.36 Iakovos, for example, the founder of the Vir-
gin Peribleptos tou kyr Isaak, signed an Athonite act of 1291 as hieromonachos and kathe-
goumenos of the venerable imperial Lavra of St. Athanasios and served as metropolitan of
Thessalonike from 1293 to 1299, and perhaps into the fourteenth century.37
Monastic influence on the urban fabric and on day-to-day life is revealed in the large
number of metochia that dotted the city, standing as architectural reminders of Athonite
allegiance. According to fourteenth-century documents, Iviron had at least six metochia
in the city: St. Barbara, St. George, St. John the Baptist, St. Clement, St. Basil, and St.
Nicholas.38 The Great Lavra had three, Hilandar had two, and Vatopedi, Xenophon, Pan-
teleimon, and Philotheou each had one.39 As J.-P. Grelois has demonstrated, the katholika
of these foundations could be very impressive.40 St. John the Baptist, Ivirons metochion, is
described as a brick-and-stone church covered by a tile roof and endowed with a two-
storied narthex. Its interior was paved in marble, its naos divided by four marble columns,
and its walls covered by paintings. The decoration of such metochia, viewed by visitors to
the city, may have played a central role in transmitting subject matter from the governing
monastery to its local dependency. The metochia might have constituted places of mem-
ory which, by means of shared imagery, common architectural plan, and particular rite,
closely bound Thessalonian and Athonite monasticism.41
35
M. L. Rautman, Patrons and Buildings in Late Byzantine Thessaloniki, JB 39 (1989): 295315; idem,
Aspects of Monastic Patronage in Palaeologan Macedonia, in The Twilight of Byzantium, ed. C urcic and
Mouriki, 5374. For a discussion of patterns of artistic patronage in Thessalonike and Constantinople, see
R. S. Nelson, Tales of Two Cities: The Patronage of Early Palaeologan Art and Architecture in Constantino-
ple and Thessaloniki, in Manuel Panselinos and His Age, 12740.
36
L. Petit, Les vques de Thessalonique, EO 5 (19012): 9097; idem, Nouveaux vques de Thessa-
lonique, EO 6 (1903): 29298; J. Gouillard, Le Synodikon de lOrthodoxie: dition et commentaire, TM 2
(1967): 11315; Rautman, Notes, 14759.
37
Rautman, Notes, 15052. For the church of the Virgin Peribleptos, today identified as St. Panteleimon,
see R. Janin, Les glises et les monastres des grands centres byzantins (Bithynie, Hellespont, Latros, Galsios, Trbizonde,
Athnes, Thessalonique (Paris, 1975), 38688; A. Tsitouridou, Zidno slikarstvo Svetog Pantelejmona u Solunu,
Zograf 6 (1975): 1420 (trans. in Balkanikhv Bibliografiva 7 [1978]: 15368); eadem, La peinture monumen-
tale Salonique pendant la premire moiti du XIVe sicle, in Lart de Thessalonique et des pays balkaniques et les
courants spirituels au XIVe sicle (Belgrade, 1987), 10; G. I. Theocharides, O Matqai'o" Blavstari" kai; hJ monh; tou'
ku;r Isaa;k ejn Qessalonivkh/, Byzantion 40 (1970): 43759.
38
J. Lefort, N. Oikonomids, et al., Actes dIviron, vol. 2 (Paris, 1990), 5052; Actes dIviron, vol. 4 (Paris,
1995), 3435.
39
P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, et al., Actes de Lavra, vol. 2 (Paris, 1977), 24, 6976; M. Z ivojinovic, V. Kravari, et
al., Actes de Chilandar, vol. 1 (Paris, 1998), 6162; D. Papachryssanthou, Actes de Xnophon (Paris, 1986), 30. For
other metochia, see Janin, Les glises, 363, 373, 386, 402.
40
J.-P. Grelois, propos du monastre du Prodrome Thessalonique, Byzantion 59 (1989): 7887. See also
M. L. Rautman, Ignatius of Smolensk and the Late Byzantine Monasteries of Thessaloniki, REB 49 (1991):
15960; G. I. Theocharides, Miva ejxafanisqei'sa megavlh monh; th'" Qessalonivkh", hJ monh; tou' Prodrovmou, Make-
donikav 18 (1978): 126; Janin, Les glises, 406.
41
For a discussion of the use of memory in the medieval West that might be useful in this context, see
M. Carruthers, The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 4001200 (New York, 1998),
3235.
THESSALONIKE AND MOUNT ATHOS

The high incidence of clerical or monastic patronage in Thessalonike, the presence of
numerous metochia within its walls, as well as the citys geographical proximity to the Holy
Mountain, resulted in the creation of church programs that were heavily influenced by
Athonite practices and personalities. Although monuments in the region have tradition-
ally been grouped by style, the overtly monastic character of the citys paintings, which, in
turn, influenced artistic programs in greater Macedonia and Serbia, sets the painting in
this region apart from that of any other. Three subjects related to monastic life and rite as
practiced on Mount Athos appear in churches of Thessalonike and its hinterland; these
subjects rarely appear in other areas, signaling their regional significance. Representa-
tions of Barlaam and Ioasaph, Pachomios and the Angel, and the ladder of John Klimakos
became popular in fourteenth-century monastic programs, and they appear primarily in
churches influenced by Athonite monasticism.
The romance describing the conversion of a young Indian prince named Ioasaph by
the monk Barlaam is known from more than 140 manuscripts, the earliest dating to the
tenth century.42 The princes renunciation of his kingdom in order to follow his spiritual
father and live in a state of poverty and penitence was seen from an early period to express
the spiritual wanderings of the monk and the virtues of ascetic monasticism. Although
Barlaam and Ioasaph are represented in the church of the Virgin at Studenica (1208/9),43
the portrait group is more common in church decoration from the end of the thirteenth
century. Churches in which the monastic pair is found, including Studenica, were influ-
enced by Mount Athos, which played a central role in the popularization and circulation
of the tale in late Byzantium.44 Important representations of Barlaam and Ioasaph are
found in the northwest chapel of the Protaton church on Mount Athos, painted ca. 1290
(Fig. 5).45 The inclusion of their portraits within this churchs program is significant; a
decade after its decoration the feast of St. Ioasaph is first recorded in a synaxarion made for
the protos of Mount Athos, Ioannikios.46 In monumental painting, the two figures are
dressed in monastic habits and are represented in dialogue; their conversation is recorded
on their scrolls. Shortly after their depiction in the Protaton, they are included in the pro-
grams of other churches linked by style to the Athonite church. Barlaam and Ioasaph are
depicted in the Peribleptos church (St. Clement) in Ohrid, painted by Michael Astrapas
and Eutychios in 1294/5.47 The pair forms part of a painted frieze of monks, which in-
cludes Chariton, Stephen the Younger, and Theodore the Stoudite, in the exonarthex of
42
S. der Nersessian, Lillustration du roman de Barlaam et Joasaph, 2 vols. (Paris, 1937).
43
S. Cirkovic, V. Korac, and G. Babic, Studenica Monastery (Belgrade, 1986), fig. 59; R. Hamann-MacLean
and H. Hallensleben, Die Monumentalmalerei in Serbien und Makedonien vom 11. bis zum frhen 14. Jahrhundert
(Giessen, 1963), pl. 66. Constructed as Stefan Nemanjas grave church, building and decoration was completed
after his withdrawal to the Hilandar monastery on Mount Athos. His body was brought to the church from
Athos in 1208.
44
For the spread of the romance in Serbia, see V. J. Djuric, Le nouveau Joasaph, CahArch 33 (1985): 99
109.
45
V. Djuric, Les conceptions hagioritiques dans la peinture du Protaton, HilZb 8 (1981): 51, 55, 77 fig. 13.
46
Paris, Bibliothque Nationale, Coislin 223, fol. 307v. See Synaxarium CP, XLI: Eteleiwvqh hJ parou'sa bivblo"
ejn e[tei "wqV, ijnd. idV, spoudh'/ kai; ejxovdw/ tou' panosiotavtou hJmw'n patro;" iJeromonavcou Iwannikivou kai; prwvtou tou'
V
aJgivou o[rou".
47
Hamann-MacLean and Hallensleben, Monumentalmalerei, plan 20, and personal observation.
St. George at Omorphokklesia (Gallista) near Kastoria (Figs. 6a, b). The decoration of this
monastic church, which is dated by an inscription to 12951317, has been compared with
the paintings of Panselinos and with works by other Thessalonian masters.48 At a later
point in the fourteenth century the pair is included in the ambulatory program in Pana-
gia Olympiotissa at Elasson (Figs. 7a, b),49 as well as in the narthex of Prophitis Elias in
Thessalonike (Fig. 8).50 The churches in which Barlaam and Ioasaph are represented be-
long to monastic communities. The relationship of the youthful prince turned monk and
his ascetic mentor surely resonated with the Orthodox brethren, and their placement
within subsidiary spaces suggests that these icons decorated chapels or spaces used for
hourly prayers, special commemorations, and penitential exercises.
Within the Protatons northwest chapel, Barlaam and Ioasaph are spatially juxtaposed
with the portrait of St. Pachomios in dialogue with an angel (Fig. 9).51 This early repre-
sentation captures the moment in which the angel appears to the saint and presents him
with the rules of monasticism.52 The scene quickly spread from Athos to other monastic
churches in the region. From the Protaton it traveled to the Peribleptos in Ohrid, follow-
ing the same route as the representation of Barlaam and Ioasaph.53 The painters Michael
Astrapas and Eutychios inserted the scene into another church that they painted, St.
George at Staro Nagoricino, where the pair is located on the west wall of the narthex (Fig.
10).54 In Thessalonike, portraits of the sainted monk and the cloistered angel decorate the
ambulatory of St. Nicholas Orphanos, painted ca. 1320.55 In the Panagia Olympiotissa, Pa-
chomios and the Angel are also located in the ambulatory (Fig. 11). Here the angel raises
his hand to point at his koukoulion and carries a scroll inscribed with the words: In this
habit shall all flesh be saved.56 The programs within these churches at Athos, Ohrid, Elas-
son, Thessalonike, and yet another in Veroia57 are not necessarily related by style but by
the inclusion of the rare monastic theme. As in the depiction of Barlaam and Ioasaph, the
images advocate the virtues of monasticism. Based on the chain of monuments in which
the pair is found, the stimulus for this visual apology appears to be the monastic commu-
nity of Athos.
Like the romance of Barlaam and Ioasaph and representation of Pachomios and the
48
E. G. Stikas, Une glise des Palologues aux environs de Castoria, BZ 51 (1958): 100112, figs. 5, 6.
49
E. Constantinides, The Wall Paintings of the Panagia Olympiotissa at Elasson in Northern Thessaly, vol. 1
(Athens, 1992), 22427, vol. 2 (Athens, 1992), 186a, b. Dendrochronology demonstrates that the churchs con-
struction took place in the middle of the 14th century rather than earlier, as proposed by Constantinides. See
C. L. Striker, Some Monuments of Thessaloniki in Light of Dendrochronology, (in press). I thank Dr. Striker
for sharing his manuscript with me.
50
The decoration of this church has been dated 136080. See C. Mavropoulou-Tsioume, Buzantinhv Qessa-
lonivkh (Thessalonike, 1992), 158.
51
Djuric, Les conceptions hagioritiques, 53, 74 fig. 10; G. Millet, Les monuments de lAthos. Les peintures
(Paris, 1927), pl. 55.1.
52
F. Halkin, LHistoire Lausiaque et les Vies grecques de S. Pachme, AB 48 (1930): 257301.
53
P. Miljkovic-Pepek, Deloto na zografite Mihail i Eutihij (Skopje, 1967), 98100, fig. 30.1.
54
G. Millet and A. Frolow, La peinture du Moyen ge en Yougoslavie (Serbie, Macdoine, et Montngro), vol. 3
(Paris, 1962), pl. 116.3, 4.
55
A. Tsitouridou, O Zwgrafikov" diavkosmo" tou' Agivou Nikolavou Orfanou' sthvn Qessalonivkh (Thessalonike,
1986), 205, 206, pl. 106.
56
Constantinides, Panagia Olympiotissa, 21920, figs. 92b, 182.
57
The pair is represented in the 14th century in the small basilica of St. George tou Archontos Gram-
matikou. Th. Papazotos, H Bevroia kai oi naoiv th" (11o"18o" ai.) (Athens, 1994), 169.
Angel, the Heavenly Ladder of John Klimakos held particular meaning for monastic com-
munities. The ladder of monastic virtues is illustrated on icons and in manuscripts from
the middle Byzantine period, and these were most often produced for monastic commu-
nities.58 Full-length, frontal portraits of the saintly author, whose precepts for monastic
behavior were widely read in cloistered communities, are often found in monastic decora-
tion from the middle Byzantine period. In the fourteenth century, hesychast theologians
frequently cited the Heavenly Ladder as a contemplative text guiding spiritual elevation,
both in its original form and that filtered through the writings of Symeon the New The-
ologian.59 Gregory Palamas, for example, makes frequent mention of the Heavenly Lad-
der. Portraits of John Klimakos are depicted in the same churches mentioned abovethe
Protaton, the Peribleptos (Ohrid), and Panagia Olympiotissaand these portraits are
clustered with representations of other monastic saints.60
A representation of the heavenly ladder, as yet unpublished, covers the north wall of
the exonarthex of St. George at Omorphokklesia. The adjacent west wall of this space, as
mentioned above, is decorated with portraits of monastic saints, including Barlaam and
Ioasaph. Although much of the composition is damaged, a frontal portrait of John Kli-
makos stands at the center of the scene at ground level. The diagonal ladder and depic-
tions of three ascending monks are still preserved on the upper registers of the wall. The
uppermost figure clasps the hand of Christ as he joins his sanctified brethren seated within
the circle of the heavens. Two monks tumble from the ladder to the right side of the com-
position. Of these, one is swallowed by a dragon, who bites down on the monks upper
torso. The connections between the decoration of the exonarthex and painting on Mount
Athos are strong and suggest that this monastery was influenced by artistic and religious
developments on the Holy Mountain in this period.
Certainly the most unusual representation of the heavenly ladder in wall painting, and
one that would be copied in later Athonite churches, is found in the exonarthex of the Vato-
pedi monastery (Fig. 12).61 Here two scenes are placed together: the ladder that monks at-
tempt to climb and a lavish banquet attended by an international cast of gourmands enter-
tained by musicians. The contrast between the earnestly ascending monks and the
banqueters is startling and illustrates a phrase in the text: The preparing of the table ex-
poses gluttons, but the work of prayer exposes lovers of God. The former dance on seeing
58
J. R. Martin, The Illustration of the Heavenly Ladder of John Climacus (Princeton, N.J., 1954).
59
J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes (New York, 1974), 7071.
60
Millet, Monuments de lAthos, pl. 47.2; Hamann-MacLean and Hallensleben, Monumentalmalerei, plan 20,
no. 21; Constantinides, Panagia Olympiotissa, 82, 223.
61
E. Tsigaridas, The Mosaics and the Wall Paintings, in The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopaidi: Tradi-
tionHistoryArt, vol. 1 (Mount Athos, 1998), 26263, 274. For a monumental representation of the Ladder
of John Klimakos found in another monastic context, dated to 1211, see N. B. Drandakes, To askhthvrio th"
Anavlhyh" sto Muriavli tou Taugevtou, in Qumivama sth mnhvmh th" Laskarivna" Mpouvra, vol. 1 (Athens, 1994), 84
85. The scene recalls the angry words written by Patriarch Athanasios I in 13056 to Emperor Andronikos II.
Complaining about the nobles eating in the galleries of Hagia Sophia during the service, Athanasios writes:
But if certain people come to delight in the pleasures of the stomach, as I saw yesterdaywhen the assem-
bled multitudes departed, they left behind some bones and scrapswhat benefit will they reap by assembling
for this purpose, and turning the halls of Divine Wisdom into places for drinking bouts? And who will assure
them that they will find another opportunity for spiritual ascent and to achieve through prayer the deification,
which the saints would procure for us, if we would be willing? A.-M. Talbot, ed., The Correspondence of Athana-
sius I Patriarch of Constantinople, DOT 3 (Washington, D.C., 1975), 103.
the table, but the latter scowl.62 The phrase derives from the twentieth step of the ladder
on Alertness, which largely concerns appropriate behavior during the night vigils. The
celebration of the night offices, according to monastic typika, would have taken place within
spaces such as the exonarthex, in this church illustrated by the monumental ladder.
The three subjects appear in churches located within a restricted geographical region.
All of the churches, furthermore, were intended for monastic communities. Based on sur-
viving programs, early representations of Barlaam and Ioasaph, Pachomios and the Angel,
and the Ladder of John Klimakos are found in Athonite churches. Their transmission to
Thessalonike, greater Macedonia, and Serbia may be attributed to traveling monks, to the
programs of Athonite metochia, or to painters and workshops that traveled the commercial
and religious routes within the region. It is important to recognize, however, that the di-
rection of influence did not only flow from the Holy Mountain to neighboring Thessa-
lonike; the representation of Thessalonian saints within Athonite monasteries demon-
strates a sacred reciprocity. A few examples help to establish this point. Four of the citys
sainted bishopsBasil, George, Eustathios, and Basil ho Glykysare represented in the
prothesis chamber of the Vatopedi monastery, dated 1312.63 Hosios David of Thessalonike,
whose well-known portrait in stone relief once decorated a medieval church in the city, is
represented in the Protaton (in the northwest chamber; Fig. 13) and at Hilandar.64 In both
churches the saint is represented in frontal pose, like the stone plaque. A second portrait
type, depicting Hosios David as a dendrite, is found in the Chora monastery in Constan-
tinople and Prophitis Elias in Thessalonike and may owe its origins to a source outside of
the empires second city.65 Perhaps the most revealing evidence of the close connection be-
tween Athos and Thessalonike may be seen in the representation of St. Nikodemos in the
program of the Hilandar katholikon, completed in 1321.66 In 1307 Nikodemos had been
stabbed to death outside the gates of Thessalonikes Philokalou monastery as he sought the
protection of his abbot.67 His cult was extremely popular in the city, where a chapel was built
over the grave of the miracle-working saint. It seems extraordinarily fast that within four-
teen years of the saints death, Nikodemos portrait would find a place among the holy
monks represented at Hilandar. But this speed demonstrates the open line of communica-
tionboth artistic and hagiographicbetween the two centers.
No figure better represents the reciprocal influence of Athos and Thessalonike than
Gregory Palamas. The strong association of Palamas, metropolitan of Thessalonike from
1347 to 1359, with Mount Athos, where he was abbot of several monasteries, is well
62
St. John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent, trans. L. Moore (London, 1959), 170.
63
Tsigaridas, Vatopaidi, 243.
64
A. Xyngopoulos, Anavglufon tou' Osivou Dabivd tou' ejn Qessalonivkh/, Makedonikav 2 (194152): 14366
(repr. in Xyngopoulos, Qessalonivkeia Melethvmata, 23158); Millet, Les monuments de lAthos, pl. 45.1; Djuric,
Les conceptions hagioritiques, 5354; M. Markovic, The Original Paintings of the Monasterys Main
Church, in Hilandar Monastery (Belgrade, 1998), 233.
65
P. Underwood, The Kariye Djami, vol. 1 (New York, 1966), 25859; K. Charalambides, H toicografiva tou
Osivou Dabivd tou dendrivth sto naov tou Profhvth Hliva Qessalonivkh", Serrai>kav Anavlekta 2 (199394): 5356.
66
Markovic, The Original Paintings, 228; I. Simonopetrites, Toicografiva tou' oJsivou Nikodhvmou tou' ejn
Qessalonivkh/ sto; kaqoliko; th'" monh'" Cilandarivou, Prwta'ton 7 (1983): 13337.
67
G. Chionides, O Beroiwvth" monaco;" kai; o{sio" Nikovdhmo" oJ nevo", Makedonikav 22 (1982): 96111; D. G.
Tsamis, To; uJpovmnhma tou' Filoqevou Kokkivnou sto;n Osio Nikovdhmo to; Nevo, Ep.Ep.Qeo.Sco.Pan.Qes. 26 (1981):
8799. For a discussion of the monastery, see Magdalino, Byzantine Churches and Monasteries, 282; Janin,
Les glises, 400.
known.68 As in the case of Nikodemos, churches dedicated in his sanctified name and im-
ages of Palamas circulated within a short time after his death in 1359.69 Representations
of Palamas spread rapidly as the saints cult took hold over the city where he had lived and
preached. The earliest monumental representations of the saint are found in Thessa-
lonike; these, and slightly later depictions in the neighboring cities of Veroia and Kastoria,
have been studied in a series of articles by C. Mavropoulou-Tsioume and E. Tsigaridas.70
The earliest representation is preserved in the monastery of Christ Pantokrator ton Vlata-
don, constructed around 133971 and associated, in the mid-fourteenth century, with two
associates of Palamas, the brothers Markos and Dorotheos Vlates.72 Palamas, dressed as a
bishop and inscribed O AGIOS GRHGORIOS O QESSALONIKHS, is depicted on the broad
arch separating the narthex from the nave (Fig. 14). Above the saint, at the springing of
the arch, is a narrow scene of the Transfiguration. This pairing is surely intentional; Pala-
mas wrote extensively on the apostles vision of the uncreated light at the moment of
Christs metamorphosis.73 A second representation of the saint within the same church is
found in the south parekklesion painted, most likely, in the last quarter of the fourteenth
century (Fig. 15).74 Here four theologians are represented in poses that recall portraits of
evangelists or hymnographers. John Chrysostom and Symeon the New Theologian are lo-
cated on the east side and Gregory of Nazianzos and Gregory, archbishop of Thessalonike,
on the west. In his encomium following the saints death, Philotheos ranked Palamas
among the Triad of Theologians, and such rhetoric would have guaranteed Gregorys
place within the elevated author portraits of the south chapel.75 Curiously, adjacent to the
portrait of Palamas is the unusual narrative scene labeled the prayer of St. John Chrysos-
tom, and this juxtaposition is significant. In the scene, Chrysostom, dressed as a monk, is
represented twice, once reading from a lectern and once prostrate before an icon while his
secretary, Proklos, looks on (Fig. 16).76 On first appearance, the juxtaposition of the por-
traits of Gregory, metropolitan of Thessalonike, and John, early patriarch of Constan-
tinople, seems haphazard. This very juxtaposition, however, is echoed in Vatopedi 761, a
68
J. Meyendorff, Introduction ltude de Grgoire Palamas (Paris, 1959).
69
Th. Giankou, Marturive" peri; th'" mnhvmh" tou' Agivou Grhgorivou tou' Palama' sto; Agion Oro", Klhronomiva
28 (1996): 930.
70
C. Mavropoulou-Tsioume, OiJ prw'te" ajpeikonivsei" tou' aJgivou Grhgorivou tou' Palama' sthv Qessalonivkh, in
Praktikav Qeologikou' Sunedrivou eij" timhvn kaiv mnhvmhn tou' ejn aJgivoi" patrov" hJmw'n Grhgorivou ajrciepiskovpou Qes-
salonivkh" tou' Palama' (Thessalonike, 1986), 24757; eadem, OiJ toicografive" th'" monh'" Blatavdwn, teleutaiva
ajnalamphv th'" buzantinh'" zwgrafikh'" sthv Qessalonivkh, in H Qessalonivkh 1 (1985): 23154; eadem, H
mnhmeiakhv zwgrafikhv, 66465; E. Tsigaridas, Eijkonistikev" marturive" tou' Ag. Grhgorivou Palama' sev naouv" th'"
Kastoria'" kaiv th'" Bevroia". Sumbolhv sth;n eijkonografiav tou' aJgivou, in Praktikav Qeologikou' Sunedrivou . . . , 263
94; idem, Eijkonistikev" marturive" tou' Ag. Grhgorivou Palama' sth; Qessalonivkh kai; sto; Agion Oro", in
O Agio" Grhgovrio" oJ Palama'" sth;n iJstoriva kai; to; parovn (Mount Athos, 2000), 193216.
71
C. L. Striker, Some Monuments of Thessaloniki in Light of Dendrochronology (in press).
72
G. Theocharides, OiJ iJdrutaiv th'" ejn Qessalonivkh/ monh'" tw'n Blatavdwn, in Panhgurikov" tovmo" eJortasmou'
th'" eJxakosiosth'" ejpeteivou tou' qanavtou tou' aJgivou Grhgorivou tou' Palama', ajrciepiskovpou Qessalonivkh", 1359
1959, ed. P. Christou (Thessalonike, 1960), 4970.
73
For an analysis of Palamas writings on the Transfiguration, see G. I. Mantzaridis, The Deification of Man:
St. Gregory Palamas and the Orthodox Tradition (Crestwood, N.Y., 1984), 96104.
74
G. Stogioglou, H ejn Qessalonivkh/ patriarcikhv monhv tw'n Blatavdwn (Thessalonike, 1971), 11024.
75
Mavropoulou-Tsioumi, OiJ prw'te" ajpeikonivsei", 253 note 10.
76
Stogioglou, H ejn Qessalonivkh/ patriarcikhv monhv, 11417.
private psalter of the late eleventh century to which two paper leaves were added before
1517.77 At the time, the book was owned by Makarios, metropolitan of Thessalonike, and
marginal notations affirm the books presence in the city, at least until 1530 when the
owner entered the Vatopedi monastery as the monk Michael.78 The inserted leaves record
devotional images from the city. Folio 232 recto depicts the Prayer of John Chrysostom,
where the double representation of the saint mirrors that in the Vlatadon monastery (Fig.
17). If we turn the page, we see the portraits of three Thessalonian saints: Gregory Pala-
mas, Demetrios, and Hosios David (Fig. 18). The key to understanding the juxtaposition
of Palamas and Chrysostom lies in the decoration of the small Athonite chapel of the Holy
Anargyroi in the Vatopedi monastery.79 Dated ca. 1371, the paintings are roughly con-
temporary with those of the Vlatadon chapel. Here Gregory Palamas is represented to-
gether with John Chrysostom in the prothesis chamber (Fig. 19). Dressed in episcopal
robes, Gregory is inscribed as the most holy archbishop of Thessalonike, Gregory, the
new Chrysostom and miracle worker. The saint is labeled in a similar manner in the di-
akonikon of the church of the Holy Three Martyrs in Kastoria, dated 1401.80 Why Chryso-
stom? The scene of his prayer in the Vlatadon chapel, the Vatopedi psalter, and a third
example in the narthex in the Hilandar monastery represents the early patriarch of
Constantinople as a monk.81 Stationed at his lectern, reading through the night, he en-
gages in the early practice of hesychia, sanctioning, through imagery, the widespread use of
meditative prayer advocated by Athonite monks. Palamas extraordinary abilities as an or-
ator suggest further motives for comparison, as demonstrated in the encomium pro-
nounced by Philotheos. The celebration of the feast of Palamas, on November 13, together
with that of John Chrysostom is ordered already in a typikon authored by Symeon of Thes-
salonike (Athens, Ethnike Bibliotheke, cod. 2047, fol. 14).82 Once again, the paintings, or
rather the subject of the paintings, follow the commercial routes, this time moving from
Thessalonike to Mount Athos, and from Mount Athos through Thessalonike to the Mace-
donian hinterland, where the subject appears in a small church in Kastoria.
Related to these representations of St. Gregory Palamas is a votive panel added to the
77
K. Weitzmann, The Psalter Vatopedi 761: Its Place in the Aristocratic Psalter Recension, JWalt 10
(1947): 2830, 3132; A. Xyngopoulos, Restitution et interpretation dune fresque de Chilandar, HilZb 2
(1971): 9399. Xyngopoulos viewed the narrative of Chrysostoms prayer as a copy of the scene painted in
132021 in the narthex of the Hilandar monastery. Markovic, The Original Paintings, 232.
78
Xyngopoulos has suggested that the inscriptions on the images point to their execution in the late 14th
or 15th century. Xyngopoulos, Restitution et interpretation, 96. For Makarios, see L. Petit, Les vques de
Thessalonique, EO 5 (19012): 150; A. Glavinos, Makavrio" Papagewrgovpoulo" oJ ajpo; Korivnqou mhtropolivth"
Qessalonivkh" (1465;12 Aprilivou 1546), Makedonikav 13 (1973): 16777.
79
Tsigaridas, Vatopaidi, 28081.
80
Tsigaridas, Eijkonistikev" marturive" (1986), 226 fig. 2, 26667; E. Drakopoulou, H povlh th" Kastoriav" th
buzantinhv kai Metabuzantinhv epochv (12o"16o" aiwvna"). IstorivaTevcnhEpigrafev" (Athens, 1997), 111, 124
25.
81
The early 14th-century representation of Johns prayer in Hilandar, painted before Palamas came to
prominence, is represented in the churchs narthex among other images of significance to the monastic com-
munity. From here, it may have been exported to Thessalonike where, linked with the representation of Gre-
gory Palamas, the New Chrysostom, the scene took on a new meaningone that would be codified in later in-
scriptions elevating the Thessalonian prelate to the ranks of the great fathers and miracle workers of the
church.
82
J. Darrouzs, Notes dhistoire des textes, REB 21 (1963): 238; Giankou, Marturive", 14.
basilica of St. Demetrios in the late fourteenth century (Fig. 20). Traditionally, the figure
at the center of the panel has been identified as Ioasaph.83 The representation of the
princely monk has been seen as an expression of hesychast ideology and a reflection of
Palamas own biography. Recently, E. Tsigaridas has proposed that the central figure be
identified as Demetrios based on the portrait type and the composition of the panel, which
clearly copies earlier works in the basilica.84 This suggestion must be correct, given the
context of the painting and the intense interest in the saints monastic virtues discussed
above. Moreover, in old photographs, traces of a delta, eta, and rho may be seen at the up-
per left corner of the panel. The identification of the smaller figure to the right is not se-
cure, although most scholars have identified him as Gregory Palamas based on his portrait
type and on his episcopal vestments. An inscription adjacent to this figure does not appear
to bear the name of Palamas, but identifying this prelate as the famed Thessalonian arch-
bishop has proven seductive nonetheless. Both holy figures were central to the identity of
Thessalonikes church, the development of the citys own hagiography, and the character
of its piety. Both saints were associated with healing.85 Even if the smaller figure is not Pala-
mas, he must be identified as a local bishop of some renown; he is shown in the process of
venerating the citys great protector, directly censing the saint in a moment of religious in-
timacy. The image of two holy men of Thessalonike complements the message offered by
the chapel of St. Euthymios, painted at its beginning.
The examination of several themes in fourteenth-century church decoration demon-
strates the impact of monasticism, specifically Athonite monasticism, on monumental
painting in Thessalonike. Conversely, Thessalonian monasticism and civic cults also
played an important role in the decoration of katholika and chapels on the Holy Mountain.
This study provides only the briefest account of this exchange of subject matter. In draw-
ing conclusions about the prominence of monastic themes in Thessalonian wall painting,
however, one must exercise caution. The majority of churches preserved in the city once
served as katholika of its monasteries or, perhaps, as the yet unidentified grand Athonite
metochia. For this set of buildings, a discussion of monastic influence is entirely appropri-
ate. But what do we know about other types of churches in the city? Little of the thirteenth-
and fourteenth-century decoration is preserved from the citys parish churches:
Acheiropoietos, which housed, in the late Byzantine period, important icons of the Virgin
and St. Demetrios;86 Hagia Sophia, surrounded by small, decorated chapels;87 St. Menas,
now destroyed;88 and the Holy Asomatoi, which preserves no evidence of a late Byzantine
83
A. Xyngopoulos, Ag. IwavsafAg. Grhgovrio" oJ Palama'", Grhg.Pal. 26 (1942): 194200 (repr. in Xyn-
gopoulos, Qessalonivkeia Melethvmata, 16774).
84
Tsigaridas, Eijkonistikev" marturive" (2000), 19799.
85
Laiou-Thomadakis, Saints and Society, 104. Philotheos Kokkinos, Palamas encomiast, refers to several
healings within Thessalonike: a nun in the monastery of St. Theodora (PG 151: 629B; Janin, Les glises, 375)
and a hieromonk in the monastery dedicated to the Virgin tou' Upomimnhvskonto" (PG 151: 62730; Janin, Les
glises, 41314).
86
A. Xyngopoulos, AiJ peri; tou' naou' th'" Aceiropoihvtou Qessalonivkh" eijdhvsei" tou' Kwnstantivnou Ar-
menopouvlou, Episthmonikh; Epethri;" th'" Scolh'" Nomikw'n kai; Oijkonomikw'n tou' Aristoteleivou Panepisthmivou
Qessalonivkh" 6 (1952): 126 (repr. in Xyngopoulos, Qessalonivkeia Melethvmata, 25986).
87
K. Theoharidou, The Architecture of Hagia Sophia, Thessaloniki from Its Erection up to the Turkish Conquest, BAR
International Series 399 (Oxford, 1988), 1316.
88
Th. S. Mantopoulou-Panagiotopoulou, The Monastery of Aghios Menas in Thessaloniki, DOP 50
(1996): 23962.
decorative phase. Nor do we have evidence, except in the case of St. Demetrios, for the
monumental decoration of the citys main cult centersthe church of St. Theodora,89 the
chapel of St. Anysia,90 or the sanctuary of Hosios David.91 The decoration of these churches
might provide a picture of late medieval painting in the city that was untouched by
Athonite influence, painting that may have been more structured to accommodate lay sup-
plicants and pilgrims. For the moment, however, we are left with the citys great monastic
churches, and, like the encomiasts of the fourteenth century, we too must admire their
number and size and bathe in the spiritual rays that illuminate them.
University of Maryland
89
See the discussion by Ch. Bakirtzis in this volume.
90
P. Lemerle, Sainte Anysia, martyre Thessalonique? Une question pose, AB 100 (1982): 11124.
91
Xyngopoulos, Anavglufon, 14366.

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
Thessalonique, centre de production dobjets darts
au XIVe sicle
KATIA LOVERDOU-TSIGARIDA
a ville de saint Dmtrios, aprs sa conqute par les Latins en 1204, devint la capitale
L dun royaume. Les transformations sociales et conomiques engendres par cette
nouvelle situation se perpturent aprs la reconqute de Thessalonique par les Byzan-
tins, alors que les souverains de lempire multipliaient leurs sjours dans les palais de la
ville. Nombre dempereurs et de membres de la famille impriale y sjournrent durant
de longues priodes.1 Ainsi, la ville prend au XIVe sicle le caractre dune capitale adap-
te au rle dirigeant qui lui avait t confr. Ce rle dont la ville tait redevable autant
sa remarquable position gographique quaux nombreux contacts quelle entretenait avec
lEurope occidentale et le monde slave, offrait un caractre oecumnique, marqu par une
relle autonomie, aussi bien dans les domaines politique et social que culturel. La frappe
de monnaies par la ville aux XIIIe et XIVe sicles reflte prcisment ces caractristiques.2
Loecumnisme et lexpression dautonomie sont des caractristiques prsentes parmi
des lments traditionnels toujours dominants, qui apparaissent clairement dans les arts
mineurs de la ville, objet de notre recherche. Les objets darts mineurs produits Thessa-
lonique et dcouverts lors de fouilles dans la ville sont en nombre rduit,3 bien quun plus
grand nombre lui soit attribu partir dlments plus ou moins fiables. Je voudrais men-
1
Michel IX mourut Thessalonique en 1320 et aussi sa femme Maria en 1333, aprs avoir pass dix ans
dans un monastre de Thessalonique sous le nom de Xni. Dautres empereurs la choisirent pour centre ad-
ministratif, comme Andronic III qui, partir de 1326, en fit le sige du quartier gnral des oprations quil
entreprit contre son grand-pre Andronic II et qui continua sy rendre frquemment aprs stre impos
(1332, 1334, 1339), de mme que son fils Jean V Palologue qui y sjourna trois ans (134951) et Anne
Palologina, mre de Jean V qui, partir de 1351, sinstalla Thessalonique quelle gouverna jusqu sa mort.
Voir G. Theocharides, Topografiva kai politikhv istoriva th" Qessalonivkh" katav ton IDV aiwvna. (Thessalonique,
1959). Cf. A. Bakalopoulos, Istoriva th" Qessalonivkh" (Thessalonique, 1983), 127; A. Stauridou-Zaphraka, H
Qessalonivkh. H deuvterh povlh th" autokratoriva" apov ta tevlh tou 10ou ai. evw" to 1430, Episthmonikhv Hmerivda, H
istorikhv Poreiva th" Qessalonivkh", 23.11.1985 (Athnes, 1988); M. Kamboure-Bamboukou and A. Papazo-
tos, H palaiolovgeia zwgrafikhv sth Qessalonivkh (Thessalonique, 1985), 910.
2
Des thmes iconographiques originaux, diffrents des priodes prcdentes, et dautres fortement influ-
encs par lart occidental, ainsi que des sujets dcoratifs profondment allgoriques, proclament les principes
de la monarchie hrditaire et de la foi chrtienne. Voir I. Touratsoglou, Latelier montaire de Thessa-
lonique au XIVe sicle aprs J.Chr. Le rayonnement dun centre artistique avant le dclin de lempire, dans
Lart de Thessalonique et des pays balkaniques et les courants spirituels au XIVe s. Recueil des rapports du IVe Colloque
Serbo-Grec. Belgrade 1985 (Belgrade, 1987), 183 ff. Voir aussi larticle de C. Morrisson dans ce mme volume.
3
Il sagit surtout de la cramique qui provient de tombes trouves dans la ville.
242 THESSALONIQUE, CENTRE DE PRODUCTION DOBJETS DARTS
tionner ici les difficults mthodologiques provoques par ceux qui aiment attribuer des
oeuvres dart aux centres de production sans que des ateliers soient attests.4
Mme une ville comme Thessalonique, qui avait ncessairement dvelopp des ateliers
de production darts mineurs pour rpondre aux besoins des plerins, des marchands et
des militaires qui la visitaient, ne nous a peut-tre pas montr ses ateliers.5 Nous savons
quelle devait galement couvrir les besoins en objets de luxe des rgions alentour et no-
tamment des monastres du Mont Athos et des riches petites villes voisines, telles que
Vria, Ohrid, Kastoria, Serrs dans lesquelles taient installs dimportants seigneurs
byzantins et qui reprsentaient aussi une demande importante.
Dailleurs le Mont Athos a longtemps constitu la principale source pour la dcouverte
doeuvres darts mineurs attribues des ateliers de Thessalonique. De nombreuses of-
frandes ont t retrouves dans les monastres, que leur donateur, la tradition ou certains
lments des oeuvres elles-mmes attribuent Thessalonique. Paralllement, les archives
des monastres offrent des informations sur des donations, aujourdhui disparues, dont
lorigine doit tre recherche dans la ville. En outre, des oeuvres darts mineurs plus an-
ciennes peuvent nous montrer certaines formes traditionelles dont les exemples de la pri-
ode que nous examinons prsent ont par hasard disparu.
Nous commencerons notre recherche sur la production doeuvres darts mineurs au
XIV sicle avec des oeuvres lies au culte de Saint-Dmtrios que nous pouvons, avec une
relative certitude, attribuer Thessalonique. Lorigine de la production remonte peut-tre
la priode palochrtienne, car il est connu que, cette epoque, les plerins recevaient
des objets bnis, tels que des ampoules ou des enkolpia renfermant des reliques. Il pou-
vait notamment sagir deulogies, ampoules pour leau bnite, comme dans le sanctuaire
de saint Mnas en Egypte. Nous ignorons si la fabrication de ces objets pour les plerins
dbuta lpoque de la construction de lglise. Certains lments nous permettent toute-
fois daffirmer que des objets de ce type taient produits Thessalonique. Un moule en
pierre pour mtaux, dat du VIIIe sicle, a t dcouvert dans une fouille au nord de
lglise Saint-Dmtrios.6 Il sagit dun moule pour la fabrication dampoules eulogie en
mtal avec une reprsentation de laptre Andr et vraisemblablement de laptre Paul,
de part et dautre dune croix dont la branche suprieure est orne dun buste du Panto-
crator.7
La production deulogies est ainsi confirme, au moins partir du VIIIe sicle. Le fait
que ces eulogies ne semblent pas tre en rapport avec le plerinage de Saint-Dmtrios,
nexclut pas une production quivalente parallle. Nous pensons que, comme dans
dautres lieux de plerinage, les plerins pouvaient acqurir des objets-souvenirs produits
sur place.
Parmi les oeuvres de culte vraisemblablement produits par les ateliers de la ville de
Thessalonique pour les besoins des plerins du Xeme au XIIIeme sicle et proches de la
4
Le problme essentiel est linsistance de ceux qui croient que tous les objets dart qui portent la reprsen-
tation de saint Dmtrios proviennent de Thessalonique.
5
Les fouilles jusqu maintenant nous ont donn seulement quelques ateliers de verre et de cramique. Voir
ci-dessous.
6
Voir S. Pelekanides, Prakt.Arc.Et. (1959): 3841; G. Galavaris, RBK 1 (1966): 74752 et du mme, Bread
and the Liturgy (Madison, Wisc., 1970), 14143.
7
Voir A. Mentzos, Sceau de bndiction en pierre, Mouseivo Buzantinouv Politismouv (Muse de la civilisa-
tion byzantine) 3 (1996): 1827.
KATIA LOVERDOU-TSIGARIDA 243
tradition palochrtienne du culte, on note avec intrt les flacons en plomb,8 perptuant
la forme des ampoules palochrtiennes. Lutilisation de flacons en plomb est lie aux
transformations du culte du saint au XIIe sicle avec la myroblisie, et notamment la n-
cessit de recueillir le myron. Rappelons qu Thessalonique il existait un exemple an-
trieur de myroblisie, remontant 892, de la tombe de sainte Thodora, religieuse dans
un monastre de la ville.9 Les flacons en plomb, de forme antiquisante, que Stavrakios
nomme au XIIIe sicle des koutrouvia,10 taient destins au myron de saint Dmtrios
et de sainte Thodora. La technique du rendu des sujets iconographiques est la mme sur
tous les flacons. Le contour du sujet est rendu par un dessin linaire en relief, saillant avec
de nombreuses imperfections dans leur excution qui tmoignent quil sagit dune pro-
duction de masse. La thmatique est limite. Le buste dun saint inscrit dans un mdail-
lon occupe chacune des faces planes de la panse du flacon, les bustes les plus courants
tant ceux de saint Dmtrios et de sainte Thodora.11 Leur fabrication simple et peu co-
teuse, le caractre traditionnel du dcor saillant et de liconographie, les relient des ate-
liers de la ville, vraisemblablement lis lglise. Il est probable que les plerins les por-
taient autour du cou comme des phylactres contre les maladies et les dmons, et que,
parfois, ils accompagnaient le dfunt dans sa tombe. Ces flacons taient surtout utiliss par
des plerins trangers qui ramenaient du myron dans leur pays.12
Parmi les oeuvres de culte fabriques Thessalonique du Xe au XIIIe sicle avec des
matriaux prcieux, destines laristocratie byzantine et aux souverains orthodoxes
trangers, on compte un groupe de petits reliquaires qui, daprs Andr Grabar,13 nont
pas dquivalents lpoque byzantine, et qui nous donnent de prcieux renseignements
sur cette production de la ville. Grabar a prsent en 1950 et en 1954, dans deux articles
sur les reliquaires de saint Dmtrios,14 une premire liste de ces objets dont les carac-
tristiques certifient leur origine commune. Il sagit surtout de reliquaires qui pouvaient
8
Voir Ch. Bakirtzis, Koutrouvbia muvrou apov th Qessalonivkh, Akten des XVI. Internationaier Byzantinisten
Kongress, vol. 2.3, JB 32.3 (1982): 52328, et idem, Byzantine Ampullae from Thessaloniki, dans Blessings
of Pilgrimage, ed. R. Ousterhout (UrbanaChicago, 1990), 14049. Voir aussi le catalogue de lexposition du
Tour Blanche Thessalonique, Qessalonivkh. Istoriva kai tevcnh, Ekqevsh Leukouv Puvrgou (Athnes, 1986), 30,
nos. 24, et Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, Metropolitan Museum of Art (New
York, 1997), 169.
9
Pour le monastre de Sainte-Thodora, voir dans le mme volume larticle de Ch. Bakirtzis. Pour les fonc-
tions miraculeuses du myron de Sainte Theodora, voir A.-M. Talbot, Holy Women of Byzantium (Washington,
D.C., 1996), 159237.
10
Voir Iwavnnou Staurakivou Lovgo" eij" ta; qauvmata tou' Agivou Dhmhtrivou, par Ioakeim Iberites, Makedonikav
1 (1940): 353, f. 87: kai; skeuvo" ti, wJ" ejdovkei, fevrwn cersivn, o} dei' ta; ejgcwrivw" kaleivtai koutrouvbion, tou'ton
ajnabluzovntwn ejkeivqen muvrwn peplhvrwken. Cf. G. et M. Soteriou, H Basilikh; tou' Agivou Dhmhtrivou Qessalonivkh"
(Athens, 1953), 22 et 238.
11
La reprsentation sur le mme flacon des deux saints myroblites peut tre attribue une production
unique qui rpondait aux besoins des deux cultes, tandis que les flacons qui combinaient saint Dmtrios et la
Vierge ou saint Nestor devaient tre destins uniquement au culte du saint protecteur.
12
Il faut noter que, jusqu aujourdhui, aucun flacon en plomb na encore t retrouv dans des tombes
Thessalonique ou plus gnralement dans la ville.
13
Voir A. Grabar, Quelques reliquaires de Saint-Dmtrius et le martyrium du saint Salonique, DOP 5
(1950): 128.
14
Voir note 13 et A. Grabar, Un nouveau reliquaire de S. Dmtrius, DOP 8 (1954): 307 ff. Cf. A. Ment-
zos, To proskuvnhma tou Ag. Dhmhtrivou Qessalonivkh" sta buzantinav crovnia (Athnes, 1994), 7ff; A. Effenberger,
Byzantinische Kunstwerke im Besitz deutscher Kaiser, Bischfe und Klster im Zeitalter der Ottonen (Hildesheim, 1993),
1: 14559.
recevoir du lythron et du myron. Leur iconographie tmoigne dun certain archasme, sur-
vivance de lpoque palochrtienne, comme ltait le culte mme de saint Dmtrios dans
son sanctuaire Thessalonique. De dimensions rduites, ils sont munis dun double cou-
vercle, dont le couvercle intrieur masque laide dun ou deux volets une image de saint
Dmtrios en buste, les mains croises et les yeux ferms (Fig. 2). Le couvercle extrieur
porte une reprsentation de saint Dmtrios debout (Fig. 1). La persistance sur ces reli-
quaires de certains motifs signifie, daprs Grabar, que tous prtendent imiter le sar-
cophage et le ciborium du Saint Thessalonique.
Parmi les reliquaires-enkolpia de saint Dmtrios que nous connaissons aujourdhui,
on trouve une catgorie reproduisant mme le sarcophage du saint. Trois de ces reli-
quaires sont conservs lvch dHalberstadt15 et deux, respectivement au monastre de
Vatopdi16 (Figs. 1, 2) et au monastre de Lavra, au Mont Athos17 (Figs. 3, 4). On suppose
quils reproduisaient la forme du sarcophage du saint, telle quelle tait conserve jusquau
XIIe sicle dans le ciborium en marbre de la mme poque dans leglise Saint-Dmtrios.18
Une seconde catgorie comprend les reliquaires-enkolpia de forme ronde de Dumbarton
Oaks et du British Museum.19 Enfin, le reliquaire du Kremlin appartient une troisime
catgorie.20 Ces oeuvres, dates avec plus ou moins de prcision par les chercheurs du Xe
au XIIIe sicle, rvlent une production continue qui peut se poursuivre lpoque des
Palologues, au cours de laquelle le culte de saint Dmtrios devait connaitre un essor par-
ticulier, en tant que saint protecteur de la famille dirigeante.21
Manuel Philes a crit un ensemble dpigrammes sur des reprsentations de la vie et
du martyre de saint Dmtrios22 qui, daprs A. Frolow23 et A. Xyngopoulos,24 ornaient un
reliquaire en argent renfermant du lythron et du myron, semblable celui de Vatopdi,
et qui appartenait au despote de la ville Dmtrios Palologue (132240). Ainsi nous avons
la preuve que la production de reliquaires se poursuit cette poque avec peut-tre
quelques modifications. Le reliquaire en marbre de saint Dmtrios conserv au mona-
stre de Lavra au Mont Athos (Fig. 5, 6), traduit peut-tre lvolution du culte du saint
et des objets de plerinage.25 Le sarcophage revtement en argent conserv dans le
15
Voir Grabar, Quelques reliquaires, 2 ff, et The Glory of Byzantium, no. 108.
16
Voir A. Xyngopoulos, Buzantinovn kibwtivdion metav parastavsewn ejk tou' bivou tou' Ag. Dhmhtrivou, Arc.Ef.
75 (1936): 10136.
17
Une premire prsentation: voir Mentzos, To proskuvnhma, 134. Sous presse: K. Loverdou-Tsigarida,
Leigaodh;ue tou Ag. Dhmhrivou oh, Monh; tu Lau;ra Ag. Orou, Qwravkio, volume la mmoire de P. Loza-
ridis, Athnes, 2003.
18
Voir Mentzos, To proskuvnhma, 140ff.
19
Voir Grabar, Un nouveau reliquaire, 307 ff, et sur cet article cf. J. Alexander in Speculum 31 (1956): 359
71. Voir aussi Byzantium: Treasures of Byzantine Art and Culture from British Collections (London, 1994), 186; Glory
of Byzantium, nos. 116 et 117.
20
Voir Mentzos, To proskuvnhma, note 261 avec la bibliographie. Voir aussi A. Bank, Byzantine Art in the Col-
lections of Soviet Museums (Leningrad, 1977), fig. 205206, d. 1985, fig. 203204. Malgr sa datation prcise
de 10591067, fournie par linscription qui laccompagne et la reprsentation du couple imprial de Con-
stantin X Doukas et de son pouse, son attribution un centre de production prcis reste encore incertaine.
21
Les monnaies de lpoque qui portent la figure du saint Dmtrios seule ou avec celle de lempereur, ou
encore une scne de sa vie, montrent sa popularit et la place quil tenait dans la vie religieuse de lempire.
22
Voir Manuelis Philae Carmina, ed. E. Miller (Paris, 185557; repr. Amsterdam, 1967), 1: 135, pome 274.
23
A. Frolow, Un nouveau reliquaire byzantin (Manuelis Philae carmina I pp. 133137), REG 66 (1953):
100ff.
24
Voir A. Xyngopoulos, O eijkonografiko;" kuvklo" th'" zwh'" tou' Agivou Dhmhtrivou (Thessalonique, 1970), 47
49 et 5860.
25
Voir Mentzos, To Proskuvnhma, 139.
1 Reliquaire de saint Dmtrios Vatopedi, Mont Athos
a b
2a-b Dtails du mme reliquaire
3 Reliquaire de saint Dmtrios Lavra, Mont Athos
4 Dtail du mme reliquaire ouvert
5 Reliquaire en marbre de saint Dmtrios Lavra, Mont Athos
6 Dtail du mme reliquaire, vu dun autre cot
7 Icne en mosaque de saint Dmtrios Sassoferatto (daprs Grabar, Les revtements)
8 Icne de lAnnonciation en mosaque au Victoria and Albert Museum (daprs Furlan)
9 Icne de la Vierge de Freising, donation de Manuel Disypatos (daprs Grabar)
10 Icne de la Vierge, donation de Constantin Akropolites et sa femme. Galerie
Tretiakov (daprs Grabar)
11 Icne de la Vierge, donation de Papadopoulina et dArianitissa, Vatopedi, Mont Athos
12 Icne des aptres Pierre et Paul, donation du despote Andronic Palologue Vatopedi, Mont Athos
13 La croix dite de Constantin, donation du despote Andronic Palologue Vatopedi, Mont Athos
14 Icne de la Vierge Hodegetria, Vatopedi, Mont Athos
15 Icne de lHospitalit dAbraham, Vatopedi, Mont Athos
16 Icne de lAnnonciation Vatopedi, Mont Athos
17 Icne de Saint Jean lEvangeliste Lavra, Mont Athos
18 Icne de Saint Dmtrios Vatopedi, Mont Athos
19 La porte du Katholikon de Vatopedi, Mont Athos
20 Dtail de la porte de Vatopedi, Mont Athos
21 Dtail de laer-pitaphios de lglise Panagouda Thessalonique
22 Laer-pitaphios de Jean Cantacuzne Vatopedi, Mont Athos
23 Linscription ddicative du mme aer-pitaphios
24 Lutrins en bois de Vatopedi, Mont Athos
ciborium de lglise fut, daprs Stavrakios et Constantin Akropolites, remplac au XIVe

sicle par un autre en marbre orn dun dcor en bas-relief, dont le reliquaire conserv au
monastre de Lavra constitue peut-tre une reproduction.26
La question des liens entretenus par les ateliers de la ville avec lglise Saint-Dmtrios
continue toutefois se poser. Liconographie du dcor des reliquaires-enkolpia est inspire
du sarcophage du saint et de son dcor, et peut-tre, du dcor, aujourdhui disparu, de
lglise27 dont le caractre tait par excellence ddicatoire. Les ressemblances icono-
graphiques dtermines probablement par le clerg rvlent le lien direct entre les arti-
sans et lglise.
Dautres catgories dobjets viennent sajouter aux objets fabriqus traditionnellement
pour rpondre aux besoins des plerins. Ils sagit de petits flacons en verre ou en mtal
habituellement lis la conservation des parfums. Des tudes rcentes,28 bases sur un
texte de Stavrakios, admettent que des flacons en verre ont pu tre utiliss pour recueillir
le myron de la tombe de saint Dmtrios au XVe sicle. Ce serait le cas des flacons d-
couverts lors des fouilles de lglise Saint-Dmtrios29 et de tombes du monastre des
Vlatades.30 La dcouverte, lors de fouilles rcentes dans la ville, dun atelier de production
de petits vases en verre, conforte cette hypothse.31
Une autre catgorie dobjets-souvenirs de saint Dmtrios fait appel la technique du
verre. Il sagit de cames en verre avec la figure mi-corps du saint en relief, rendu suiv-
ant un type iconographique proche de celui de saint Georges. Prs de vingt pices de ce
type ont t retrouves, dont certaines proviennent vraisemblablement du mme moule.32
Ces oeuvres devaient tre des objets-souvenirs destins aux plerins et pourraient en ce
sens tre attribus des ateliers de Thessalonique. Un grand nombre de chercheurs con-
sidrent toutefois que ces objets ont t produits Venise, ville traditionnellement lie la
production dobjets en verre.33 Ainsi, bien que lhypothse de la production de ces objets
Thessalonique au XIVe sicle semble probable, nous ne sommes pas en mesure dexclure
lventualit quils aient t imports de Venise pour rpondre aux besoins du plerinage
cette poque.
Des coupes en cramique avec le monogramme grav du saint protecteur de Thessa-

lonique constituaient une autre production, relie au culte dans lglise Saint-Dmtrios,
26
Voir K. Loverdou-Tsigarida, Leigaodh;ue tou Ag. Dhmhtrivou, sous presse, et note 25.
27
Voir Xyngopoulos, Buzantino;n kibwtivdion, 112.
28
Voir Mentzos, To proskuvnhma, 150 ff.
29
Voir Qessalonivkh. Ekqevsh Leukouv Puvrgou, p. 52, no. 1 et p. 55, no. 2, fig. la p. 55.
30
D. Makropoulou, Anaskafhv tavfwn sth monhv Blattavdwn, Arc.Delt. 39 (1984), B: 2242; de la mme,
Apo to usterobuzantinov nekrotafeivo th" monhv" Blattavdwn, H Qessalonivkh 1 (1985): 255 ff. Grabar, Un
nouveau reliquaire, 307 ff. Voir aussi Qessalonivkh. Ekqevsh Leukouv Puvrgou, 56, no. 13.4. Nous avons aussi
trouv un vase du mme type dans un tombeau de lpoque des Palologues (Fouilles de 2001, du terrain
rue Valaoritou 27, Thessalonique, encore indit). Je remercie mon collegue J. Kanonidis pour cette in-
formation.
31
Voir I. O. Kanonides, H periochv tou Dioikhthrivou sta palaiocristianikav kai buzantinav crovnia, To; ar-
caiologiko; e[rgo sth; Makedoniva kai; Qravkh 10.B (1996): 567 et le mme, To buzantinov ualourgeivo th" plateiva"
Dioikhthrivou sth Qessalonivkh, BV Sunevdrio Margaritwvn Requvmnou Krhvth" (sous presse).
32
Voir H. Wentzel, Das Medaillon mit dem Hl. Theodor und die venezianischen Glasspasten im byzanti-
nischen Stil des 13. Jhdt, dans Festschrift fr Erich Meyer (Hamburg, 1959), 5067.
33
Voir L. Popovich, An Examination of Chilandar Cameos, HilZb 5 (1983): 745; K. Loverdou-Tsigarida,
Buzantinhv mikrotecniva, dans le catalogue de lexposition Oi Qhsauroiv tou Agivou VOrou" (Thessalonique,
1997), 3012, no. 9.13.
des ateliers de la ville. Il sagit dobjets vraisemblablement destins puiser leau bnite de
la fontaine de la crypte. De forme hmisphrique, elles ne prsentaient dautre ornement
que le monogramme de saint Dmtrios sur le fond, press sur largile ou incis sur len-
gobe.34 Nombre de ces cramiques ont t retrouves lors de fouilles dans lglise Saint-
Dmtrios, tandis que dautres ont t retrouves Constantinople et Varna en Bulgarie,
ramenes par des plerins.35
Les gobelets en cramique en forme de calice rpondaient, semble-t-il, aux mmes be-
soins.36 Ces objets avaient une fonction la fois utilitaires et de souvenir, comme cest en-
core le cas dans des lieux de plerinage orthodoxes.
Il est probable quexistaient dautres types dobjets lis au culte de saint Dmtrios
Thessalonique au XIVe sicle. On a dj propos une petite icne en bois du saint qui se
trouve dans la collection du Muse National de Belgrade37 et une autre en bronze, qui le
reprsente cheval ainsi que deux mdaillons de plomb avec le mme sujet dans la col-
lection de lHermitage Saint-Petersbourg.38 On peut ventuellement ajouter encore
quelques icnes en statite du saint dont la provenance de Thessalonique est probable.
Mais, daprs mon opinion, il est difficile dtre sr de lexistence dateliers divoire et de
statite dans la ville une epoque tardive. Leur dcouverte ventuelle permettra dtablir
une image plus complte de lorganisation de la production doeuvres darts mineurs des-
tines aux plerins.
La production doeuvres darts mineurs, en dehors de celle lie au culte et aux pleri-
nages Thessalonique, prsente galement un intrt particulier. Il est connu que ds le
XIIIe siecle existaient des ateliers dorfvrerie qui produisaient des bijoux, comme la
bague de Constantin Mastounis conserve au muse de lHermitage,39 ainsi que des
sceaux en argent, comme celui que mentionne dans une lettre Jean Apokaukos, mtropo-
lite de Naupacte, en remarquant quil na pas t bien taill (oujk ejgluvfh kalw'").40
Les reliquaires-enkolpia de saint Dmtrios rvlent aussi lexistence dateliers qui
utilisaient deux techniques principales: le relief au repouss et lmail, cette dernire
nayant pas, semble-t-il, constitu, au XIIIe sicle, une production exclusive de Constan-
34
Voir D. Papanicola-Bakirtzis, The Paleologan Glazed Pottery of Thessaloniki, dans Lart de Thessalonique
et des pays balkaniques et les courants spirituels au XIVe sicle, 193205. Cf. Qessalonivkh. Ekqevsh Leukouv Puvrgou,
78.4, fig. 76, 17.4.
Nous voulons signaler quune variante du monogramme est utilise pour crire le nom du Prodrome sur
des peintures murales (voir A. Xyngopoulos, AiJ toicografivai tou' kaqolikou' th'" monh'" Prodrovmou parav ta;"
Sevrra" [Thessalonique, 1973], pl. 33 et 64) et des icnes (voir S. Papadopoulos and C. Kapioldassi-
Soteropoulou, Eikovne" monhv" Pantokravtoro" [Hagion Oros, 1998], pl. 6465) du XIVe s.
35
Voir Papanicola-Bakirtzis, Paleologan Glazed Pottery, 197.
36
Identifis autrefois avec les koutrouvia destins au myron, ils devaient galement servir puiser de leau
bnite. Voir Soteriou, H Basilikh; tou' Ag. Dhmhtrivou, 22 et 238. Voir aussi Qessalonivkh. Ekqevsh Leukouv Puvr-
gou, 31, no. 5.
37
Voir K. Weitzmann, M. Chatzidakis, K. Miatev, and Sv. Radojcic, Icnes. Sina, Grce, Bulgarie, Yougoslavie
(Belgrade, 1966), LXVIII et CI, no. 203.
38
Voir V. Zalesskaya, The Thessaloniki Eulogiai and Miniature Icons from the Period of the Latin Empire,
20th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Paris, August 1925, 2001 (St. Petersburg, 2001), 7882 et rsum
en anglais 18687.
39
Voir S. Kissas, Monument funraire dans lglise Sainte Sophie de Thessalonique, Mouseivo Buzantinouv
Politismouv 3 (1996): 4145.
40
Voir Kissas, Monument funraire, 45.
tinople. Le monastre de Vatopdi conserve un enkolpion, en mail, attribu avec

rserve41 un atelier de Thessalonique du XIIIe sicle et qui pourrait prouver une pro-
duction denkolpia en dehors du culte de saint Dmtrios. Le sujet qui le dcore est une
thephanie du Christ, thme bien connu Thessalonique; dun ct le Christ imberbe est
assis dans une mandorle encadre par les symboles des vanglistes, composition lie la
thophanie de la mosaque du monastre de Latome. Deux enkolpia-reliquaire de la
Vraie Croix, dcors dmail, sont aussi attribus Thessalonique. Il sagit de la croix de
la collection de Dumbarton Oaks qui provient aussi du Mont Athos42 et dune autre, sem-
blable, qui se trouve Leipzig,43 toutes les deux dates du XIIIe sicle.
La production dicnes Thessalonique au dbut du XIIIe sicle (1219) est connue
daprs les informations que nous donne Thodosije, biographe de saint Savvas Ne-
manja.44 Ainsi, nous pouvons supposer quil existait aussi des ateliers fabriquant des
revtements en argent dor pour ces icnes. Ces revtements sont une autre expression
caractre religieux des arts mineurs dans la ville des le XIIIe sicle.45 Des lments his-
toriques fournis par des inscriptions et des textes attribuent un atelier de Thessalonique
une icne du Christ dOchrid avec un revtement en argent sign par le donateur,
larchevque dOchrid, Demetrios Chomatianos,46 et une icne ejgkosmhmevnh ejx ajrguvrou,
cest--dire orne dun revtement en argent, que daprs les Actes de Lavra lhigoumne
du couvent de la Sainte Trinit Thessalonique a offert au monastre en 1240.47 La pro-
duction des revtements en argent ou en argent dor semble se poursuivre aux XIVe et
XVe sicles et inclure des revtements de croix, de reliures de livres sacrs et dautres ob-
jets de culte.
Signalons tout dabord une intressante catgorie de ralisations prcieuses, vraisem-
blablement destines des plerins fortuns. Il sagit dicnes en mosaques, de trs pe-
tites dimensions, avec des revtements en argent, dont un exemple nous est fourni par une
icne en mosaques de saint Dmtrios, conserve Sassoferrato48 (Fig. 7). Lincorporation
41
Pour les arguments de lattribution, voir Y. Ikonomaki-Papadopoulos, B. Pitarakis, and K. Loverdou-
Tsigarida, The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopaidi. Enkolpia (Mount Athos, 2001), 7475, no. 22, notes 11
et 12.
42
Voir Glory of Byzantium, 174, no. 125.
43
Voir A. Effenberger, Ein byzantinisches Emailkreuz mit Besitzerungsinschrift, CahArch 31 (1983):
11427.
44
Voir Kissas, Monument funraire, 45. Thodosije nous informe que le prince serbe se trouvait en 1219
dans le couvent de Filokalou Thessalonique o il a invit des artistes pour faire peintre deux grandes icnes
du Christ et de la Vierge.
45
A. Grabar (Les revtements en or et en argent des icnes byzantines du Moyen Age [Venise, 1975]) attribue Con-
stantinople presque toutes celles quil a runies dans sa recherche, principalement en raison de la remarquable
qualit de leur technique. Nous pensons toutefois que certaines dentre elles peuvent tre attribues, partir
dlments historiques, Thessalonique et ses ateliers, tandis que dautres sont lies par la tradition la ville.
Nous avons considr comme lments historiques lorigine ou le lien du donateur dune icne avec Thes-
salonique ou sa rgion. Ces arguments restent toutefois fragiles dans la mesure o un seigneur de la ville pou-
vait parfaitement commander une icne et son revtement un atelier de Constantinople. Paralllement, lat-
tribution dune oeuvre un centre de production donn, en raison de la qualit de sa ralisation, reste tout
autant sujet caution.
46
Voir Kissas, Monument funraire, 44.
47
Voir Actes de Lavra, II, De 1204 1328, par P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, N. Svoronos, et D. Papachryssanthou
(Paris, 1977), 14, no. 70.
48
Voir I. Furlan, Le icone bizantine a mosaico (Milano, 1979), 96, no. 41; Splendori di Bizantio, Catalogue dEx-
position (Milano, 1990), 11213, no. 42.
dun flacon myron en plomb dans le revtement en argent de la partie haute du cadre
de licne constitue une preuve manifeste de son lien particulier avec Thessalonique, et
vraisemblablement avec lglise Saint-Dmtrios.49 Oeuvre de la seconde moiti du XIVe
sicle offerte par le cardinal Bessarion son ami Perotti, elle prsente certains lments
iconographiques particuliers, tel que le sol orn de motifs gomtriques, repris sur le
nimbe du saint, lments qui, daprs P. Vokotopoulos,50 trahissent une certaine influence
de lart de lmail, de mme que les bordures gomtriques, encadrant les inscriptions de
licne, qui rappelent les tabulae romaines. On rencontre des lments iconographiques
semblables dans certaines des icnes en mosaques de petites dimensions, telles que les
icnes de Saint Thodore en buste lHermitage, du Dodcaorton Florence,51 et de
lAnnonciation au Victoria and Albert Museum52 (Fig. 8), qui sont dates du premier tiers
du XIVe sicle, ainsi que le saint Thodore le Stratlate de la Vaticane,53 date de la sec-
onde moiti du XIVe sicle. Des lments stylistiques rapprochent les icnes de Florence
et de Londres des mosaques du monastre de Chora (Kariye Camii) Constantinople,
dont les artistes ont aussi travaill au katholikon dun monastre de la Vierge (glise des
Saints-Aptres) Thessalonique.
Lhypothse que ces lments iconographiques constituent des caractristiques dun
atelier, et que ces icnes pourraient avoir t produites par des ateliers de Thessalonique,
nous parat sduisante. Elle est en outre taye par licne de saint Dmtrios un atelier
de Thessalonique.54
En reliant les lments historiques fournis par des documents et des inscriptions sur les
revtements des icnes avec les lments stylistiques et techniques des revtements, nous
pensons pouvoir attribuer des ateliers de Thessalonique deux groupes de revtements
dicnes qui couvrent une priode de plus dun sicle,55 confirmant ainsi une longue tradi-
tion de production des revtements dans la ville. Le groupe le plus ancien, tabli et dat
par Grabar56 de la fin du XIIIe et du dbut du XIVe sicle, partir de critres techniques
et stylistiques, prsente la caractristique que les donateurs des revtements dicnes, men-
tionns par des inscriptions en mail champlev, sont lis la ville de Thessalonique.
La clbre Vierge de Freising (Fig. 9), avec un revtement portant une inscription qui
montre quil sagit dune donation du mtropolite de Thessalonique, Manuel Disypatos
(123561), appartient ce groupe. La grande qualit de cette oeuvre, rcemment attribue57
un atelier de Thessalonique, avait motiv son attribution Constantinople par Grabar.58
49
Le fait que licne appartenait Bessarion qui habitait Constantinople nest pas un argument contre sa
provenance. Il pourrait tre un cadeau de la part dun riche habitant de Thessalonique Bessarion ou il a pu
lachet lui-mme pendant un voyage.
50
Voir P. L. Vokotopoulos, Ellhnikhv Tevcnh. Buzantinev" Eikovne" (Athnes, 1996), 122, no. 91.
51
Voir Furlan, Le icone bizantine a mosaico, 85, no. 32 et 8182, no. 30. Vokotopoulos, Buzantinev" Eikovne",
211, no. 86.
52
Voir Furlan, Le icone bizantine a mosaico, 8384, no. 31 et aussi Byzantium, 2034, no. 220 (R. Cormack) et
Vokotopoulos, Buzantinev" Eikovne", 211, no. 87.
53
Voir Furlan, Le icone bizantine a mosaico, 95, no. 40.
54
Voir Furlan, Le icone bizantine a mosaico, 96; O. Demus, Die byzantinischen Mosaikikonen. I. Die Grossformati-
gen Ikonen (Vienne, 1991), 11.
55
Nous les datons de la seconde moiti du XIIIe sicle au premier quart du XVe sicle.
56
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 7.
57
Voir Kamboure-Bamboukou and Papazotos, H palaiolovgeia zwgrafikhv, 11, fig. 1.
58
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 4143, no. 16. Voir aussi Rom und Byzanz. Schatzkammerstcke aus bayerischen
Sammlungen (Munich, 1998), 24449, no. 84.
Dans le mme groupe sinscrit le revtement dune icne de la Vierge Hodegetria, of-
ferte par Constantin Akropolites et sa femme Maria Comnne Tornikina Akropolitissa
la fin du XIIIe sicle (Fig. 10), aujourdhui conserve la Galerie Tretiakov.59 Grabar in-
tgre enfin dans ce groupe le revtement dune icne de la Vierge, conserv au monastre
de Vatopdi au Mont Athos,60 offert par les soeurs Papadopoulina et Arianitissa (Fig. 11),
rcemment identifies61 comme filles de Thodore Sarantenos, seigneur de Vria. Ce
revtement presque intact, particulirement reprsentatif du dbut du XIVe sicle, qui
orne aujourdhui une icne de la Vierge Hodegetria du XVIIIe sicle, dut tre fabriqu
peu avant 1326, anne de la mort des deux donatrices. Licne dorigine, dcrite dans le
testament de Sarantenos en 1328, a disparu.
Le groupement par ressemblance est possible, mais nous nous gardons toutefois de
conclure que des pices particulirement semblables ont ncessairement le mme lieu do-
rigine, note Grabar.62 Nous soulignons aussi de notre ct que lon trouve des revtements
au Mont Athos, prcisment Vatopedi, et dans la rgion dOchrid, une rgion voisine et
aux liens troits avec Thessalonique, qui prsentent une grande ressemblance avec des
revtements attribus sur le plan technique et stylistique Thessalonique.
Dans le groupe le plus rcent de revtements on trouve deux types de technique: le
bas-relief au repouss, complt par le champlev en mail, ainsi que le filigrane, non avec
des fils entrelacs, mais avec de fines bandes lisses colles sur la feuille dargent constitu-
ant le fond du revtement, ce qui doit vraisemblablement tre attribu linfluence de
nouveaux courants artistiques. Les revtements de quatre icnes et dune croix de pro-
cession sinscrivent dans ce groupe que nous datons, partir dlments historiques que
je vais mentionner ci-dessous, de la fin du XIVe sicle et du dbut du XVe sicle.
Nous pouvons attribuer avec une certaine certitude Thessalonique le revtement
en argent de licne des aptres Pierre et Paul (Fig. 12), dans la mesure o elle provient,
daprs une inscription, dune donation du Despote Andronic Palologue (140823), fils
de lempereur Manuel II, au monastre de Vatopdi.63 Son dcor est trs homogn dun
point de vue technique, associant le bas-relief et le champlev en mail. Un tapis de vo-
lutes vgtales dapres Grabar couvre le fond de licne et remplit les panneaux oblongs
du cadre. Entre eux, neuf panneaux carrs prsentent des saints en bustes inscrits dans
des mdaillons, rendus au champlev et lmail de trois couleurs diffrentes. Ils reprsen-
tent une Desis avec les trois figures principales, la Vierge, le Christ et le Prodrome dont
les panneaux occupent la partie suprieure du cadre, ainsi que des saints militaires, les
saints Thodore, Tiron et Stratlate, saint Georges et saint Dmtrios et, dans les angles
infrieurs, les saints Nestor et Loupos en pied. Leur reprsentation, troitement lie
saint Dmtrios, et privilgie sous cette forme iconographique par le donateur, despote
59
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 4546, no. 18. Constantin Akropolites est le fils du chroniqueur byzantin
George Akropolites (122082).
60
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 4952, no. 21.
61
Voir A. Papazotos, Cristianikev" epigrafev" Makedoniva", Makedoniva 21 (1981), Summeikta, 4089, pour
le testament de Sarantenos. Voir aussi G. Theocharides, Miav diaqhvkh kai miav divkh buzantinhv (Thessalonique,
1962), 11 ff.
62
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 7.
63
Voir K. Loverdou-Tsigarida, Buzantinhv Mikrotecniva, dans Ierav Megivsth Monhv Batopaidivou, 2 vols. (Ha-
gion Oros, 199496), 2: 488, fig. 29. Daprs le manuscrit du moine Arkadios Vatopedinos, encore indit, la
date de la donation est 1417: voir I. Papangelos, Ta metovcia sthn Ellavda, Mikrav Asiva, Boulgariva kai Serbiva,
ibid., 1: 88.
de Thessalonique, renforce lhypothse de lattribution du revtement de cette icne

un atelier de la ville.
On peut attribuer au mme atelier la croix dite de Constantin (Fig. 13), conserve aussi
au monastre de Vatopdi, dont le revtement en argent prsente une forte ressemblance
stylistique et technique avec le revtement de licne dAndronic que nous venons de
prsenter.64 Il sagit dune croix de procession lie une des plus anciennes traditions du
monastre, et qui est aujourdhui conserve sur lautel du katholikon. Elle est entirement
recouverte dune feuille dargent avec un dcor vgtal en relief. Aux extrmits des
branches horizontales ont t rajouts des mdaillons au champlev et lmail avec des
reprsentations de lHtimasie du Trne avec deux archanges, de la Vierge et du Pro-
drome de part et dautre de la Descente aux Limbes, ainsi que des saints Constantin et
Hlne encadrs par les bustes des aptres Pierre et Paul. Des ajouts rcents couvrent
aujourdhui une partie de ces mdaillons.
Leur peinture65 et la tradition attribue galement Thessalonique deux icnes avec de
magnifiques revtements en argent dor du XIVe et XVe sicle, conserves au monastre
de Vatopdi.66 Il sagit des icnes de la Vierge Hodegetria (Fig. 14) et de lHospitalit
dAbraham (Fig. 15) que la tradition lie lglise Sainte-Sophie de Thessalonique, do
elles furent transfres au monastre de Vatopdi pour y tre sauves aprs la transfor-
mation de lglise en mosque au XVIe sicle.67
Le cadre et le fond de licne de lHospitalit dAbraham (Fig. 15) du XIVe sicle68 por-
tent un revtement en bon tat de conservation avec quelques petits ajouts rcents, har-
monieusement disposs. Au fond de licne sinscrivent les nimbes des cinq figures de la
composition. Le motif dcoratif du revtement, rendu par la technique des bandes colles
sur la feuille dargent que nous avons prcdemment dcrite, consiste en un tapis dorne-
ments vgtaux de trfles entrecoups de ranges de cercles successifs. Le dcor du cadre
est compos de panneaux rectangulaires couverts par le mme tapis de rinceaux et de pe-
tits cercles qui ornent le fond. Entre eux sinterposent des boutons ronds clous et des
panneaux carrs dans lesquels sont inscrits des saints en buste, appartenant diffrentes
poques. Seuls deux boutons au milieu du cadre droit et six panneaux avec des saints et
des aptres, dun art remarquable, sont attribus au dcor dorigine.
Le revtement de licne de la Vierge Hodegetria69 (Fig. 14) prsente une ressem-
blance tonnante dans la conception et lexcution de son dcor avec celui de licne de la
Sainte Trinit (Fig. 15). Les ajouts rcents sur les deux icnes ont galement t effectus
aux mmes poques et suivant les mmes proportions. Ces remarques confirment lorig-
64
Loverdou-Tsigarida, Buzantinhv Mikrotecniva, ibid., 2: 48182.
65
Voir E. Tsigaridas, Forhtev" eikovne", ibid., 2: 39293.
66
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 5455, no. 25. Loverdou-Tsigarida, Buzantinhv Mikrotecniva, 2: 49396, fig.
43839.
67
Il est vraisemblable que cette tradition est lie un firman de Selim II qui a ordonn le retrait immdiat
de toutes les oeuvres chrtiennes de lglise Sainte-Sophie. Ces oeuvres, comme nous lindique une inscrip-
tion, taient achetes prix dor par de riches chrtiens pour tre transfres dans des monastres du Mont
Athos. Au monastre de Xropotamou est conserve une icne de marbre en relief de saint Dmtrios
provenant aussi de lglise Sainte-Sophie, daprs linscription ddicatoire: Eij" eujprevpeian kai; mnhvmhn pistw'n
Anavktwn aJdrai'" dapavnai" thvn dhvnegken ejk naou' aJgiva" Sofiva", peivsa" zakovrou" Oijkoumeniko;" Suvmboulo"
Grhgovrio" (G. Smyrnakes, To Agion Oro" [Athnes, 1903; repr. 1988], 547).
68
Grabar, Les revtements, 66, no. 38, pl. D, fig. 8183. Loverdou-Tsigarida, Buzantinhv Mikrotecniva, 2: 493.
69
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 6768, no. 39; Loverdou-Tsigarida, Buzantinhv Mikrotecniva, 2: 496.
ine commune des deux icnes et leur entre la mme poque au monastre de Vatopdi,
lments qui tayent galement la tradition du monastre sur leur origine.
Nous attribuons galement un atelier de Thessalonique, en raison de la ressem-
blance impressionante de certains lments avec les deux revtements prcdents, le
revtement dune icne de lAnnonciation (Fig. 16), oeuvre thessalonicienne aussi,70 con-
serve galement au monastre de Vatopdi.71 Le revtement dorigine en filigrane na pas
t conserv intact. Une partie des panneaux du revtement du cadre a disparu, tandis
que ce qui a t conserv nest pas son emplacement dorigine. Nous pouvons proposer
pour le revtement de lAnnonciation une datation de la fin du XIVe ou du dbut du XVe
sicle, et lattribuer au mme centre de production que les deux icnes de Sainte-Sophie.
Dautres revtements dicnes en filigrane, dont la peinture peut tre attribues des
artistes de Thessalonique, peuvent tre relis, au niveau de la technique et des motifs d-
coratifs, avec les trois revtements que nous avons prsents. Cest le cas avec le revtement
orn de mdaillons en mail, lments de remploi, du cadre dune icne en mosaques
de saint Jean lEvangliste (Fig. 17), conserve au monastre de la Grande Lavra72 et dont
laspect pictural est li au Protaton et la peinture du XIVe sicle Thessalonique.
Les ateliers qui fabriquaient des revtements en argent dor pour les icnes devaient
galement fabriquer des revtements de croix et de reliures dvangiles pour rpondre
aux besoins des glises et des seigneurs de la ville. La demande et le cot important de ces
revtements semblent avoir oblig les acheteurs, ainsi que les artisans de Thessalonique,
recourir des imitations en stuc. Un exemple caractristique nous est fourni par une pe-
tite icne de saint Dmtrios (Fig. 18), conserve au monastre de Vatopdi, proche sur le
plan stylistique de la peinture de Thessalonique des XIIIe et XIVe sicles.73
Une autre oeuvre, relie par la tradition lglise Sainte-Sophie de Thessalonique, est
le revtement en bronze de la porte double battant en bois du katholikon du monastre
de Vatopdi (Fig. 19). Cette oeuvre, du XVe sicle,74 sinscrit dans un grand nombre de
ralisations semblables des ateliers byzantins de mtallurgie dont le principal centre de
production tait Constantinople.75 Elle a t ralise par un atelier qui rvle une longue
exprience dans cette technique impressionnante, qui nest pas concevable en dehors
dune production importante. La technique est une forme de damasquinage, appele
miltourgiva.76
Le revtement de cette porte consiste en quatre-vingt-huit panneaux rectangulaires,
disposs en neuf ranges sur chaque battant. Le damasquinage de quatre-vingt-six des
70
Voir E. Tsigaridas, Forhtev" eikovne", 2: 39293.
71
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 68, no. 40; Loverdou-Tsigarida, Batopaidivou, 2: 497, fig. 331.
72
Voir Grabar, Les revtements, 6263, no. 33, fig. 7172. Quelques remarques sur les maux des revte-
ments, voir Vokotopoulos, Buzantinev" Eikovne", 212, no. 90. Sur la peinture, M. Chatzidakis, Une icne en
mosaque de Lavra, JB 21 (1972): 7183.
73
Voir Tsigaridas, Forhtev" eikovne", 37577, fig. 318.
74
Voir Loverdou-Tsigarida, Buzantinhv Mikrotecniva, 2: 49798, fig. 440.
75
Voir M. Frazer, Church Doors and the Gates of Paradise: Byzantine Bronze Doors in Italy, DOP 27
(1973): 14760; Ch. Bouras, The Byzantine Bronze Doors on the Great Lavra Monastery on Mount Athos,
JB 24 (1975): 22950.
76
Il sagit de lvolution au Moyen-Age de la technique ancienne grecque ejmpaistikhv et de la caelatura ro-
maine. La dcoration dun objet ou dune lame mtallique est faite toujours avec des rainures creuses par un
ciseau ou de lacide nitrique, mais dsormais elles sont remplies du mivlto" liquide (une variante de lhmatite)
ou de tout autre matriau liquide offrant diffrentes couleurs.
panneaux des battants consiste en motifs non-figuratifs qui offrent un ensemble dcoratif
proche de la peinture. Les rotae sericae qui constituent le principal motif dcoratif des pan-
neaux sont enrichis de divers ornements vgtaux et de rosettes, mais aussi dassemblages
gomtriques et, en alternance, des aigles bicphales et des dragons ails, motifs priv-
ilgis dans lart de la priode byzantine tardive, notamment en sculpture et en tissage des
XIIIe, XIVe et surtout du XVe sicles.
Seuls deux panneaux, au centre de la troisime range partir du haut, sont orns
dun relief saillant qui a pour thme lAnnonciation. Nous pensons quil sagit dajouts,
vraisemblablement lis la repose du revtement sur la porte du katholikon, consacr
lAnnonciation de la Vierge (Fig. 20) et que lon peut, partir dlments iconographiques
et des inscriptions, situer dans la premire priode post-byzantine.
Lattribution de ce revtement un atelier de Thessalonique, dans la mesure o il or-
nait la porte dune glise de la ville,77 sera peut-tre taye par dautres arguments dans sa
prochaine publication. En attendant, nous avons dcid de le mentionner ici, parce que
on ne peut pas exclure lhypothse quexistait Thessalonique un atelier capable de pro-
duire des oeuvres de ce type.
Un autre domaine des arts mineurs, galement li aux besoins religieux et lacs,
semble avoir connu un certain dveloppement Thessalonique au XIVe sicle. Cest la
broderie, luxueuse ornementation des tissus et des vtements, dont un remarquable atel-
ier Thessalonique au XIVe sicle produisit le fameux ar-pitaphios de leglise de
Panagouda Thessalonique. Cette oeuvre, considre juste titre comme une des plus re-
marquables productions de lart palologue,78 reprsente le Christ-Agneau et la Commu-
nion des Aptres (Fig. 21) dans deux compositions brodes par au moins deux artisans.
Les reprsentations ont t dessines par un grand peintre, matre du volume style de
la peinture monumentale. Laskarina Boura, aprs une tude comparative avec des pein-
tures de Panslinos et de Michel Astrapas et Eutychios, l dat vers 1300 et la attribu
un atelier de Thessalonique.79
De lglise de la Peribleptos (aujourdhui Saint-Clment) vient une remarquable oeu-
vre de broderie liturgique.80 Il sagit dune podea qui portait la scne de la Crucifixion.81
Daprs linscription ddicataire qui accompagne la composition, iconographiquement et
stylistiquement trs proche de la peinture murale de la fin du XIIIe s.,82 il sagit dune do-
nation du grand htairiarque Progonos Sgouros et de sa femme Eudokia qui sont aussi les
fondateurs de leglise de la Peribleptos. Le mme personnage, qui tait aussi le donateur
dune eglise Saint-Nicolas Thessalonique, a invit les peintres thessaloniciens Eutychios
77
Voir S. Kissas, H mesaiwnikhv Qessalonivkh w" kevntro metallotecniva", Resum du 5e Symposium de la
Christianike Archaiologike Hetaireia (1985): 3233.
78
Il sagit dune oeuvre mentionne plusieurs fois, surtout dans les manuels de lart byzantin, mais attribue
sans autre prcision Constantinople. Voir aussi G. Millet, Broderies religieuses de style byzantin (Paris, 1947), 94
102.
79
Voir L. Bouras, The epitaphios of Thessaloniki. Byzantine Museum of Athens no. 685, dans Lart de Thes-
salonique et des pays balkaniques et les courants spirituels au XIVe sicle, 21114, fig. 215 ff.
80
Dimensions 122 68 cm. Elle se trouve aujourdhui dans la collection du Muse National dHistoire de
Sofia. Voir. J. Bojtscheva, Ein Kunstwerk der byzantinischen Stuckerei aus Ochrid. Datierung und Attribu-
tion, Problemi na izkustvoto 31.3 (1998): 815. Je voudrais ici remercier Madame Sharon Gerstel pour son aide
trouver larticle.
81
Analyse sur les possibilits dutilisation, voir Bojtscheva, Ein Kunstwerk, 1213.
82
Voir Bojtscheva, Ein Kunstwerk, 14.
et Michel Astrapas pour la dcoration de lglise. Pour complter son oeuvre, comme il
tait habituel cette poque,83 il a probablement cherch un atelier de Thessalonique pour
se procurer les broderies liturgiques ncessaires son glise.84 La qualit artistique de la
Crucifixion trouve des parallles dans lpitaphios de Thessalonique et dans laer-
pitaphios, de mme date, donation dAndronic II Palologue la mme glise de la Peri-
bleptos (Saint-Clment), d aprs linscription85 quil porte.
Dautres oeuvres de broderie pourraient tre attribues Thessalonique, soit parce
quelles ont t offertes par des donateurs qui viennent de la ville ou de la rgion, soit en
raison de leur ressemblance avec des oeuvres peintes ou encore par leur parent stylistique
avec lpitaphios dont nous avons prcdemment parl. Cela pourrait tre le cas dune
podea du monastre de Chilandar,86 de laer-pitaphios de Vatopdi, donation, daprs
une inscription brode, de lempereur Jean VI Cantacouzne87 (Fig. 22, 23), et de laer-
pitaphios du monastre du Pantocrator.88 Une tude plus approfondie des broderies
pourrait permettre des conclusions intressantes sur cette question.89
Nous ne pouvons videmment pas exclure lexistence dautres secteurs dactivit du
domaine des arts mineurs dans la ville de Thessalonique, par exemple la sculpture sur
bois. Citons notamment les lutrins en bois sculpt du monastre de Vatopdi (Fig. 24), of-
ferts, daprs la tradition, par le Despote Andronic Palologue et qui font partie des rares
sculptures sur bois byzantines encore conserves.90 Ils ont t fabriqus spcialement pour
le monastre, et liconographie des panneaux qui les dcorent est en relation avec la vie
de la Mre de Dieu et lAnnonciation. Il est probable, en raison de lorigine du donateur,
quils proviennent dun atelier de Thessalonique.
Il est aussi possible quexistaient des ateliers de reliure dont la tradition a pu tre trans-
mise au monastre de Sainte-Anastasie Pharmacolytria prs de Thessalonique, dou
provient le codex Paris. gr. 1192 dans lequel sont runies les oeuvres du mtropolite de
Thessalonique Jean Isidore Glabas (134296). Ce codex porte, sur le plat infrieur de sa
reliure du XVIe sicle, le monogramme en bronze de Thessalonique; nous supposons que
celui-ci provient de son ancienne reliure du XIVe sicle.91 Le fait que la bibliothque du
monastre se constitua par la copie de manuscrits ou la restauration dexemplaires anciens
peut expliquer la prsence de ce monogramme qui, probablement, provient dun atelier
de Thessalonique.
83
Voir K. Loverdou-Tsigarida, Objets prcieux de lglise de la Vierge Gabaliotissa au monastre de Lavra
(Mont Athos), Zograf 26 (1997): 8183.
84
Milkovic a mme attribu loeuvre la donatrice Eudokia. Voir Bojtscheva, Ein Kunstwerk, 10 note 13.
85
Voir Millet, Broderies religieuses, 90, qui remarque quil vient peut-tre du mme centre de production,
mais sans sortir des mmes mains. Voir aussi Treasures of Christian Art in Bulgaria, d. V. Pace (Borina, 2001),
2089, no. 76.
86
Millet, Broderies religieuses, 101, pl. CLVII.
87
Dat vers 1354. Voir M. Theochare, Crusokevnthta avmfia, dans Batopaidivou, 2: 42024, fig. 356, 357.
88
Voir Millet, Broderies religieuses, 8789, pl. CLXXVI. Leur ressemblance iconographique fait penser quil
sagit des oeuvres daprs le mme modle (Theochare, Crusokevnthta avmfia, 421, et idem, Kenthtikhv, dans
le catalogue de lexposition Oi Qhsauroiv tou Agivou VOrou" (Thessalonique, 1997), 4034, no. 11.19.
89
La comparaison du style et de liconographie des scnes brodes et des peintures sera trs utile non seule-
ment pour la datation mais aussi pour la provenance de leur modle et peut-tre pour la dtermination de
latelier.
90
N. Nikonanos, Ta xulovglupta, dans Batopaidivou, 2: 53646.
91
Voir Byzance. Lart byzantin dans les collections publiques francaises. Muse du Louvre 31.11.19921.2.1993
(Paris, 1992), 471, no. 363.
lexception des ateliers de production dobjets de luxe pour les glises et les digni-
taires ecclsiastiques et lacs, on trouvait Thessalonique des ateliers pour la production
dobjets dusage courant. Il existait des ateliers de dinanderie, et nous pouvons ainsi at-
tribuer avec une relative certitude un atelier de Thessalonique des polykandela ainsi que
six encensoirs de table, appels galement katsia, qui proviennent de la rgion de Thessa-
lonique et mme de Belgrade.92
Ltude de la cramique byzantine tardive permet avec une relative certitude de con-
sidrer Thessalonique comme un centre de production de cramiques, tout au moins au
XIVe sicle.93 On peut mme dterminer certains types dcoratifs appartenant des ate-
liers, tels que le rendu incis dun oiseau qui becqute une tige dans une coupe hmis-
phrique avec un pied bas ou une rosette enrichie dun ornement rayonnant.
Au dbut nous avons soutenu que Thessalonique au XIVe sicle avait le caractre
dune capitale. Cet situation justifie la prsence des meilleurs artistes et artisans de
lpoque, capables de rpondre aux besoins des riches seigneurs et des souverains qui
sjournaient dans la ville. Nous pouvons supposer aussi que des artisans, originaires de
Constantinople, ont pu venir sinstaller Thessalonique pour y crer des ateliers, mme
si Constantinople demeurait le principal centre artistique de lempire.
Les lments, bien que peu nombreux, que nous avons runis sur les ralisations de la
ville dans le domaine des arts mineurs peuvent dterminer de manire indicative la pro-
duction de Thessalonique lpoque des Palologues et nous permettre de conclure quex-
istaient dans la ville:
(1) des ateliers dorfvrerie pour lor, largent, et les maux, et des ateliers de ver-
rerie et de cramique qui rpondaient aux besoins du plerinage lglise et
la crypte de Saint-Dmtrios;
(2) un centre de production dargenterie, ventuellement spcialis dans les
revtements en argent dor doeuvres prcieuses, telles que des icnes, des
croix et des reliures de livres, destines des glises et des particuliers;
(3) des ateliers de broderies qui, partir de dessins de grands peintres de Thes-
salonique, fabriquaient des oeuvres dune grande qualit artistique;
(4) peut-tre un atelier de fabrication de petites icnes en mosaques;
(5) des ateliers spcialiss en produits tels que le revtement mtallique des
portes ornes suivant la technique du damasquinage, des ateliers de dinan-
derie, de la sculpture de bois, de reliure des livres;
(6) et un centre de production de cramiques.
Enfin, le fait que la ville fut un centre de production dun si grand nombre doeuvres
darts mineurs nous permet de supposer que la gamme de ses produits tait encore plus
importante.
Ephoreia of Byzantine Antiquities, Thessalonike
92
Voir K. Loverdou-Tsigarida, Buzantinhv mikrotecniva, dans le catalogue de lexposition Qhsauroiv tou
Agivou VOrou" (Thessalonique, 1997), 35354, no. 9.27.
93
Voir Papanicola-Bakirtzis, Palaeologian Glazed Pottery, 193 ff.

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
The Late Byzantine Metropolitans of Thessalonike
GEORGE T. DENNIS
s Thessalonike was the second city of the empire, so its bishop, especially in the
A Palaiologan period, was, albeit not officially, the second among the hierarchs in a di-
minishing empire.1 Also second, and by a notable distance, is reliable information about
him and his diocese. There is nothing comparable to the Registers of the patriarchate for
the fourteenth century. The sources are spotty and anecdotal. We do not even have an ac-
curate list of the bishops of Thessalonike. Still, acknowledging these problems, one can
piece together a general picture of the metropolitans of the city and their role. The con-
fines mandated for this report, however, do not permit a detailed discussion of each pon-
tificate. And so, this paper will focus on certain hierarchs of the fourteenth and early fif-
teenth centuries, a particularly troubled period, and will conclude with some general
observations, as well as some unanswered questions.
A few preliminary observations may be in order. There will be no discussion of the
Zealots in the 1340s. It has been conclusively demonstrated that the so-called Anti-Zealot
Discourse attributed to Nicholas Kabasilas Chamatos, once regarded as a major source,
has nothing to do with the Zealots in Thessalonike.2 Still, certain questions present them-
selves. How much of ecclesiastical politics in Thessalonike was in reality simply one aspect
of the conflict between the Kantakouzenoi and the Palaiologoi? How much was it affected
by the conflict between the Palaiologoi themselves, uncle and nephew? How much by the
conflict between the adherents of Palamas and those opposed to him? The lines of de-
marcation between the various factions are not at all clear.
The Synodikon of Orthodoxy has a special section which was read in Thessalonike and
which provides a list of the metropolitans of that church.3 For the end of the thirteenth
century, for the fourteenth and early fifteenth we have: Ignatios, Iakovos, Ieremias, Gre-
gory, Ignatios, Makarios, Antonios, Dorotheos, Isidore, Gabriel, Symeon, Gregory. To af-
fix surnames and dates to the names on this list is not an easy task. L. Petit, in an article
which appeared almost exactly a hundred years ago, tried to do so, with only partial suc-
cess.4 It should be noted that this Thessalonike list does not include the well-known bish-
1
Thessalonike ranked sixteenth in the hierarchy. Andronikos II raised it to eleventh and Andronikos III to
fourth: H.-G. Beck, Kirche und theologische Literatur im byzantinischen Reich (Munich, 1959), 176.
2 evcenko, Nicholas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse. A Reinterpretation, DOP 11 (1957): 70171;
I. S
idem, A Postscript on Nicholas Cabasilas Anti-Zealot Discourse, DOP 16 (1962): 4038; both repr. in his So-
ciety and Intellectual Life in Late Byzantium (London, 1981), nos. IV and VI.
3
Le Synodikon de lOrthodoxie, dition et commentaire, ed. J. Gouillard, TM 2 (1967): 1316, esp. 114.
4
Les vques de Thessalonique, EO 5 (19012): 9097.
256 THE LATE BYZANTINE METROPOLITANS OF THESSALONIKE
ops Gregory Palamas and Neilos Kabasilas. Instead, they are named and effusively praised
in the more general, doctrinal section of the Synodikon.5
The following list represents, to the best of our knowledge, the succession of the met-
ropolitans of Thessalonike and their dates (the PLP number for each one is given in square
brackets). Ignatios, 1284/85ante 1293 [8053]; Iakovos, ca. 129399 (previously hegoume-
nos of the Lavra on Mt. Athos) [7905]; another Iakovos, ca. 1300ca. 1315 (from Monem-
basia, but possibly the same as the preceding) [7906]; Ieremias, 131527, from Constan-
tinople, where he remained for some time after his installation as metropolitan) [8110];
an unnamed prelate(?); Gregory Koutales, 133234/36 (also from Constantinople in the
service of Andronikos III) [13616]; Ignatios (perhaps surnamed Glabas), 133641 [4222];
Makarios, 134244 (protos of Athos and then in the service of Empress Anna in Constan-
tinople) [16276]; Hyakinthos, 134546 (a native of Cyprus, he became a monk of Hode-
gon in Constantinople and was noted for his strong anti-Palamite stance) [29453]. The rest
are better known and will be treated in greater detail: Gregory Palamas, 134759 [21546];
Neilos Kabasilas, 136163 [10102]; Antonios, ca. 1363ca. 1371 (?) [1100]; Dorotheos
Blates, 137179 [2818]; Isidore Glabas, 138096 [4223]; Gabriel, 13971416/17 [3416];
Symeon (1416/171429) [27057]; Gregory, ca. 1432ca. 1437/38 [4559]; Methodios, ca.
143967 [17599].
Gregory Palamas is best known for his theological and ascetical writings, which we
need not discuss here.6 We are interested, rather, in his activities as archbishop of Thessa-
lonike. For this we must rely on a very laudatory and lengthy encomium composed by his
disciple Philotheos.7 Born in 1296, Palamas grew up in Constantinople where Emperor
Andronikos II provided for his education. In 1317 he made his monastic profession at the
Lavra on Mount Athos. Frequent Turkish raids on the peninsula, though, led him to spend
ten years in the capital. There he joined the entourage of John Kantakouzenos and was
persecuted and excommunicated by Patriarch John Kalekas. But, with the victory of the
usurper, in 1347, he was rewarded with the metropolitan throne of Thessalonike, al-
though he was unable to take possession of his see until the city yielded to Kantakouzenos
three years later.
As archbishop he was noted for his efforts to bring about peace and reconciliation in a
very faction-ridden city and for his preaching on social justice; many of his homilies, un-
doubtedly polished for posterity, are still extant.8 Philotheos, whom there is no reason to
doubt, portrays him as a very dedicated shepherd of the flock committed to him. On a voy-
age to Constantinople, in 1354, he was captured by Turkish pirates and spent a year in cap-
tivity, devoting himself to the spiritual needs of other captives. Freed and back in Thessa-
lonike, he resumed his pastoral activities, but by 1358 had become seriously ill. He died
the next year (14 November 1359), and he was declared a saint of the Orthodox Church
in 1368.
Neilos Kabasilas, whose baptismal name was probably Nicholas (thus explaining the
previous confusion with his nephew, Nicholas Kabasilas Chamatos), was highly regarded
as a theologian and teacher, counting among his students his nephew Nicholas and
5
Synodikon, 8991.
6
See J. Meyendorff, Introduction ltude de Grgoire Palamas (Paris, 1959).
7
PG 151: 551656.
8
PG 151: 9549.
GEORGE T. DENNIS 257
Demetrios Kydones.9 Still a layman, he was a candidate for patriarch in 1353.10 Very close
to John Kantakouzenos, he probably joined him in becoming a monk in December 1354.11
Patriarchal documents of 1361 mention the hieromonk Neilos Kabasilas as metropolitan-
elect of Thessalonike.12 We do not know when, or even whether, he received episcopal con-
secration or whether he actually arrived in Thessalonike to take possession of his see.13 He
seems to have died in 1363.
Dorotheos, surnamed Blates, was a disciple of Palamas. About 1360, together with his
brother Mark, he founded the Pantokrator monastery, generally known as Blatadon, a
monastic foundation in Thessalonike functioning continuously from Byzantine times.14
The Synodikon gives him high praise for his unswerving adherence to patristic and spiri-
tual exegesis and teaching (clearly code for Palamite), before becoming bishop and after,
as well as for enduring labors and suffering, including prison, on behalf of that teaching.
He seems to have occupied the metropolitan throne from 1371 to 1379.15
Isidore Glabas, whose baptismal name was John, was born to a prominent Constanti-
nopolitan family in 1342 and received an excellent education in the Byzantine tradition.16
He became a monk on 1 April 1375. Five years later (25 May 1380) he was ordained met-
ropolitan of Thessalonike, but remained in the capital for another month or two. Arrived
in his see, in 138182, for reasons that are not clear he suspended Dorotheos, hegoumenos
of St. Basil, and a priest named Allelouias. They appealed to Patriarch Neilos, who listened
to their side of the case. When Isidore protested against what he regarded as interference
in his diocese, Neilos justified his actions, stressing the rights of the patriarch, in July 1382.
With the city under siege by the Turks, Isidore preached a number of homilies in which
he maintained that the sufferings of his flock were the result of their sins; if only they would
repent and change their ways, St. Demetrios would intercede for them and God would free
them from their afflictions, both present and threatening. Most serious of those sins which
so angered God was the secularization of church property by the authorities. In a homily
delivered in October 1383, he raised the case of the property of St. Sozon (otherwise un-
known) belonging to the archdiocese, which some high-ranking dignitaries wanted to
drag off to other uses.17 He did not directly blame the emperor, who may well have been
9
See The Letters of Manuel II Palaeologus, ed. G. T. Dennis, CFHB 8 (Washington, D.C., 1977), xxxi, xxxvi.
10
Ioannis Cantacuzeni imperatoris historiarum libri IV, ed. J. Schopen, 3 vols. (Bonn, 182832), 4.38: vol. 3,
p. 275.
11
Ibid., 4.42: vol. 3, pp. 3067.
12
MM 1: nos. 181, 183, pp. 417, 429.
13
According to Sphrantzes, Neilos sister (Nicholas mother) moved to Thessalonike because her brother
was archbishop there: Georgios Sphrantzes Memorii 14011471, ed. V. Grecu (Bucharest, 1966), 18.12, p. 32.
14
R. Janin, Les glises et les monastres des grands centres byzantins (Paris, 1975), 35658; G. Theocharides, OiJ
iJdrutai; th'" ejn Qessalonivkh/ monh'" tw'n Blatavdwn, Panhguriko;" Tovmo" . . . Grhgorivou tou' Palama' (Thessalonike,
1960), 4970. The present monastery of St. Theodora also goes back to Byzantine times, although not in its
original buildings: see Janin, Grands centres, 37475.
15
In June 1376 he presided over a trial in Thessalonike: G. Theocharides, Miva diaqhvkh kai; miva divkh
buzantinhv (Thessalonike, 1962), 49.
16
See G. T. Dennis, The Reign of Manuel II Palaeologus in Thessalonica, 13821387, OCA 159 (Rome, 1960),
8995; V. Christophorides, O arciepivskopo" Qessalonivkh" Isivdwro" Glabav" kai ta koinwnikav problhvmata th"
epochv" tou, Episthmonikh; Epethrivda th" Qeologikhv" Scolhv" 29 (1988): 51990.
17
Dennis, Reign, 89. His homilies are extant in two collections, one in Vaticanus gr. 651; thirteen of these
have been edited by V. Christophorides, Isidwvrou Glaba' oJmilive" (Thessalonike, 1992). The other is in Parisi-
nus gr.1192. Five of his homilies on St. Demetrios have been edited by B. Laourdas, Isidwvrou ajrciepiskovpou
present in the church, but certain men who were trying to persuade him to alienate
church property to provide for the defense of the city. Manuel, at any rate, did not need
much persuading; he had confiscated church property in 1369 and 1371 and would do so
again in 1390.
In the last line of that homily, Isidore hinted at his eventual departure from Thessa-
lonike. In fact, he had not kept his plans secret, for rumors had reached Constantinople,
and the patriarch wrote to dissuade him. Isidore paid no heed, and, in spring 1384, sailed
for the capital. Further letters of the patriarch advising him to return were of no avail. Fi-
nally, in September 1384, the patriarch and the synod suspended the metropolitan of
Thessalonike from his functions for having abandoned the flock committed to him. When
those Christians were struggling for their lives, you fled and betrayed them.18
What motivated Isidore to flee from the besieged city? It may well have been fear for
his own safety. Christian bishops were in fact harshly treated by the conquering Ottoman
forces. The sufferings of Bishop Matthew of Serres at the hands of the Turks the previous
year might presage Isidores own fate were he to be taken prisoner.19 There may also have
been other motives, such as escaping the hardships imposed by the siege. He may have
been frustrated by the dispute over church property, to which he alluded in his sermons,
or by the hostility of the archontes or of the emperors advisors. Did he choose to leave be-
cause of a conflict with Manuel himself, either over the confiscation of church property or
over the emperors negotiations with the pope and the possibility of union with the Latin
Church? Or, finally, could he have been on a secret mission from Manuel to discuss a settle-
ment with John V?
Whatever his motives, the bitter reaction of the faithful was articulated by Dositheos
Karantenos, a priest in Thessalonike, in a letter to Isidore. Dated 14 July 1385, it did not
arrive in the capital until 12 September. Two days later, Isidore composed his reply to
Dositheos as well as a pastoral letter to the Thessalonians.20 He apologized for his absence
which, so he asserted, had been prolonged against his will; he declared his undiminished
affection for them and promised to return soon. He exhorted them to obey Emperor
Manuel, their only hope of escaping the terrible dangers now confronting them. To
Dositheos he offered proof that he was being detained in the capital against his will: he
procured provisions at considerable expense, which his brother conveyed to Thessalonike;
he had to obtain official documents from the rulers permitting him to return to his see. He
was obliged to spend a great deal of time at the palace, especially when he bearing the
second position of authority after the great one entered Constantinople.21 Many points in
this apology remain obscure, and any attempt to solve them will lead us far afield.
In any event, Isidore was restored to his position as metropolitan; in March 1386 he
Qessalonivkh" oJmilivai eij" ta;" eJorta;" tou' aJgivou Dhmhtrivou, Ellhnikav, Paravrthma 5 (Thessalonike, 1954), and an-
other five by A. C. Hero in her M.A. thesis, Columbia University, 1965.
18
Dennis, Reign, 92. Such episcopal flights before the Turkish advance were not uncommon in the 14th cen-
tury. In 13045 Patriarch Athanasios complained to the emperor about the large number of bishops who had
abandoned their flocks and fled to Constantinople: The Correspondence of Athanasius I, Patriarch of Constanti-
nople, ed. A. M. Talbot (Washington, D.C., 1975), letter 25, p. 56.
19
He clearly alluded to this in some of his sermons: see Christophorides, O ajrciepivskopo" Qessalonivkh",
55859.
20
Dennis, Reign, 92.
21
Ibid., 93.
reappears as a member of the patriarchal synod. But, despite his repeated promises, he
did not return to Thessalonike until after it was captured by the Turks, late, so it seems, in
1389. Sometime in the next few years he undertook the arduous journey to the Ottoman
Porte, in Asia Minor, to plead for better conditions for the Thessalonians captured by the
Turks as well as for those remaining in the occupied city.22 He seems to have achieved some
success for, back in Thessalonike, in his homilies for the Sundays before the feast of St.
Demetrios, in October 1393, he exhorted the congregation to be grateful to God for a def-
inite, but unspecified, remission of their sufferings. Two years later, however, he had to try
to console them as the Turks imposed the barbaric devshirme, or child tribute, upon them.23
Not long afterwards he died, on 11 January 1396.
Gabriel was the son of a priest, a diocesan official in Thessalonike. At an early age he
entered monastic life and came under the direction of Makarios Choumnos in what was
known simply as the Nea Mone (new monastery) in Thessalonike.24 About 1374 Makarios
was named hegoumenos of Stoudios in Constantinople, and he designated Gabriel as supe-
rior of the Nea Mone. But, in 1384, with the Turks besieging the city, he and several other
monks left for Constantinople, where they settled in what Demetrios Kydones referred to
as the Neotera Mone (newer monastery). But Gabriel was soon named superior of Chora
and overseer of all the monasteries in the capital. In April 1389 he was promoted to met-
ropolitan of Chalcedon, then occupied by the Turks and thus inaccessible to the metro-
politan-elect. But the bishopric of Chalcedon possessed a good deal of property in Con-
stantinople, which brought Gabriel into direct conflict with Matthew, bishop of Kyzikos,
and which would not be forgotten when Matthew ascended the patriarchal throne.
Sometime before 1394 Gabriel returned to his native city and again took up his posi-
tion as superior of the Nea Mone. The death of Isidore Glabas (1396) was followed by a
conflict over the succession which ended in the summer of 1397 with the election of
Gabriel. He was remembered for expending a great deal of energy and money in obtain-
ing milder treatment of his flock from the Turks. Some sixty-six homilies of his are extant,
mostly unedited, which cover the liturgical year and special feasts.25
Thessalonike was restored to Byzantine rule in the summer of 1402. The Synodikon
has a great deal of praise for Gabriel, but the rest of the historical record shows him em-
broiled in a series of ecclesiastical controversies. A dispute with the monks of Akapniou de-
generated to such a point that the patriarch threatened Gabriel with excommunication.
Gabriel himself, in conflict with the patriarchal exarch Nathaniel, excommunicated the
monks of Kyr Maximos. The long-standing hostility between Gabriel and Matthew of
Kyzikos, since 1397 ecumenical patriarch, erupted again when Emperor Manuel II sailed
22
These journeys are alluded to in the Synodikon entry and in the monody on Isidore by Constantine
Ivankos, ed. E. Legrand, Lettres de lempereur Manuel Palologue (Paris, 1893), 1058.
23
S. Vryonis, Isidore Glabas and the Turkish Devshirme, Speculum 31 (1956): 43343.
24
On Gabriel see Dennis, Letters of Manuel, xliixliv. A memorial oration by Makarios Makres focuses on
Gabriels holiness but also contains much biographical information: ed. L. Syndika-Laourdas, Makedonikav 4
(195560): 35270; more recent ed. with commentary by A. Argyrios, Makarivou tou' Makrh' suggravmmata
(Thessalonike, 1996), 10120. On the Nea Mone see Janin, Grands centres, 39899; also Byzantine Monastic Foun-
dation Documents, ed. J. Thomas and A. C. Hero, 5 vols. (Washington, D.C., 2000), no. 52, 4: 143354, esp.
1433.
25
They exist in cod. 58 of the Theological School of Chalki: see A. Ehrhard, berlieferung und Bestand der ha-
giographischen und homiletischen Literatur der griechischen Kirche, TU 52.5 (Leipzig, 1943), 71417. Seven have
been edited by B. Laourdas, Gabrihvl Qessalonivkh" oJmilivai, Aqhna 57 (1953): 14178.
for western Europe, leaving the capital to be governed by his nephew John VII, and in
June 1403 Gabriel took his revenge by voting to depose the patriarch.26 Peace between the
bishops of Thessalonike and Constantinople seems to have been restored only with Patri-
arch Euthymios, 141016.
Still, despite his voting against Patriarch Matthew and, at least implicitly, his support
of John VII, Gabriel enjoyed a long friendship with Manuel II; they shared literary inter-
ests, and two of the letters which the emperor wanted preserved for posterity were ad-
dressed to Gabriel.27 He died in 141617.
Here a note on John VII Palaiologos may not be out of place. In the summer of 1403
Manuel II returned from western Europe to reign again as emperor in Constantinople,
and his nephew John sailed off to reign as emperor in Thessalonike. An entry in the Syn-
odikon of that city, apparently composed by Metropolitan Symeon, had high praise for
John.28 He conducted himself in a truly orthodox manner through his entire life. He was
an outstanding defender of the church and its sacred doctrines. . . . When waves of
unheard-of violence rose up and threatened to engulf everything, he did not yield, but like
a good pilot he again took control for the Romans. He recovered several cities from the
hands of the barbarians, of which the first and greatest was our own Thessalonike, seeing
the light of freedom after long servitude. He established his residence in our city and, ne-
glecting nothing that was needed, he employed all means to assure our safety. He also
gained many victories and triumphs over his own sufferings; the great variety of illnesses
which he bore caused him to progress in virtue. His accomplishments and saintly life are
also recalled in other sources, notably in the monody composed by Theodore Potamios.29
It almost seems as though a cult of John was developing.
Symeon, a native of Constantinople, became a monk, perhaps in the monastery of the
Xanthopouloi, and was ordained a priest.30 He came to serve as a spiritual father, and he
was also very knowledgeable about the rituals of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople. The
spiritual father of Manuel II was also a monk of Xanthopouloi, and it may have been in
that context that he came to know Symeon, who, for his part, held the emperor in the high-
est regard. He is credited with having inserted special praise of Manuel in the Synodikon
read in Thessalonike, which recalled his wisdom, bravery, constancy of character, military
qualities, distant voyages, and incredible hardships undergone for the common good.
His great virtues shone upon the whole world more than any Orthodox emperor in the
past.31 Symeon also composed a personal but very informative history of events in Thes-
salonike from 1387 to 1422.32 He is best known, however, for his detailed writings on the
liturgy, as though he foresaw that its continued and correct observance would have to sus-
tain the Christian people during four centuries of infidel oppression.33
26
G. T. Dennis, The Deposition and Restoration of Patriarch Matthew I, 14021404, ByzF 2 (1967): 100
106, esp. 104 note 19; repr. in G. T. Dennis, Byzantium and the Franks 13501420 (London, 1982), no. IV.
27
Letters of Manuel, 52 and 57.
28
Synodikon, 99.
29
Ed. S. Lampros, Delt.Et.Ell. 2 (1885): 4862.
30
See D. Balfour, ed., Politico-Historical Works of Symeon, Archbishop of Thessalonica (1416/17 to 1429) (Vienna,
1979).
31
Synodikon, 101.
32
Ed. Balfour, Works of Symeon, 4069.
33
PG 155: 176817; I. M. Phountoules, To; leitourgiko;n e[rgon Sumew;n tou' Qessalonivkh" (Thessalonike,
1966).
Symeon claimed that he did not want to be a bishop but was obliged to receive ordi-
nation. At some point in the years 141617, he left the capital in a hurry, and arrived in
Thessalonike alone, where, so he said, he did not know anyone.34 In fact, almost every year
he requested to return to Constantinople. And, in a time of crisis (142223), he did attempt
to go back there but got only as far as Mount Athos and was forced to return to Thessa-
lonike. He claimed that he was compelled to remain there against his will. As Turkish pres-
sure on the city increased, he had to contend against those who wanted to surrender to the
Turks and at the same time against those who wanted to call in the Venetians. He was
strongly anti-Muslim and, being hesychast, almost as strongly anti-Latin; in the negotia-
tions with Venice he insisted on a clause safeguarding the position of the Orthodox bishop
and clergy.
Symeon was, of course, concerned with the administration of the church, including the
recruitment of suitable priests. But he was also much involved with civic duties such as ad-
vising the citys governor and presiding over civil tribunals. He admits that he alienated
many because of his integrity and impartiality. In fact, he claimed to have been buffeted
by everybody, reviled by his own household, and generally treated as dirt. In addition to
all that, he tells us that, in 142728, his already weak constitution cracked under the strain
of his labors and sorrows; he fell seriously ill and felt as though he was nailed to his bed
like a corpse.35 He died suddenly in autumn 1429.
Apparently, there was no archbishop in office when the troops of Murad II charged
into the city on 29 March 1430, but within two years a new metropolitan was chosen. This
was Gregory, a prominent member of the local clergy, who had served as bishop of a nearby
diocese, whose name we do not know, and who, around 1432, was transferred to the met-
ropolitan see of Thessalonike.36 He is the last prelate listed in the Synodikon for that city
and was remembered for doing all he could to sustain his flock in difficult times. We last
hear of him in 1437.
In the first half of 1439, Methodios appears as metropolitan. Very little is known about
him except that he seems to have resided in Thessalonike, for Emperor John VIII believed
that he would not be able to come to Constantinople for a proposed synod.37 He was still
in office on 15 January 1467, when he signed a decree deposing a certain Mark Xy-
lokarabes.38 It is not clear when his pontificate came to an end.
While the limited evidence summarized above may allow us to draw some conclusions
about the late Byzantine metropolitans of Thessalonike, there remain many obscurities,
both about individual hierarchs and more general matters. How was the metropolitan
chosen? Much like the ecumenical patriarch, it would seem. The permanent synod prob-
ably proposed three names, and the emperor selected one, usually the first, which, in one
way or another, he would have already suggested to the assembled bishops. Whatever the
34
On the date see Balfour, Works of Symeon, 137.
35
Works of Symeon, 54.3.
36
Synodikon, 115. In general see A. Glavinas, OiJ prw'toi kata; th;n tourkokrateivan mhtropolivtai Qes-
salonivkh", Episthmonikh; Epethrivda th" Qeologikhv" Scolhv" 23 (1978): 33145; V. Laurent, La liste piscopale
de Thessalonique, EO 32 (1933): 30010.
37
Les mmoires du grand ecclsiarque de lglise de Constantinople Silvestre Syropoulos sur le concile de Florence (1438
1439), ed. V. Laurent (Paris, 1971), 12, 17, 2933, pp. 57072. For letters written by him in 1452 and 1453, see
J. Darrouzs, Lettres de 1453, REB 22 (1964): 119.
38
Cf. Glavinas, OiJ prw'toi; PLP 17599.
formalities observed, it was often the emperor who appointed the metropolitan. Thus
John Kantakouzenos rewarded his supporters, Palamas and Kabasilas. Isidores connec-
tion with the emperor is not clear, but he belonged to a prominent family in the capital and
spent many years there. Gabriel also resided there for a long time and was, as we know, a
friend of Manuel II. Symeon was a native of Constantinople and quite likely a monk of
Xanthopouloi, to which the emperor went for spiritual direction.
We possess allusions to but very little documentation about the administration of the
diocese, about its officials, the chartophylax, the musical director, the administrator of the
orphanage, and about such matters as church property and philanthropic institutions.
Most probably, it reflected, on a smaller scale, that of the patriarchate.39 The city contained
many metochia and other properties belonging to Athonite monasteries, as well as religious
houses of its own. In the fourteenth century the metropolitan was entitled humble
(tapeinos), most honorable (hypertimos), and exarch of All Thessalia. During the reign of
John VI Kantakouzenos he received the privilege, when addressing the faithful in his own
jurisdiction, of adding the title, hitherto reserved to the patriarch, hJ metriovth" hJmw'n, our
moderacy, our modest self.40
The sources make it clear that the bishops of Thessalonike, whatever their political in-
volvement, were genuinely devoted to their pastoral responsibilities. One would expect to
hear this from the encomia in the Synodikon, but their homilies which have been pre-
served confirm the same judgment. Although their high Greek styleif indeed they were
delivered in the form in which they have been transmittedmay have been above the
comprehension of their congregations, the homilies manifest a genuine awareness of the
religious needs and problems of the Thessalonians and a sense of the bishops own re-
sponsibility to provide pastoral guidance. Symeons insistence on appointing suitable
priests and on correct liturgical observance is another facet of the same concern.
Like their counterparts in Constantinople, the bishops of Thessalonike played a
prominent role in civic affairs. They were involved in the secular courts of law and
presided over trials. Symeon, in particular, complained that his civic responsibilities con-
sumed a great deal of his time and energy and earned him many enemies. In 1336, more-
over, a trial was postponed because the see was vacant and there was no archbishop to pre-
side.41 Forty years later (June 1376) Bishop Dorotheos is recorded as being the presiding
judge in a civil trial.42 The bishops also had to oversee the many philanthropic institutions
which characterized Byzantine urban life. They served as counselors to the secular au-
thority, whether it was the emperors son bearing the title despot of the Romans, acting
as governor of the city, or the emperor himself. And, of course, in the years under Turkish
occupation the responsibilities of the metropolitans increased greatly. Isidore and Gabriel
went on long and dangerous journeys to obtain relief for the Thessalonians; they had to
raise funds to placate the occupying forces and, at times, to obtain provisions for the less
affluent members of their flocks. They ran into conflicts with the civil authorities serving
under the Turks. They had to be discreet in warning the Christians about becoming too
39
J. Darrouzs, Recherches sur les ojffivkia de lglise byzantine (Paris, 1970), 11718.
40
Darrouzs, Lettres de 1453, 72127, esp. 106.
41
Das Register des Patriarchats von Konstantinopel, ed. H. Hunger et al. (Vienna, 1995), no. 3, pp. 10417, esp.
110.
42
Theocharides, Miva diaqhvkh, 49.
friendly with their Muslim overlords, and they had to deal with those who had themselves
gone over to Islam.
Thessalonike was torn by factionalism and civil strife in the period under considera-
tion. Its bishops were constantly urging its citizens to put aside their differences and to join
forces against their real enemies. Their sermons are full of references to social injustice
and class struggle. Why do we hear more about such matters in Thessalonike rather than
in other cities? Why at this period in its history? One might also ask about the role of
Palamism. How divisive was it? Was it mostly a theological or ascetical controversy, or did
it have an effect on the lives of ordinary Christians? What was its real impact on politics,
local and imperial?
In all this there are several unexplained relationships. Theodore Potamios, for in-
stance, was a lifelong friend of Isidore Glabas and, at the same time, a good friend of
Demetrios Kydones, both of whom were bitterly opposed to each other. Gabriel supported
John VII, yet remained a friend of Manuel II. The Xanthopouloi monks gave spiritual di-
rection to anti-Latin hesychasts such as Isidore, yet, at the same time, also transcribed the
pro-Latin writings of Kydones and Manuel Kalekas.43 Many other such paradoxical rela-
tionships could easily be adduced. There was at the top of Byzantine society a certain elite
which was based, not on wealth, religious status, or nobility of birth, but on a shared
rhetorical and literary education, the communion of letters (koinwniva lovgwn), as they
called it.44 This literary brotherhood seems to have taken precedence over theological, po-
litical, and other differences.
There still remains much to learn about the metropolitans of Thessalonike and much
more we shall probably never know. There is also much to learn from studying what we
can of their history with all of its singularly distinctive personalities and its unexpected
complexities. The story of the metropolitans of Thessalonike is truly byzantine.
Catholic University of America
43
R. Janin, La gographie ecclsiastique de lempire byzantin. Le sige de Constantinople et le patriarcat cumnique:
Les glises et les monastres (Paris, 1969), 37879.
44
Dmtrius Cydons. Correspondance, ed. R.-J. Loenertz, 2 vols., ST 186, 208 (Vatican City, 1956, 1960), let-
ter 270, line 47: 2: 188. This has been discussed in some detail by I. S evcenko, Society and Intellectual Life
in the Fourteenth Century, Actes du XIVe Congrs international des tudes Byzantines, Bucarest 1971, vol. 1
(Bucharest, 1974), 730; repr. in his Society and Intellectual Life, no. I.
Appendix
Metropolitans of Thessalonike, Late Thirteenth to Mid-Fifteenth Centuries
Ignatios, 1284/85ante 1293

Iakovos, ca. 12931299
Iakovos ? ca. 1300ca. 1315?
Ieremias, 13151327
An unnamed bishop?
Gregory Koutales, 13321334/3645
Ignatios (Glabas), 13361341
Makarios, 13421344
Hyakinthos, 13451346
Gregory Palamas, 13471359
Neilos Kabasilas, 13611363
Antonios, ca. 1363ca. 1371
Dorotheos Blates, 13711379
Isidore Glabas, 13801396
Gabriel, 13971416/17
Symeon, 1416/171429
Gregory, ca. 1432ca. 1437/38
Methodios, ca. 14391467
45
On the dates of the archbishopric of Koutales, see comments by D. Jacoby in note 279 of his article in this
volume.

Published by
Washington, D.C.
Issue year 2003
2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Washington, D.C.
Prsence athonite Thessalonique, XIIIeXVe sicles
CHRISTOPHE GIROS
ans son loge de Thessalonique, crit au dbut du XIVe sicle, Nicphore Choumnos
D souligne le grand nombre de moines prsents dans la ville, qui cultivent la sagesse et
mnent une vie anglique.1 Si lorateur ne mentionne pas explicitement la prsence de
moines de lAthos Thessalonique, les archives des monastres de la sainte montagne
rvlent une part de leur emprise foncire dans la ville et de leur rle dans lconomie ur-
baine cette poque. Thessalonique et le Mont Athos ont entretenu des rapports pri-
vilgis tout au long du moyen ge, et ce, avant mme la fondation des grands monastres
cnobitiques. Si une affaire lexigeait, les moines devaient se rendre dans la ville, o
sigeaient les juges et les reprsentants des bureaux administratifs.2 Ainsi en 934, une
dlgation des moines athonites se rendit Thessalonique pour dposer auprs du
stratge du thme une plainte contre les habitants dHirissos, ville situe lentre de la
presqule.3
La fondation, dans la seconde moiti du Xe sicle, des grands monastres cnobitiques
accrut probablement les contacts entre lAthos et Thessalonique: saint Fantin le Jeune,
originaire de Calabre, rencontrasi le rcit hagiographique est vridiqueAthanase et
leunuque Paul, fondateurs de Lavra et de Xropotamou, prs de la porte kassandro-
tique; un moine de lAthos, possd par un dmon, fut plus tard guri aprs avoir pri sur
le tombeau de saint Fantin, Thessalonique.4
La ville constituait le principal centre urbain de la Macdoine, matresse, dans la pre-

mire moiti du XIVe sicle, dun riche arrire-pays.5 De nombreux monastres urbains y
furent alors fonds, souvent par des membres du clerg de la cit.6 une centaine de kilo-
mtres au sud-est de Thessalonique, le Mont Athos ntait pas isol, lcart des remous
1
J. F. Boissonade, d., Anecdota graeca (Paris, 1830; repr. Hildesheim, 1962), 2: 145.
2
D. Papachryssanthou, Histoire dun vch byzantin: Hirissos en Chalcidique, TM 8 (1981): 381 et
note 67.
3
D. Papachryssanthou, d., Actes du Prtaton, Archives de lAthos 7 (Paris, 1975), no. 4.
4
E. Follieri, d., La Vita di San Fantino il Giovane (Bruxelles, 1993), 44648 et 464. Sur la porte kassandro-
tique, cf. J.-M. Spieser, Thessalonique et ses monuments du IVe au VIe sicle. Contribution ltude dune ville palochr-
tienne (Paris, 1984), 5051.
5
A. Laiou, H Qessalonivkh, hJ ejndocwvra th" kaiv oJ oijkonomikov" th" cw'ro" sthvn ejpochv tw'n Palaiolovgwn, in
Buzantinhv Makedoniva, 3241430 m.C. (Thessalonique, 1995), 18394.
6
M. Rautman, Monastic Patronage in Macedonia, in The Twilight of Byzantium, d. S. C urcic et D. Mouriki
(Princeton, N.J., 1991), 6567.
266 PRSENCE ATHONITE THESSALONIQUE, XIIIeXVe SICLES
de la ville. la fin de 1337 ou en 1338, Grgoire Palamas, moine au Mont Athos, se rendit
Thessalonique, la demande du parti des hsychastes, pour y prendre la dfense de ces
moines, praticiens dune spiritualit nouvelle, contre les attaques de Barlaam le Cala-
brais.7
Parmi les documents mdivaux, conservs dans dix-huit des vingt monastres que
compte la presqule athonite, certains actes nous apportent des informations sur les biens
des moines de lAthos Thessalonique, et sur ce quils venaient faire dans la ville.8
Les monastres avaient besoin dune rsidence Thessalonique, pour hberger les
moines qui sy rendaient pour affaires. Ces dpendances urbaines, ou mtoques, taient
gnralement constitues dune glise, dun difice destin au logement des moines et de
divers btiments annexes groups autour dune cour ferme, pourvue dun portail et
souvent dun puits. Un prtre agr par le monastre desservait lglise du mtoque, o
taient clbrs quotidiennement les offices de lorthros et des vpres, ainsi que la divine
liturgie, et annuellement la fte du saint auquel tait voue lglise.9 Les btiments situs
autour de lglise ne pouvaient abriter dactivits juges inconvenantes, comme par ex-
emple les tavernes, dont un acte du mtropolite prohibe la prsence en 1270.10 Les actes
relatifs ces mtoques thessaloniciens sont conservs en assez faible nombre dans les
archives des monastres athonites. Il est possible que certains dentre eux aient t con-
servs Thessalonique mme, dans les archives des mtoques, et quils aient disparu.
Les grands monastres de lAthos possdaient gnralement plusieurs mtoques dans
la ville et des maisons de rapport.11 Un conome tait charg de ladministration des biens
urbains du monastre. Dans un cas au moins, nous savons que lconome du mtoque de
Vatopdi Thessalonique, lhiromoine Simon, tait aid au milieu du XIVe sicle par
un lac, Manuel Kollouraks, gestionnaire des biens du monastre Thessalonique.12 Les
revenus des mtoques thessaloniciens taient principalement constitus par les loyers
des maisons de rapport et ceux des vignes situes dans la campagne environnante.13 Les
conomes devaient en particulier assurer lentretien des btiments. Un compte des
dpenses effectues Thessalonique ou dans ses environs est conserv au verso dun acte
de bail indit de Vatopdi, dat de 1344: les salaires de quinze ouvriers ou artisans sont
mentionns, au total plus de 19 hyperpres, pour un travail dont la nature nous chappe
malheureusement, et qui a dur trois semaines.14 Les monastres cdaient, contre le verse-
7
P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, N. Svoronos, D. Papachryssanthou, avec la collaboration de S. C urcic, d., Actes de
Lavra, IV. tudes historiques, actes serbes, complments et index, Archives de lAthos 11 (Paris, 1982), 33.
8
Les actes de lAthos font lobjet dune dition systmatique dans la collection Archives de lAthos, fonde en
1937 par Gabriel Millet, reprise par Paul Lemerle et actuellement dirige par Jacques Lefort, et dont 21 vo-
lumes ont t publis ce jour.
9
J. Lefort, N. Oikonomids, D. Papachryssanthou, V. Kravari, avec la collaboration dH. Mtrvli, d.,
Actes dIviron, III. De 1204 1328, Archives de lAthos 18 (Paris, 1994), no. 60.1112.
10
W. Regel, E. Kurtz et B. Korablev, d., Actes de Zographou, Archives de lAthos 4, VizVrem 13 (1907):
Prilozhenie 1 (repr. Amsterdam, 1969), no. 8.
11
B. Ferjancic, Posedi vizantijskih provincijskih manastira u gradovima (Domaines des monastres
provinciaux byzantin en ville), ZRVI 19 (1980): 21628.
12
Acte indit de Vatopdi (mars 1356). Manuel Koullouraks est familier de lempereur en 1356; cf. PLP
13424. Un mdecin du nom de Manuel Koullouraks est connu Thessalonique en 1324, cf. PLP 13425.
13
Un acte de 1356 mentionne loikologion et lampelopakton du mtoque de Vatopdi Thessalonique: cf.
M. Goudas, d., Buzantiaka; e[ggrafa th'" ejn Aqw/ iJera'" monh'" tou' Batopedivou, Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 4 (1927): 23839.
14
Acte indit de Vatopdi (aprs septembre 1344).
CHRISTOPHE GIROS 267
ment dun loyer annuel, des ensembles de maisons des notables qui sengageaient en-
tretenir et bonifier les biens qui leur taient confis. Les actes de bail prcisent parfois que
les preneurs ont des liens particuliers avec le monastreils sont qualifis par exemple de
frres du monastre dans un acte indit de Vatopdi, de 1358ce que lon peut inter-
prter comme des liens de clientle.
Les monastres de lAthos ont accru progressivement leurs biens autour de ces mto-
ques, en acqurant, par achat, par donation ou par change, des maisons voisines ou des
terrains. Il est possible de dresser un tableau de leurs diverses possessions immobilires
Thessalonique, qui tmoignent de leur politique dacquisition dans la ville. Dans certains
cas, les actes de vente ou de donation dcrivent les lieux avec suffisamment de prcision
pour permettre une reprsentation schmatique des biens acquis. Toutefois, les dimen-
sions des difices ne sont jamais donnes, et les reconstitutions proposes nont de valeur
quindicative.
Au premier rang des monastres de lAthos, Lavra accrut son emprise foncire Thes-
salonique au XIIIe sicle. En 1259, dans une liste des biens du monastre, un seul m-
toque est attest dans la ville, avec des maisons de rapport;15 en 1298, trois mtoques,
Saint-Athanase, la Trinit et Saint-Euthyme sont mentionns.16 En 1287, Lavra acquit tous
les biens du monastre des Amalfitains, et en particulier des maisons prs de Thessa-
lonique.17 Les origines des biens urbains de Lavra Thessalonique sont obscures: un
conome du mtoque de Thessalonique est attest en 1162,18 mais il est possible que le
monastre y ait dtenu une rsidence depuis le Xe sicle, lorsque le monastre Saint-
Andr de Pristerai, qui possdait des biens lest de Thessalonique, devint une dpen-
dance de Lavra.19 Le mtoque de la Sainte-Trinit tait un ancien monastre familial,
fond avant 1240 par lhiromoine Matthieu Perdikarios lest du quartier juif.20 Le
quartier juif mdival de Thessalonique, abandonn la suite dun incendie avant 1420,
tait vraisemblablement situ prs de lagora, louest de lglise de la Panagia tn
Chalkn.21 Le mtoque de la Sainte-Trinit comprenait trois maisons lest du monastre,
dont lune tait pourvue dun toit double pente et dun auvent, sur une cour prive
pourvue dun puits. Au sud du monastre, trois autres maisons patrimoniales donnaient
sur une autre cour prive pourvue dun puits, et deux maisons louest, sur une troisime
cour prive pourvue dun puits, avaient leur porte qui donnaient sur le quartier juif.22
Vatopdi possdait jusquen 1270 deux mtoques Thessalonique, acquis une date
inconnue. En 1270, le monastre vendit Zographou, qui en tait alors dpourvu dans la
ville, le mtoque de Saint-Nicolas, dit Glyky Nron, qui comprenait une glise et des kel-
15
P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, N. Svoronos et D. Papachryssanthou, d., Actes de Lavra, II. De 1204 1328,
Archives de lAthos 8 (Paris, 1977), no. 71.70.
16
Ibid., no. 89.13940.
17
Ibid., no. 79.1213.
18
P. Lemerle, A. Guillou, N. Svoronos, avec la collaboration de D. Papachryssanthou, d., Actes de Lavra, I.
Des origines 1204, Archives de lAthos 5 (Paris, 1970), no. 64.31.
19
Ibid., 8788.
20
Lavra, II: no. 70.
21
N. Oikonomids, d., Actes de Docheiariou, Archives de lAthos 13 (Paris, 1984), 80 note 1, et idem, Actes de
Dionysiou, Archives de lAthos 4 (Paris, 1968), 11112. Voir aussi D. Jacoby dans ce mme volume.
22
Lavra, II: no. 70.2428.
lia, situ dans le quartier de Sainte-Plagie (Fig. 1), prs de la mtropole, pour 240 hyper-
pres.23 Vatopdi dtenait en 1301 un mtoque ddi la Vierge, avec des maisons envi-
ronnantes, qui nest pas localis.24
Dans le quartier de lHippodrome, Vatopdi acheta trois maisons autour de 1327.25
Thodot vendit cette date au monastre, pour 46 hyperpres, une maison quelle avait
reue en dot, situe dans la partie nord dune cour dtenue en commun avec Vatopdi
(Fig. 2), qui y avait auparavant achet des biens aux excuteurs testamentaires de loncle
paternel, dcd, de Thodot, Nicolas Agaptos. La cour avait vraisemblablement ap-
partenu aux grands-parents de Thodot, avant dtre divise entre leurs fils. Le pre de
Thodot avait hrit de la maison centrale (B), qui fit ensuite partie de la dot de sa fille,
et Nicolas Agaptos des deux maisons latrales (A et C), que Vatopdi acquit en premier
lieu. La cour tait pourvue dun puits et dun caniveau. Le portail se trouvait au sud; son
seuil de marbre appartenait Thodot. La maison centrale, tage, tait pourvue dun
toit double pente, en joncs couverts de tuiles. Seuls les murs nord et sud lui apparte-
naient en propre, les murs est et ouest tant en commun avec Vatopdi; on devine donc
que Vatopdi avait acquis rcemment les maisons situes lest et louest de celle de
Thodot. Au rez-de-chausse, la maison avait deux portes: lune, donnant sur la rue qui
longeait le ct nord de la cour, lautre, au sud, ouvrant sur la cour, sous une arcade. l-
tage, du ct sud, une porte donnait accs un balcon, soutenu par larcade et ferm lest
par une cloison, en partie mur au sud. Le balcon tait pourvu dun toit une seule pente
en joncs couverts de tuiles, et tait accessible louest par un vieil escalier en bois, bord
dune rambarde en joncs.
Avant 1340, Michel Kalamitznos et son fils Denis avaient donn Vatopdi quatre
maisons tage, situes dans le quartier de Saint-Mnas, prs du port, proximit de
biens du monastre, et taient devenus moines Vatopdi. Denis revendiqua ensuite les
maisons, comme des biens qui lui venaient de sa mre, et Vatopdi lui versa une certaine
somme dhyperpres, pour le ddommager. Aprs la mort de son pre, Denis
Kalamitznos quitta le monastre et reprit illgalement les maisons. Les moines r-
clamrent alors largent, et des procs furent engags. Un accord lamiable fut trouv
avec lhigoumne de Vatopdi, venu Thessalonique pour rgler laffaire. Denis restitua
les maisons et obtint, tant quil rsiderait Thessalonique, un adelphaton, une rente viagre
annuelle,26 constitue de 6 tagaria de bl, soit environ 173 kg, et de 24 mesures de vin, soit
246 litres.27 Il tait aussi autoris rintgrer le monastre.28
Les donations des notables et des aristocrates accroissaient le patrimoine immobilier
du monastre. En 1356, Arsne Tzamplakn, dune famille de hauts dignitaires de lem-
23
Zographou, no. 9. Cf. aussi no. 8 et 11. Le quartier de Sainte-Plagie a t localis entre le quartier de Saint-
Mnas et celui de lHippodrome; cf. H. Lowry, Portrait of a City: The Population and Topography of Ottoman
Selnik (Thessaloniki) in the Year 1478, Divptuca 2 (198081): 26570, et V. Dmtriads, Topografiva th'"
Qessalonivkh" kata; th;n ejpoch; th'" Tourkokrativa", 14301912 (Thessalonique, 1983), 33.
24
J. Bompaire, J. Lefort, V. Kravari et Ch. Giros, d., Actes de Vatopdi, I. Des origines 1329, Archives de
lAthos 21 (Paris, 2001), no. 31.7072; no. 68.3840.
25
Ibid., no. 65.
26
Sur les adelphata, cf. en dernier lieu A. Laiou, Economic Activities of Vatopedi in the Fourteenth Cen-
tury, in Iera; Monh; Batopedivou. Istoriva kai; tevcnh, Aqwnikav Suvmmeikta 7 (Athnes, 1999), 6672.
27
E. Schilbach, Byzantinische Metrologie (Munich, 1970), 1078 et 113.
28
Acte indit de Vatopdi (septembre 1340).
N
1 Plan de Thessalonique (tir de N. Oikonomids, d., Actes de Docheiariou, Archives de lAthos 13 [Paris, 1984], 79,
modifi)
rue
B
A C
2 Maisons de Vatopdi, dans le quartier de lHippodrome

B
3 Maisons du monastre de la Timioptritissa, dans le quartier de Kataphyg

4 Maisons dIviron, dans le quartier de lAcheiropoitos
5 Maisons dIviron, dans le quartier de lHippodrome
6 Maisons de Chilandar, dans le quartier de Saint-Paramonos
9 Maisons de Zographou, dans le quartier de Sainte-Plagie
pire, fit don Vatopdi, avant de se retirer dans le monastre, de ses maisons Thessa-
lonique, dans le quartier de Kataphyg, peut-tre situ au nord-est de la Panagia tn
Chalkn,29 avec une glise ddie la Vierge, dite Kamaritissa, et un verger attenant.30
la suite de troubles survenus Thessalonique, ces biens tombrent en ruines, et Vatopdi
en fit enlever les matriaux. Lglise fut transforme en latrines, et le terrain fut utilis par
les voisins, comme sil tait eux. De la maison dArsne Tzamplakn ne subsistaient en
1373 que deux colonnes, un muret et trois pices. cette date, le monastre cda les biens
contre 100 hyperpres Michel et Constantin Kyprianos, charge pour eux de remettre
lglise en tat et de reconstruire des maisons, dont le loyer devait servir assurer le fonc-
tionnement de lglise et la commmoraison de Tzamplakn et des nouveaux propri-
taires.31 Vatopdi prfrait alors se dbarrasser dun bien en ruine plutt que dengager
des investissements coteux pour le rhabiliter.
Les moines disposaient galement de terrains non btis Thessalonique. En 1356, ils
donnent bail un terrain dans le quartier de Kataphyg, prs de biens de Vatopdi, Cons-
tantin Agallianos, pour quil y construise des maisons. Le terrain avait t autrefois bti,
et tait situ sur une cour commune, enclose, pourvue dun puits: la parcelle tait en
forme de trapze isoscle, longue denviron 22 m, dune superficie de 208 m2. Les clauses
du contrat prvoient que le preneur pourra construire autant de maisons quil voudra, en
percevoir les revenus durant vingt-cinq annes, contre un loyer annuel, pour le terrain, de
1,25 hyperpres (soit 0,6 hyperpres pour 100 m2).32 Ce loyer est lgrement plus lev
que celui quon peut dduire dun acte de bail dat de 1306, conserv Xnophon, qui
concerne un terrain situ dans le quartier de lHippodrome, appartenant au monastre
fminin des Saints-Anargyres (0,4 hyperpre pour 100 m2).33
Dans le mme quartier de Kataphyg, le monastre de la Timioptritissa, situ au
nord de Thessalonique, et dont les biens passrent Vatopdi une date inconnue, proba-
blement au XVe sicle, concda en 1358 titre viager une famille un ensemble de
maisons dlabres, charge pour eux de les restaurer, contre le versement de 36 hyper-
pres en onces de ducats et dun loyer annuel rcognitif de quatre litrai dhuile.34 Au verso
de lacte, un compte des dpenses mentionne la rfection du mur de clture, dune arcade
et dune maison, ainsi que lachat de 560 tuiles, pour un total de plus de 50 hyperpres, et
16 mesures de vin. Les maisons taient dans une cour pourvue dun portail, et avaient
autrefois appartenu une dame Cantacuzne. louest de la cour (Fig. 3), se trouvait une
maison tage (A), au toit double pente, avec des murs louest et au nord, et des cloi-
sons de planches ( phalsa) lest et au sud. Au sud (B), une maison toit une seule pente
possdait au sud et louest ses propres murs. Au milieu de la cour un btiment toit
une seule pente abritait un four (C) et avait une ouverture louest, prs de laquelle il y
avait un puits. Au nord, la cour tait accessible par un portail en ruine. lest, une maison
tage (D) tait pourvue de trois murs propres, au nord, lest et au sud, avec cet en-
droit une arcade en mauvais tat. Larcade abritait une cuisine ferme par des cloisons de
29
Docheiariou, 7980.
30
G. I. Thocharids, d., OiJ Tzamplavkwne", Makedonikav 5 (196163): 13437.
31
Alexandros Batopaidinos, d., in Grhg.Pal. 4 (1920): 63133.
32
Acte indit de Vatopdi (mars 1356).
33
D. Papachryssanthou, d., Actes de Xnophon, Archives de lAthos 15 (Paris, 1986), no. 7.
34
Acte indit de Vatopdi (avril 1358).
planches, avec deux entres, donnant sur la rue et sous larcade. Ce type de construction,
difie en annexe de la maison, sous larcade de faade, pourrait tre de tradition anci-
enne, puisquun acte latin de Ravenne, dat de 982, qualifie le mme type de btiment de
cuisine grecque.35 Trois autres maisons (E, F, G) taient situes lest de la cour, dont
lune (G), pourvue dun tage, tait en ruines. Il est possible que les travaux mentionns
au verso de lacte sur une maison concernent la maison G. Une maison appartenant au
monastre thessalonicien de la Vierge Gorgopkoos36 tait vraisemblablement accole
la maison situe langle nord-est de la cour. Parmi les autres voisins mentionns, on
compte deux dignitaires de la cour, familiers de lempereur, ce qui suggre le caractre
aristocratique du quartier de Kataphyg.
Vatopdi dtenait aussi en 1364 le monastre dit de Kyr Kyrou,37 et en 1375 sept
maisons sur une cour, dans le quartier de Kataphyg.38
Un chrysobulle de Michel VIII mentionne en 1259, parmi les biens dIviron, le m-

toque situ dans le kastron de Thessalonique, qui comprenait des monastres, des maisons
loues, des terrains, des vignes et dautres dpendances.39 Nous savons quau dbut du
XIIe sicle, le monastre possdait le mtoque du Prodrome (quartier de lAcheiropoi-
tos, louest de lglise40), Saint-Basile (non localis), Saint-Clment (quartier de Saint-
Thodore, quartier de Saint-Paramonos), Sainte-Barbara (quartier de lHippodrome) et
Saint-Nicolas ( proximit du rempart oriental de Thessalonique), dont nous avons des
descriptions prcises cette poque.41 Iviron tait donc matre dun riche patrimoine ur-
bain, mais lentretien de ces dpendances pouvait savrer trop coteux. En 1264, Iviron
cda titre viager son mtoque de Saint-Clment un fabricant et marchand de selles,
Nicolas Kamouds, et trois personnes qui lui succderaient, pour quil restaure lglise,
dont les bas-cts et les six btiments qui en dpendaient menaaient de seffondrer, con-
tre le versement dun loyer annuel de 4 hyperpres. Le sellier, qui sinstallait dans le m-
toque, devait soccuper de faire assurer les offices par un prtre agr par Iviron. Les
amliorations reviendraient ensuite au monastre.42 En 1295, une dcision synodale an-
nula la cession du mtoque, et dcida quaprs la mort du neveu et successeur de Nicolas
Kamouds, le mtoque reviendrait Iviron.43
Iviron acquit en 1314, pour 110 hyperpres, des btiments attenants son mtoque
du Prodrome.44 Il sagissait de trois maisons au toit une seule pente, couvert de tuiles,
avec trois pressoirs. Les moines firent jouer leur droit de voisinage, et invoqurent le fait
35
Autour de Gerbert dAurillac, le pape de lan mil, d. O. Guyotjeannin et E. Poulle (Paris, 1996), 63.
36
Sur ce monastre, cf. M. Rautman, Ignatius of Smolensk and the Late Byzantine Monasteries of Thes-
saloniki, REB 49 (1991): 16162.
37
Goudas, d., in Ep.Et.Buz.Sp. 4 (1927): 24445.
38
Alexandros Batopaidinos, d., in Grhg.Pal. 4 (1920): 63335.
39
J. Lefort, N. Oikonomids, D. Papachryssanthou, avec la collaboration de V. Kravari et dH. Mtrvli,
d., Actes d Iviron, II. Du milieu du XIe sicle 1204, Archives de lAthos 16 (Paris, 1990), no. 58.7172.
40
J.-P. Grlois, propos du monastre du Prodrome Thessalonique, Byzantion 59 (1989): 7887.
41
Iviron, II: 5052; Ch. Giros, Remarques sur larchitecture monastique en Macdoine orientale, BCH
116 (1992): 41419 et 43033.
42
Iviron, III: no. 60.
43
Iviron, II: no. 68.
44
Ibid., no. 73.
que les eaux de pluie de ces maisons scoulaient dans leurs biens. Avant 1318, le
monastre avait acquis des maisons voisines par change avec le monastre dAkapniou.45
En 1320, le monastre acquit, pour 60 hyperpres, trois autres maisons proches de son
mtoque du Prodrome, et dont le sol appartenait Iviron: Anne Paxamad et son frre
vendaient un ensemble de btiments sur une cour commune avec Manuel Paxamadas, le
beau-frre dAnne. La cour (Fig. 4) tait pourvue dun puits et dun portail communs.
Ldifice principal tait un triklinarion (T), cest--dire un btiment pourvu dune salle de
rception, accol aux maisons de Manuel Paxamadas (P), construit en pierres et briques,
couvert dune charpente en bois et de tuiles assembles sans joint, ayant deux ouvertures,
lune sur la cour du monastre appartenant Iviron, et lautre vers la cour des maisons de
Manuel. Accole ce triklinarion, au sud, une maison tage, prte seffondrer du fait de
son anciennet, tait construite en pierres et briques, couverte de joncs et de tuiles assem-
bles sans joint, ayant trois murs en propre, le mur ouest, le mur sud, qui donnait sur la
rue, et le mur est; le mur nord, mitoyen du triklinarion, avait une ouverture et tait cons-
truit en pierres et briques; cette maison avait ltage trois ouvertures louest, au sud et
lest; au rez-de-chausse une seule ouverture, qui desservait le triklinarion. Accol cette
maison, un autre btiment, couvert dun toit une seule pente, divis par des cloisons de
planches ( phalsa), couvert de tuiles assembles sans joint, ayant deux murs en propre, le
mur sud, qui donnait sur la rue, et le mur est, pan de bois, avec deux ouvertures sur la
cour dAnne et de Manuel.46
ct de son mtoque de Sainte-Barbara, Iviron acquit en 1326, pour 100 hyperpres,
quatre maisons difies sur un sol qui lui appartenait, sur une cour en commun, pourvue
dun puits, dun caniveau et une entre louest (Fig. 5):47 au sud, une maison tage (A),
couverte dun toit une seule pente, ayant trois murs en propre, nord, sud et est, pourvue
ltage douvertures qui donnent sur une arcade, et sur la cour dune ouverture au rez-
de-chausse; le mur ouest de la maison tait constitu dune cloison de bois, commune avec
un bien dtenu par les hritiers de Bitzas (Bi); deux btiments (B et C) accols en appen-
tis, lest de la maison, construits en pierres et briques, couverts de tuiles, pourvus de deux
ouvertures sur la cour et dont le mur sud tait mitoyen avec un bien de Phakrass (Ph),
avec un jardin lest et un terrain btir, enclos par un mur; louest, un pressoir avec sa
cuve et au nord, une maison dpourvue de toit (D).
Vers 1320, Iviron avait chang avec le monastre de Chortatou son mtoque de
Saint-Nicolas contre trois cours dans le quartier de Saint-Paramonos, prs de la Porte dOr,
qui devaient constituer le mtoque de Saint-Georges, mentionn pour la premire fois en
1346.48 Les cours acquises par change comportaient une glise, une boulangerie, un
verger, six mriers et deux pressoirs.49 Le monastre dtenait aussi des jardins, prs de la
Porte dOr, hors de la ville. En 1416/17, on utilisa, pour rparer les puits et les canalisa-
45
Iviron, II: no. 75.59698.
46
Iviron, III: no. 78.1627.
47
Ibid., no. 84.2030.
48
J. Lefort, N. Oikonomids, D. Papachryssanthou, V. Kravari, avec la collaboration dH. Mtrvli, d.,
Actes dIviron, IV. De 1328 au dbut du XVIe sicle, Archives de lAthos 19 (Paris, 1995), no. 90.28. Sur la localisa-
tion du quartier de Saint-Paramonos, cf. ibid., 3435; sur la Porte dOr (actuelle porte du Vardar), cf. Spieser,
Thessalonique, 5556.
49
Iviron, III: no. 76.
tions des jardins, des pierres provenant dune maison dIviron situe dans la cour de Saint-
Georges.50
Chilandar dtenait la fin du XIIIe sicle Thessalonique un mtoque ddi Saint-
Georges. Danilo, higoumne de Chilandar au dbut du XIVe sicle et archevque de Ser-
bie (132437), auteur dune Vie de Milutin, nous donne plusieurs informations sur ce m-
toque: il aurait t fond par Sava, cofondateur de Chilandar avec son pre Etienne
Nemanja en 1198;51 labandon, il fut restaur par le kral Milutin (12821321).52 Ce
dernier sjourna Thessalonique en 1299, lors des ftes clbrant son mariage avec Si-
monide, fille dAndronic II.53 Daprs linventaire des archives de Chilandar, tabli la
mme poque, le monastre possdait alors trois documents relatifs au mtoque de Saint-
Georges: une dlimitation de ce que le texte qualifie de kellion de Thessalonique, une
ordonnance dun despote, peut-tre Jean Palologue, frre de Michel VIII, et un acte re-
latif lachat dune vigne.54 La possession du mtoque de Thessalonique est confirme en
129955 et en 1317.56 Avant 1316, Andronic II autorisa les moines utiliser leau de laque-
duc du Chortats,57 ce qui suggre une localisation lest de la ville. Les moines staient
plaints de ce que leur mtoque ne dispost pas deau. Lempereur autorisa les moines
prendre une certaine quantit deau, prescrite par une ordonnance perdue, comme
dautres le faisaient dj. Lusage de leau de laqueduc du Chortiats tait donc rgle-
ment.58 Le mtoque de Chilandar semble avoir t lobjet de convoitise: en 1321, un acte
dAndronic II prcise que le mtoque doit tre labri de toute mainmise.59 Il pourrait
faire allusion un conflit avec le monydrion voisin de feue la grande stratopdarquissa
Libadara.60
En 1314, un bourgeois de Thessalonique, Jean Karabas, devenu le moine Ibans,
lgua Chilandar les biens qui lui avaient t lgus la mme anne par son pre,
Thodore Karabas.61 La donation comprenait un immeuble qui est dcrit dans le testa-
ment de Thodore Karabas.62 Ce dernier possdait au total douze maisons dans le
quartier de Saint-Mnas, prs du port. Six maisons sur une cour commune avec son neveu,
deux maisons toit double pente, avec des arcades, et quatre maisons toit une seule
pente. lest de ces maisons, un btiment tage, divis en trois, et deux maisons toit
50
Iviron, IV: no. 97.4950. Sur ces travaux, cf. R. Ousterhout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton, N.J.,
1999), 55.
51
M. Zivojinovic, V. Kravari et Ch. Giros, d., Actes de Chilandar, I. Des origines 1319, Archives de lAthos 20
(Paris, 1998), 35 note 295.
52
Vie de Milutin, in Dj. Danicik, d., Zivoti kraljeva i arhiepiskopa srpskih (Zagreb, 1866), 136; cf. S. Kissas, Srp-
ski srednjovekovni spomenici u Solunu (Les monuments serbes mdivaux Thessalonique), Zograf 11
(1980): 3031.
53
A. Failler, d., Georges Pachymrs, Relations historiques (Paris, 1999), 4:315. Sur les fondations de Milutin
Thessalonique, cf. Rautman, Patronage, 65 note 57.
54
Chilandar, I: 15 (nos. 44 et 45 de linventaire).
55
Ibid., no. 17.8586.
56
Ibid., no. 34.13738.
57
Ibid., no. 33.2931.
58
Sur cet aqueduc, cf. Spieser, Thessalonique, 1213.
59
L. Petit et B. Korablev, d., Archives de Chilandar, Archives de lAthos 5, VizVrem 17 (1911), Prilozhenie 1
(repr. Amsterdam, 1975), no. 58.4346.
60
Ibid., no. 139.
61
Chilandar, I: no. 34.16769, et Petit, Chilandar, no. 85.
62
Chilandar, I: no. 30.2329.
une seule pente, sur une cour prive pourvue dun puits, un caniveau, et une entre au
sud. Deux autres maisons pourvues dun toit une seule pente, dont lune avec arcade,
situes louest des susdites maisons, sur une cour en commun avec le neveu et le mari de
la filleule de Thodore. Une maison situe prs du march tou Stauriou, dans le quartier
de Saint-Mnas, savoir une chambre de plain pied avec auvent, sur une cour en commun
avec les biens du monastre de la Pribleptos.
En 1322, Chilandar possdait aussi dans le quartier de Saint-Paramonos, prs de la
Porte dOr,63 le monastre de Sainte-Jrusalem,64 qui appartenait en 1309 au roi Milutin.65
cette date, une famille de Thessalonique vendit au monastre, alors indpendant, trois
maisons en pierres et en briques et recouvertes de tuiles assembles sans joint, sur une
cour commune avec Sainte-Jrusalem, pourvue dun puits et dun porche au sud.66 Le ter-
rain sur lequel taient construites les maisons appartenait la mtropole de Thessa-
lonique, puisque la famille lui versait une redevance annuelle. Le dossier de Chilandar
permet dobserver lextension progressive des biens du monastre dans le quartier.
En 1322, trois maisons furent vendues Chilandar pour 90 hyperpres par Alexandre
Doucas Sarantnos, serviteur de lempereur, et sa femme Kal. La famille aristocratique
des Sarantnoi tait installe Berroia et Thessalonique. Deux artisans sont tmoins de
lacte de vente: un peintre, Georges Kalliergis, connu comme peintre dglise Berroia,67
et le protmaistor tn oikodomn, Georges Marmaras, qui devait tre le responsable de la
corporation des maons Thessalonique.68 Les maisons taient situes dans le quartier de
Saint-Paramonos, louest des biens de la mre de Kal, au sud et lest des biens du
monastre de Sainte-Jrusalem, au nord dune rue (Fig. 6).69 Il sagissait de biens patri-
moniaux de Kal. Parmi les maisons, dont le toit tait une seule pente, couvert de tuiles,
lune (A), au sud de la cour, avait quatre murs propres, une ouverture au nord, donnant
sur la cour; les deux autres (B et C), au nord de la cour, taient mitoyennes, pourvues dun
mur de sparation; ces deux maisons, dont les murs taient propres au nord, au sud et
lest, avaient chacune une ouverture donnant au sud sur un auvent en appentis, couvert
de tuiles, pourvu de deux pices (kellia, K) pans de bois; lauvent avait un mur propre
lest, duquel partait un mur aveugle de sparation jusquau mur est de la maison une
seule pente au sud de la cour (A). Dans ce mur de sparation tait amnag au niveau du
sol un trou dvacuation des eaux de pluie et des eaux uses des maisons vendues, qui s-
coulaient dans les biens de la mre de Kal. Au sud des deux maisons B et C, louest de
la cour, sont vendus deux celliers pans de bois (D), pourvus dune porte, supports par
deux colonnes avec une charpente en bois et un toit de tuiles, et un terrain inculte, au nord
des maisons B et C, sur toute leur longueur, la largeur jusquaux biens de Chilandar, situs
au nord de ce terrain; la cour tait spare des biens du monastre louest et au nord par
un mur qui avait, en plan, une forme de gamma. Laccs la cour se faisait au sud par un
portail.
63
Iviron, IV: 3435.
64
Petit, Chilandar, no. 84.23.
65
Chilandar, I: no. 25.13, 1317.
66
Ibid., no. 25.
67
Th. Papaztos, H Bevroia kai; oiJ naoiv th" ( 11o"18o" aij.) (Athnes, 1994), 25357.
68
Ousterhout, Master Builders, 4950, 57.
69
Petit, Chilandar, no. 84.
En 1326, la nonne Anysia Platyskalitissa vendit Chilandar, pour 40 hyperpres, deux

maisons Saint-Paramonos, au sud des biens de Chilandar (Sainte-Jrusalem), dans une
cour en commun (Fig. 7) avec les enfants de feu Dragoslav, deux maisons mitoyennes (A
et B) et couvertes de tuiles, au nord de la cour, ayant quatre murs en propre, un mur de
sparation mitoyen, chacune une ouverture vers le sud, sous des auvents en appentis cou-
verts de tuiles, clos par un mur en propre louest, au sud et lest par des cloisons en bois,
spars au milieu par une cloison en bois, ayant chacune une porte au sud sur la cour,
laquelle tait pourvue louest dun portail, do scoulent les eaux de pluie vers la voie
publique; la cour tait pourvue au sud dun mur en propre, lest dun autre portail, par
lequel on pouvait entrer dans les maisons vendues et puiser leau du puits qui appartenait
Chilandar.70
Le monastre pouvait aussi stendre grce des hypothques. Toujours dans le mme
quartier, la famille Petzikopoulos dut vendre en 1327 aux moines de Chilandar trois
maisons et un terrain en friche, estims 140 hyperpres, quelle avait hypothqus
auprs du monastre en 1325, pour un emprunt sans intrt de 50 hyperpres. Le con-
trat prvoyait que le remboursement de cette somme devait intervenir au plus tard dans
un dlai dun an, faute de quoi le monastre conserverait les trois maisons, condition de
verser la famille la diffrence entre la valeur estime du bien et le montant de lemprunt.
Deux ans ont pass, sans remboursement, et le monastre obtient lacte de vente des
maisons et du terrain, en versant 90 hyperpres. Parmi les trois maisons pourvues dun
toit une seule pente, couvert de tuiles, lune (A) tait au sud de la cour en commun (Fig.
8), lest dune maison de Chilandar. Elle avait trois murs en propre, le mur nord tant
pourvu dune ouverture vers le nord, sur la cour, les murs est et sud staient affaisss, de
sorte que toute la maison menaait de seffondrer. En face de cette maison, au nord de la
cour, se trouvait une autre maison oblongue (B), ayant deux murs en propre, le nord et le
sud, et deux ouvertures sur la cour, vers le sud; prs de celle-ci, lest, la troisime maison
(C) avait quatre murs en propre et deux ouvertures vers le sud, sous une arcade toit
une seule pente couvert de tuiles, ferme lest par un mur en propre menaant de sef-
fondrer. La cour de ces maisons tait commune avec les biens de Chilandar, ayant avec ce
monastre, au sud et lest, deux portails en commun, des murs en propre prts seffon-
drer, que Chilandar avait reconstruits rcemment ses frais, de manire semblable ce
quil avait fait pour le mur est de la troisime maison (C) et pour larcade au sud de celle-
ci. Le terrain inculte tait au nord de ces maisons, et stendait jusqu un foss orient
est-ouest, qui dlimitait les biens du monastre.71
En 1335, un terrain fut vendu Chilandar par la femme dun protopapas, Xnia, situ
lest des maisons acquises par le monastre, louest et au sud des biens de Sainte-
Jrusalem.72
Zographou dtenait depuis 1240 le mtoque de Saint-Nicolas, dans le quartier de

Sainte-Plagie, prs de la mtropole.73 Le monastre acquit ensuite un autre tablissement
du nom de Saint-Nicolas, puisquen 1326(?) lempereur ordonna de restituer Zographou
70
Ibid., no. 106.
71
Ibid., no. 112.
72
Ibid., no. 125.
73
Zographou, no. 9.
les deux mtoques Saint-Nicolas Thessalonique, tou Sgourou et tou Kyrou, que les
moines louaient bail et qui avaient t donns par ordonnance, par erreur, Philippe
Dblytznos, familier de lempereur.74 En 1327, trois frres vendirent Zographou une
srie de maisons proches du mtoque de Saint-Nicolas, dans le quartier de Sainte-Plagie,
pour 250 hyperpres (Fig. 9).75 Lacte de vente dcrit une grande maison patrimoniale
tage (A), situe louest et au nord de deux rues, construite en pierres et en briques, avec
quatre murs en propre, un toit double pente couvert de tuiles, et deux arcades, lune au
nord sur la cour, lautre au sud sur la voie publique, surmonte par une pice pour les
serviteurs. Larcade situe au nord abritait un pressoir vin. cette grande maison sa-
joutaient les deux tiers dun triklinon non couvert, lest de la cour (le troisime tiers ap-
partenant Dmtrios Kavasilas), sur un terrain appartenant lvch du Vardar. La
vente comprenait aussi le puits, le caniveau et lest le portail, pour 220 hyperpres, les 30
autres tant consacrs la commmoraison des parents des vendeurs. Le prix avait t
estim par le protomaistor tn domtorn Georges Marmaras.
En 1342, Jean V confirma, parmi les biens de Zographou, le mtoque de saint Nicolas
tou Sgourou et lglise de saint Nicolas avec ses maisons loues bail.76
Au dbut du XIVe sicle, Xnophon tait propritaire Thessalonique de quatre

groupes de btiments, bien tudis par Denise Papachryssanthou:77 un groupe de maisons
autour du mtoque de la Vierge, non localis; des maisons et des boutiques dans le
quartier des Asmates (Rotonde); des immeubles dans le quartier de lHippodrome, dont
un petit monastre, ddi la Vierge, situ prs de la porte de Rome et donn en 1324 par
le moine Laurentios Kladn Xnophon;78 une cour prs du monastre de Philokalou,
non localis.
Les autres dossiers apportent seulement des mentions succinctes de biens athonites
Thessalonique. Docheiariou dtenait jusquen 1117 sept boutiques dans le quartier de
Kataphyg, que le monastre change alors contre une terre et 50 hyperpres.79 En 1361,
le monastre possdait un mtoque Thessalonique, dans le quartier de lHippodrome:
le grand conome Grgoire Isbs sy tait retir et il y tait mort, en possession des actes
de proprit du monastre. En 1381, le moine Simon donna une maison lintrieur de
la cour du mtoque, et une vigne sise Saint-Fantin, au sud-est de Thessalonique, afin
dobtenir le droit dentrer Docheiariou.80
Dionysiou possdait lglise des Quarante Martyrs, dans le quartier de lOmphalos:81
lglise et le kellion furent donns en 1420 par Marie Hagioreitissa. Le kellion avait t
74
Ibid., no. 24.
75
Ibid., no. 25.
76
Ibid., nos. 33 et 34.
77
Xnophon, 3031, et D. Papachryssanthou, Maisons modestes Thessalonique au XIVe sicle, in Amhto;"
sth; mnhvmh Fwvth Apostolovpoulou (Athnes, 1984), 25467 (avec trois schmas de maisons du XIVe sicle,
daprs des actes de Xnophon).
78
Xnophon, no. 20. Sur la porte de Rome, lest, prs de la mer, cf. Spieser, Thessalonique, 4950. Le
monastre de la Vierge a t identifi avec le site de la Na Panagia; cf. Th. Mantopoulou-Panagiotopoulou,
On the Identification of the Church of Nea (Megali) Panaghia in Thessaloniki, JB 46 (1996): 42335.
79
Docheiariou, no. 4; schma des immeubles thessaloniciens du monastre, ibid., 81.
80
Ibid., no. 47.1113.
81
Sur ce quartier, au nord de celui de Saint-Mnas, ibid., 7980.
dtruit par les eaux de pluie et tait devenu un dpt dordures pour toute la ville. Le b-
timent dlabr avait t rcemment achet par Marie par droit de voisinage.82
Esphigmnou dtenait en 125859 le mtoque du Prodrome, dans le quartier des
Asmates Thessalonique.83
Saint-Pantlmn possdait le mtoque de Sainte-Znade Thessalonique, dont la
proprit est confirme par Andronic II en 1311, la suite dun incendie dans les archives
du monastre.84 La dtention dun mtoque Thessalonique est confirme en 1353.85
Manuel Chalkopoulos, devenu moine Kutlumus sous le nom de Manasss, a fait don
ce monastre, avant 1370, de son glise situe Thessalonique et dite de Saint-Jonas le
Thaumaturge, avec sa cour, et divers biens numrs dans lacte de donation, ainsi que de
300 hyperpres, utiliss pour acheter laul voisine dite tou Phakouki, et le monastre a
donn 50 hyperpres pour quun moulin y soit construit. Chalkopoulos tait rest pos-
sesseur de ses biens.86
Philothou possdait en 1326 deux mtoques, celui des Saints-Aptres Pierre et Paul
et celui de Saint-Georges tou Lagkadinou, dont les biens communs comprenaient 8 modioi
de vignes, des vergers, des maisons donnes en location et un terrain sur lequel se tenait
annuellement la foire de saint Georges.87 La possession de ces biens fut confirme en 1346
par Dusan (deux glises).88
Pour les moines du Mont Athos, la Thessalonique des XIIIeXIVe sicles reprsentait
la ville des juges, des notaires et des artistes. Le rglement des conflits entranait la venue
de moines athonites Thessalonique. Vers 1320, loccasion dun conflit de voisinage en-
tre le mtoque dIviron, Saint-Nicolas, et celui du Chortatou, le prtos de lAthos se ren-
dit dans la ville, accompagn dune dlgation de moines notables. Le rglement de laf-
faire avait t confi par lempereur au prtos, au mtropolite de Thessalonique et au
gouverneur de la ville. Aprs avoir relev le nombre des btiments et ltendue du terrain
du mtoque Saint-Nicolas, la dlgation visita plusieurs cours appartenant au monastre
de Chortatou, avant que les moines dIviron accepte lchange contre trois cours at-
tenantes dans le quartier Saint-Paramonos.
Les tribunaux de Thessalonique avaient juger des affaires entre des monastres de
lAthos et des habitants de la ville. Certains documents rvlent cette occasion les acti-
vits conomiques des monastres dans lconomie urbaine. Ainsi en 1317, le gouverneur
de Thessalonique eut arbitrer un conflit au sein dune association dans la gestion dun
moulin, entre Vatopdi et deux notables thessaloniciens, Skoundnos et Bardals. Le ter-
rain sur lequel se trouvait le moulin, sur le Galikos, au nord de Thessalonique, apparte-
nait la mtropole. Vatopdi et Skoundnos avaient acquis le moulin, qui fut endom-
mag la suite dune crue. Pour assurer les rparations, le monastre et Sekoundnos
82
Dionysiou, no. 19.
83
J. Lefort, d., Actes dEsphigmnou, Archives de lAthos 6 (Paris, 1973), no. 6.4647 et no. 22.1718.
84
P. Lemerle, G. Dagron et S. C irkovic, d., Actes de Saint-Pantlmn, Archives de lAthos 12 (Paris, 1982),
no. 10.3638.
85
Ibid., no. 11.29.
86
P. Lemerle, d., Actes de Kutlumus, Archives de lAthos, II2 (Paris, 1988), no. 35.712.
87
W. Regel, E. Kurtz et B. Korablev, d., Actes de Philothe, Archives de lAthos 6, VizVrem 20 (1913), Prilozhe-
nie 1, no. 6; cf. V. Kravari, Nouveaux documents du monastre de Philothou, TM 10 (1987): 281.
88
Regel, Philothe, no. 9. Dusan contrlait alors tout le pays entre Thessalonique et Christoupolis, lex-
ception de ces deux villes; cf. Lavra, IV: no. 41.
sassocirent par contrat Bardals, condition quil rnove le moulin et en assure la ges-
tion. Bardals seffora dvincer ses associs, et obtint un jugement du gouverneur de
Thessalonique en sa faveur, lui reconnaissant la totalit des revenus du moulin, et mme
une ordonnance impriale confirmant le jugement. Les moines de Vatopdi et S-
koundnos obtinrent un deuxime jugement, qui donna tort Bardals et lobligea rem-
plir ses obligations envers ses associs dans un dlai de six mois.89
Si les moines nhsitaient pas se rendre Constantinople pour solliciter la rdaction
de privilges impriaux, ils pouvaient profiter de la prsence occasionnelle de lempereur
Thessalonique. Ainsi les moines serbes de Chilandar obtinrent dAndronic II, durant son
sjour dans cette ville, de mars-avril 1299 novembre 1300,90 par lentremise du roi Mi-
lutin, lui aussi prsent, la rdaction de deux chrysobulles en faveur de leur monastre.91
Les moines de lAthos se rendaient souvent Thessalonique pour y faire tablir des
actes notaris. Les bureaux des notaires taient tablis dans les enceintes des principales
glises de la ville, la mtropole Sainte-Sophie, Saint-Dmtrios, lAcheiropoitos.92 La do-
cumentation permet de supposer que les moines avaient des relations privilgies avec cer-
tains notaires. Ainsi Dmtrios Diabasimrs, membre du clerg de lAcheiropoitos, actif
entre 1304 et 1339, dlivra environ vingt-cinq actes divers monastres de lAthos, dont
treize actes pour Chilandar.93 En 1324, loccasion dun conflit entre Lavra et Iviron re-
latif aux limites de deux de leurs domaines voisins en Chalcidique, les higoumnes des
deux monastres, alors prsents Thessalonique, confirent Diabasimrs le soin
dtablir sur place la dlimitation, partir de documents plus anciens, ce qui tmoigne
de leur confiance envers ce notaire. Dans les actes notaris qui engagent des monastres de
lAthos, les signatures de notables thessaloniciens sont peut-tre lindice de relations de
voisinage ou de clientle avec les monastres.
Thessalonique tait au dbut du XIVe sicle un foyer artistique fcond, en liaison
troite avec le Mont Athos. Les fresques du Prtaton, dates de la fin XIIIedbut XIVe
sicle, sont attribues des matres de Thessalonique, et sont proches, par le style, des
peintures du parekklsion de Saint-Euthyme Thessalonique (13023).94 Les fresques du
katholikon de Vatopdi, dates de 1312, pourraient tre dues des artistes thessaloni-
ciens: la reprsentation, dans la prothsis, de quatre archevques de Thessalonique, en est
en tout cas un indice.95 Des manuscrits crits et dcors Thessalonique se retrouvent
dans les bibliothques des monastres athonites.96
Les XIIIeXIVe sicles virent un accroissement des biens thessaloniciens des

monastres athonites. Ceux-ci sefforrent gnralement dacqurir les cours voisines de
leurs mtoques, afin de constituer des ensembles homognes et de donner bail les
89
Vatopdi, I: nos. 48 et 49.
90
A. Failler, Chronologie et composition dans lHistoire de Georges Pachymrs (livres VIIXIII), REB
48 (1990): 4041.
91
Chilandar, I: nos. 19 et 20.
92
H. Saradi, Le notariat byzantin du IXe au XVe sicles (Athnes, 1991), 143.
93
S. Kaplanrs, Dhmhvtrio" Diabasimevrh" oJ megalonai?th" oijkonovmo", Buzantiakav 5 (1985): 7786.
94
Th. Gouma-Peterson, The Frescoes of the Parekklesion of St. Euthymios in Thessaloniki: Patrons, Work-
shop and Style, in The Twilight of Byzantium, d., S. C urcic et D. Mouriki (Princeton, N.J., 1991), 11160.
95
E. Tsigaridas, in Iera; Megivsth Monh; Batopaidivou. ParavdoshIstorivaTevcnh, 2 vols. (Mont-Athos, 1996):
1: 279.
96
R. S. Nelson, Theodore Hagiopetrites: A Late Byzantine Scribe and Illuminator (Vienne, 1991), 127.
maisons environnantes. Les politiques dacquisition varient selon les monastres et leur
patrimoine urbain initial. Iviron semble le mieux pourvu, avec ses quatre monastres
dtenus dans la ville au dbut du XIIe sicle. Par achat ou par change, ce monastre ob-
tient des maisons autour de son mtoque du Prodrome, quil semble privilgier. Il se cons-
titue au dbut du XIVe sicle un nouvel ensemble, dans le quartier de Saint-Paramonos.
Dans le mme quartier, Chilandar accrot par achats, dans les annes 132235, ses biens
autour de Sainte-Jrusalem. Au milieu du XIVe sicle, Vatopdi se constitue par achats et
par donations un ensemble de btiments dans le quartier de Kataphyg. Dans la plupart
des cas, les donateurs sont lis au monastre, souhaitent y tre commmors, et parfois
se destinent y entrer. Nos sources ne permettent toutefois pas dvaluer la part que
reprsentaient les Thessaloniciens au sein de la population athonite. Les moines de
lAthos se rendaient Thessalonique pour y rencontrer les juges, les notaires et les artistes,
et entretenaient donc de multiples liens avec les lites urbaines.
Les textes apportent aussi des informations prcieuses sur la topographie thessaloni-
cienne et le paysage urbain. Les biens immobiliers des monastres de lAthos sont pour la
plupart situs dans la ville basse. Les mentions des rues semblent indiquer que leur trac
a conserv son empreinte romaine. Mme si les dimensions des maisons ne sont jamais
mentionnesce qui rend alatoire toute tentative de reconstitution graphiqueles
schmas que nous proposons suggrent quelques remarques. Les maisons, ne comportant
gnralement quun seul tage et souvent munies darcade, taient distribues autour de
cours fermes et pourvues de portails, avec parfois des issues directes sur la rue. Les des-
criptions rvlent limportance du bois parmi les matriaux de construction, en compl-
ment de la pierre, de la brique et des tuiles. La cour tait llment structurant de lhabi-
tat thessalonicien; ctait aussi un lieu de vie, avec son puits et ses btiments annexes, tels
que les cuisines et les celliers. Les frquentes mentions de pressoirs attestent limportance
de la viticulture dans lconomie urbaine et tmoignent de lintgration des biens
athonites la vie de la cit.
Universit Lyon 2-CNRS

The Amorium Project: Research and Excavation in 2000
C. S. LIGHTFOOT, Y. MERGEN, B. Y. OLCAY, AND J. WITTE-ORR
INTRODUCTION the hiatus in 1999, it was necessary to carry out

essential repair and cleaning work at all of the
o fieldwork was carried out in 1999. In-
N stead, efforts focused on research and
publication, while plans and preparations were
excavation areas across the site and at the Dig
House. Site enhancement and conservation
work included the removal of more of the spoil
made to resume work at the site in the following
heaps at the northern end of the Upper City
year.1 During the course of the 2000 season,
mound, the consolidation of the Upper City
which lasted for five weeks from 7 August
fortification wall (first capped in 199394) and
through 7 September, considerable progress
the Enclosure wall (capped in 1996), and the re-
was made in several important ways.2 Owing to
placement of the timber-framed roof (erected
1
For a brief report on 1999, see C. S. Lightfoot, The
in 1996) over the fresco in the south aisle of the
Amorium Excavation Project, in G. Coulthard, ed., Ana- Lower City Church. The fresco itself was exam-
tolian Archaeology: Research Reports of the British Institute of ined by Emre Eser, the field conservator, and a
Archaeology at Ankara [BIAA] 5 (1999 [2000]): 10. For the
2000 season, see C. S. Lightfoot, Amorium 2000, in
condition report was prepared, while Dr. Jo-
G. Coulthard, ed., Anatolian Archaeology: Research Reports of
the BIAA 6 (2000 [2001]): 1011. Other recent publications Yaln Mergen (archaeologist, University of Anatolia, Es-
include C. S. Lightfoot and Y. Mergen, Amorium 1998 Yl kisehir), Asst. Prof. Dr. B. Yelda Olcay (glass specialist, Uni-
Kaz C alsmalar, XXI. Kaz Sonular, Toplants. Ankara, versity of Anatolia, Eskisehir), Dr. Johanna Witte-Orr
2428 Mays 1999Ankara, vol. 2 (Ankara, 2000), 14352; (fresco specialist), Sabri Aydal (archaeologist, Antalya Ar-
C. S. Lightfoot, Amorium: The History and Archaeology chaeological Museum), Emre Eser (student conservator,
of an Ancient City in the Turkish Period, in A. Aktas-Yasa, Baskent Vocational High School, Ankara University), and
ed., Uluslararas Drdnc Trk Kltr Kongresi (47 Kasm Banu Bykgn (archaeology student, University of Ana-
1997, Ankara), vol. 2, Atatrk Kltr Merkezi Yayn 229 tolia, Eskisehir). Visitors to the excavations included Ser-
(Ankara, 2000), 7989; and C. S. Lightfoot, Le site dAmo- acettin S ahin (director, Afyon Archaeological Museum),
rium, Dossiers darchologie 256 (Sept. 2000), 3233. Refer- Hatice Bilgi (Middle East Technical University, Ankara),
ence to Amorium can also be found in E. A. Ivison, Ur- Ayhan C etin (Emirdag High School), zgl Gurbuz (Uni-
ban Renewal and Imperial Revival in Byzantium (730 versity of Anatolia, Eskisehir), Nurdog an and Zeliha Ay-
1025), ByzF 26 (2000): 146, esp. 1318, 27; P. I. Kuniholm, dog du, and Petra Linscheid (Freie Universitt Berlin).
Dendrochronologically Dated Ottoman Monuments, in The Amorium Project gratefully acknowledges the con-
U. Baram and L. Carroll, eds., A Historical Archaeology of the tinued support of the Turkish authorities in Ankara, Afyon,
Ottoman Empire: Breaking New Ground (New York, 2000), and Emirdag , the British Institute of Archaeology at
93136 (see p. 114, no. 23); C. S. Lightfoot, Bizans Dne- Ankara, and Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. (on be-
minde Afyonkarahisar, in I . Kkkurt et al., eds., Af- half of the Trustees of Harvard University). Thanks also go
yonkarahisar Ktg , vol. 1, Afyon Kocatepe niversitesi to the many friends and supporters of the Amorium Proj-
Yayn 35 (Ankara, 2001), 11324; P. Linscheid, Early ect; they include Mrs. Brenda Lightfoot, Dr. John Casey
Byzantine Textiles from Amorium, Anatolia, Archaeological (University of Durham), Dr. Stanley Ireland (University of
Textiles Newsletter 32 (Spring 2001), 1718; and R. Ouster- Warwick), Prof. Thomas Drew-Bear (CNRS, France), and
hout, Master Builders of Byzantium (Princeton, N.J., 1999), 89 Dr. Helen Evans, Dr. Marilyn Jenkins-Madina, and Dr. Car-
and fig. 56. One may also note the publication of the coin los A. Picn (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). The
collection of the Bolvadin Municipal Museum: R. Ashton, 2000 season would not have been so successful without the
C. S. Lightfoot, and A. zme, Ancient and Mediaeval generous help of Nilgn C evrimli (government representa-
Coins in Bolvadin, Anatolia Antiqua 8 (2000): 17192. tive, General Directorate of Monuments and Museums,
2
The team comprised nine archaeologists, conservators, Ankara), Halil Ara (Afyon Museum), Hakan and Fahrettin
and students, of whom seven were Turkish, one British, kl (Euro Class Car Rental, Ankara), Mehmet Sylemez
and one German. Their names are Asst. Prof. Dr. Ayse C alk- (Directorate of Monuments and Museums, Ankara), and
Ross (assistant director, University of Anatolia, Eskisehir), Zlfnar Yavuzkan (Turkish Consulate, Washington, D.C.).
280 THE AMORIUM PROJECT: RESEARCH AND EXCAVATION IN 2000
hanna Witte-Orr took the opportunity to in- some of the fragments on the stone blocks are
spect the panel as part of her study of the larger, measuring up to 28 27 cm. Compara-
church frescoes (see below, pp. 28384). An- tively few pieces of fresco were recovered from
other major development was that Sabri Aydal the remaining areas of the church, and most of
(from the Antalya Museum) initiated a three- them were very small. However, two larger
year program to survey the whole site and so fragments were also taken from walls in the
produce a new detailed topographical and ar- church in 1993 under the supervision of the
chaeological plan of Amorium. Just over half of conservator, Karen Barker; one of them was on
the site was surveyed, including the whole of wall 27 (Context A2-2), and the other was on
the Upper City, the Lower City Enclosure, and the nave side of the nave west wall (AM92/A1-
the Lower City Church. Work will continue in 10). In the west bay of the south aisle, the
2001, and once complete the new site plan will largest fragment of all remains in situ on the
provide a systematic grid in which we will be south wall (AM96/A9-9).5
able to locate trenches, surviving visible re- It was originally planned to group the frag-
mains, and other important features such as the ments by their contexts and plaster layers, and
numerous wells that are dotted around the site. then to try to determine what the frescoes
With the help of such a plan the expectation is might have shown and what their arrangement
that a better understanding of the overall lay- on the walls was. It was hoped in this way to re-
out of the city can be achieved. It may also en- construct the churchs program of painted dec-
able us to make some pertinent observations on oration and so add more to what is already
the course of events at the siege of Amorium in known about the history of the building. The
the summer of 838 by combining the new topo- results were somewhat disappointing for, de-
graphical data with the surviving literary ac- spite the sizable amount of fresco that was re-
counts. covered during the excavations, it has not
proved possible to reconstruct any large panels
THE LOWER CITY CHURCH FRESCOES from the surviving fragments.6 It was found
(BY JOHANNA WITTE-ORR)3 that many gaps exist between fragment clus-
ters, while the different layers of plaster and
Between 1990 and 1996 a large quantity of
paint on many of the fragments presented fur-
fresco fragments and a number of stone blocks
ther difficulties. Nevertheless, some valuable
that had fresco fragments adhering to them
information has been obtained from the work
were excavated in the Lower City Church.4 The
conducted in 2000. The preliminary results are
majority of the loose fragments were found in
presented here, but further work, planned for
the eastern part of the nave and in the south
2001, is required before any final conclusions
aisle; almost all of the blocks with painted plas-
can be drawn. In the second season a new ap-
ter were found in the south aisle, especially in
proach will be adopted; the first task will be to
the central bay. Most of the fragments are small,
focus on several groups of stone blocks with re-
with a painted surface of about 25 cm2, but
lated paintings, and then to try to bridge gaps
3
I would like to thank Chris Lightfoot and Eric Ivison between them by working with fragments from
for inviting me to work on the fresco fragments. The term all plaster and paint layers at the same time.
fresco is used here in the sense of the work of a master Although Byzantine painting methods have
painter, as opposed to wall painting as the work of an un-
trained individual. There is no indication that the paintings been documented in only a few rare cases, it
are frescoes in the Italian sense of a good fresco, painted should be possible to place a fresco in relation
on fresh plaster without an added medium. For a thorough to others by observing the characteristic meth-
description of Byzantine painting methods which often in-
cluded both fresco and secco work, see D. C. Winfield, ods used by an individual painter and by com-
Middle and Later Byzantine Wall Painting Methods, DOP
22 (1968): 7479; M. Restle, Maltechnik, RBK 5 (Stutt- 5
For the preliminary excavation report on this panel,
gart, 1995): 1241 f, 1248 ff, 1255 f. On the technique used see DOP 52 (1998): 325 and fig. 3.
in the Cappadocian cave churches, see S. Kostof, Caves of 6
A study of the mosaic fragments found in the church
God: Cappadocia and Its Churches (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), produced a similar negative result. Even if only the central
150. dome and/or the apse were decorated with mosaics, they
4
A preliminary survey and arrangement of this material still would have taken up a very large area. The fragments
was carried out by Christine Zitrides in 1996; DOP 52 and tesserae that have been found would cover only a frac-
(1998): 329. tion of this space.
C. S. LIGHTFOOT ET AL. 281
paring them to others. Many such details (e.g., there is an obvious difference in color and
preliminary incised sketches or the layering of painting technique. A few plaster and painting
color coats) can easily be seen on the Amorium fragments found in the northwest corner of the
fragments, whereas it is much harder to see church (Contexts AM90/A4-2 and AM90/A4-4)
them on intact paintings still in situ on a wall. do not contain any chaff at all but have a brick-
The observed painting methods indicate dust or sand filler instead. Moreover, the paint
clearly that a master painter was at work in the colors and technique used on these pieces are
church at Amorium. The detailed documenta- also different from all other fragments. This
tion of the painting methods could also high- could signify either that they belong to a differ-
light differences between separate painting ent group of painters and, perhaps, a different
phases, thereby making them more obvious date or that the fragments fell into the church
than a study of the different layers and their area from a separate room or building. Finally,
paintings alone would permit. What follows is a a very small number of fragments show a plas-
description of the observed work and painting ter with a very uneven (unleveled) surface
methods, and a discussion of some examples of and no painted decoration. They resemble the
the fragments and fragment groups with im- mud-plaster that is still in use in the village
portant details that allow some insight into today.
what could have been the content of the paint- It was immediately apparent both from the
ings. loose fragments and blocks and from the sur-
viving panel in the south aisle that the church
1. Wall Structure: Plaster and Paint Layers had been decorated several times in the middle
Byzantine period. At least two successive paint-
The backs of the painted plaster fragments
ing phases can be identified, but in a few in-
show that they covered not only masonry walls
stances even a third painted layer has survived.
built of large stone blocks but also walls made
A new layer of plaster was applied over the
up of an assortment of smaller stones, flat
older surface and painted; in many cases not
bricks, spolia, and a good deal of mortar. The
much of the older layer has survived or has yet
plaster layer over these sections of wall is much
been identified, but traces of the painted sur-
thicker than that over the masonry walls, partly
face are preserved on the back of the newer
because the bricks in particular have a higher
plaster.9 Such traces appear on only a small
porosity. This would have led the plaster to dry
fraction of the fragments. It is possible to con-
more quickly, which was apparently not desir-
clude, therefore, that in many cases none of the
able.7 Most of the plaster in all layers contains
older pigments became detached from their
chaff (bits of straw or grass) in varying
original layer when the newer plaster separated
amounts.8 Since the color and consistency of
from it, and this would mean that the adhesion
the plaster show only minor variations, differ-
between old paint and new plaster was not very
ences in the amount of chaff added to the plas-
strong. Many other fragments show that the
ter can best be explained as an indication of the
plaster had been applied to a smooth surface,
work process, whereby small batches of plaster
but since there are no paint traces it is difficult
were mixed up and used immediately. Some
to tell whether there were bare stone blocks un-
fragments found in the south aisle, however,
derneath or whether the older painted layer
have a second plaster layer that contains so
underneath remained intact on the wall. In
great an amount of chaff that they break apart
general, it seems, the newer plaster layer was
easily. This might be taken to indicate a differ-
applied directly over the older paintings with-
ent work process and, perhaps, a different date
out any further preparation; there are no hatch
for the painting, but the frescoes on this type of
marks or deep scratches cut into the old paint
plaster still need to be compared closely with
surface nor any trace of washing of the walls,
the other second-layer paintings to see whether
both of which would allow stronger adhesion
between the old paint and the new plaster. In
7
Winfield, Wall Painting Methods, 67, 79.
8
On binders and fillers in plaster, see Winfield, Wall 9
In the following discussion, layer 1 indicates the
Painting Methods, 6469. The plaster used in the Amor- older or first layer of plaster; layer 2 refers to the layer of
ium church is no different. plaster and paint on top of layer 1.
fact, some of the plaster fragments with smooth decoration. Architectural features such as win-
backs show signs of a very faint grayish layer, dow openings, wall joints, pier corners, and
which looks more like dust or dirt than pig- arches were decorated with red lines and
ment, suggesting that the grime of several years circles; since these would not have required
had accumulated and had not been washed off templates or sinopia, the red line decoration
before the next plaster layer was applied. cannot be considered as a preliminary sketch
In both painting phases only a single plaster for the frescoes that followed. It is more likely
layer was applied, which acted as both under- that an interval elapsed between the time the
coat and as the surface to be painted. Bits of renovation of the church building was com-
chaff show through the thinner coats of paint pleted and the time the mosaicists and painters
and in some cases have become detached, leav- started their work. In the meantime decoration
ing tiny rectangular holes in the painted pic- of some kind, however simple, was considered
ture. This is a shortcut and is documented for desirable.13
other sites with middle Byzantine paintings; For the moment the question of whether the
ideally, a very white and fine-grained thin paint second plaster and paint layer was part of a gen-
surface would be applied on top of a much eral redecoration of the church remains open.
coarser leveling plaster.10 It was possible to use The same pink color scheme for ornamental ar-
this plaster as a paint surface only because it is eas as on the second layer decoration of the arch
very light-colored and fine-grained (except for fragment (Figs. 1, 2) was used on small frag-
the chaff ), and had been leveled carefully. ments from a different area of the south aisle
One fragment of plaster recovered from the and, in this case, on a first layer of plaster. This
area of the bema was found to contain a glass could indicate that gaps in layer 1 were covered
tessera that matches those used in the ceiling over during the redecoration with layer 2. If the
mosaics. The mosaic setting bed is made up of layer 2 paintings were part of a small local re-
plaster with a consistency and color very similar decoration (i.e., retouching of icons or a change
to that used underneath the paintings. Like- in picture content in a few places), ornaments
wise, there was only one layer of plaster under on window frames and architectural elements
the mosaics, used as both leveling layer and set- would not have been included.
ting bed.11 It may be assumed, therefore, that
the mosaics were installed first, before the walls 2. Paintings: Technical Details
were plastered and painted (and, perhaps,
The framework for the pictures was drawn
even before the floor was installed), but it is
on the unpainted plaster with watery yellow
clear that the church must have been painted at
paint, and the area was then painted over with
the time the mosaics were set. Probably, the
background and frame colors. The painters
same scaffolding was used by both mosaicists
constructed figures with the help of guidelines
and painters. This also indicates that a number
incised into the fresh plaster and used a com-
of painters and mosaicists were at work.12
pass to incise an outline circle for the nimbus.
When the middle Byzantine church was con-
They also used thin red paint to sketch faces.14
structed, the masonry was painted with red
10
Restle, Maltechnik, 1247 f; Kostof, Caves of God, 147. 13
Preliminary decorations are known from other
Compare the list in Winfield, Wall Painting Methods, 67 churches, for example, the cave churches of Cappadocia:
f, table 2; most churches in Asia Minor show paintings on see Kostof, Caves of God, 93, 146, 253 note 1; and in Egypt:
only one layer of plaster. see K. Inneme, The Iconographical Program of Paint-
11
Generally, three layers of plaster were used under- ings in the Church of al Adra in Deir al Sourian, in
neath mosaics, two as leveling layers and the third as the M. Krause and S. Schaten, eds., QEMELIA. Sptantike und
setting bed; see D. Mouriki, The Mosaics of Nea Moni on Chios koptologische Studien Peter Grossmann zum 65. Geburtstag,
(Athens, 1986), 9497. The Amorium mosaics show an un- Sprachen und Kulturen des christlichen Orients 3 (Wies-
expected and unusual shortcut to this technique. baden, 1998), 144. The Vita S. Pancratii, in describing the
12
On the relations between mosaicists and painters, see construction of the martyrium church for the saint, men-
Restle, Maltechnik, 1265. It has been suggested that mo- tions that a year elapsed between the completion of the
saics and paintings could have been the work of the same construction and the decoration with biblical scenes; see
artist; see Winfield, Wall Painting Methods, 91; L. James, C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 3121453: Sources
Light and Colour in Byzantine Art (Oxford, 1996), 26 f; S. H. and Documents (Toronto, 1986), 138.
Young, Relations between Mosaic and Fresco Technique, 14
Painted drawings: Restle, Maltechnik, 1265 f; Win-
JB 25 (1976): 26978. field, Wall Painting Methods, 8096, pls. 410. Incised
1
3 4
Scale 1:1
Fig. A Glass finds from 1998 (drawing: B. Y. Olcay)

Fig. B Plan of Trench XD and XB (drawing: Y. Mergen)
1 Block PP024, Context AM96/A8-17, wall block 2, lower left corner
block of a blind arcade or window frame with fresco decoration in two
layers (digital image: J. Witte-Orr)
2 Block PP007, Context AM96/A8-6, block from a blind arcade or window

with fresco decoration in two layers (digital image: J. Witte-Orr)
3 Fragments of an unfinished fresco with figural decoration (photo: C. Zitrides)
4 AM96/A9-9, fresco in situ on the south wall of the church (digital image: J. Witte-Orr)
5 AM91/A3-27, fragments of an inscribed scroll (digital image: J. Witte-Orr)
6 AM 96/A8-27, face fragment with mouth and nose tip (digital image: J. Witte-Orr)
7 Face fragment, context unknown (digital image: J. Witte-Orr)
8 Two fragments showing part of a face and nimbi (photo: C. Zitrides)

9 AM91/A3-27, fragment of the second inscription (digital image: J. Witte-Orr)
10 AM91/A3-27, further fragment of the second inscription (digital image: J. Witte-Orr)

11 AM91/A3-27, fragments of red and yellow ornamented
garments belonging to a scroll bearer (digital image: J.
Witte-Orr)
12 A follis (SF4024) of Nikephoros II Phokas from Trench XD (AM00/02/15-16; photo: C. S. Lightfoot)

13 The inner face of the Enclosure circuit wall, W03, looking south (AM00/02/9; photo: C. S. Lightfoot)
14 An Ionic impost capital fragment, T1519 (AM00/01/16A; photo: C. S. Lightfoot)
15 Trench XD, Structure 2, Context 21, paved floor in situ, looking northeast (AM00/02/3; photo: C.S. Lightfoot)
16 Trench XD, showing paving slab at top right (AM00/03/8; photo: C. S. Lightfoot)
17 Trench XD, looking southwest, showing wall (W13) of Structure 2 with later blocking (W14); hydraulic mortar visible
on W22 and Context 21 at rear (AM00/02/35; photo: C. S. Lightfoot)
18 Trench XB, channel, looking toward the Enclosure circuit wall (AM00/02/26; photo: C. S. Lightfoot)
19 Trench XB, channel, looking from the Enclosure circuit wall (AM00/02/32; photo: C. S. Lightfoot)
A small fragment (Fig. 3) documents an unfin- A blue, sometimes sky blue, background
ished painting; the garment folds on this piece seems to have been used for all pictures, but in
are sketched with thin green lines and the back- the lower part of the pictures it changed to a
ground blue has been painted beside it, but the green ground. There are two exceptions: the
color coats for shadows, middle ground, and fragment from the west wall of the naos shows a
highlights of the folds are missing. The large burgundy red background above the lower
fresco fragment on the south wall (Fig. 4) and frame line, and in the picture on the south wall
fragments of two other figures also show that (Fig. 4) the blue background continues to the
the background was painted after the picture bottom of the panel. The pictures were framed
had been sketched and that colors, details, and by a red border, set off from the blue and green
outlines of figures and picture frames were picture background by a narrow white line.
added afterwards (see below). Several frag- The fragment from the naos wall, as well as sev-
ments show that a black background color was eral other smaller fragments, shows that below
applied first and later was covered with a bright the main picture area there was a low dado
blue; the blue appears to have had a pastier painted with an imitation of diagonally veined
consistency than the black, and has more lus- marble slabs. Below the imitation marble dado
tre.15 There is no trace of black under the blue there was a band of black or red, perhaps in-
background of the figure on the south wall, and tended as an imitation of a molding in a differ-
the unfinished area to the left of this picture ent stone. Some architectural features in the
shows that this method was not used here. south aisle, such as windows or niches, were
The surviving fresco (Fig. 4) in the western decorated in the second layer with ornamental
bay of the south aisle is painted on a third layer patterns in a light pink, burgundy, and red
of plaster that covers part of the second and first color scheme (Figs. 1, 2). The first layer was
layers. The picture has a dark blue background painted with yellow, red, and black, but not
with a slightly greenish cast within a red frame, enough is visible to detect a pattern. For the
set off from the background by a thin white line. lines of text in inscriptions (Fig. 5), guidelines
The area to the left of the frame was never com- were pressed into the plaster with a cord. In
pletely painted; one brush stroke of dark blue one case this seems to have happened when the
tapers off halfway down, and the remainder of plaster was fairly dry so that the cord left an im-
the plaster is unpainted. It seems that the pression with very broken edges.
painter was not asked or did not have time to For the faces and hands of figures, and for
paint another panel to the left. It is possible that some of the garments, the paint was applied in
the panel was a patch applied only to this par- several thin coats with a very fine brush. In
ticular spot on the south wall, either to replace those cases where many different colors were
an earlier (now unwanted) image or to repair an applied in one spot, the surface seems much
area of damage. However, it may represent work smoother, since the plaster and chaff have been
in process, in which the new plaster layer was covered over by many coats. Several coats of dif-
applied across the entire wall of the bay and ferent colors in one spot do not necessarily in-
painted panel by panel. In this case, it would dicate that a picture was repainted. However, in
seem that the surviving picture was finished on one case the colors and lines of the uppermost
one day, and that the painter failed to come back coat are so different from the one it covers that
and start on the next panel to the left on the fol- one should suspect a repainting. Faces and
lowing day. Why this was so is a mystery. body parts were painted with an olive green
ground color that was overpainted with pink,
guidelines: ibid., 9699, pls. 1112. Table 2 gives a list of peach, red, and white for details (Figs. 68).
some churches with frescoes in Asia Minor; incised lines Some of the images seem to have had a much
were apparently not used in Cappadocia, but they are larger format and were painted with wider
found in Constantinople, Trebizond (Trabzon), and else-
where in the Pontos, starting in the 10th century, and, more brushes, which could indicate that they had a
often, in the 12th century. position higher up on the walls. Several frag-
15
Theophilos, in De diversis artibus, describes the paint- ments of faces were identified, and measure-
ing of background colors in exactly this way; the same
method can be found in many other frescoes, see Winfield, ments of nose length, chin to nose tip distance,
Wall Painting Methods, 100. and eye width or nimbus diameter were taken
to calculate the head and body size.16 On the richly ornamented garments, he may be identi-
smallest piece (Fig. 6), a very small mouth with fied as Daniel, or perhaps David or Solomon.17
the tip of the nose and the chin are visible: this Dress details, such as ornamented borders imi-
must have been the face of a small person or tating gold embroidery with jewels on tunic
child. Another piece shows the face of a young and cloak, also allow an identification of the fig-
adult (Fig. 7), and on a third fragment only the ure still in situ on the south wall (Fig. 4). It must
upper left side of a face with eye, eyebrow, and have been a person of higher rank and most
wavy hair is preserved (Fig. 8). It seems reason- likely represents St. Barbara or St. Catherine of
able to assume that the painter used propor- Alexandria. It is less likely to be a donor por-
tional rules for figures in which body height is a trait.18
multiple of face and nose lengths. It can be cal-
culated, therefore, that the body size of the fig- 3. Fragments of Inscriptions: Contexts
ures to which the latter two fragments belonged AM91/A3-27 and AM91/A3-3119
was approximately 1.601.70 m, that is, life
Among the large number of fragments from
size. The figure still in situ on the south aisle
these contexts are parts of two inscriptions.
wall (Fig. 4) can be reconstructed to a similar
One is painted with thin black paint on a white
size. If the fragment of the smaller face (Fig. 6)
and slightly greenish background; the other is
belonged to an infant Christ seated on his
painted with stronger black paint on a yellowish
mothers arm or lap, his body size would have
been 0.700.80 m; if, however, this represents a
different individual in a standing position, his 17
David, Solomon, and Daniel appear in richly orna-
or her body size would have been 1.101.20 m. mented clothing and hold scrolls in the much later Elmal
At present only a few observations can be Kilise; see M. Restle, Die byzantinische Wandmalerei in
Kleinasien, vol. 2 (Recklinghausen, 1967), pls. 161, 167; cf.
made about the picture content. The fragment also O. Demus, W. Dorigo, A. Niero, G. Perocco, and E. Vio,
with eye and wavy hair (Fig. 8) shows two over- Venise. Saint Marc (Paris, 1991), 76, 94. Daniel is usually
lapping nimbi, so it must have been part of a dressed in Persian style with a short tunic, Phrygian cap,
leggings, and a cloak; see K. Wessel, Daniel, RBK 1
picture showing two people positioned close to- (Stuttgart, 1966): 111320.
gether. This in turn means that we have here a In general, prophet figures holding scrolls with legible
fragment of a narrative representation, not an texts became part of the church decoration in the 6th cen-
tury. Early post-iconoclastic examples are provided by the
image of two saints standing next to each other. large prophet figures on the two tympana of Hagia Sophia;
The fragments of the first inscription (Fig. 5) see Mango, Materials for the Study, Diagrams III, IV, and
mentioned below must have been a text on a Teteriatnikov, Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, figs. 25, 26. For an-
other one in a side room, see P. A. Underwood, A Prelimi-
scroll that was held in front of his left leg by a nary Report on Some Unpublished Mosaics in Hagia
richly dressed figure. To the right of the scroll Sophia: Season of 1950 of the Byzantine Institute, AJA 55
the background is black (perhaps the black un- (1951): 368 f, pl. 17. Photios, in his description of the
church of the Virgin of the Pharos, mentions a prophet,
derpainting for a blue background), and there who though silent, cries out his sayings of yore; see
is no trace of further picture details on this side. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 186 (Mango identi-
From comparison with similar compositions in fies him by the quotation from the Psalms as David).
18
In the Leo Bible, the patron of the book, Leo, and his
other frescoes and mosaics, this figure can be brother Constantine are shown wearing red cloaks with
recognized as a prophet, and, because of his gold borders. Leos tunic is white and has gold brocade bor-
ders at hem and wrist: see J. Lowden, Early Christian and
16
The calculations are based on the proportional sys- Byzantine Art (London, 1997), figs. 111, 112. St. Barbara:
tems of Dionysos of Fourna and Panselinos, as described by for example, in Ayval Kilise/Gll Dere (913920),
the Winfields, and a comparison of these two systems with M. Restle, Byzantinische Wandmalerei, vol. 3, pl. 340; in St.
the proportions used in several of the Hagia Sophia mo- Barbara-Tahtal Kilise/Sog anl (1006 or 1021), ibid., 3: pl. 433.
saics; see J. and D. Winfield, Proportion and Structure of the St. Catherine: for example, in Greme, Chapel No. 9 (10th
Human Figure in Byzantine Wall-Painting and Mosaic (Oxford, century), ibid., 2:pl. 129. The two saints are shown facing
1982), 5466, 6793; C. Mango, Materials for the Study of the each other on one arcade intrados in the New Tokal Kilise:
Mosaics of St. Sophia at Istanbul (Washington, D.C., 1962), pl. A. W. Epstein, Tokal Kilise. Tenth-Century Metropolitan Art
50: Alexander, pl. 62: Ignatios the Younger, pl. 70: St. John in Byzantine Cappadocia (Washington, D.C., 1986), 67 (no
Chrysostomos, pl. 72: St. Ignatios Theophoros, and pl. 106: photo). Further examples: H. Maguire, The Icons of Their
apse mosaic. For the same mosaics, see also N. B. Teteriat- Bodies: Saints and Their Images in Byzantium (Princeton, N.J.,
nikov, Mosaics of Hagia Sophia, Istanbul: The Fossati Restoration 1996), 28 ff, figs. 24, 25.
19
and the Work of the Byzantine Institute (Washington, D.C., It may be noted that an anonymous follis (SF1534) of
1998), fig. 27: Chrysostomos, fig. 28: Ignatios, fig. 38: class A.1 or A.2 was also recovered from context A3-31 in
Alexander, and fig. 49: Virgin and Child. 1991.
ground and is underlined with umber horizon- (Fig. 9), the other one can be read as TIAN or
tal lines. TIAU (Fig. 10).
First inscription (Fig. 5), letter height: 5.5
6.0 cm. Line width, short umber lines: between THE GLASS FINDS FROM 1998
0.3 and 0.25 cm; bright red lines: 0.5 cm; gray (BY B. YELDA OLCAY)
outline on the left side of the scroll: 0.75 cm.
Almost all of the glass found during the 1998
The painting is on a single layer of plaster; the
season was in the form of small, broken frag-
back of the plaster shows that it was attached to
ments.21 Most of them came from Trench XC in
walls built of large stone blocks next to smaller
the Enclosure, but another smaller group was
stones and bricks.
excavated in Trench LC6 behind the Lower
Second inscription (Figs. 9, 10), letter height:
City walls, while a few fragments were also re-
approximately 5 cm (only the upper half of the
covered from the Lower City Church. In gen-
letters remains).
eral, it can be seen that the vessels to which the
Parts of the first inscription could be joined
fragments belong were free-blown and that,
to fragments of a figure wearing a dark red to
since the fragments contain many bubbles, the
reddish-brown garment falling in zigzag folds
quality of the fabric is relatively poor. Most of
highlighted in light brown. The garment has a
the finds, as well as being very small and frag-
black hem covered with a line of small white
mentary, displayed a surface layer of weather-
dots (possibly representing pearls), and a sec-
ing and iridescence. The exception to this gen-
ond yellow garment with double rows of white
eral observation can be found in the fragments
dots (Fig. 11). In the dark red area of the red
of window glass recovered from Context 91 in
garment, incised guidelines can be detected:
Trench XC. These were both larger in size and
they must be construction guidelines for the
less weathered than the majority of the vessel
folds. At the moment not enough pieces have
fragments. The most common color used for
been joined together to tell to which area of the
the glass was green, with various shades being
figure they belong. The inscription fragments
represented, but some fragments also showed
that could be joined together (Fig. 5) show on
up as blue-green, dark blue (particularly prev-
the left edge of the scroll a cross at the begin-
alent for applied trails), and light yellow. The
ning, then C and at the end of this line R. Sev-
most common form of decoration found among
eral lines down (it is unclear how many) there is
the fragments was the applied trail, most of-
KAI (the last letter could be the beginning of N
ten in dark blue glass, which occurred on the
instead), and at the beginning of the next line
rim, around the body, and on the base. Diag-
KA. Another piece from the left edge, but not
nostic vessel fragments included rims, bases,
joined, has the beginning O, and a piece of
footed bases, lamp stems, handles, and neck
the right edge ends with TO. Other floating
fragments.
pieces display the letter groups: O TO IF.
The preliminary study of the material re-
The second inscription, on a sienna ground
vealed that some fragments found in the same
and underlined by umber lines, may be part of
context and trench belonged to the same ves-
another prophet scroll or an evangelists book,
sels. It was then possible to make a paper re-
but it could also be something entirely differ-
construction of two different types of lamp (Fig.
ent.20 Not enough is preserved to determine the
A, nos. 24) and a footed cup or goblet (Fig. A,
format, except that it was arranged in at least
no. 1). The latter vessel may also be viewed as a
three lines. Two letter groups are legible: one of
lamp.
them can be restored as EBR or ERB
The lamp fragments form one of the easiest
20
groups to identify. For the present, three differ-
A TLG search for the word fragments e or
e and e or e in the text of the Septu- ent types can be distinguished: (1) stemmed
agint resulted in only a few quotations. None is typical of lamps that were used in polycandela, (2) hang-
those used on prophet scrolls; see A.-M. Gravgaard, Inscrip- ing lamps with handles, and (3) goblets that
tions of Old Testament Prophecies in Byzantine Churches: A Cata-
logue (Copenhagen, 1979). Either the fragments did not be-
long to a scroll, or it carried an unusual quotation. My 21
A preliminary study of the 1998 finds was also carried
thanks go to A. Alexakis, G. Baloglou, and M. Stein for help out by Dr. M. A. V. Gill during the excavation season; cf.
in the TLG database search. DOP 55 (2001): 39498 and fig. L.
may be considered as lamps.22 The stems of the tury.27 In publications the type is usually as-
first type of lamp are easily recognizable, and at signed a sixth- or seventh-century date.28
Amorium these finds can be divided into two Another type of lamp that is attested among
groups. The first type has a solid stem, for the finds has suspension handles. The recon-
which parallels found elsewhere are most often structed example (Fig. A, no. 2) has an everted
dated between the middle of the eleventh and and folded rim, and a body that tapers toward
the beginning of the thirteenth century. The the bottom, while the handles are applied to the
best examples are provided by the excavations sides. Close parallels, in both shape and handle
at Sarahane in Istanbul and at the church of design, can be found among the glass from
St. Nicholas at Demre (Myra) in Lycia.23 Other Demre, while recent excavations at Tarsos have
examples have a similar solid stem but with a also produced similar finds.29 Further work is
rounded knob at the end. This variant, al- required before an exact date can be given to
though rare, has been recorded at Amorium the type, but it is likely that it belongs to the
in previous seasons.24 The knobbed stem type middle Byzantine period.
may also be dated to the eleventh century, Foot and base fragments are the most impor-
whereas outside Anatolia they are usually tant indicators for establishing a typology of the
placed earlier in the ninth and tenth cen- cup and goblet finds from Amorium. Prelimi-
turies.25 So the finds at Amorium may be tenta- nary results from the study of the 1998 finds in-
tively assigned to the later phases of Byzantine dicate that two types are represented. The first
occupation in the tenth and eleventh centuries. is shaped as a massive goblet complete with
The second lamp type distinguished among footed base (Fig. A, no. 1). It has been possible
the finds from Amorium is cylindrical with a to find published parallels of this type. Similar
thick, slightly pointed base and a hollow stem examples found at Gerasa in Jordan are tenta-
expanding upwards.26 This type is found tively dated to the eighth century and later.30
throughout the Middle East; similar examples Another close parallel has been noted at
outside Anatolia have been found at Apamea in Demre.31 A second type of goblet is attested
Syria, Caesarea Maritima in Palestine, and on among the bases; this has a folded outer edge to
Cyprus, but the closest parallel to the Amorium the base. Parallels from sites both in Anatolia
material is offered by a find from the excava- and elsewhere indicate that this type of base is
tions at the church of St. Nicholas at Demre that characteristic of goblets produced in the fifth
is dated by context to the sixtheighth cen- seventh centuries.32 Significantly, it does not ap-
pear to be found in later contexts.
22
The finds from the previous seasons (198797) have
been studied by Margaret Gill. The publication of her de- 27
A. Engle, Light, Lamps and Windows in Antiquity
tailed catalogue, including numerous examples of these (Jerusalem, 1987), fig. 19; M. Peleg and R. Reich, Byzan-
three types, is expected to appear by the end of 2002; tine City Wall of Caesarea Maritima, Atiqot 21 (1992): fig.
M. A. V. Gill, Amorium Reports, Finds I: The Glass (Oxford, 20: 12, 14; J. Taylor and A. H. S. Megaw, Excavations at
2002). Ayios Philon, RDAC (1981): fig. 46; B. Y. Olcay, St.
23
J. W. Hayes, Excavations at Sarahane in Istanbul, vol. 2 Nicholas Church Excavation in Demre (Myra) in Antalya,
(Princeton, N.J., 1992), 404, nos. 50, 7071, fig. 152; 198995. Glass Finds (Ph.D. diss., Social Sciences Insti-
M. Acara and B. Y. Olcay, Bizans Dneminde Aydnlatma tute, Hacettepe University, Ankara, 1997), 467, pl. II, 4.
Dzeni ve Demre Aziz Nikolaos Kilisesinde Kullanlan 28
See Hadad, Glass Lamps, 69, 72 (Type 4), and refer-
Aydnlatma Gereleri, Adalya 2 (1998): 253, pl. 1, im. ences in note 16.
24
Gill, Amorium Reports, Part 1, no. 31 (from Trench AB, 29
Acara and Olcay, Aydnlatma, pl. 2, g. The Tarsos
Context 110); Part 2, nos. 3739 (from Trench L, Context glass finds have already been prepared for publication.
390; from Trench UU, Context 48; and from Trench A2-1, 30
C. Meyer, Glass from the North Theater, Byzantine
Context 10, respectively). These findspots, ranging from Church and Soundings at Jerash, Jordan 198283, BASOR
the Upper City to the Lower City walls, indicate that such Supplement 25 (1987): 211, fig. 11, V, X, Y, Z.
lamps were widely distributed across the site. 31
Acara and Olcay, Aydnlatma, 255, pl. 3, e.
25
For a recent discussion of this type, see S. Hadad, 32
Parallels include finds from the 5th6th century at
Glass Lamps from the Byzantine through Mameluk Peri- Sardis, the 5th7th century at Anemurium, the 6th7th
ods at Bet Shean, Israel, JGS 40 (1998): 69 (Type 2), and century at Demre, the 6th7th century at Gerasa, and the
references in note 12. 5th7th century at Carthage. A. von Saldern, Ancient and
26
Gill, Amorium Reports, Part 1, nos. 2124 (all from con- Byzantine Glass from Sardis (London, 1980), 58, no. 351, pl.
texts in the Large Building, Lower City); Part 2, nos. 30 24: 351; E. M. Stern, Ancient and Medieval Glass from the
34 (from Trench AB, Context 101; from Trench TT, Con- Necropolis Church at Anemurium, Annales du 9e Congrs de
text 122; and from various contexts in the Lower City lAssociation Internationale pour lHistoire du Verre (Lige,
Church). 1985), 4445, pl. 3; Meyer, Jerash, Jordan, fig. 8, Y; J. M.
Another reliable indicator for dating pur- The majority of the glass finds from the ex-
poses is provided by the applied trails that are cavations conducted at Amorium in 1998 can
found on some of the vessel fragments. This be assigned to the period between the sixth and
decorative element seems to have been in use eleventh/twelfth centuries. Closer dating of the
over a long period of time, beginning in the finds may be possible as the study of the mate-
Roman and continuing into the Byzantine perial advances and the stratigraphy of the site
riod. Published examples, however, indicate comes into sharper focus.
that such trails were especially popular in the
seventhninth centuries.33 One explanation for THE COINS (BY CHRIS LIGHTFOOT)
this phenomenon may be the reduced eco-
In 2000 a total of twenty-six bronze or cop-
nomic circumstances of the Byzantines as a re-
per alloy coins were recorded. They were all
sult of the Arab raids on Anatolia. Just as all the
cleaned and conserved by Emre Eser; they were
other branches of arts and crafts suffered a de-
then photographed and cast, and finally they
cline at this time, so glass production was re-
were deposited in the Afyon Archaeological
duced to a relatively basic level. The fabric of
Museum on 7 September. Of these coins only
the glass made in the seventhninth centuries is
five were recovered from the excavations in the
generally poor, while the addition of trails (usu-
Lower City; the remainder were all surface or
ally in dark blue) would have constituted both
stray finds, most of which had been picked up
an easy and a cheap form of decoration. It is
by the site guard, Bill Eryig it, before the be-
likely that the rim, body, and base fragments
ginning of the season.
decorated with such trails that have been found
As in previous years, the majority of the finds
at Amorium belong to the Dark Ages.
belong to the Byzantine period. None can be
Finally, a group of glass that is striking among
positively assigned to a date earlier than the
the finds from 1998 is the window glass, all from
fourth century. Few coins of the sixth century
Context 91 in Trench XC. These constitute
have been found at Amorium, and so it was
some of the largest fragments of glass so far re-
gratifying to be able to add a nummus of Anas-
covered from the excavations, one reason for
tasios, particularly as this small coin was picked
their size being the thickness of the panes. A few
up as a surface find.35 Two more issues belong
of the fragments have an original edge. It is
to the reigns of Herakleios and Constans II in
clear that these panes were made in flat sheets,
the seventh century, while a third follis, badly
a technique that was in use from the Roman pe-
corroded on the obverse, may tentatively be as-
riod until well into Byzantine times. Until the
signed to one of the early eighth-century em-
relative stratigraphy of the context in which the
perors on account of its size, weight, and gen-
window glass was found has been precisely de-
eral appearance.36
termined, the date of the Amorium fragments
Two more issues of Emperor Theophilos,
must remain uncertain. Nevertheless, the finds
from XC Context 91 constitute an important
35
group to be added to the growing body of evi- AM00/Surface/SF4012. From the Lower City. AE num-
mus, A.D. 491517. Mint of Constantinople. Obv. Bust of
dence for Roman and Byzantine window glass.34 emperor, diademed and wearing a cuirass and paludamen-
tum, r. Rev. Monogram. 10.0 mm; 1.01 g; 6h. C. Morrisson,
Crowfoot, Glass, in G. M. Crowfoot, The Objects from Catalogue des monnaies byzantines de la Bibliothque Nationale,
Samaria (London, 1957), 415, fig. 96: 7; Acara and Olcay, I, DAnastase Ier Justinien II (491711) (Paris, 1970), no. 1/
Aydnlatma, 255, pl. 3, ad. Cp/AE/02.
33
Meyer, Jerash, Jordan, 197. 36
(1) Herakleios: AM00/XD Context 4 (subsoil)/SF4022.
34
For a general discussion of ancient window glass, see AE follis, class 4, year 27 = A.D. 636/7 (?). Mint of Constan-
D. Whitehouse, Window Glass between the First and the tinople. Obv. To 1., Herakleios standing, facing, holding
Eighth Centuries, in F. DellAcqua and R. Silva, eds., Il Col- long cross in r. hand; to r. Herakleios Constantine standing,
ore nel Medioevo. Arte Sibolo Technica. La Vetrata in Occidente facing, in chlamys; between them, cross. Very corroded.
dal IV all XI Secolo (Lucca, 2001), 3143. A recent survey Rev. M; above cross and C; to l., [ANNO]; to r., C/C/II (?); in
concluded that finds of window glass from the middle and exergue, []ON. 2523 mm; 7.09 g; h. Morrisson, Cata-
late Byzantine periods are rare; Ousterhout, Master logue des monnaies byzantines, no. 10/Cp/AE/75.
Builders, 151. This, however, does not take into account the (2) Constans II: AM00/Surface/SF4016. Stray find. AE
Amorium examples recorded in AnatSt 46 (1996): 1078, follis, class 8 (?), year 13 = A.D. 653/4. Mint of Constantino-
109 nos. 814, and DOP 51 (1997): 296, fig. C. For other ex- ple. Obv [ENTWT ONIKA]; emperor standing, facing, hold-
amples, see G. L. Davidson, Corinth, vol. 12, The Minor Ob- ing long cross in r. and globe cruciger in l. hand. Rev. [M;
jects (Princeton, N.J., 1952), 14445 nos. 106166. above, cross; to l., ANA; to r., NEO]; in exergue, to r., CIII;
both folles of class 1 dated 829830/1, can now dating to after 1071 has been recorded at Amo-
be added to the growing list of coins found at riumanother follis of Michael VII, also a sur-
Amorium belonging to the first half of the ninth face find from the preliminary site survey in
century; one was found during excavations in 1987 (AM87/SF3005).40
Trench XB.37 It may, perhaps, give some indi- Two Islamic copper coins were found as sur-
cation of the date for the channel and other fea- face strays; both are issues of the Seljuks of
tures (such as the row of troughs) that were sub- Rum.41 One is a fals of Kaykaus b. Kaykhusraw
sequently abandoned and sealed below the (124657), while the other was minted at
Enclosures circuit wall. Ankyra in the name of Kaykhusraw II and is
The remaining twelve Byzantine coins be- dated A.H. 635 (1237/8). They fit very well with
long to the tentheleventh centuries. Of partic- the other Islamic coins found at Amorium.
ular note are the two well-preserved issues of
Nikephoros II Phokas from Trench XD (Fig. THE LOWER CITY ENCLOSURE: TRENCHES XD
12), found in contexts that help confirm the AND XB (BY YALN MERGEN)
dating of the restructuring of Structure 2 to
Excavation in 2000 concentrated on one
pre-963.38 Only four anonymous folles were
small area within the Lower City Enclosure be-
recorded, all surface finds, but of the three
tween the circuit wall, part of which had been
signed folles, that of Michael VII is particularly
revealed in 1996 (in Trenches XA and XB), and
significant.39 Only one other Byzantine coin
the trench that had been excavated in 1998
to l. (?). 22.016.5 mm; 3.06 g; 2h. Morrisson, Catalogue des (Trench XC, with extension XBC joining with
monnaies byzantines, no. 13/Cp/AE/23. Trench XB).42 The principal aims were to de-
(3) Uncertain emperor, Philippikos or Anastasios II: fine the limits of one of the two major buildings
AM00/Upper City, unstratified/SF4018. From the northern
sector of the Upper City (spoil heap). AE follis, year 1 = A.D. (no. 2 of Structures 1 and 2) that had been
711/2 or 713/4. Mint of Constantinople. Obv. [Bust of em- found in Trench XC two years previously, to in-
peror facing, holding long cross in r. and globe cruciger in vestigate the relationship between Structure 2
l. hand]. Very corroded. Rev. M; above, cross; to l., ANN[O];
to r., I; below, A. 22.018.5 mm; 3.25 g; 6h (?). P. Grierson, and the Enclosures circuit wall, and to clarify
Byzantine Coins (LondonBerkeley, 1982), nos. 403404, the relative and absolute dating of the various
and cf. a follis of Anastasios II found at Pergamum; C. Mor- structures and associated features. The exca-
risson, Die byzantinischen Mnzen, in H. Voegtli, Die
Fundmnzen aus der Stadtgrabung von Pergamon (BerlinNew vated area (Fig. B) lies to the southeast of
York, 1993), 59, no. 822. Trench XC and southwest of Trenches XB and
37
AM00/XB Context 32/SF4027. From Lower City En- XBC, while its southern limits were defined by
closure, 27.08.00. AE follis, class 1, A.D. 829830/1. Mint of
Constantinople. Obv. * q-OI' bASIL'; bust facing, the circuit wall. It was designated as Trench XD
bearded, wearing chlamys and crown with cross, holding and measured 8 9 m. A 1-meter balk was pre-
patriarchal cross in r. hand, acacia in l. Rev. M; above, cross; served between the new trench and Trench XC,
below, q; to l., XXX; to r., NNN. 30.529 mm; 7.76 g; 6h.
Grierson, DOC 3.1: 433, no. 13. The other coin, also a follis but, despite this, it was possible to follow the
of class 1 (AM00/Surface/SF4009. 29 mm; 7.84 g; 6h), is a principal walls belonging to Structure 2 from
stray from the Lower City found by Bill Eryig it during the Trench XC through into Trench XD and up to
winter of 1999/2000.
38
(1) AM00/XD Context 17/SF4024. From Lower City the circuit wall.
Enclosure, 24.08.00. AE follis, class 1, A.D. 963969. Mint of An impressive stretch of the inner face of the
Constantinople, Obv. [+n]ICIFRb ASILVRw; bust facing, Enclosures circuit wall (W03), measuring some
bearded, wearing robe and crown with cross and pendilia;
in r. hand, cross scepter; in l., globe surmounted by trefoil. 11.5 m in length, has now been revealed (Fig.
Rev. [+]nICHF/qw bA/SILVSRw/MAIwn.; 2523.5 mm; 13). While cleaning and consolidation work on
8.13 g; 6h. Grierson, DOC 3.1: 58687, no. 7.
(2) AM00/XD Context 20/SF4026. From the Lower City ing in r. hand labarum, in l., globe cruciger. 23.522.5 mm;
Enclosure, 25.08.00. AE follis, class 2, A.D. 963969. Mint of 6.31 g; 6h. Grierson, DOC 3.1:81819, nos. 14a and 14b.
40
Constantinople. Obv. +nICIFRb ASIL[E]V[Rw]; bust fac- In 2001, however, another post-1071 coin was found;
ing, bearded, wearing modified loros and crown with cross see C. S. Lightfoot, Amorium 2001, in G. Coulthard, ed.,
and pendilia; in r. hand, labarum; in l., globe cruciger. Rev. Anatolian Archaeology: Research Reports 2001. British Institute
+nICH [F]/qwb[A]/SILVS[Rw]/ MAIw[n]; 24.522 mm; of Archaeology at Ankara 7 (2001): 10.
41
4.44. g; 6h. Grierson, DOC 3.1:58788, no. 8. AM00/SF4006; 2019 mm; 1.86 g, and AM00/SF4007;
39
AM00/Surface/SF4010. Stray find. AE follis, var. a. or 22.520 mm; 5.28 g. Both identified from casts and photo-
b., A.D. 107178. Obv. Bust of Christ facing, with nimbus graphs by Dr. Michael Bates, Curator of Islamic Coins at the
cross and holding book; in field, [IC] XC above lateral arms American Numismatic Society. The Project is very grateful
of cross, six-pointed stars beneath them. Rev. + MIX AHL to Dr. Bates for lending his help and expertise.
42
[RA]CI[OD]; bust facing, bearded, wearing modified loros DOP 52 (1998): 32728, figs. 911; DOP 55 (2001):
with collar-piece and crown with cross and pendilia, hold- 38194.
the section of wall uncovered in 1996 was being into the inner faces of W13 and W22. Although
completed, it was noticed that a fragment of an the exact nature of the upper stories and the
early Byzantine (probably sixth century) Ionic roof of the building cannot be determined, the
impost capital had been built into the core of rectangular plan and the thickness of the walls
the wall. Since this block (T1519) had become suggest that Structure 2 had a substantial ma-
loose and was in imminent danger of falling sonry superstructure, which probably included
from the wall, it was removed to the Dig House, a second floor and/or vaulted ceilings. In the
where it was subsequently recorded and pho- area between W05, W13, W19, and W22, a
tographed (Fig. 14).43 This was an important paved floor of large stone slabs survives in situ
discovery, for it helps to confirm that the circuit (Context 21; Fig. 15). This may be the Phase 1
wall is a relatively late feature and that its floor of Structure 2, but in the area to the north-
builders were not averse to using earlier spolia east of W05 later alterations to the building had
such as architectural elements in its construc- apparently destroyed almost all of the rest of
tion. this paved floor, and only in the northern cor-
Initial stages of the excavation were ham- ner of the trench were traces of a similar stone
pered by the large quantities of rubble that lay floor found (Context 30; Fig. 16). Because of
immediately below the topsoil. The nature of its the reuse of the building it is impossible to give
composition and deposition clearly indicated a precise date for the construction of Structure
that most of this rubble had once belonged to 2, but it is now clear that it existed before the
the circuit wall itself and had fallen into the Enclosures circuit wall was built. At least one of
Enclosure either as the upper part of the wall the principal walls (W13) of Structure 2 runs
gradually decayed or as a result of stone- underneath the new defensive wall (W03; Fig.
robbing activities during the past century. 17), which here rises to accommodate the sur-
viving masonry.
Structure 2 Phase 2 The first alteration to Structure 2 that
can now be detected occurred when a well-built
Phase 1 Once the rubble layer had been re-
cross wall (W19) was constructed within Struc-
moved, traces of two main walls appeared at the
ture 2. In construction technique it closely re-
eastern and western ends of the trench (Fig. B).
sembles the buildings Phase 1 walls, but it is not
These walls (W13 and W22) were faced with
bonded into the inner faces of W13 and W22. A
roughly carved blocks and had a mortared
conduit, 0.26 m wide, pierces W19 roughly at
rubble core. Both walls shared the same char-
its central point. The surfaces of W19 and W22
acteristics as the walls belonging to Structure 2
were plastered over with a thick layer of hy-
uncovered in Trench XC, and, as excavation
draulic mortar; this also extends onto the floor,
proceeded, it became clear that they repre-
forming a continuous curved surface between
sented the continuation of walls W98/03 and
wall and floor (Fig. 17). Other traces of this
W98/51.44 Although they do not survive to any
mortar survive not only as fill between the stone
great height, they provide a good indication of
floor slabs and on the conduit in W19 but also
the plan of the building. Structure 2 is now re-
on the surfaces of W13 and W22 to the north of
vealed to have been a rectangular building,
W05, indicating that the cistern or basin was
aligned northwest to southeast and having
originally much larger. So it would seem that
originally four entrancesthree on the north-
much of the area within Structure 2 (as exposed
eastern and one on the northwestern side. In
in Trench XD) was at one time used for storing
addition to the buttresses found at the corners
water. If this is so, then the openings in W13
of the northwest end wall (W98/14) of Structure
must also have been blocked up during Phase
2 in Trench XC, the excavations in Trench XD
2, although tangible evidence for this is lack-
provided evidence for further buttresses built
ing.45 The water apparently flowed into the cis-
43
tern (or large basin) through the conduit from
T1519, gray-veined marble, broken on all sides, L. (as
extant) 0.32 m.
44
Locals reported that these walls had survived above 45
The outer face of W14 (see Fig. 17) comprises loose
ground within living memory but had been plundered for rubble masonry and quantities of broken tile. However, the
stone, leaving only the lower section of the walls that was al- large blocks visible at the base of the inner face of the same
ready buried. This may explain why all the walls survive to wall resemble the composition of W19 of Phase 2 (see Fig.
this day at roughly the same height. 15).
the area that is now buried beneath the circuit face layers of this packed earth floor indicate
wall, confirmed by the fact that the stone paving that the area was in use for some time and re-
slopes down away from W19 in a northwesterly quired frequent resurfacing. A stone block laid
direction. There is, however, no evidence of flat beside W22 at the northwestern end of the
how the water drained or was extracted from trench also suggests that access may have been
the cistern. provided by stairs and implies that the area now
Phase 3 At some point the stone paving was served as a basement storeroom.
replaced with a compacted earth floor (Context Phase 4 The latest phase of occupation con-
25; Fig. 16), laid above a layer containing brick tinued to make use of the existing walls in
fragments and broken terra-cotta storage jars Structure 2. Traces of this phase appeared im-
(Context 27). This floor can be associated with mediately below the layers of rubble fallen from
the construction of a second cross-wall (W05), the circuit wall and consisted principally of
roughly aligned but not exactly parallel to rubble walls (W16) made up of small stone
W19. These alterations effectively put an end blocks and earth mortar that divided the area
to the use of Structure 2 for water-storage pur- within Structure 2 into six small, irregular com-
poses and also made the narrow corridorlike partments (Fig. 16). The rooms contained nu-
area between W19 and W05 into a dead space. merous fragments of storage jars and large
It was probably at this stage that the conduit pithoi; one setting bed for a pithos was also found
running through W19 was blocked up and the still in situ at the northwestern end of the
surviving blocking (W14) in W13 was con- trench. This evidence strongly suggests that
structed (Fig. 17). The appearance and compo- Structure 2 was now used as a depot for dry
sition of W05 and W14 are very similar, goods. Between the rubble walls (W16), a sec-
strengthening the view that they are contem- ond well-defined earth floor surface (Context
porary. It may be postulated that this major 20) was found.
change to Structure 2 was connected with the An indication of the date for Phase 4 was pro-
construction of the Enclosure wall (W03). It is vided by the discovery of two copper alloy
unclear whether more of W13 had to be delib- coins, both identified as folles of Emperor
erately demolished in order to make room for Nikephoros II Phokas (963969). One
the circuit wall, but the continued use of parts (SF4024; Fig. 12) came from an earth layer
of Structure 2 after the construction of W03 im- (Context 17) above the floor associated with the
plies that some of its walls must have survived to rubble walls (W16), while the other (SF4026)
a much greater height. In general, however, it was found on the surface of the floor itself
would seem that the site was not systematically (Context 20). So it would seem that the floor
leveled in order to prepare the ground when was laid before the third quarter of the tenth
the Enclosure wall was constructed. In all prob- century and, if the construction of the Phase 3
ability an open area or passageway was created cross-wall (W05) and floor (Context 25) is cor-
between the new southeastern wall (W05) of rectly associated with the restructuring of
Structure 2 and the inner face of W03, and it Structure 2 as a result of the building of the En-
may be that this was covered with a tile floor, closures circuit wall, then it may tentatively be
traces of which survive on the upper surface of suggested that the major redevelopment of this
W19.46 central part of the site should be placed consid-
The floor (Context 25; Fig. 16) inside Struc- erably earlier than ca. 970.
ture 2 is remarkably uniform, but in two areas
traces of rectangular mortar-lined trays were
The Channel or Drain
found sunk into its surface (Context 27). Their
function remains uncertain. The multiple sur- One of the most intriguing discoveries in
46
2000 was a channel, flanked to either side by six
A small patch of tiled floor was found at the base of the
Enclosure wall in Trench XB in 1996, overlying one of the massive stone slabs (Context 32), that runs par-
stone troughs; DOP 52 (1998): 328, fig. B. It may also be allel to the northeastern side wall (W13) of
noted that the narrow area between the circuit wall (W03) Structure 2 (Figs. 18, 19). This area was exca-
and W19 had a fill below the level of the tiled floor contain-
ing mud-brick. Other concentrations of mud-brick had vated in order to link the new trench (XD) with
been found in Trench XB. the trench (XB) excavated in 1996. The chan-
nel or drain was, apparently, once covered over

CONCLUSION
with wooden planks, the unburned remains of
which (Context 37) were discovered collapsed It is now evident that Structure 2 is much
within the channel. The wooden planks clearly larger than was envisaged when it was first par-
rested on the stone slabs to either side, for the tially uncovered in 1998. The excavations in
inner edge of each slab had been carefully cut Trench XD have also made it clear that there
back to provide a lip on which the planks could were as many as four main phases of occupa-
rest. Moreover, traces of wood were detected on tion within the building. The last phase in-
the surface of these cuttings. The channel may volved the construction of flimsy partition walls
have been longer originally, but a spolia block and the division of the interior of part of Struc-
resembling a piece of an architrave had been ture 2 into a number of small compartments,
placed across its southeastern end. Most of this which match some of the latest features exca-
block remains buried below the Enclosures cir- vated in 1998 in Trench XC. The recognition of
cuit wall (W03; Fig. 18).47 The channel was also the two earth floors in Trench XD has also
blocked off at the other end with a rubble wall helped to clarify the situation within the part of
(W33) that runs across from W13 of Structure 2 Structure 2 that had been excavated in 1998
(Fig. 19), and certainly no trace of its continua- where it had proved difficult to find any trace of
tion was detected in Trench XC in 1998. The in- a floor surface.49 They show a uniformity of oc-
terior of the channel was not fully excavated cupation inside Structure 2 extending from
before the end of the season, and the wood re- W05 up to the end wall (W98/14) of the build-
mains were left in situ for further work and ing. So it would seem that the blocking of the
analysis in 2001.48 A thin layer of ash (Context doorway in W98/03 took place at the same time
34) was recognized immediately above the that the earlier floor (Context 25) was laid. It
channel in the area between the large slabs, can also be associated with the other blocking
while the fill inside the channel also contained walls (W14) uncovered in Trench XD, which it
a considerable amount of burned material matches closely in construction and materials.
(Contexts 37 and 39), suggesting that the chan- The discovery of the channel or drain to the
nels use may have come to a sudden, violent northeast of Structure 2 throws new light on
end. Similar discrete areas of ash and carbon the troughs that were uncovered in 1996 and
were also excavated in the gap between the 1998, since it is obvious from their orientation
channel and the outer face of W13 of Structure and stratigraphy that these features belong to-
2. The only coin (SF4027; see above, p. 288, gether. What relationship these features had
n. 37) found in association with the channel with Phase 2 of Structure 2 remains unclear,
was lodged in a crack between the broken-off but it is certain that they all predate the con-
corner and the rest of the slab at the northwest- struction of the Enclosures circuit wall, and it
ern end of the channel. That this coin belongs may be that they all served a common purpose,
to the reign of Emperor Theophilos may be of forming part of a larger complex. The inter-
special significance, but further excavation of pretation of these findings is still in the prelim-
the interior of the channel is required before inary stages, but it may be suggested tentatively
any firm connection can be made between the that this complex could have served as a Byzan-
channels apparent destruction and the sack of tine dye works, tannery, or fullers installation.
Amorium in 838. The sequence of buildings and occupation
layers within the Enclosure is now much clearer
47
than it was in 1998, when it was suggested that
While this block provided some support to the circuit
wall above, it should be noted that, whereas elsewhere the Structure 2 might be contemporary with the
foundations of W03 are built immediately over earlier fea- construction of the Enclosures circuit or defen-
tures (such as the stone trough in Trench XB and W13 of sive wall. This years work in the area desig-
Structure 2 in Trench XD), here there is a layer of earth
mixed with broken brick and tile between the level of the nated as Trench XD has proved conclusively
channel and the lowest foundation course of the Enclosure that Structure 2 predates the Enclosure wall.
wall. The excavations have also shown that Structure
48
These features were not left exposed over the winter
of 2000/1 but were covered with geotextile and a temporary
backfill of crushed pumice. 49
Cf. DOP 55 (2001): 385 and 399, fig. J.
2 was not a simple square tower, but a much ture and function of the buildings that stood in
larger rectangular building that extends fur- this central area of the site before the construc-
ther to the southwest. Since it was argued in tion of the Enclosure.51 It would also seem likely
1998 that Structure 2 belonged to Stratum IV, that they could provide the best opportunity
we can now identify three major building for investigating occupational levels belonging
phases within the area of Trenches XC and XD. to the Byzantine Dark Ages.
The earliest saw the construction of Structure 1 It remains uncertain what function the En-
(in Stratum VII), to which Structure 2 was later closure itself served and to what uses the build-
added, while in the third phase came the addi- ings within it were put after its construction,
tion of the Enclosures circuit wall. The align- although it is clear that these changed dra-
ment of the northeast wall (W13) of Structure 2 matically when the Enclosure wall was super-
with the channel or drain and the row of imposed on part of Structure 2. It seems in-
troughs in Trench XB implies that these fea- creasingly more certain that the Enclosure with
tures were all laid out as part of the same plan its massive circuit wall was laid out during
and even formed part of the same complex. middle Byzantine times, that is, after the siege
Their construction may not necessarily have and sack of Amorium in 838. The defensive ap-
been contemporaneous, but the fact that the pearance of the circuit wall is all the more strik-
Enclosures circuit wall was built immediately ing now that a greater length of its inner face
on top of them suggests that they all fell out of has been exposed, reaffirming the view that
use at the same time. There is no evidence to its construction was probably an imperial or
suggest that either Structure 2 or the troughs state initiative. The creation of the Enclosure
had been abandoned and covered with a signif- may thus be associated with the renewed im-
icant layer of deposit before the circuit wall was portance of Amorium as a military post on
built. one of the principal highways across Anato-
Further work is now required in the area out- lia. Despite the lack of literary references, Amo-
side the Enclosure to see if more of Structure 2 rium may have served a strategic purpose as
exists there in the same way that part of a a staging-post, muster-point or winter head-
trough appeared in Trench XA outside the cir- quarters for the large-scale Byzantine raids into
cuit wall in 1996.50 It is, therefore, planned to Cilicia during the reign of Basil I.52
extend Trench XA to the southwest during the
2001 field season. Another objective in the
coming year is to excavate more of Structure 1
by enlarging Trench XC in a northwesterly di-
51
rection. In this way it is hoped to clarify the na- For a brief outline of the findings in 2001, see Light-
foot, Amorium 2001, 9.
52
See M. Whittow, The Making of Byzantium, 6001025
50
DOP 52 (1998): 328, and figs. C and 14. (Berkeley, 1996), 314.
Excavations and Survey at Androna, Syria:
The Oxford Team 2000
MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO
he third season of excavation at Androna

T (modern Andarin) took place in autumn
2000. The work of the Oxford team in 1998 and
THE BATH
The excavated bath will provide both an ex-
1999 has been reported elsewhere.1 The nature ample of mid-sixth-century bath architecture in
of the site, once a large and flourishing kome sit- a nonurban setting and an index to the financial
uated in the so-called basalt massif of north and technological resources available at An-
central Syria, and the current international ar- drona in the Byzantine period and later. Three
chaeological project (Syrian-British-German) seasons of excavation have revealed a basalt and
are described in the report on the 1999 season brick building (40 23 m) divided into four
published in DOP 56 (2002). The main aims of parts: the entrance court on the east, the frigi-
this project are to elucidate the diachronic de- darium on the north, the tepidarium and caldar-
velopment (from Roman to Islamic) of An- ium rooms on the south, and the service area on
dronas resources, defense, size, and spatial or- the west (Fig. 1). The baths technology (of water
ganization by means of survey and excavation. and heat) is being studied in detail. The rela-
The Oxford team is concentrating on questions tively large size and costly decoration of the
relating to the sources and use of water at this building (in marble, glass wall mosaics, wall
desert site. We have accordingly been excavat- painting)4 suggest a high level of funding. This
ing a mid-sixth-century public bath at the cen- is complemented by the pretentious verse in-
ter of the site, studying the extramural reser- scriptions executed in high relief, which record
voirs,2 and investigating all evidence relating to the building of the bath by a certain Thomas
agriculture. Our work continued in 2000 with soon after he built the kastron opposite in 5589.
the excavation of the bath, where our principal
objectives were to complete excavation of the The East Entrance Court
main rooms and to investigate its heat and wa- (supervised 2000 by C. Mango, A. al-Qasab)
ter supply.3
Most of the entrance court (Fig. 2) was exca-
1
For 1998 see M. Mundell Mango, Oxford Excavations vated in 1998 and 1999. Some discoveries made
at Andarin (Androna): September 1998, with contribu-
tions by M. Decker, C. Mango, N. Pollard, C. Salter, and local workmen and women numbered 22. Excavation took
A. Wilson, AArchArSyr (in press); C. Strube and M. Mundell place during the month of September. The seasons work
Mango, Excavations at Andarin/Androna, in Syrie moyenne was supported by generous grants from Dumbarton Oaks
de la mer la steppe (Damascus, in press). For 1999 see and by the Craven Committee and Modern History Faculty
M. Mundell Mango, Excavations and Survey at Androna, of the University of Oxford. For support in securing funds,
Syria: The Oxford Team 1999, DOP 56 (2002): 30715; we are grateful to Prof. Averil Cameron, Mr. James Crow,
eadem, Oxford Excavations at Andarin (Androna), Sep- Prof. Clive Foss, and Prof. Jean-Pierre Sodini. I should like
tember 1999, AArchArSyr (in press). to thank Bob Wilkins and Ian Cartwright of the Institute of
2
See the 1999 report, DOP 56 (2002): figs. 2021. Archaeology, Oxford, for making the photographic prints
3
Members of the Oxford team in 2000 were: Dr. M. for this article. The following report on the excavation of
Mango, director; Dr. Jonathan Bardill, Dr. Robert Hoy- the bath building is based on the notes written by the re-
land, Antonietta Lerz, Prof. Cyril Mango, Anne McCabe, spective trench supervisors identified below and on per-
Dr. Nigel Pollard, and Agns Vokaer, archaeologists; sonal observation.
Richard Anderson, architect and kite photographer. We 4
See the 1999 report, DOP 56 (2002): 30912, figs.
were joined by Syrian archaeologist Afamiya al-Qasab. Our 1114.
294 EXCAVATIONS AND SURVEY AT ANDRONA, SYRIA
in 2000 relate to the period after the bath went sponded to that of the mud-brick noted nearby
out of use and, possibly, to the period of the de- beneath collapsed arches of the court (B487)
struction of the building or part thereof. Evi- (Fig. 4) and elsewhere in the court as described
dence suggesting the latter came from its cis- in the 1999 report. These finds indicate post-
tern, whose mouth was uncovered in the center bath building prior to the final collapse of the
of the court in 1999. In 2000 drain holes feed- courts superstructure. Pavement slabs were re-
ing the cistern with rainwater carried down moved from the west end of the south aisle
from the peristyle roof were located in the four (B486) before the collapse. Further prime evi-
corners of the inner court which had been left dence relating to a postbath period is provided
unpaved (B395, B404, B405, B492). The ce- by the round structure (B104/B148) uncovered
ramic pipe (diam. 6.5 cm) remained in situ in in 1998 and 1999 to the west of the courts cen-
the drain by the southeast pier. When emptied, ter (Fig. 2), built directly onto the sixth-century
the carafe-shaped cistern (5.12 m deep; diam. stone pavement and identified possibly as a
3.85 m) was found to contain a variety of mate- kiln.5 The chronological sequence of the later
rials. Some, such as the copious amount of pot- structures in the south and east aisles, of the
tery found on the bottom, probably fell there collapse of the superstructure of the west aisle
while the cistern was in use; the same explana- (where a jar standing upright in the corner
tion may apply to some of the glassware found. [B99] still held sixthseventh-century Byzantine
Other items, such as the numerous animal coins in 1998) and elsewhere, and of the build-
bones, were thrown there after the cistern went ing of the kiln near the center of the court still
out of use. The building material found in the needs to be elucidated through further study.
cistern, including masonry blocks, channeled
slabs, colonnettes, capitals, balusters, and an The North Frigidarium (supervised by A. Lerz)
elaborately carved slab (Fig. 5), may relate to
In 2000 we removed from the frigidarium the
the destruction of the bath and come from
walls of the modern qubbe complex built over
some part of the building, possibly the court it-
the central apse and west side of this hall which
self. The same may be said concerning the large
we had excavated in 1998 and 1999.6 Their re-
pieces of charcoal found in the cistern which re-
moval better revealed the broad expanse of the
semble building timberspossibly beams from
baths main hall which is ca. 12.50 m wide (Fig.
the court roofrather than fuel. These may at-
6). We also finished excavating the northwest
test to a destruction by fire after which the
apse (B43) and uncovered drains there (B437)
burned beams and masonry were thrown down
and on the south side of the hall in front of the
the cistern. The arrowhead recovered from the
west pool (B445). We continued to find frag-
cistern (context B403) may have been in use on
ments of the marble and wall mosaic decoration
the occasion of destruction. Future radiocar-
of the hall.
bon tests on selected charcoal and animal bones
could confirm the chronology of the destruc-
The South Tepidarium and Caldaria (supervised
tion of the court.
by M. Mango, A. Lerz, A. McCabe)
The other main area of excavation in the east
court in 2000 uncovered evidence of alterations In 1998 and 1999 we excavated the west side
made to the court, probably after the bath of the south section, including a small room
ceased to function. In the south part of the (B36) with a small pool (B140) off the tepidarium
court, particularly in the peristyle, the unexca- and, to the south, a room (B106) with marble-
vated collapsed masonry afforded an opportu- lined oblong (B105) and semicircular (B338)
nity to study both the original construction of pools. In 2000 excavation continued first in the
the court and the sequence of its collapse. It other two caldarium rooms on the south and
also revealed later construction. The east end then in the tepidarium to the north. Of the two
of the south aisle and the east aisle of the court caldarium rooms excavated, that in the center of
(Figs. 2, 3) were found to be occupied by later the three rooms, B107, measures 3.43 3.40 m
constructions of mud-brick (remaining up to and that on the east, room B136, is 3.42 3.36
0.50 m high: B429a) and of mud-brick and
reused stone (B429, B488, B490, B491, B498 5
See discussion ibid.
?). This phase of building apparently corre- 6
See the 1999 report, DOP 56 (2002): 30910.
1 Androna, plan of bath as excavated in 2000, by R. C. Anderson.
2 Androna, bath, east entrance court looking west, showing remains of L-shaped piers and columns, the Umayyad
(?) kiln in the center, and later masonry on the left (photo: M. Mango)
3 Androna, bath, east entrance court, south aisle looking west toward later masonry.
Southeast corner of the court in the foreground (photo: M. Mango)
4 Androna, bath, east entrance court, south aisle looking north to collapsed arch of peristyle (photo: M. Mango)
5 Androna, bath, east entrance court, carved slab removed from the cistern (photo: M. Mango)
6 Androna, bath, frigidarium, general view east to entrance court. On the right are the two cold pools (photo: M.
Mango)
7 Androna, bath, caldaria, view east through the west furnace and the passages between the three
hypocausts (photo: M. Mango)
8 Androna, bath, east caldarium, fragment of painted plaster with Greek inscription enclosed in a red wreath (photo:
M. Mango)
9 Androna, bath, east caldarium, general view north toward tepidarium with its door blocked. Heating vents in the
north wall visible on the upper right and the later low construction in the northeast corner in the lower right
(photo: M. Mango)
10 Androna, bath, tepidarium, general view west before the pavement was uncovered.The stone trough is on the right,
and the bench built against the north wall, on the far right (photo: M. Mango)
11 Androna, bath, tepidarium, marble opus sectile pavement uncovered at east end, looking south. Charcoal deposit
visible on the far right and the blocked south door in the background (photo: M. Mango)
12 Androna, bath, service area on west, elevated water tank, tesselated pavement remaining on north side, looking
north. Remains of channels through the east wall on the right (photo: C. Mango)
13 Androna, bath, service area on west, two blocks of water channel(s) found in or near the elevated water tank
(photo: M. Mango)
14 Androna, bath, service area on west, south end of wheel house looking north at lime incrustations on walls, on the
floor to the right, around the corner, and on the stairs leading up on the far right (photo M. Mango)
15 Androna, bath, service area on west, partially excavated well used for the bath, looking north (photo: M. Mango)
16 Androna, bath, unguentaria retrieved from the disused well in the wheel house (photo M. Mango)
17 Androna, bath, fragment of faceted bleached glass vessel (drawing by A. Wilkins)
MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO 295
m. Like room B106 on the west emptied in heating pipe was found loose at floor level (Fig.
1999,7 both were found to have collapsed into 9). In 1998 the upper part of the walls (B17,
the hypocausts below. Both rooms had a semi- B66, B10, B15) of the tepidarium was uncov-
circular pool on the south partially uncovered ered, and the small room B36 was excavated to
in 1998, of which only the substructures floor level. In the north center of the main
(B107a, B136a) survive, as do parts of a second room stood a basalt trough (0.99 0.590.71
smaller marble-lined pool (B107b) in the cen- 0.28 m) at 0.38 m above bath floor level (Fig.
tral room.8 Remains excavated in the 10). The doorway in the south wall had been
hypocausts included decorative and other ma- blocked with large stones to a height of 0.40 m
terial from the two collapsed upper rooms. We (Fig. 9). Excavation in 2000 commenced at the
recovered slabs of white tesselated paving as east end of the room with the semicircular mar-
well as copious amounts of loose tesserae mea- ble-lined pool (B419), which was found to con-
suring ca. 2 cm3. Among the numerous pieces tain, in addition to rubble (mortar, bricks,
of decoratively painted plaster retrieved were basalt blocks), remains of mud-brick and de-
some ornamented with red or orange wreaths posits of charcoal and other industrial waste.
enclosing black fragmentary Greek inscriptions Extending excavation to the west in the direc-
(Fig. 8). We also found loose flues and pipes, tion of the trough (Fig. 11), we exposed a mar-
and in the hypocaust of room B107 a fragmen- ble opus sectile pavement (B480) whose decora-
tary flour mill. The pilae of the two hypocausts tive composition is based on a hexagonal star
had been largely robbed out, and only occa- pattern made up of white, pink, light and
sional stubs (B396, B484) are preserved on the darker blue, and black marbles (Fig. 11). This
floors (B397, B485) (Fig. 9). Ash 0.10 and 0.17 had an outer white marble border extant only
m thick remained on parts of the floors of B107 on the south side. At 2.8 m west of the ledge of
and B136, respectively. Heating shafts opened the semicircular pool we encountered a metal-
under the south pools in both rooms: three lic substance adhering to the center of the pave-
(B374, B380, B381) in the center room and one ment and a large deposit of charcoal piled
(B375) in the east room. Stoke holes in the against the bench (B500) built against the north
south faades of the center (B184) and east wall just east of the trough. Near the surface of
(B183) hypocausts led into B374 and B375. the area around the trough we encountered
When these heating shafts and the four in room more charcoal, slag, and a dozen smithing
B106 (B367B370), the hypocaust floors, the hearth bottoms (diam. 1115 cm). Because of
passages between hypocausts, and the furnaces the complexity of the evidence confronting us
and stoking holes on the west (B359, B176) and and the shortness of time left, we postponed
south were excavated (Fig. 7), twenty-four large further work, covering the marble pavement
bags of ash and soil were sampled for flotation, and leaving the rest of the room unexcavated.
which should yield evidence of the fuel used On moving the trough out into the frigidarium,
to heat the bath. Also sampled was postbath we noted under it the top of a loose stone con-
industrial waste recovered from the eastern struction. We deduced from the recovered evi-
hypocaust, where a low trough or platform dence that a metal workshop had been installed
(1.13 0.75 m) of basalt walls and mud-brick in the tepidarium after the bath went out of use,
floor was inserted into the northeast corner probably in the Umayyad period. A selection of
(B478) (Fig. 9). the metalworking material was taken to Oxford
The final area on the south to be excavated where it is currently being studied by Chris
was the tepidarium (7.85 2.63 m), a long, nar- Salter of the Materials Department. He will
row space (B499) with a curved wall at the east provide specialist advice on the future excava-
end, and a small room (B36) with a shallow pool tion of this area in 2001.
(B140) at the west end. Two heating vents high
in the north wall (B135) of the southeast
The West Service Area (supervised by C. Mango,
hypocaust were uncovered leading under the
R. Hoyland, A. al-Qasab, A. Lerz, A. McCabe)
tepidarium floor. Below these vents a T-junction
Only at the end of the 1999 season did we
7
Ibid., 312, fig. 15. start to investigate the service area (partly exca-
8
Ibid., fig. 16. vated in 1998), and we continued this work in
296 EXCAVATIONS AND SURVEY AT ANDRONA, SYRIA
2000. In particular, we unblocked the narrow ination by Dr. Mark Robinson in Oxford,
passage (B24) formed by two massive brick con- proved to be a conglomeration of plant debris
structions (B23, B25) aligned north-south formed by calcium carbonate from water seep-
against the west wall (B19) of the bath. At the age deposited on it.
south end the stack of bricks uncovered in 1999 We also began excavation of a well further
was removed for storage after dimensions and west (ca. 2.75 2.75 m in plan) (Fig. 15), iden-
other features were recorded. The floor under- tified by its sunken surface (B110). This well is
neath (B473) and a layer of rubble (B411) were situated close to the low curved wall (B73) to the
revealed. In the west wall of the passage we un- north that may be associated with a saqiya de-
covered a broad north-south arch (B336)9 un- vice.11 We excavated down to a level of about 3
der which was sunk a vertical shaft (ca. 1.25 m, encountering relatively few finds. Because
1.25 m in plan) (B337), positioned at an oblique of the wells collapsing basalt stone masonry,
angle to the passage and arch. Given the low further work was postponed until the depth of
height of the arch, its construction must have the first, disused well (B337) was determined.
prevented raising water from the well, which We continued excavation of the west furnace
then fell out of use. We emptied this disused forecourt, clearing the south doorway (B495)
well to a depth of 10 m, not quite reaching the and a short wall (B497) projecting south to the
bottom. The well was full of a dark loamy soil west of it. We also investigated a pit (1.33 0.85
containing animal bones, charcoal, pottery, and m) (B430) situated in the southeast corner of
other artifacts. We sampled twenty-one bags of the forecourt, beside the entrance to the fur-
material from the well while emptying it. The nace. This pit contained a thick layer of ash,
passage we took to be the wheel house, where charcoal (which we sampled), and many nails.
water was lifted from ground level to elevated We resumed excavation of the baths drainage
tanks by means of saqiya jars (many of which system built at two levels against the outer
were excavated 19982000) strapped to a south and west walls of the bath (B264, B344
wheel.10 Above the wheel house, to the east, we B348, B468), into which the caldarium pools of
exposed an elevated water tank (min. ca. 3 2 rooms B106 and B107 emptied.
m) (B41a) with a white tesselated floor (B459) We extended work at both the southwest and
composed of smaller tesserae than those used southeast exterior corners of the bath in the
in the caldarium rooms (Fig. 12). A block from a general vicinity of the west and south furnaces.
water channel (Fig. 13), possibly once used to Unsurprisingly we encountered a good amount
conduct water to the tank, was found reused in of ash. At the southwest end at the east face of
a later cross wall abutting wall B496; the wall the north-south trench west of the bath, we
was removed. A channel leads through the west found deposits of black ash (e.g., B462) alter-
wall (B26) into the tank, while other channels nating with others of masonry (e.g., B463) and
(B483) lead through the east wall (B37) from soil (one with eggshells). Within one layer of ash
the tank into room B36, part of the tepidarium. stood an urn-shaped pot. Another north-south
Another channel (B496) runs at the base of the trench 2 m east of the southeast corner of the
west wall of the tank. On the narrow stone stair- bath revealed a top layer of brown soil above an-
way (B481) below the tank to the south, over- other of white mortar sloping to the south. This
flow water ran down and back into the passage rested on brown soil and then a layer of black
(B24) and flowed down the disused well (B337) ash on top of hard, red earth. These levels await
then used as a drain (Fig. 14). The path of the reconciliation with those found in earlier exca-
water is indicated by thick lime incrustations on vation along the south wall of the bath.
floors and walls. Elsewhere in this area we en- In a room (B49) immediately west of the
countered other substantial incrustations. On wheel house we emptied a receptacle set into
six successive days we removed from the well the tiled floor and partially uncovered in 1998.
(B337) what appeared to be lengths of wood to- This proved to be a hearth (0.77 0.73 m)
taling 3 m, but which, upon microscopic exam- (B96), whose ashy contents we sampled. At the
9
Ibid., 313, fig. 18.
10
A complete jar excavated in 1998 is illustrated ibid., 11
See the discussion in the 1999 report, DOP 56 (2002):
fig. 19.8. 313.
MARLIA MUNDELL MANGO 297
end of the season we started to investigate the 1998 and 1999 included fragments of
area along the base of the north wall (B493) of bleached (clear, nearly white) glass, consid-
the west service area. ered a luxury product, some of which have a
ground faceted surface (B1; Fig. 17), including
THE SMALL FINDS a piece with a base engraved with a star (context
B232), as found on rock crystal, silver, and other
During the 2000 season the contents of the
high-value vessels, some perhaps associated
cistern (B265) in the east court and the disused
with Alexandria.15 Glass production at Androna
well (B337) in the west service area greatly in-
is suggested by a small slab (14.5 7.5 cm) of
creased the total pottery finds to date. These re-
dark green glass and similar fragments found in
cent finds included nine fragments of unguen-
2000 in the disused well (B337) (contexts B387,
taria, some of them stamped (Fig. 16),12 and
B436). Some of this glass has been sampled for
twenty-one fragments of lamps. The pottery
analysis by Prof. Julian Henderson.16
continues to be studied by Dr. Nigel Pollard,
who states that, overall, our pottery profile re-
POSTEXCAVATION SCIENTIFIC STUDY
mains that outlined in the 1999 report.13 Agns
Vokaer studied and sampled (for petrographic Charcoal, botanical samples, metallurgical
analysis) the finds of Brittleware, which she material, some of the numerous animal bones
compared with related finds from Apamea and recovered, and fragments of glass vessels and
from the citadel excavation at Aleppo, as part of material were removed from Syria in 2000 with
an M.Litt. thesis at Oxford University.14 Glass the authorization of the Director General of
finds in 2000 included many fragments of Antiquities and Museums, Damascus, and are
unguent or perfume flasks and stemmed gob- currently being studied at Oxford and Notting-
lets, as well as sherds of hanging and stemmed ham.
lamps, bottles and bangles, and loose vessel han-
dles. There were also two pieces with impressed Institute for Archaeology, Oxford
honeycomb and petal patterns. Finds made in
15
See M. Mundell Mango, Byzantine, Sasanian and
12
Four hundred fragments with fifty stamps were found Central Asian Silver, in Kontakte zwischen Iran, Byzanz und
at Sarahane in Istanbul. J. W. Hayes, Excavations at der Steppe in 67. Jh., Varia Archaeologica Hungarica 9, ed.
Sarahane in Istanbul. Volume 2. The Pottery (Princeton, N.J. Cs. Blint (Budapest, 2000), 273, fig. 8; M. Vickers, Ro-
Washington, D.C., 1992), 89, fig. 1.2124. man Facetted Silver and Its Relationship to Rock Crystal
13
See the 1999 report, DOP 56 (2002): 314, fig. 19. and Glass, Silver Society Journal (1966): 463.
14
Entitled Typological and Technological Study of 16
I should like to thank Dr. Esther Cameron of the In-
Byzantine Brittle Ware (Syria), completed 2001. stitute of Archaeology at Oxford for taking the samples.
Realities in the Arts of the Medieval Mediterranean,
8001500
Dumbarton Oaks Symposium 2002
Art history has come a long way in the thirty years since Otto Demus Byzantine Art and the
West. We think now in terms of communications rather than influences, regions rather
than centers and peripheries, demand rather than supply, consumption and reception
rather than the role of magisterial models. These innovations are more than matters of
wording: they reflect shifts in the conceptual foundations of our discipline, prompted as
much by critical theory as by the discovery of new evidence.
But in the wake (and light) of the theoretical revolution, it is perhaps time to recon-
sider fundamental questions about the means by which motifs, techniques, and ideas trav-
eled from one region to another. What, for example, is the relation between mosaic work-
shops attested in the Holy Land and those of Constantinople? Can we make sense of the
tangled relations between Arab and Byzantine silk and ceramic production? How, and
from where, did Western historiated initials arrive to grace Greek books? When and how
did Byzantine methods of ivory carving reach Egypt? By what means were Ayyubid metal-
working practices disseminated? Can we assess the impact of Venetian industrial arts upon
the central and eastern Mediterranean? What were the mechanisms that allowed the
apparent confluence of Latin and Greek themes in Crusader wall painting and manu-
scripts? Is it useful to distinguish between economic and noneconomic exchange, or sep-
arate this from more broadly based clienteles?
Some answers can be derived, as recent research has shown, from scrutiny of the ob-
jects themselves. But given the limited survival of many, these need to be viewed against
the background of the written sources. While documents such as the Geniza archives have
been exploited, othersnotably the terms of trade treaties, Italian commercial docu-
ments, and Arab gift listswould seem to throw light upon the filiations between objects
of allegedly very different origin that art historians recognize on stylistic and technical
grounds. All in all, we are calling for the integration of the artifactual and historical evi-
dence, the former providing clues to what may be significant in the documents, the latter
furnishing a context for and quite possibly a pattern to the distribution of goods in the
Mediterranean between the ninth and fifteenth centuries.
300 DUMBARTON OAKS SYMPOSIUM 2002
Program
Anthony Cutler, Pennsylvania State University

Introduction
Christopher Wickham, University of Birmingham
The Mediterranean around 800: On the Brink of the Second Trade Cycle
Leslie Brubaker, University of Birmingham
Rome, Constantinople, and Spain: Exchange of Luxury Goods
David Jacoby, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Silk, Economics, and Artistic Interaction: Byzantium, the Muslim World, and
the West
Marianne Barrucand, Universit de Paris, IVSorbonne
Early Byzantine Spolia in Fatimid Egypt and Contemporary North Africa
Anthony Cutler, Pennsylvania State University
Gifts as Markers of Cultural and Commercial Exchange between Byzantium
and Islam
Deborah Howard, St. Johns College, Cambridge
Venice and Damascus in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries
Vronique Franois, Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, Laboratoire
darchologie mdivale mditerranenne, Aix-en-Provence
Ralits des changes en Mditerrane orientale du XIIe au XIXe s.: Lapport de
la cramique
Peter Schreiner, Universitt zu Kln
Diplomatic Gifts between Byzantium and the West, 8001200: An Analysis of the
Written Sources
Holger Klein, Columbia University
Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium
and the West
Jaroslav Folda, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and Center for Advanced
Studies in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington
The Figural Arts in Crusader Syria and Palestine, 11871291
Maria Georgopoulou, Yale University
The Arts, Industry, and Trade in the Thirteenth-Century Mediterranean
Maria Vassilaki, University of Thessaly
The Evidence of Icons
Yuri Piatnitsky, State Hermitage Museum
Byzantine Icons and Greek Artists in Old Russia
DUMBARTON OAKS SYMPOSIUM 2002 301
Jannic Durand, Muse du Louvre

Innovations gothiques dans lorfvrerie byzantine sous les Palologues
Robert Nelson, University of Chicago
Constantinople, Trebizond, Rome, and Florence: The Exchange of Books
Angeliki Laiou, Harvard University and Academy of Athens
Realities of Economics and Exchange in the Mediterranean World
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 57
AArchArSyr Annales archologiques arabes syriennes

AB Analecta Bollandiana
AIPHOS Annuaire de lInstitut de philologie et dhistoire orientales et slaves
AJA American Journal of Archaeology
AJNum American Journal of Numismatics
Akad.Aqh.Pr. Akadhmiva Aqhnw'n Praktikav
AnatSt Anatolian Studies
ANSMN American Numismatic Society, Museum Notes
AnzWien Anzeiger der [sterreichischen] Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien,
Philosophisch-historische Klasse
Arc.Delt. Arcaiologiko;n Deltivon
Arc.Ef. Arcaiologikh; Efhmeriv"
ArtB Art Bulletin
BalkSt Balkan Studies

BAR British Archaeological Reports
BASOR Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research in Jerusalem
BCH Bulletin de correspondance hellnique
BEFAR Bibliothque des Ecoles franaises dAthnes et de Rome
BHG Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca, 3rd ed., ed. F. Halkin, 3 vols. (Brussels, 1957)
BMGS Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies
BNJ Byzantinisch-neugriechische Jahrbcher
BSA The Annual of the British School at Athens
BSCAbstr Byzantine Studies Conference, Abstracts of Papers
BSl Byzantinoslavica
BSO[A]S Bulletin of the School of Oriental [and African] Studies
ByzAus Byzantina Australiensia
ByzF Byzantinische Forschungen
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
CahArch Cahiers archologiques

CEB Congrs international des Etudes byzantines: Actes
CFHB Corpus fontium historiae byzantinae
CRAI Comptes rendus des sances de lanne de lAcadmie des inscriptions et belles-lettres
CSHB Corpus scriptorum historiae byzantinae
Delt.Crist.Arc.Et. Deltivon th'" Cristianikh'" Arcaiologikh'" Etaireiva"
Delt.Et.Ell. Deltivon th'" Istorikh'" kai; Eqnologikh'" Etaireiva" th'" Ellavdo"
304 ABBREVIATIONS
DOC A. R. Bellinger and P. Grierson, Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in the Dumbarton Oaks Collec-
tion and in the Whittemore Collection, 5 vols. (Washington, D.C., 196699)
DOP Dumbarton Oaks Papers
DOS Dumbarton Oaks Studies
DOT Dumbarton Oaks Texts
DSp Dictionnaire de spiritualit asctique et mystique
EO Echos dOrient
Ep. Ep.Qeo.Sco.Pan.Qe". Episthmonikh; Epethri;" th'" Qeologikh'" Scolh'" tou'
Panepisthmivou Qessalonivkh"
Ep. Et.Buz.Sp. Epethri;" Etaireiva" Buzantinw'n Spoudw'n
FM Fontes minores
GOTR Greek Orthodox Theological Review

Grhg.Pal. Grhgovrio" oJ Palama'"
GRBS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies
HilZb Hilandarski zbornik
IntCongChrArch International Congress of Christian Archaeology: Acts

IP Istoricheski pregled
IRAIK Izvestiia Russkogo arkheologicheskogo instituta v Konstantinopole
IstMitt Istanbuler Mitteilungen, Deutsches Archologisches Institut, Abteilung Istanbul
IzvIstFil Izvestiia Akademii nauk SSSR, Sektsiia istorii i filosofii
JFA Journal of Field Archaeology

JGS Journal of Glass Studies
JHS Journal of Hellenic Studies
JMedHist Journal of Medieval History
JB Jahrbuch der sterreichischen Byzantinistik
JBG Jahrbuch der sterreichischen Byzantinischen Gesellschaft, 17 vols. (Vienna, 195168)
JSav Journal des savants
JWalt Journal of the Walters Art Museum
Mansi J. D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, 53 vols. in 58 pts. (Paris
Leipzig, 190127)
MlRome Mlanges darchologie et dhistoire, Ecole franaise de Rome
MemPontAcc Atti della Pontificia accademia romana di archeologia, Memorie
MiscByzMonac Miscellanea byzantina monacensia
MM F. Miklosich and J. Mller, Acta et diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et profana, 6 vols. (Vienna,
186090)
NAVen Nuovo archivio veneto

NC The Numismatic Chronicle [and Journal of the Royal Numismatic Society]
NCirc The Numismatic Circular
Neo" Ell. Neo;" Ellhnomnhvmwn
OCA Orientalia christiana analecta

OCP Orientalia christiana periodica
ODB The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, ed. A. Kazhdan et al., 3 vols. (New YorkOxford, 1991)
ABBREVIATIONS 305
PG Patrologiae cursus completus, Series graeca, ed. J.-P. Migne, 161 vols. in 166 pts. (Paris,
185766)
PL Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Latina, ed. J.-P. Migne, 221 vols. in 222 pts. (Paris,
184480)
PLP Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. E. Trapp et al. (Vienna, 19761996)
Prakt.Arc.Et. Praktika; th'" evn Aqhvnai" Arcaiologikh'" Etaireiva"
RBK Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, ed. K. Wessel (Stuttgart, 1963 )

RBN Revue belge de numismatique
RDAC Report of the Department of Antiquities, Cyprus
REB Revue des tudes byzantines
REG Revue des tudes grecques
RESEE Revue des tudes sud-est europennes
RH Revue historique
RHSEE Revue historique du sud-est europen
RN Revue numismatique
ROL Revue de lOrient latin
RSI Rivista storica italiana
SBWien Sitzungsberichte der Kaiserlichen (sterreichischen) Akademie der Wissenschaften,

Wien, Philosophisch-historische Klasse
SCN Studii si cercetari de numismatica
Settimane Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi sullalto medioevo, Spoleto
ST Studi e testi
StVen Studi veneziani
SdostF Sdost-Forschungen
Synaxarium CP Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae. Propylaeum ad Acta sanctorum Novembris,
ed. H. Delehaye (Brussels, 1902)
TAPS Transactions of the American Philosophical Society

TM Travaux et mmoires
TU Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Literatur (Leipzig-Berlin,
1882 )
VizVrem Vizantiiskii vremennik
WByzSt Wiener byzantinistische Studien
Zepos, Jus Jus Graecoromanum, ed. J. and P. Zepos, 8 vols. (Athens, 1931; repr. Aalen, 1962)
ZRVI Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog instituta, Srpska akademija nauka

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Footnotes
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quired facts of publication. Incomplete contributions will be returned to the author for com-
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2. In writing footnotes the author should consider completeness, clarity, and brevity, in that
order. For abbreviations of commonly cited journals, series, and reference works, use the Dumbar-
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be complete. For subsequent references use the authors last name and a shortened form of the
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3. All titles should be cited in the original languages, not in translation. Slavic transliterations
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324 STYLE GUIDE
4. Examples:
Books
1
C. Diehl, Manuel dart byzantin, 2nd ed. (Paris, 1926), 2:442-61.
2
E. Stein, Histoire du Bas-Empire (Paris, 1949), 1:77 ff.
3
Diehl, Manuel, 193 ff, fig. 90.
4
Les gestes des Chiprois, ed. G. Raynaud (Geneva, 1887).
5
Eusebios, Vita Constantini, 1.3, PG 20:914-16.
6
Stein, Bas-Empire, 1:777.
Articles
1
G. Ostrogorsky, Observations on the Aristocracy in Byzantium, DOP 25 (1971): 1-32.
2
R. Guilland, Vnalit et favoritisme Byzance, REB 10 (1953): 35-39.
3
Ostrogorsky, Aristocracy, 12-14.
4
Guilland, Vnalit, 36.
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This is an extract from:

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 57

Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot

Issue year 2003

2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Mediterranean ornament (Anglo-Saxon Vinescroll Ornament, Antiquity 10 [1936]: 67

in order to give a spontaneous tour of the collections to a couple of unknown undergrad-

Another of Kitzingers most influential monographic studies may be mentioned here,

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 57

Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot

Issue year 2003

2004 Dumbarton Oaks

en Grce et mme, prs de Thessalonique, en Macdoine, pendant ces deux sicles, on ne

Universit de Fribourg (Suisse)

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 57

Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot

Issue year 2003

2004 Dumbarton Oaks

ANALYZING THE SECOND CITY

THESSALONIKE AS AN APPANAGE: THE MONTFERRATS

of becoming Emperor Andronikos father-in-law. He was all-too-happy to accept contri-

THE MONTFERRAT HERITAGE

THE EMERGENCE OF SEPARATISM

SEPARATISM AND SOCIAL UPHEAVAL: THE ZEALOTS

of the Zealots as social revolutionaries, supposedly committed to a radical program of

accommodation to Turkish power and pursued a program of staunch resistance to Ot-

BETWEEN OCCUPATION AND APPANAGE

THE POST-BYZANTINE SECOND CITY

Late Byzantine Thessalonike: Chronological Highlights

Interpretations of the Zealots

A. TAFRALI, KABASILAS, AND THE MARXISTS

Tafralis perspectives found particular response, however, among Marxist-inspired scholars.

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 57

Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot

Issue year 2003

2004 Dumbarton Oaks

pendence from Constantinople, Velenis focused on what he defined as its Macedonian

lution in which a Macedonian dome appeared alongside the four non-Macedonian

2 Arta, Panagia Paregoritissa, main dome from the southeast

6 Thessalonike, Holy Apostles, general view from the northeast

8 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, northeast minor dome, from the northeast

10 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, main dome, from the northwest (photo: L. Bouras)

13 Thessalonike, H. Aikaterine, exonarthex, west faade, north side

19 Thessalonike, H. Panteleimon, main dome, plan (drawing by M. Mihaljevic)

25 Redina, church, dome interior; present state, looking east

31 Elasson, Panagia Olympiotissa, plan (drawing by J. Bogdanovic)

Fig. 33b Meteora, Great Meteoron monastery, church of the Metamorphosis,

45 Staro Nagoricino, St. George, main dome, from the southwest

61 Psaca, St. Nicholas, narthex dome, from the south

unmistakable Thessalonian characteristics no longer survives. The church of the Ascen-

panded eastward by a deep sanctuary flanked by two domed chapels. Correspondingly, on

72 urcic, Gracanica, chap. 1.

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 57

Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot

Issue year 2003

2004 Dumbarton Oaks

Unfortunately, a more precise siting of the twelfth-century Latin neighborhood can-

ber of Ragusans apparently resided in Thessalonike, among them Junius de Bona or

of Tudelas visit in Thessalonike. It is unclear whether residential segregation was reim-

The investigation of internal and external foreigners in Thessalonike in the late

The Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Dumbarton Oaks Papers, No. 57

Editor: Alice-Mary Talbot