The Group Portrait in the

Lincoln typikon:
Identity and Social Structure in a
Fourteenth-Century Convent*

Jennifer Ball

T he fourteenth-century typikon of the Convent of the Virgin of Sure Hope

in Constantinople (Oxford, Lincoln College, MS  Gr. 35), commonly
known as the Lincoln typikon, has attracted much scholarly attention due to
its unique evidence for three generations of family patronage of a Byzantine
monastic institution.1 The text contains 163 folios, including twelve full-page
illuminations, and stands today as one of only six surviving typika belonging to
a convent, compared to over fifty such charters in existence for male monastic

1 
Early publications on the Lincoln typikon include Coxe, Catalogus, Delehaye, Deux
typica, and Bodleian Library, Greek Manuscripts in the Bodleian. The bulk of the discussion by
Spatharakis (The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts), Cutler, and Magdalino (‘Some
Precisions on the Lincoln College typikon’), to be discussed later, has centred on dating and
pagination. More recently Hutter ‘Die Geschichte’, has revised the date for the manuscript
and also added some significant analysis, important for my argument. Hennessy, ‘The Lincoln
College typikon’, looked at the portraits in light of the founding family of the monastery. Talbot
translated and analysed the text (Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot) and has
completed a substantial body of work in the history of Late Byzantine convents (‘The Byzantine
Family and the Monastery’, ‘Women’s Space’, ‘Female Patronage’, and Women and Religious Life).

Jennifer Ball ( JBall@brooklyn.cuny.edu) is associate professor of Art History at the

Graduate Center and Brooklyn College, City University of New York.
Abstract: The fourteenth-century typikon of the Convent of the Virgin of Sure Hope in
Constantinople (Oxford, Lincoln College, MS Gr. 35) has attracted much scholarly attention
due to its rich illuminations and text, which provide evidence for life in a Late Byzantine
convent. This study concerns one of the most important artistic features of the codex: the
significance of the manuscript’s group portrait of thirty-five members of the convent (folio 12r)
which reflects, I argue, the social organization within the convent, giving further insight into
class systems and the role of work within Late Byzantine monasteries. It is argued that the group
and other portraits in the manuscript together express the hierarchy and purpose of the convent,
that is, to ensure the salvation of the convent’s elite patrons, a noble Byzantine family.
Keywords: Byzantine, art, monasticism, nuns, portraits.

The Journal of Medieval Monastic Studies, 5 (2016), 139–164  BREPOLS    PUBLISHERS  10.1484/J.JMMS.5.110842

140 Jennifer Ball

institutions of the Byzantine Empire.2 The opening of the manuscript boasts a

series of rich illuminations including portraits of the female founders and their
family members. These twelve, full-page illustrations offer the art historian superb
evidence for Late Byzantine portraiture, and especially for the pictorial repre­
sentation of lay and monastic dress (Figs 16–19). This study focuses attention on
a subject, which has been little considered to date: the group portrait of thirty-
five members of the convent (fol. 12r) that I address as a reflection of an idealized
social organization within the convent (Fig. 16).3 The portrait, I argue, expresses
an inclusive and egalitarian view of the convent by including representative types
of all ranks and ages, from the hegoumene (abbess) down to orphans and servants
in keeping with the ideals of monastic reformers of the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, as these were understood in the Late Byzantine period. This ‘reform
movement’, really an informal set of prevailing trends in monasticism, insisted on
prayer as the primary purpose of monastics and promoted equality in privileges,
attempting to rid monasteries of paid lay servants. The Lincoln typikon group
portrait portrays an archetype of the convent’s membership in keeping with the
ideals of the reform movements of the previous centuries in which everyone,
choir nun, working nun, servant, and orphan, stand together. The primary
work of these women was to support the spiritual well-being of the foundresses,
Theodora Synadene and her daughter Euphrosyne, and their family, through
constant prayer, remembrances after death, and the reading of the typikon itself.
The text of the typikon makes clear that a much more complex system of work
and social hierarchy existed within the Convent of the Virgin of Sure Hope than
the image, at first, suggests. The nobility were allowed personal servants, the
literate were granted privileges over the illiterate and low-born, and the status
of girls in the convent was contested, to name a few examples.4 A close reading
of the portrait, especially of the variety of clothing represented, reveals a tension
between the unified and egalitarian sisterhood that appears at first glance in the

2 
A thirteenth illumination of a small, half-page framed floral design is on fol.  13r. A
second copy of the typikon was made in Constantinople in 1640 and was not provided with
illuminations. It survives today in Berlin’s State Library (Phillippicus 1489). Theodora Synadene,
Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1512.
3 
The top row is badly flaking, but when closely examined, the tops of nine separate heads
can be counted across the top row. The five figures in the bottom row are not nuns in terms of
rank as Hutter has argued (‘Die Geschichte’) but, as this paper demonstrates, they are members
of the convent.
4 
While officially one became an adult at age twenty-five, around age sixteen or eighteen
one was permitted to take monastic vows at most institutions; I use the term ‘girl’ to refer to
female children up through their mid-teens. See Herrin, Kazhdan, and Cutler, ‘Childhood’.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 141

Figure 16. The Nuns of the Convent of the

Virgin of Certain Hope, Oxford, Lincoln
College, MS Gr. 35, fol. 12r, c. 1330.
Photograph by permission of the Rector
and Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford.

Figure 17. Theodore Synadenos and

Eudokia Synadene, Oxford, Lincoln
College, MS Gr. 35, fol. 8r, c. 1330.
Photograph by permission of the Rector
and Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford.
142 Jennifer Ball

Figure 18. Theodule, Joachim and

Euphrosyne, Oxford, Lincoln College,
MS Gr. 35, fol. 7r, c. 1330. Photograph by
permission of the Rector and Fellows of
Lincoln College, Oxford.

Figure 19. The Foundresses,

Theodule and Euphrosyne, in dedication
to the Virgin, Oxford, Lincoln College,
MS Gr. 35, fol. 1r, c. 1330.
Photograph by permission of the Rector
and Fellows of Lincoln College, Oxford.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 143

block of identically uniformed nuns and the hierarchical divisions present in the
daily life of the convent. This tension between an idealized inclusive membership
and the desire for a servant class to support the noble nuns not only lends insight
into the operations of the convent of the Virgin of Sure Hope but also into Late
Byzantine monastic institutions more generally.
This paper begins with a review of the known history of the convent and the
making of the Lincoln typikon. Turning to the group portrait, it then argues for a
specific hierarchical structure that both mirrors the organization of the convent
and aims towards a monastic ideal of equality. Next it assembles the group portrait
with the monastic portraits in the manuscript, which I contend were made as a
group, separate from the secular portraits, which were added later. Finally, the
paper examines the wider social context of the group portrait image. This section
demonstrates that the portrait contains lay servants, orphans, choir and working
nuns, together representing a compromise between the desires for comfort by the
aristocratic nuns and the societal pressures on monastic institutions to embody an
ideal of coenobitic practice formed in the Middle Byzantine period (843–1204).

The Founding of the Convent and the Making of the Lincoln typikon
The typikon’s author, the convent’s primary foundress, was Theodora Komnene
Palaiologina (born c. 1268, died c. 1332). A descendant of the family ruling
Byzantium before the Latin Occupation of 1204, the Komnenoi, Theodora
was also a Palaiologina as the niece of Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos (her
father, Constantine Doukas Angelos Komnenos Palaiologos, was half-brother
of Emperor Michael VIII, under whom he served as sebastokrator).5 The emperor
himself acted as Theodora’s guardian after the early deaths of her parents.6
Theodora’s noble lineage and imperial connections were further augmented
through her marriage to John Komnenos Doukas Angelos Synadenos, whose
membership in the Synadenos family added to her own elite status. It was some­
time after John’s death c. 1290 that she founded the Convent of the Virgin of Sure
Hope in Constantinople, the institution which the Lincoln typikon governs.7

5 
On Theodora Synadene (= Theodora Komnene Palaiologina?; the nun Theodoule), see
Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. by Trapp, fasc. 9, no. 21381. For Theodora’s
father, the sebastokrator Constantine Doukas Angelos Komnenos Palaiologos (the monk
Kallinikos; d. before 1275), see Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. by Trapp,
fasc. 9, no. 21498.
6 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1513.
7 
On Theodora’s husband, the megas stratopedarches John Komnenos Doukas Angelos
144 Jennifer Ball

Theodora brought her eldest child, and only daughter, Euphrosyne, who
was around age fifteen at the time, with her to the convent around 1300, where
both assumed the monastic habit. The two women lived in the monastery until
their deaths and they served successively as abbess of the community, Theodora
from its founding until 1332, followed by Euphrosyne.8 Throughout the typikon,
Theodora takes care to provide in every way for her daughter, ‘the flame of [her]
heart, [her] breath and life’.9 For example, while she bequeathed half of her
lands to the convent, where her daughter resided, she reserved the other half for
Euphrosyne personally.10
Family is emphasized throughout the typikon, not only through Theodora’s
provisions for her daughter, but most especially in the prefatory portraits of
Theodora’s male children and her grandchildren. The extended family, including
spouses, is mapped out by generation and for the male family members, their
court rank is explicitly defined by precisely recorded titles and carefully rendered
dress. Theodora’s eldest son, Theodoros Synadenos, who was protostrator from
1328 to 1331, was also involved in the life of the convent, serving as the ephoros, a
lay financial administrator.11 (Fig. 17) Irmgard Hutter hypothesizes that these lay
portraits were not added to the typikon until 1330 when a luxury copy of the book
with the family portraits was given to him, making the Lincoln version an archival
version that was kept at the convent, a theory with which I am in agreement.12
The content of the typikon, as it has come down to us, can be divided into four
discrete sections: Theodora’s original rule (1300); a series of additions made by
Theodora (before 1332); additions made by her daughter Euphrosyne, as the
second foundress and succeeding abbess of the convent (c. 1332–35); and a final
list of commemorations for deceased patrons of the convent that extend up to the

Synadenos (the monk Joachim; d. late thirteenth century, before 1290?), see Prosopographisches
Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. by Trapp, fasc. 11, no. 27125.
8 
Euphrosyne’s death date is not known, only that there is a new abbess at the convent by
1392. Her death would likely have been decades prior, as in 1392 Euphrosyne would have been
around 107 years old!
9 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1526.
10 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1557.
11 
On Theodora’s eldest son, the protostrator Theodore Komnenos Doukas Palaiologos
Synadenos, see Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit, ed. by Trapp, fasc. 11 no. 21373.
12 
Hutter, ‘Die Geschichte’, p. 105. Hutter believes that all of the illuminations except for
the portrait of the foundress with her husband and daughter were added c. 1330. I argue that the
monastic portraits form a group that was in the original 1300 manuscript.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 145

year 1402.13 This author finds most convincing the proposal, advanced by Hutter,
that the Lincoln typikon was a copy created c. 1330 and included Theodora’s
original rule, written c. 1300, along with her own later additions. Euphrosyne
wrote a second typikon that was added sometime between 1332 and 1335.14 A
later hand subsequently added short entries to the Lincoln copy, extending up
until 1402; in these were recorded new instructions for commemorating later
donors to the convent. The purpose of the Lincoln edition was to serve as a copy
to be kept safe by Theodora’s eldest son, as ephoros of the convent. The Lincoln
copy was to be kept secure outside the convent, should the original be lost, as in
fact it has been.
While there is scholarly agreement that the lay portraits were added later,
due to the ages of those pictured whose life dates are known, the dating of the
monastic portraits remains controversial.15 While Hutter believes that the original
typikon had only the image of Theodora with her husband and daughter (fol. 7r;
Fig. 19), I argue that the monastic portraits along with image of the Virgin were
copied from the original manuscript made around 1300.16 The two monastic

13 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, pp. 1512–78.
14 
Hutter offers a terminus post quem based on the fact that Manuel Asanes (fol. 9r) lost his
title in 1335 and would not have been pictured as such after that date: Hutter, ‘Die Geschichte’,
p. 105.
15 
Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts, pp. 202–03. Spatharakis
posited that the entire surviving Lincoln typikon is a copy, written sometime between 1328
and 1344, several decades after the c. 1300 founding of the convent and the composition of the
original (lost) typikon. As support for his hypothesis, Spatharakis uses the visual evidence of the
dedicatory portrait on fol. 11r. In it Euphrosyne stands alongside her mother Theodora holding
a text, presumably the typikon; both women are portrayed in monastic dress. Spatharakis claimed
that the Lincoln images were copied from the lost original, except for the dedicatory portrait
on fol.  11r, which he posited Euphrosyne added in her own edition executed c.  1328–44.
Magdalino and Cutler, ‘Some Precisions on the Lincoln College typikon’, pp. 179–98, agreed
that the Lincoln typikon is a copy of a now lost original, placing it more precisely between 1327
and 1335. They felt that all the lay portraits of the family were copies from the lost original.
In addition, they proposed that Euphrosyne added the dedicatory portrait (fol.  11r) after
Theodora’s death based on their assumption that Theodora is deceased in the image. As portraits
of deceased figures in Byzantine art do not typically subscribe to iconographical conventions
identifying them as such, this is a difficult case to make. Moreover, the depiction of Euphrosyne
in the dedicatory portrait follows the conventions for depicting children — she is smaller than
her mother; as Theodora died when Euphrosyne was an adult, it stands to reason that Theodora
is depicted as a living adult in this painting. For more on portraits of the deceased, see Brooks,
Commemoration of the Dead.
16 
Cecily Hennessy and I have come to the same conclusions about the dating of the
146 Jennifer Ball

family portraits and the group portrait clearly work together and must have been
made before it was copied to produce the Lincoln edition, which contained four
painted pages total: the group portrait of the convent’s nuns (fol. 12r; Fig. 16);
the dedicatory image of the Virgin (fol. 10r); and the monastic portraits — the
mother and daughter facing the Virgin image (fol. 11r; Fig. 19); and the parents
with their child, all in monastic dress (fol. 7r; Fig. 18). In both paintings where
she appears, Euphrosyne is represented as smaller in scale than her adult parents,
clearly signalling that she is the age of a child.17 Such a portrayal for the young girl
was appropriate for the timing of the monastery’s foundation (and the drawing
up of its charter) and the child’s taking of monastic vows, during her adolescence.
It also fits well with Theodora’s devotion to her young daughter, demonstrated
throughout the foundress’s original text as well as in her additions.
One of the most important functions of the book itself was the regular
memorialization of the foundress’s family, which is another method by which
the typikon emphasized the family. Her parents are celebrated together on 25
October when a special candelabra was lit and eleven priests were brought in
to celebrate Mass and sing the parastasimon prayer for the nuns. The nuns were
expected to partake in an extravagant meal in their honour, for which additional
money was taken from the treasury. Finally, a commemorative meal was given
to the hungry who came to the gate of the convent.18 The text requires that the
nuns commemorate all of Theodora’s deceased relations on their saint’s day
and discusses the commemorations to be carried out for fourteen relatives in
total. Furthermore, on folios 143–47 the text includes plans for future com­
memorations to be celebrated upon the eventual death of those relatives still alive
when Theodora authored her typikon.19 She even includes mention of her own
future commemoration and that of her daughter.
The instructions for commemoration specifically require that services for
Theodora’s daughter, Euphrosyne be ‘more lavish and splendid than those of
her parents’ described above.20 The continual prayer of the nuns for Theodora’s
family demonstrates that the primary reason for the existence of this convent was

manuscript and the inclusion of the four monastic portraits in the original version; however,
I was unaware of her article when I first presented this material in October 2010. Hennessy, ‘The
Lincoln College typikon’.
17 
Here again Hennessy and I come to the same conclusion: Hennessy, ‘The Lincoln
College typikon’, p. 106.
18 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1555.
19 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1556.
20 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1556.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 147

to support and provide for their everlasting spiritual well-being. Understanding

the author’s connections to the tight-knit group of elite families of the period,
and the codex’s emphasis on familial memory, conditions the ways in which the
manuscript was read, viewed, and used by the convent’s nuns. Furthermore, the
author’s societal status directly relates to the social structure within the convent,
which is echoed in the group portrait.

The Question of Portraiture

Should this be deemed a portrait? Despite the seeming lack of interest in physi­
ognomic likeness to our photographically attuned eyes, art historians will
easily understand the images of individuals in the Lincoln typikon as portraits,
due to their inscriptions naming the persons depicted. The image of the entire
convent, however, is problematic to consider as a portrait: the women not only
appear generic, they are also not named by inscription. I argue, however, that the
group of nuns be considered as a portrait of the convent as a whole even while I
acknowledge that it represents a collection of types. The artist included medieval
conventions of identifying persons, such as clues to their ranks seen in their dress
and their positions within the composition. Additionally, the artist included the
exact number of members listed in the convent’s typikon in the block of nuns at
the top of the image, a reference to the identity of the convent. It is furthermore
intended to be recognizable as a portrait of the convent because the nuns wear
their identifiable uniform, which while, perhaps, similar to other convents was
specific to their institution.21 Importantly, the Lincoln typikon group portrait
fits in with the understanding of medieval portraiture as described by Thomas
Dale and other scholars who have examined premodern portraiture in the past
three decades.22 Dale states that medieval portraiture needs to be understood
in premodern terms and not in our current understanding of portraiture,
which presumes physiognomic likeness. Instead, he argues that medieval artists

21 
Evidence, largely from Byzantine typika, indicates that the monks and nuns wore a
prescribed uniform specific to their monastery: in Constantinople, for example, the nuns of the
Lips monastery wore white wool, while at Certain Hope they wore black. Ball, ‘Decoding the
Habit of the Byzantine Nun’, pp. 25–52.
22 
While the bibliography on medieval portraiture is long, some articles of note are: Recht,
‘Philippe le Bel et l’image Royale’, pp. 189–201; Squatriti, ‘Personal Appearance’, pp. 191–202;
van der Velden, The Donor’s Image; Dale, ‘The Individual, the Resurrected Body, and
Romanesque Portraiture’, pp. 707–43; Seeing the Face, Seeing the Soul, ed. by Swain; Perkinson,
‘Rethinking the Origins of Portraiture’, pp. 135–58.
148 Jennifer Ball

sought to portray individuals not as unique persons with distinct physiognomic

characteristics but rather as ideals, whose character is revealed with stereotypical
features and conventions of dress and other attributes.23
The Lincoln typikon portrait, furthermore, is in keeping with the conventions
of the very few other surviving group portraits in Byzantine art. For example, the
Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos, presiding over the council of Constantinople
in The Theological Works of John VI Kantakouzenos (BnF, Gr. 1242, fol. 5v) of 1351
depicts the emperor, John VI Kantakouzenos, in the centre of the council. He
is clearly identified by inscription along with his central placement, his imperial
garb, and his larger scale. The others in the image are identified by their dress
and their placement in the image in relation to the emperor, with those of least
importance placed behind him rather than seated with him. He is flanked by four
bishops, while the monks fan out beside them. In the background the deacons
are clustered on the far left, while the soldiers and courtiers stand directly behind
him, all groups wearing distinct headgear, colours, and dress, when it is visible, so
that we can identify them. The Lincoln typikon follows this same system: dress
and placement identify the nuns, servants, and orphans, who will be discussed
later, while those of highest rank in the manuscript are additionally identified
with an inscription.

The Elements of the Group Portrait

The nuns’ portrait, the last of the full-page, prefatory images in the typikon, is the
only surviving monastic group portrait found in all of Byzantine art.24 Moreover,
the group portrait is the only portrait image in the manuscript, save for the
dedicatory image of the Virgin (fol. 10v), that does not apparently depict members
of the Synadene family. What has not been fully addressed is the significance of
the nuns’ group portrait (fol. 12r; Fig. 16) and how it functions in conjunction
with the family’s portraits. It is probable that unidentified family members are
present in the group portrait, but their visages are not individualized. Rather it
depicts the entire convent and functions in consort with the previous images of the
family in monastic dress to demonstrate pictorially the structure of the convent.

23 
Dale, ‘Romanesque Portrait Sculpture’, pp. 101–20.
24 
Besides the aforementioned portrait of John VI Kantakouzenos, there are some imperial
family groups, such as Heraclius and his family (Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale ‘Vittorio
Emanuele III’, MS.1.B.18, c. 615–29); Manuel II and his family in the writings of Dionysius the
Areopagite (Paris, Musée du Louvre, MR 416, fol. 2r, c. 1403–05). A few group donor portraits
exist as well, for example in Cappadocia in the eleventh-century Carikli church in Goreme,
Turkey, seen in Ball, Byzantine Dress, fig. 6f.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 149

This image has been described as showing choir nuns across the top rows
and a group of novices below. Hutter amended this proposal, noting that the
figures across the bottom row were ‘Novizinnen und (Arbeits)Nonnen’ (novices
and working nuns). Hennessy has suggested that the women at the bottom are
instead orphans and novices.25 In what follows I posit that these figures are lay
servants and an orphan. The convent housed working nuns as well, but they are
pictured with the rest of the nuns in the upper portion of the portrait. First of all,
these so-called novices each wear something unique, pointing to various other
persons represented, not simply nuns. Most importantly — arguing against this
conclusion — is the fact that the convent, according to the typikon’s text, did not
have novices. Novices are generally people over the age of sixteen or eighteen who
reside in a monastery for a probationary period between six months and three
years before taking monastic vows. In general, novices do not wear the habit of
full monastics, but rather a uniform, modified version of this outfit.26
As described in the text of the Lincoln typikon, the women in the three top
rows all wear the habit of a nun who has taken her final vows: the brown-black
cloak over a black himation,27 and on her head, the black squared skepai.28 The
uniform of the nuns above was written into the typikon’s rule and served to convey
an idea of equality among the sisters. The prescribed nun’s uniform is described at
length by Theodora:
Every year each nun should receive two white tunics, worn next to the body, and
one black tunic, which we wear over the other clothes and usually call himation.
In the same way each nun is to be provided with shoes suitable for women like

25 
Talbot, ‘Nun’ entry in The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, illustrates the entry with this
image, declaring the entire group nuns. Hutter is vague about the working nuns, something
which I clarify herein, ‘Die Geschichte’, p. 88. Hennessy refers to the nuns below as novices, and
then amends this to include orphans without specifying which figures across the bottom were
orphans, Hennessy, ‘Lincoln College’, p. 100.
26 
For example at the convent of Kecharitome, the full nuns wear cloaks: Irene Doukaina
Komnene, Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent of the Mother of God
Kecharitomene, trans. by Jordan, p. 685.
27 
Dye technology was such that clothes deemed ‘black’ by the Byzantines could range from
an intensely saturated blue, to a dark burnt brown; true black did not exist anywhere in Europe
or the Mediterranean basin until the sixteenth century. Anthony Cutler informed me that he
detected a blue tint to the black when he saw the manuscript in the 1970s. Spatharakis in his
1980 publication, Portraits in Illuminated Manuscripts, p. 199, refers to the clothing as simply
‘black’ in his description, but in 2011 the colour looked brown-black, which could be a result
of ageing.
28 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1551.
150 Jennifer Ball

ourselves […] Every three years each nun should receive without fail, in addition to
the garments described above, a cloak and two vests thick enough to insulate and
warm the body and protect it sufficiently against the bitter cold of winter. Each nun
will receive not only these [items] from the common [stores], but everything she
needs to cover her head. I give the name of ‘skepai’ to these headcoverings which
you term ‘phakiolia’ and ‘magoulikia’ in the popular idiom.29

The nun’s garments, their colour, and even their weight are prescribed, as a uni­
form. A uniform was common in Byzantine monastic institutions, despite the
fact that the uniform was not the same across institutions.30 The typikon’s text sug­
gests that everyone in the community, from the hegoumene down to the illiterate,
working nuns, wore this same uniform.
Theodora also importantly underlines the traditional value of modesty inherent
in the nuns’ garments,
For just as each worldly rank and office has a distinguishing feature in its dress,
by which they are recognized, thus it is appropriate for the female disciples of
Christ to have a special character to their garments, a habit of frugal and modest
adornment that is at the same time inexpensive and dignified, by which they will
be recognized by those who see them (and perhaps also by those who wear them)
for what they are, that is to say female disciples of Christ, to the glory of our great
Teacher.31

Note that the author describes the nuns of the convent as being of one rank:
female disciples of Christ. Accordingly, they all wear the same garments, and
these are necessarily modest in keeping with what is appropriate for a female
follower of Christ.
One of the women in the third row from the top holds a staff or cane, which
likely distinguishes her rank among the full nuns. It is a safe assumption that the
staff-bearer is the hegoumene, that is, Theodora herself, though special insignia
for the superior is not mentioned in the typikon. Some images of monks from the
Late Byzantine period show monks of rank carrying staffs, for example in the icon
of the Death of St Ephrem of Syria now housed in the Byzantine and Christian
Museum in Athens. Three of the most distinguished mourners close to the saint’s
body hold staffs. Another possibility is that the stick is a cane, representing an
elderly nun, in keeping with the notion that this image represents all of the types

29 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1551.
30 
Ball, ‘Decoding the Habit’, pp. 25–52.
31 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1152.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 151

found at the convent. Theodora is already pictured in the dedicatory image to the
Virgin, so it may not have been necessary to show her again.
Below the nuns in the top rows are five females wearing other distinct types of
outfit, four different versions in total. The woman on the left wears a brown tunic
(or a brown cloak buttoned up) over a black under-tunic with a white diaphanous
veil on her head, revealing strands of her hair beneath. The woman third from
the left is dressed almost identically, suggesting that this is in fact a uniform that
distinguishes a further rank within the convent distinct from that of the nuns
above; however, this figure’s veil is white, not transparent, and we cannot see any
portion of her hair as we can with the individual at the left. The second woman
from the left dresses nearly the same as the nuns above who have taken vows:
in all black. But instead she wears an unstructured black veil, rather than the
squared skepai of the nuns above. Images of Late Byzantine nuns demonstrate
that the skepai has either a stiff inner structure, or it is wrapped like a turban to
create height and shape above the crown of the head.32 This contrasts with the
form of a veil, which is merely a draped cloth that takes the shape of the head.
The figure who stands fourth from the left wears a black tunic and notably no
headdress revealing her brown hair. This is very unusual given the importance
of head coverings in general in Byzantine women’s dress. Finally, on the far right
stands a woman with a brown himation, a black cloak, and an unstructured black
veil similar to the woman in the second position.
While it is possible that variance in the colour of these tunics on the bottom
row may be merely a compositional strategy of the artist to differentiate between
individuals, this is unlikely. The artist did not do this with the nuns at the top of
the frame who form a unified block, barely distinguishable from one another,
with only thin lines drawn between each figure. Rather, the discrepancies among
the figures in the lower tier imply that they wear variations in their uniform
that indicate membership in various lower ranks within the convent’s hierarchy.
While it is not possible to declare with certainty the position of each woman
in the foreground, it is safe to say that these garments demonstrate something
other than a hierarchy composed of novice and choir nun. Especially given that a
novitiate is not mentioned in the Lincoln College typikon, we should not jump to
that conclusion. The primary reason for the existence of this convent was to pray
for the foundress’s family, not to proselytize and educate a new cohort of nuns;

32 
See for example the early thirteenth-century Icon of St Theodosia, Constantinople,
from the Holy Monastery of Saint Catherine, Sinai, Egypt, in Nelson and Collins, Holy Image,
Hallowed Ground, cat. 46.
152 Jennifer Ball

the convent was populated largely with women from the Constantinopolitan
nobility from which Theodora and Euphrosyne came, who required servants. The
text of the typikon itself offers a great deal of information concerning the ranks
that existed in the convent, which can serve as a foundation for understanding
this image.

Hierarchy within the Convent: Nuns and the Laity

The Lincoln typikon can significantly illuminate the existence of varying ranks
within the convent, for not only does it preserve an extremely rare group por­
trait of the community (Fig. 16) but the manuscript also provides the text of
the typikon itself, both of which speak to the various roles within the convent.
According to the typikon, in addition to the hegoumene, the convent had several
nuns who held offices, which are listed in descending order: ecclesiarchissa, the
leader in charge of all church services; a steward, who oversaw the running of the
convent, its properties, and finances; a supervisor of the storeroom, which held
the clothing, bedding, and fruit of the convent; the cellarer who was charged
with the storage of food and wine; and a ‘guard and gatekeeper’. Interestingly, a
discussion of the duties of the literate choir nuns interrupts the descriptions of
the offices and their duties, with the storeroom supervisor, cellarer, and ‘guard
and gatekeeper’ listed after the choir nuns, implying that their rank is lower.
These officers perform manual labour, as opposed to the administrative work of
ecclesiarchissa and steward.
In addition to the hegoumene, the nuns who held offices, and the choir sisters,
the convent also included women who functioned as servants, among them both
nuns and laywomen. Some of the sisters are referred to as working for the convent
in a general sense, serving food and the like. Theodora refers to ‘the sisters who
wait upon you and serve you and are thus distracted and concerned for your
comfort, and for this reason are absent from communal offices’.33 In another
passage she entreats those who are ‘engaged in [physical labour] most of the time’
still regularly to attend services.34 Together these nuns, literate choir sisters, and
working (presumably illiterate) women, known as diakonetai, numbered exactly
thirty in Theodora’s time (Euphrosyne increased that number to fifty).35 While
this image contains thirty nuns, and five additional members of the convent

33 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1539.
34 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1540.
35 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1564.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 153

below, I do not contend that this is a portrait of thirty-five individuals. Rather
it is a portrait of the convent as a whole and the types therein, as is made clearer
when examining the figures in the bottom row.
The figures across the bottom, I argue, comprise another set of individuals
who are not properly speaking nuns, as they do not wear the habit. By inclusion
in this portrait, these individuals are marked as essential members of the larger
monastic community. At least one of these figures is a child: the unveiled girl
standing fourth from the left, who is represented in smaller scale than the other
nuns reflecting that she has not yet reached her physical maturity in adulthood.
A similar attention to realistic scale is observed in the portrait of Euphrosyne as
a child between her parents, where she too has a bare head to designate young
age (fol. 7r, Fig. 18). One possibility is that this young girl represents the small
population of orphans living in the convent since its establishment by Theodora.36
By Euphrosyne’s time, nearly three decades later, the number of orphans may have
increased significantly. Euphrosyne amended her mother’s typikon, insisting that
no lay children be allowed in the convent to learn to read, unless they planned
on becoming nuns in adulthood. She refers to the education of girls as having
a ‘pernicious influence’ on the nuns, with the education of orphans becoming a
distraction to the sisters.37
The status of these orphans is not totally clear. Talbot surmises that the orphans
were ‘recruited […] to staff the convent’,38 based on the belief that Euphrosyne’s
amendment to the typikon requiring that only girls who wish to become nuns be
allowed to enter the convent implies that the orphans in Theodora’s time were
there to serve. I would argue for the possibility that orphaned nobility were
brought in as companions for Theodora’s daughter, a teenager at the time of her
entrance. Theodora states:
Not only did I […] [bring] my cherished daughter, but I also enclosed in this
convent a few virgins who have the same purpose as I do in all things […] I have
cast all my thoughts, all my hopes, all my anxiety, all my concern for myself and my
orphaned children upon the Lord.39

Theodora’s primary purpose was caring for her daughter, so the orphans may have
been taken in so that Euphrosyne would not be the only youth in the convent.

36 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1526.
37 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1564.
38 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1514.
39 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1526.
154 Jennifer Ball

Orphans could be, of course, from any class and it was not uncommon for
convents to take them in. The Lips convent, also a Constantinopolitan institution
established by and for the nobility, notes in its fourteenth-century typikon that it
took in orphans of ‘noble or common birth’, for example.40
I contend that the remaining four figures across the bottom of the group
portrait — all of larger scale than the child, and all wearing veils — are adult
lay servants, rather than children or working nuns, as has been posited.41 While
Theodora prescribes in her typikon that some nuns (diakonetai), more likely
those of lower social status and illiterate, served the choir nuns, the foundress
also mentions the presence of personal servants who accompanied members
of the nobility when they entered the convent. ‘The superior should […] grant
permission if any of them should ask to have one servant only to provide a
modest amount of service and ease.’42 I will return to the status of lay servants
in the monastic setting below, but it is important to note here that the dress of
these women is distinguished from the nuns above as well as each other, denoting
that they are not in the uniform of the nuns of the Convent of the Virgin of
Sure Hope. The fact that they are pictured at all, however, suggests that they were
considered members of the convent in some sense.

The Monastic Portraits in the typikon

Crucial for our understanding of the function of the group image with the
other monastic portraits is that the images fit very closely with Theodora’s text,
and her thinking on the understanding of the convent as a whole depicted in
these paintings and outlined in the text of the typikon. The dating and order of
the images establish that the foundress Theodora, as opposed to her daughter
Euphrosyne, ordered all of the monastic portraits. There is no information on the
artist(s) who created the images of the original typikon or the Lincoln copy. In
this study I argue that the monastic images, especially that of the group portrait,
closely follow Theodora’s unique vision for the convent. The social hierarchy and
the function of the convent are conveyed in both image and text, suggesting that
the monastic images should be attributed to Theodora’s vision.

40 
Theodora Palaiologina, Typikon of Theodora Palaiologina for the Convent of Lips, trans. by
Talbot, p. 1271.
41 
Hennessy, ‘Lincoln College’, and Hutter, ‘Die Geschichte’.
42 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1550.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 155

The nuns’ group portrait, however, does not at first glance appear to fit
logically with the celebration of the founders and their family, which is perhaps
one reason why so many scholars presumed this page was a later addition to the
manuscript. However, if we see the order of the monastic images as: Theodora
and her husband and daughter (fol. 7r, Fig. 18) followed by the image of the
Virgin (fol. 10r) with Theodora and Euphrosyne on the facing page dedicating
their convent to her (fol. 11r; Fig. 19) and finally on the reverse, the group
portrait (fol. 12v, Fig. 16), without the current, intervening lay portraits, then the
logic of the images becomes evident. Theodora’s immediate family was supported
spiritually, and literally, through the positioning of the convent’s patron saint, the
Virgin, and the final group portrait of the convent’s nuns and their dependents
at the bottom of the frame. Theodora and her daughter dedicate the convent and
the typikon to the Virgin, facing her on the opposite page, while the nuns, who
appear on the reverse, back up Theodora and Euphrosyne in their dedication to
the Virgin, both metaphorically and in the literal position of the image. All point
through their gestures of intercession to the left side of the picture (their right) to
the preceding folios with the portraits of Euphrosyne and her parents. When the
lay portraits of Theodora’s children, grandchildren, and their spouses were added
later c. 1330, the notion of the convent of nuns supporting Theodora’s family
was further reinforced: these new paintings were added in between the monastic
images of Theodora with her husband, and the Virgin, so that they too would be
included visually and literally in this chain of spiritual support.

The Inclusion of Laity in the Group Portrait

The question remains as to why the lay servants and orphan were pictured with
the nuns in the group portrait when, according to the typikon, these people did
not take vows and were not properly speaking nuns. In the remaining section,
I  argue that their inclusion was aligned with a concept of an ideal monastic
institution, formed out of reform movements of the Middle Byzantine period.43
Beginning in the eleventh century, many Byzantine monasteries moved towards
total independence from lay authority, most especially the charistikion system, in

43 
John Thomas suggested that a reform movement swelled due to the spreading of
the Evergetis typikon (Thomas, Theotokos Evergetis, pp. 246–73) but Rosemary Morris and
Robert H. Jordan have argued against this (Morris and Jordan, Hypotyposis of the Theotokos
Evergetis, pp. 17–32). Dirk Krausmüller and Olga Grinchenko (‘The Tenth-Century Stoudios
typikon’) downplay the importance of Evergetis’s influence by arguing for the importance of a
tenth-century Stoudios typikon.
156 Jennifer Ball

which private individuals were given monasteries to serve as custodians in return

for profits from the landholdings of monasteries. These reforms, which were not
formally organized but rather a prevailing trend, coincided with other alterations
in monastic rules towards a more conservative approach to coenobitic practice.
They insisted on prayer as the primary purpose of monastics and promoted
equality in privileges, ridding monasteries of paid lay servants. The primary
‘work’ of monasteries became hymn singing.44 But with independence came the
necessity of supporting themselves and monasteries grappled with the manual
labour, such as farming, that had to be done to keep the monasteries solvent.
Labour had been lauded in monastic circles going back to the Basilian
tradition of the fourth century, so long as it was not aimed at commerce. There
is ample evidence that a Basilian view of labour continued until the fifteenth
century and beyond. Theodore the Stoudite who led the Stoudite reform
movement in the ninth century followed Basilian tradition, through the example
of Dorotheus of Gaza from sixth-century Palestine.45 The Stoudite reform called
for a return to the ideal coenobitic tradition of Late Antiquity in which labouring
monks supported themselves without venturing into commercial enterprise. At
the social level, Theodore’s Great Catecheses was most concerned with abolishing
slaves in monasteries.46 He encouraged slaves to be freed, implying that at least in
Stoudite monasteries slave labour was common before that time.
Slaves were also present in Byzantine monasteries despite efforts to excise
them and/or ban the practice. Youval Rotman in his book Byzantine Slavery
finds several mentions of slaves, especially at Athonite monasteries, well into the
twelfth century.47 He further points out that in cases where slave owners brought
their slaves with them to the monastery, they may have emancipated them first, to
follow rules prohibiting slaves. However, it seems unlikely that freed slaves were
treated equally to their masters within the monastery. There is no evidence that
the servants brought with the nobility into the Convent of Sure Hope were slaves.
But like slaves, it is difficult to tell if women of low status entered the monastery of
their own volition and, if so, for what reasons. The waves of monastic reforms in
the Middle Byzantine period suggest that among many other issues, the status of
workers, not only slaves, within monasteries was bubbling up as a sticky problem.

44 
Byzantine Documents, ed. by Hero and Thomas, p. 447.
45 
Rule of the Monastery of St John Stoudios, trans. by Miller, p. 87.
46 
Theodore Studite, Great Catecheses, 2.109, ed. by Papadopoulos-Kerameus, p. 802 and
Leroy, ‘Réforme’, p. 191.
47 
Rotman, Byzantine Slavery, p. 147.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 157

In the twelfth century the role of labour increased in private foundations

because they no longer had servants to rely on for kitchen duties, farming, and
the like. Imperial foundations, however, continued to have servants in general
and did not embrace this aspect of the reform movement. By the thirteenth
century if not before, many monasteries, imperial ones and those who followed
the reforms just discussed, created two classes of monastics — those who
performed liturgical duties, the choir monks and nuns, and those who laboured,
known as diakonetai. Thus they kept the ideals of reform without having to give
up servants. Rather than using non-monastics as servants, these servant monks
and nuns, the diakonetai, took vows. The typikon for the twelfth-century imperial
monastery of the Pantokrator, for example, refers to two categories of monks:
those who fulfilled service functions and were thirty in number, and those who
performed liturgical duties, of which there were fifty. As in the Lincoln typikon,
the service group is also referred to as such in the Pantrokrator typikon: ‘There
will not only be bakers, gardeners, and cooks among the servants but also helpers
for the ecclesiarch and assistants to the steward and other such people.’48
The Convent of Sure Hope followed this tradition of having two classes
of nuns — diakonetai and choir nuns. However, corresponding to what was
typical in imperial monasteries, additional lay servants were also admitted with
noble nuns. While Theodora followed many reforms with respect to the nuns’
privileges and equality, even quoting (without citation) the Evergetis typikon,49
she took a decidedly aristocratic view of the membership of her convent and the
role of labour. Her approach cursorily mentions the importance of labour, but she
never wavers from her sympathy for the nobility and their needs. For example, if
a nun’s relatives sent extra food to the convent, she was allowed to eat it and was
only required to share if there was enough to go around. Also, nuns were granted
supervised visits from relatives and they were permitted to leave the convent
to see family, as a vacation of sorts, not just in times of bereavement or other
emergencies.50 These privileges seem by their nature designed for the nobility as
the families of poorer nuns may not have had extra food to send or the means
to visit. Furthermore, the nuns of the convent lived rather comfortably, with
only perfunctory nods to ascetic practices. For example, fresh food was brought
into the convent three times per week; nuns were given more than one change

48 
John II Komnenos, Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ
Pantrokrator, trans. by Jordan, p. 749. My italics.
49 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1522 n. 8.
50 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, pp. 1545–46, 1548.
158 Jennifer Ball

of clothes; and those who were high-born, including the foundress’s daughter
and other relations, were allowed further comforts as the superior saw fit.51 This
hierarchical view of how the convent should operate is laid out precisely in the
images of the typikon, where the portraits of the founders and their family are
honoured and supported by the portrait of the nuns who stand behind them in a
vertical arrangement according to rank.
Not surprisingly, the division of labour within any monastery often fell along
class lines that pre-existed entrance to the monastery. While work in the Basilian
model of monasticism was important for humility, to sustain the monastics on a
practical level and to avoid the pitfalls of being idle, the notion of work as an ideal
could not compete with the medieval view of manual work, made explicit in the
Pantokrator typikon: ‘From the category of servants there will be four together
serving all the brothers in the lowliest tasks, or rather the most important and godlike
ones, if the saying is true which says “whoever humbles himself will be exalted”
(Matthew 23. 12)’.52 Other authors refer to labouring monks in derogatory terms
calling them ‘simple’. This is a two-sided term because simplicity is a virtue for the
ideal monastic, but the tone of these remarks betrays the elitism present in the
words of these, often noble, monastics.53 The nuns at the Convent of Sure Hope
were no different. Their typikon demonstrates that while labour was important for
the functioning of the convent, the domestic nuns, ‘whose salvation depend[ed]
upon [the choir sisters’] prayers’, were second-class citizens in the eyes of God,
who could not successfully attain salvation without the prayers of the literate
choir sisters whose focus on God was greater.54
Distinctions between superior, choir monk or nun, and novice, had been made
since the beginning of coenobitic monasticism in the fourth century. I posit that
following the mores of Middle and Late Byzantine society more generally, further
distinctions had to be made between servants, those who worked with their
hands, and the upper echelons of the brethren. Middle and Late Byzantine typika
suggest that these divisions were clear in dress, as they were in the nuns’ other
privileges. For example, in the twelfth-century royal monastery of Kosmosoteira
near Bera, in western Thrace, only the choir monks received cloaks, despite the
fact that any work done outside would justify needing a cloak or other heavy,

51 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, pp. 1549–50.
52 
John II Komnenos, Typikon of Emperor John II Komnenos for the Monastery of Christ
Pantrokrator, trans. by Jordan, p. 749. My italics.
53 
Neilos, Rule of Neilos, Bishop of Tamasia, for the Monastery of the Mother of God of
Machairas, trans. by Bandy, p. 1154.
54 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1540.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 159

protective garment.55 This suggests that at the Kosmosoteira monastery the cloak
served as a garment of rank. It was also common for monasteries to base the length
of the novitiate on social status. For example, the monasteries of Mamas, Heliou
Bomon, and Macharias tonsured ‘distinguished people’ after six months, but had
‘common’ people wear ‘the novice’s rags’ for two years before being considered
for tonsure. Some monks (never nuns) were given allowances for market days for
necessities; the sum was sometimes doled out by rank.56
Theodora’s stance on work and servants, as well as on children, had become
the norm in monastic life by the fourteenth century. Workers were necessary and
built into the evolving two-tier monastic system, the choir monks or nuns and
the diakonetai. In addition, many monastic institutions had manual labourers,
private domestic servants, and working orphans who were not formal members
of the institution in that they did not take vows, such as at the Lips and Anagyroi
convents. However, these servants resided at the convents and, functionally
speaking, were members of these institutions, though it is difficult to tell if the
prescriptions concerning what to wear, how to behave, when to go to Mass, and
the like, applied to these domestics. At the Convent of the Virgin of Sure Hope,
the inclusion of personal lay servants and orphans in their group portrait along
with the diakonetai and choir nuns suggests that at least in this institution they
were considered a part of the convent’s membership.
While the Lincoln typikon and its images are the most complete surviving
evidence for such attitudes, there is ample data from other typika, from literary
sources about monasticism, as well as from other imagery, that the monastic
project of Early Byzantine times underwent many changes beginning in the ninth
century. This change required an increase in the division of labour, and insisted
on an expanded hierarchical structure, most evident in dress and privileges
afforded the upper echelons of monastic institutions. By Theodora’s time,
monastic institutions demonstrate a greater stratification within their ranks,
while simultaneously becoming more inclusive by expanding their memberships
to groups who previously were employed by, but not a part of, the monastic life.

55 
Isaac Komnenos, Typikon of Sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos for the Monastery of the Mother
of God Kosmosoteira, trans. by Sevcenko, p. 826.
56 
On the novitiate, Byzantine Documents, ed. by Hero and Thomas, pp. 1000–01, 1057–58,
1111. The monastery of Pakourianos gave allowance by rank: Byzantine Documents, ed. by Hero
and Thomas, pp. 534–35.
160 Jennifer Ball

Conclusion
The group portrait of the Lincoln typikon presents both a monastic ideal of equality
among the sisterhood by depicting the entire membership of the convent — choir
nuns, diakonetai, lay servants and labourers, and orphans. The lay underclass
was depicted as integral to the convent, as evidenced by their being included in
the group portrait. Nevertheless, their status is unmistakable: they reside at the
bottom of the frame supporting the choir nuns and diakonetai above and the
foundresses and their family in the previous folios. Their dress, an assortment of
clothing, perhaps culled from storage at the convent,57 distinguishes them from
the nuns above.
The common purpose of the nuns in the group portrait was reinforced visually
not only by their lack of individuated features, but also by the block of uniforms
represented at the top of the frame. It is a portrait of the convent with each type
found there represented. The women at the bottom of the image represent the
non-monastic types found in the monastery, lay servants and orphans, most of
whom we can assume were illiterate. They support the sisters above who have
taken vows, choir sisters and diakonetai, who, physically closer to God, pray for
their salvation as well as for that of the foundress and her family. A range of ages
is, perhaps, also implied with the nun who carries a cane and the child in the
bottom register. Their respective ranks not only play out in the vertical placement
within the picture frame, but also in their clothing: the nuns of higher rank wear
structured skepai on their heads mirroring more elaborate secular hats seen in
courtly fashions at the time. The sheen of their cloaks suggests silk by comparison
to the mean cloth of the drab tunics and cloaks worn by the sisters below.58
In part the greater interest in showing the range of roles within a monastic
setting relates to shifts in the understanding of the role of work in a monastery. By

57 
The typikon makes clear that some clothing was made in the monastery by the community
members while other items were acquired through pious donation (Theodora Synadene, Bebaia
Elpis, trans. by Talbot, p. 1551). Upon entrance to the convent, nuns were required to donate
all of their lay clothing (p. 1543). Given that the majority of the women in this convent came
from the nobility, these stores must have been filled with a large quantity of fine used clothing
as well as cloth from which to make garments. This system would have precipitated differences
in dress, likely based on status, and would account for the variation among the lay servants and
orphans at the bottom of the image, whose clothing was likely drawn from these used stores of
donated clothing.
58 
Thanks to Tony Cutler for raising the possibility of silk when I first presented this
material at the Byzantine Studies Conference, Philadelphia, PA, October 2010: ‘Expressions of
Class in the Byzantine Monastic Habit’.
the group portrait in the lincoln typikon 161

the eleventh century, many monasteries had become great landed, independent
proprietors.59 Waves of reform throughout the Middle period asserted the rights
of monasteries to self-govern, which both necessitated more work be done by
the monks in house as opposed to peasants for hire, and asserted a corporate or
group identity within single institutions. These monastic reforms also served to
complicate the status of workers in the monastic setting and there arose conflicted
attitudes surrounding work in the monastery. By the Late period we see one
solution in the form of new practices in the Lincoln typikon’s group portrait of
the monastic community. The practical solution to labour in the Late Byzantine
monastery — enlisting both lay servants and servant nuns — was also outlined
in many Late Byzantine typika. These sought to name all labours performed by
the monastery’s members, while at the same time clarifying the roles and status
of each category. Finally, it was mandated by the Lincoln typikon itself that the
choir sisters read the rule regularly, reinforcing not only the governing principles
of the community, but also the historical foundation of the convent itself.60 This
narrative is told in its opening lines, cementing the identification with the group,
and combined with continual commemorations of deceased members of the
family, served as the ultimate reason for the existence of the convent.

59 
Kazhdan and Constable, People and Power in Byzantium, pp. 91 and 131.
60 
Theodora Synadene, Bebaia Elpis, trans. by Talbot, pp. 1556–57.
* 
My research began with an award from the Wolfe Institute for the Humanities, Brooklyn
College, CUNY in 2010–11. In 2011 the Claire and Leonard Faculty Travel Fellowship funded
my travel to the Bodleian Library. My work has benefited in numerous ways from discussions of it
with Thelma Thomas. Thanks also go to Sarah Brooks, Nancy Sevcenko, Alice-Mary Talbot, and
Vasileios Marinis, and to my anonymous readers, for their helpful comments at various stages.
162 Jennifer Ball

Works Cited

Manuscripts and Archival Documents

Naples, Biblioteca Nazionale ‘Vittorio Emanuele III’, MS. 1. B. 18
Oxford, Bodleian Library, Lincoln College MS Gr. 35: typikon of the convent of Bebaia
Elpis (The Lincoln typikon).
Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Gr. 1242
Paris, Musée du Louvre, MR 416

Primary Sources
Irene Doukaina Komnene, Typikon of Empress Irene Doukaina Komnene for the Convent
of the Mother of God Kecharitomene in Constantinople, trans. by Robert Jordan, in
Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving
Founders’ typika and Testaments, ed. by John Thomas and Angela Constantinides
Hero, Dumbarton Oaks Studies, 35, 5  vols (Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection, 2001), iii, 649–724
Isaac Komnenos, Typikon of Sebastokrator Isaac Komnenos for the Monastery of the Mother
of God Kosmosoteira near Bera, trans. by Nancy Patterson Sevcenko, in Byzantine
Monastic Foundation Documents: A  Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’
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