Working draft. Do not cite without permission.

William Caraher © 2011

Schabel, Christopher, ed., Bullarium Cyprium: Papal Letters concerning Cyprus. 2

Volumes. Volume 1 1196-1261, volume 2 1261-1314. Series: Cyprus Research Centre
Texts and Studies in the history of Cyprus (Nicosia, Cyprus: Cyprus Research Centre,
2010).

Over the last 15 years, Christopher Schabel’s name has become synonymous with the
history of Medieval Cyprus. His translations and editions of important sources for the
history of Cyprus and his numerous articles, many of which have been collected in a
single volume also published in 2010, have not only expanded the documentary base for
Cypriot history, but also pushed scholars to reconsider the complex relations between
Greeks, Latins, and other groups on the island. In light of the island’s recent, troubled
political history and the scholarly tendency to approach the island’s distant past through
a post-colonial lens , Schabel’s contributions, while conservative in approach,
nevertheless have immediate, contemporary relevance to the study of Cypriot history.

The two volume Bullarium Cyprium marks Schabel’s third major contribution to the
documentary foundation for the Medieval history of the island and complements the two
other Lusignan period collections by the Cyprus Research Center: Schabel’s and N.
Coureas’ The Cartulary of the Cathedral of Holy Wisdom of Nicosia (Nicosia 1997) and the
Schabel’s Synodicum Nicosiense and Other Documents of the Latin Church of Cyprus
1196-1373 (Nicosia 2001). The former concerns matters of ecclesiastical authority and
property on the island and the latter focuses primarily on the various legal matters
involving the status of the Latin church and clergy. The dearth of secular documents
from Cyprus makes the ecclesiastical texts edited in these volumes central to any
understanding of political and religious life in Medieval Cyprus and indispensible to any
research collection with an emphasis on either Cyprus or the history of the Crusader
States. While this review will focus on the Bullarium Cyprium, Schabel’s introduction to
the Synodicum still represents the best introduction to the entire corpus of Latin
documents on Cyprus and should be read in conjunction with his fine introduction to the
Bullarium Cyprium. In the Synodicum, he places the reading of all these texts within the
colonial history of the island and argues that the only path to reconsidering the island’s
history is to return to the documents themselves.

The two volume Bullarium Cyprium should be understood in the context, then, of these
two earlier collections. This newest contribution collects nearly 600 Papal letters
involving ecclesiastical and political affairs on the island of Cyprus from 1196 to 1314.
Schabel argues that these letters may represent less than 20% of the total number of
correspondence between various officials on Cyprus and the Papacy (1.77). The reason
for the substantial quantity of Papal correspondence with the political and ecclesiastical
elite on the island stems from the Papacy’s recognition of the island’s ecclesiastical
 Working draft. Do not cite without permission. William Caraher © 2011

independence from the Patriarchal authority of Antioch or Jerusalem. As a result, the

Latin church and by extension the Greek clergy on the island a were direct papal
dependencies. The historical and textual context for this unique collection of
correspondence is provided by Jean Richard and by Schabel respectively.

Schabel’s introduction to the texts is model of methodological and critical clarity. He lists
five goals to his work. First, he sought to prepare editions for most of the papal letters
concerning to Cyprus from 1191-1314, to produce English summaries of these letters, to
provide critical notation on all extant manuscripts of the letters, to reference all previous
editions of the letters and their summaries, and finally, to include historical commentary
as a guide for future research. His introduction makes clear the tedious process involved
in the discovery and editing of the letters (which he claimed to represent the work of 8
months of 100 hour weeks!). Schabel conducted a massive search of the Vatican’s
digitized holdings, the letters of Innocent III published in the Patrologia Latina and the
Pontifica Commissio ad redigendum codicem iuris canonici orientalis (CIC0), as well as
various editions by Horoy, Pressutti, Mas-Latrie, La Porte du Theil, and BEFAR
(Bibliothèque des Ecoles Françaises d'Athenes et de Rome). This exhaustive research
enabled Schabel to correct the sometimes significant problems preserved in earlier
editions; now, scholars should regard his editions as definitive. Schabel notes that the
letters preserved in the Papal registers and a small number of outside sources (like the
Cartulary of the Nicosia Cathedral), are representative of Papal attitudes and policies
regarding affairs on the island (1.78).

Jean Richard provides a historical introduction to these texts and will edit a third volume
in this collection focusing on the letters dating to the period of the Avignon Papacy (1316-
1378). Richard’s introduction is an admirable survey of the history of the Papacy and
Cyprus organized around the content of the newly edited letters. The introduction
organizes the letters thematically, centered on the relationship between the papacy and
the Latin Church, the role of the papal intervention in the distribution of benefices on
Cyprus, papal role in managing the expansion of Latin religious orders on Cyprus, and the
papal policies on relations with the Greek and other Christians. Outside of the realm of
ecclesiastical politics, Richard also looks at the place of papal intervention into
aristocratic Christian society on the island and the role of Cyprus in the history of the
Crusader states. While it is clear that the letters included in these volumes expands
significantly our view of both papal involvement in Cypriot affairs and the role of Cyprus
in regional politics, it is unfortunate that Richard’s introduction did not consider
explicitly the impact of this collection of letters to scholarly debate. As Richard makes
clear, these letters expand incrementally our knowledge of the relationship between the
 Working draft. Do not cite without permission. William Caraher © 2011

Papacy and the political and ecclesiastical elite in the Holy Land, but tendency of the Pope
to avoid interfering in the life of Greek communities means these letters provide little
additional material concerning the majority of the population on the island (1.48).

The letters will continue to discourage any view of Latin involvement on the island that is
not complex and dynamic. Papal attitudes toward both the Greek clergy and religious on
the island varied from attempts to accommodate their traditional practices within Latin
expectations to attempts to marginalize their influence over the local population and the
Latin elite. The most explicit effort to limit the power of the Greek church appears in the
he famous Bulla Cypria (f-35 in Schabel’s collection) which circumscribed the authority
and number of Greek bishops and placed the Greek church and clergy under Latin control.
This created tensions and sometimes rebellion among Greeks, although little evidence for
this appears in the Papal letters which generally show the Papacy as reluctant to become
involved in Greek affairs below the episcopal level. Papal concern does extend, however,
to the various Crusading orders active on Cyprus, the Templars and Hospitalers in
particular, as well as the Franciscans and Dominicans friars. These groups not only
controlled significant resources and influence on the island, but did not fall under the
control of local episcopal authority.

As the political and military situation in the Latin East deteriorated, Papal letters reflect
the growing concern for the secular situation in the region. The letters show efforts to
prevent the deteriorating political situation in the Levant from destabilizing the dynastic
or social situation on Cyprus. At the same time, the correspondence reveal how deeply
embedded Cyprus was in the affairs in the Holy Land. The Pope saw Cyprus as a
bridgehead for re-establishing Latin authority in the region especially in the second half of
the 13th century. At the same time, he recognized the deep involvement of the Lusingnan
family in the politics of both the East and West and paid constant attention to dynastic
affairs. By the later 13th and early 14th century political conflicts centered on the rights of
the dispossessed Latin feudal aristocracy who sought to retain some titular authority
either in the remaining Latin possession in the Levant, like Cyprus, or elsewhere. The
repeated efforts of the papacy to resolve certain issues in dynastic politics provide clear
illustrations of the limits of Papal authority in the later Middle Ages.

While little in these letters will force a wholesale re-evaluation of Medieval Cyprus, they
will provide the basis for more nuanced reading of the encounter between the Latin west
and the Greek east in the Middle Ages. The ad hoc and reactive character of many of the
Papal responses, remind us that any effort to seek a coherent policy in Western influence
in Cyprus must be tempered by the realities of pre-modern statecraft and the inability to
project power consistently over the complex machinations of dynastic and ecclesiastical
 Working draft. Do not cite without permission. William Caraher © 2011

politics. In the context of modern colonialism, in which scholars have often read Lusignan
affairs on Cyprus, the letters reveal the persistent absence of any sustained colonial
policy per se.

The letters in the two well-produced volumes are organized according to pope and then in
chronological order. Each text includes a summaries of the text followed by the texts in
Latin. For some documents only the relevant sections of the text are included. Schabel
includes information about the original copy of the text (if known), citations to the Papal
Register, and any copies that exist outside of that collection, references to editions of the
summary of the letter and to any known published editions. Following the text in Latin,
the apparatus criticus and apparatus fontium appear short notes on some of the texts.
These notes were rare and dedicated to very specific historical issues concerning the in
the texts themselves. In some cases, a read might have benefited from a slightly more
expansive approach to possible historical significance of the individual letters.
Considering the vast and important body of interpretative work that Schabel has
produced, he was in a strong position to offer a uniquely insightful body of interpretative
complements to the documents. The limited character of his notes represent a
opportunity missed.

The rather superficial and sporadic notes represent only one area where these volumes
could have been expanded. While the quantity of letters would have made a thorough
commentary of these texts a monumental task, some additional materials like maps and
the chronologies of prominent figures in the text (Kings, Popes, et c.) would have
produced a practical context for these letters. The indexes, while thorough, reference the
letter numbers rather than the page numbers. This is a longstanding system for
documents of this type, but the absence of letter numbers at the tops of the pages and the
length of the letters made the system inefficient. The text itself appears to be carefully
edited with only a few typographical errors mostly confined to footnotes.

Schabel’s edition of the Bullarium Cyprium is a significant and substantial contribution to

the documentary foundation for the history of Medieval Cyprus and will stand alongside
his earlier works as basic texts for any student of the Middle Ages.