Andrew Louth - Greek East and Latin West The Church AD 681-1071 (The Church in History, Vol. 4)

THE CHURCH IN
Volume 1111
THE CHURCH IN HISTORY SERIES of St Vladimir's Seminary Press balances the
approaches of the abundance of church histories written from a Western Christ-
ian point of view. Series authors-in the unique position of being Orthodox schol-
ars conversant with Western scholarship-have taken on the task of analyzing
complicated primary sources and thoroughly critiquing modem scholarly litera-
ture to guide readers through the maze of centuries of church formation and life.
Through fresh eyes, they chronicle the past with fairness, objectivity, and sympa-
thy, and add equilibrium to the annals of Christendom.
Series Editor
ANDREW LOUTH
Previous Series Editors

JOHN MEYENDORFF (t1992), JOHN H. ERICKSON
volume I
Formation and Struggles: The Church AD 33-450
Part I: The Birth ofthe Church AD 33-200
by Veselin Kesich
volume II
Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The Church AD 450-680
by John Meyendorff
volume III
Greek East and Latin West: The Church AD 681-ro71
by Andrew Louth
volume N
The Christian East and the Rise ofthe Papary: The Church AD 1071-1453
by Aristeides Papadakis
THE CHURCH IN HISTORY, VOLUME III
Greek East and

Latin ITTst
THE CHURCH AD 681-1071
ANDREW LOUTH
ST VLADIMIR'S SEMINARY PRESS

CRESTWOOD, NEW YORK
2007
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Louth, Andrew.
Greek East and Latin West : the church, AD 681-1071 / by Andrew Louth
p. cm. - (The church in history ; v. 3)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13: 978-0-8841-320-5 (alk. paper)
ISBN-10: 0-88141-320-8 (alk. paper)
r. Church history-Middle Ages, 600-1500. 2. Schism-Eastern and Western
Church. I. Title.
BR:r62-3.L68 2007
270.2- dC22
2oo7or4395
'
ST VLADIMIR'S SEMINARY PRESS
575 Scarsdale Road, Crestwood, NY
1-800-204-2665
www.svspress.com
10707
Copyright 2007
by Andrew Louth
ISBN 978-0-88141-320-5
ISSN 1938-8306
All Rights Reserved
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CO NT ENTS
ILLUSTRATIONS X
FOREWORD }Clll
PREFACE XV
ABBREVIATIONS XVII
INTRODUCTION
PART I: AD 681-800
1. The Church at the End of the Seventh Century 13

In the West 13
Under Islam 20
In Byzantium 29
2. Iconoclasm: First Phase and Aftermath 41

Background to the Iconoclast Controversy 42
Leo III and the Orthodox Reaction 48
Constantine V and the Synod ofHiereia 54
Nicaea II and the Reign ofEirene 60
3. The Church in the West 67

The Rise ofthe Carolin!Jans 67
The Church under the Carolin!Jans 71
The Papmy in the Eighth Century 75
Iconoclasm and the West 82
PART II: THE NINTH CENTIJRY
4. Introduction 95
5. Monastic Reform in East and West IOI

St Benedict ofAniane and the West 101
St Theodore ofStoudios and the East 108
6. lconoclasm: Second Phase and the Triumph of Orthodoxy n9
History ofEvents n9
The Issues 127
The West 130
The Triumph of Orthodoxy 132

The Outsiders to Byzantine Orthodoxy 134
7. Renaissance of Leaming: East and West 139
The Carolingi.an Renovatio 139
The Ninth-century Byzantine Renaissance 152
Palestine and the Begi.nnings ofArab Christianity 163
8. Pope, Patriarch and Christian Mission 167

Byzantine Missions among the Slavs 171
Wt?stern Missions to the Slavs and Others 176
Khan Boris and the Conversion ofBulgaria 179
Photios and the Armenians 189
9. Changing Patterns of Worship 193
PART III: THE TENTH CENTURY
ro. Introduction 207
11. Monastic Renewal 217

The West 219
The East 227
12. Christian Mission 241
Scandinavia 241
Eastern Europe: Bohemia, Poland, Hungary 243
Russia 253
Nikon the "Metanoeite": Preaching the Gospel
within the Byzantine Empire 259
13. Approaching the End of the First Christian Millennium 263

PART IV: AD rooo-1071
14. Introduction 271
15. Monastic Developments 275

The Questfor Solitude 275
The Reform Movement in Byzantium 281
The Beginnings efRussian Monasticism:
The Monastery efthe Ca-ves in Kiev 287
16. Reform and the Papacy 291
17. ro54 and the "Schism" 305

The Events 305
The Issues 3u
The Significance ofthe Events and Issues 316
18. Spiritual and Intellectual Life in Byzantium 319

"Inner Leaming" and "Outer Leaming" 319
St Symeon the New Theologian 322
Niketas Stethatos 333
Michael Psellos 334
19. Turks, Normans and the Collapse of the Byzantine Empire 345
BIBLIOGRAPHY 353
INDEX 367
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Illustration to Psalm n5 of the Utrecht Psalter, which dates from AD 820-

35. Library of Rijksuniversiteit, Utrecht (MS 32, fol. 67 recto). Photo
credit: University Library of Rijksuniversiteit.
2. Madonna and child. Mosaic from the apse, shortly after 834 CE. Hagia
Sophia, Istanbul, Turkey. Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
3. Christ and saints, apse mosaic, AD 817-24. S. Prassede, Rome, Italy. Photo
Credit : Scala/ Art Resource, NY.
4. Lamb of God (Mystic Lamb). Ceiling mosaics. Early Christian. S. Vitale,
Ravenna, Italy. Photo Credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY.
5. Messengers of the Moravian prince Rostislav ask Emperor Michael III to
send missionaries speaking a Slav language; he sends to Saloniki for Con-
stantin and Method. From the Radziwill Chronicle, an early history of
Russia. Page 13. 612 miniatures, late 15th century. Academy of Science, St.
Petersburg, Russia. Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
6. Interior view of Palatine Chapel with the octagon. Carolingian. Before
800 CE. Cathedral (Palatine Chapel), Aachen, Germany. Photo Credit:
Vanni/Art Resource, NY.
7. Christ Pantocrator. Romanesque fresco, early 12th c. Chapelle des
Moines, Berze-la-Ville, France. Photo Credit: Giraudon/Art Resource,
NY
8. Abbey of Cluny. Early Cloister Church. Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY.
9. Ivory Plaque Representing the Coronation of Emperor Otto II and the
Byzantine Princess Theophano. Ottonian, 982-983 CE. Germany. Ivory
book cover, 18.5 x 10.6 cm. Inv. Cl.392. Musee national du Moyen Age-
Thermes de Cluny, Paris, France. Photo Credit: Reunion des Musees
Nationaux/Art Resource, NY.
10. Chalice (Chalcedony cup in gilt silver mount). Byzantine, nth century.
S. Marco, Venice, Italy. Photo Credit: Giraudon/Art Resource, NY.
X
Illustrations X1
n. Emperor Otto receives the homage of the nations. Gospels of Emperor

Otto (JI or III), also called "Registrum Gregorii." Ottonian art, 10th_
Musee Conde, Chantilly, France. Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/Art
Resource, NY.
12. A parchment cover of a document called a chrysobull because its gold
seal, in which Emperor Andronicus II granted favours to the Metropoli-
tan of Monevasia in the Peloponnese. Byzantine, early 14th CE. Byzan-
tine Museum, Athens, Greece. Photo Credit: Werner Forman/Art
Resource, NY.
13. The "Theotokos Hodegetria" (Virgin and Child). Ivory statuette. Byzan-
tine, nth-12th c. H: 32.5 cm. Inv.: 702-1884. Victoria and Albert Museum,
London, Great Britain. Photo Credit: Victoria & Albert Museum, Lon -
don/Art Resource, NY.
14. Mother of God in concha. Overall view. Mosaic. See also 15-03-03/35 .
. Byzantine, rrth CE. Monastery Church, Hosios Loukas, Greece. Photo
Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
15. The Church of the Great Pigeon-House, or Church ofNicephore Phocas
(roth CE Byzantine emperor) in Cavusin. The entry is situated at a height
of six meters. A large section of the narthex is ruined, and frescoes froIU
the 10th CE exposed. Cappadocia, Turkey. Photo Credit: Gilles Mer-
met/Art Resource, NY.
16a-b. The Crucifixion and The Calling of the Apostles. 2nd half of 10th cen-
tury CE. Elephant ivory. Made i.n Constantinople. 21 x 13.8 cm. MRR354 _
Louvre, Paris, France. Photo Credit: Reunion des Musees Nationaux/Art
Resource, NY.
17. Scylitzes chronicle. Cod.gr.S-3,fol.10.v. Michael I Rhangabe proclaims
Leo V the Armenian as co-emperor. Both step onto the shield which was
raised aloft and saluted by trumpeters & high officials. The ceremony of"
raising the shield dates from the Roman Empire. Byzantine, nth cen. his-
tory of events of 9-nth century. Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain.
Photo Credit: Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY.
18. Crown of Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 1042.-
1055). Gold enamel, precious stones. nth c. Hungarian National Museum.,
Budapest, Hungary. Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY.
FOREWORD
In the 1980s, Father John Meyendorff planned a six-volume history of the

Church, written by Orthodox scholars, to be called The Church in History,
which was to be published by St Vladimir's Seminary Press. In 1989, his own
volume was the first to appear, Imperial Unity and Christian Divisions: The
Church AD 450-680, the second volume in the series. In 1994, volume 4 in the
series appeared, The Christian East and the Rise of the Papary: The Church AD
ro71-1453, written by Aristeides Papadakis, with Fr John himself contributing
the chapters on the Slav world. By that time Fr John was dead; he had died
prematurely in 1992. Thereafter the project lost steam, and most of those
whom Fr John had approached to contribute to the other four volumes
thought that, in the absence of Fr John's leadership, the project had fallen by
the wayside. A few years ago, St Vladimir's Seminary Press asked me ifl could
write the third volume, bridging the historical gap between the two published
volumes; this is the volume that now appears. A little later, I was asked if I
would undertake the task of General Editor of the series. With the current
volume the project envisaged by Fr John revives and it is hoped that over the
next few years the other volumes in the series will see the light of day: vol-
ume r, Formation and Struggles: The Church AD 33-450; volume 5, The Crisis of
Tradition: The Church AD 1453-1782; and volume 6, The Orthodox Church and the
Modem World: The Church AD 1782-the Present. It is hoped that the completed
series will be a fitting tribute to Fr John Meyendorff's scholarship and vision.
-Andrew Louth
General Editor
Xlll
PREFACE
Perhaps a word of explanation is needed about this volume called, in accor-

dance with Fr John Meyendorff's intentions, Greek East and Latin West: The
Church AD 68!- 1071. For there are other works with not dissimilar titles,
notably The Greek East and the Latin West: A Study in the Christian Tradition by
the noted and now deceased Orthodox scholar and man of letters Philip
Sherrard, and East and West: The Making of a Rift in the Church,from Apostolic
Times until the Council of Florence by the great scholar, church historian and
theologian Henry Chadwick. 1 Both of these books are attempts to account
for the division of Christendom into "Greek East" and "Latin West," that is,
Eastern Orthodoxy, on the one hand, and the Roman Catholic Church
(including, perhaps, the Churches of the Reformation), on the other. Chad-
wick's work is fundamentally historical, while Sherrard's work explores a
broader canvas, raising philosophical issues as well as historical and theolog-
ical ones. This volume is different in that, though it covers the period during
which "Greek East" and "Latin West" evolved separate identities to such an
extent that estrangement seemed bound to amount to schism (though there
was no formal schism in the period covered, despite the symbolic date of"
1054), it is not simply, or even primarily, concerned to explain the schism. Its
primary purpose is to give an account of the Church in the period from the
end of the Sixth GEcumenical Synod in 681 to the Battle of Manzikert in rnp
for its own sake, not simply as a way of explaining the schism. The question
of the growing rift is, of course, discussed, and it is hoped this volume sheds
some light on that question, but the purpose of the book is wider and sim-
pler: to give some account of the development (or developments) of the
Church in the period. "Greek East" and "Latin West" are becoming such dis-
tinct entities during the period that I have generally treated them in parallel,
and noted the points at which their destinies coincide or conflict, but the
scope of the book is also wider than the title suggests, principally because
though the "West" was "Latin," the "East" cannot be restricted to what was
1For details of these books, see the bibliography.
xv
XVI GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
"Greek." In addition to the Greek, that is, the Byzantine East, the East
included Churches linguistically defined by their use of the Syriac, Coptic,
Ethiopic, Georgian, and Armenian languages-and by other more far-flung
Eastern languages-some account of some of which is given in this book
(though often only very briefly), as well as an emerging Arab Christianity in
the countries that had fallen to Islam, together with the Slav version of
Byzantine Christianity, that emerged from the ninth century onwards.
It is traditional in works concerned with Byzantine history to include a
word about the convention followed in the spelling of names. Where com-
mon English forms exist (e.g., John, Peter), I have used them. Latin names
pose no problems. Greek names (where no common forms exist) have been
transliterated directly from Greek, not via a Latin form (so Photios, Method-
ios). Slav names, likewise, I have not transliterated via a Latin form (so Feo-
dosij, not Theodosius). For other names in languages I do not know I have
followed the examples in the books I have used. I doubt if I have achieved
any kind of consistency.
This book has taken several years to write and would never have been fin-
ished without periods of sabbatical leave granted by the University of
Durham UK, where I have taught since 1996, and an additional term's leave
made possible by a grant &om the Arts and Humanities Research Council of
Great Britain in Michaelmas Term 2005, for which I am very grateful. I have
been helped in forming my ideas by teaching both Byzantine history and
Byzantine church history and theology for many years both at the University
of Durham and, before that, at Goldsmiths' College in the University of Lon-
don. I owe a great debt to my students over the years. More immediately I
am indebted to Sally Milner (who was one of those students), Mary Cunning-
ham and Fr Huw Chiplin, who undertook to read a draft of the book and
made both critical and encouraging comments. I am also indebted to the
sharp eyes and intelligence of Deborah Belonick of St Vladimir's Seminary
Press, who saved me from not a few mistakes and asperities of style. Although
the book deals with a period in which Christians in East and West became
increasingly uncomprehending of one another, my hope is that it will con-
tribute to greater mutual understanding and the union for which we all pray.
-Andrew Louth
Feast ofthe Virgin-Martyr Theodosia of Tyre and
Blessed.John ofUstiug, Foolfor-Christ, 2005
ABBREVIATIONS
BBTT = Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations
CCCM = Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, Tumhout:

Brepols, 1969-
CCSG = Corpus Christianorum: Series Graeca, Turnhout: Brepols, 1977-
CSS = Cistercian Studies Series, Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications
DOP = Dumbarton Oaks Papers
Imperial, Unity= John Meyendorff, Imperial Uniry and Christian Divisions.

The Church 450- 680 A.D., The Church in History II, Crestwood NY:
St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1989
]TS = journal of Theological Studies

Mansi= Sacrorum Conciliorum Nova et Amplissima Col/ectio, 31 vols.,
Florence, 1758-98
NCMH = New Cambridge Medieval History
ODB = 04'ord Dictionary ofByzantium, ed. Alexander P. Kazhdan et al.,
3 vols., New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991
PG= Patrologia Graeca, ed. J.P. Migne, 162 vols., Paris, 1857-66
PL= Patrologia Latina, ed. J.P. Migne, 221 vols., Paris, 1844-64
SC = Sources Chretiennes, Paris: Le Cerf, 1943-
SCH = Studies in Church History
SVSP = St Vladimir's Seminary Press
ZKG = Z-eitsch-riftfiir Kirchengeschichte
XVL::1.
INTRODUCTION
The period AD 681-rn71 defines a natural period for the Byzantine Church
and Empire. It begins with the Sixth Cfficumenical Synod, held at Constan-
tinople in 680-81, which condemned the Christological compromises of
Monenergism and Monothelitism by means of which the Byzantine emperor
had sought to regain religious unity within his domains, and ends with the
year in which the Byzantines were defeated by the Seljuk Turks at Manzikert,
the very same year in which they finally lost any foothold in Italy after their
defeat at Bari. These dates define the period of what one might call unequiv-
ocally Byzantine greatness.
During this period the Byzantines recovered from the disasters of the sev-
enth century and emerged as the most powerful Christian empire on earth,
though only a shadow of the Christian Roman Empire that Justinian had
reconstituted in the sixth century. These seventh-century disasters were
twofold: first, the loss of the Eastern provinces-Syria, Palestine and Egypt-
initially to the Persians, and then, permanently, to the Arabs, who had found
a new unity in their embrace of Islam and went on, as the seventh century
progressed, to conquer the provinces of North Africa, which had been recov-
ered in the sixth century by Justinian's general, Belisarius; and secondly, the
loss of effective control of much of the Balkan peninsula south of the
Danube, which had been settled by tribes from the Central European plain,
mainly Slavs. These losses had severely affected the viability of the Empire.
Even Asia Minor, which remained unconquered by the Arabs, found itself
constantly harassed by the Arabs, either intent on reaching Constantinople
and completing their conquest, or content to loot and destroy. As well as
only exercising a fragile control of the Eastern provinces that remained to it,
Constantinople found itself cut off from its provinces in Italy, still under
Byzantine control through the exarch in Ravenna. It is hardly surprising that
in the course of the seventh century, emperors seriously considered abandon-
ing the capital in favour of somewhere more remote from the threat from the
East: Carthage or Sicily.
2 GREEK EAST A D LATIN WEST
As the Byzantines regained power and confidence, they experienced a

cultural renaissance, a growth in population, and a revival of monasticism.
They regained control of that part of the Balkan peninsula now known as
Greece, by conquest and resettlement, and the prestige of the revived Byzan-
tine Empire led to the expansion of Christianity into the newly emerging Slav
nations, first in Bulgaria, then a century later in Russia. Towards the end of
the tenth century, the Byzantines, now well established in the southern
Balkans, began to recover by military might some of their former territories,
incorporating Bulgaria and Armenia into the Empire and conquering parts
of Syria beyond the Taurus mountains, reaching as far as Antioch. When Basil
II died in rn25, the Byzantine Empire was an apparently formidable state, its
territory stretching from southern Italy across to northern Syria, with the
Danube as its northern frontier. Its decline from this position of greatness was
swift: in fifty years' time, territory over which the Byzantines had any real
control had shrunk dramatically. The city of Constantinople retained only
imperfect control over the southern Balkans, now open to attack from the
Normans of Italy, and Asia Minor, the southwestern half of which had
become the Sultanate of Konya (Ikonion).
The period defined by this book is less natural for the Latin West. The
beginning makes some sense, for at the end of the seventh century the West
consisted of the Christian kingdoms of Merovingian France and Visigothic
Spain, both of which were to face Muslim invasions in the next fifty years,
with most ofVisigothic Spain yielding to the Moors to form what eventually
became the Umayyad Caliphate of Corduba, together with a Lombard pres-
ence in Italy, already beginning to encroach on Byzantine territory and
threatening the power of the papacy in Italy, and an emerging Christian
nation in England, though this was to begin with less a political reality than
an idea in the mind of the learned Northumbrian monk, Bede, still a child
in 681. In the course of the eighth century, the political geography of the West
was transformed by the emergence of the Carolingian Empire, Charlemagne
being crowned as Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day
800. Our final date, 1071, only makes sense insofar as marking a point
between the emergence of the power of the Normans (conquering England
in rn66 and defeating the Byzantines at Bari in rn71), and the preaching of the
first crusade in the rn9os. 1071, however, cuts short the progress of the Papal
Reform Movement, or the Hildebrandine Reform-Hildebrand only becom-
Introduction .3
ing Pope Gregory VII in 107.3, and also cuts short the latest wave of monastic
reform that would culminate in the emergence of the Carthusians (founded
1084) and the Cistercians (founded in 1098). However, there are plenty of his-
tories that tell the story of the Church in accordance with the rhythms of the
West (in fact, virtually all such histories available in the West), so there is
room for one that defines its periods according to the rhythms of the East.
It is evident, even from the sketch given above, that in our period Chris-
tendom is beginning to split into what may be called "Greek East" and "Latin
West": that is, into two Christian civilizations 1 that, for all that they shared
in common (and that was a very great deal), were beginning to define them-
selves differently, and sometimes in opposition one to the other. The epithets
"Greek" and "Latin" begin to make sense: the Christian civilization centred
on Constantinople was Greek-speaking and used Greek for all official pur-
poses; the Christian civilization that was emerging in the West used Latin for
legal purposes and in the liturgy of the Church and, even though various ver-
naculars were used-Teutonic languages in the North, Latin-based emergent
"Romance" languages in the South-Latin was the lingua franca of the edu-
cated (education being almost entirely in the hands of the Church). Commu-
nication between these two sister civilizations-which certainly did not think
of themselves as separate-was profound, but it now depended on those who
had command of both languages, of whom there were plenty, especially in
the West, though probably in diminishing numbers as the centuries passed
(contact in forms that avoided the "linguistic filter" -art and maybe music-
was much easier).
All this is in some contrast with the multi-cultural civilization of the ear-
lier Byzantine or Roman Empire, on which John Meyendorff laid such
emphasis in volume II of this series. The Church in the fourth to the sixth
centuries had benefited greatly from the multi-culturalism of the Roman/
Byzantine Empire, particularly in the East with vernacular forms of Chris-
tianity emerging using Coptic, Syriac, Georgian, and just beyond the borders
of the Empire, Armenian and Ethiopic. The monastic movement owed a
great deal to what is often, rather unfortunately perhaps, thought of as the
"periphery," as did the development of Christian art. The development or
11 am using the term "civilizatio n" h ere with conscio us referen ce of its use by Samud P. Hun ting-
ton in his book, The Clash if Civilizations and the Remaking ofWorld Ordn; London: Toe Free Press, 2002..
(first published in 1996).
4 GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
Greek liturgical poetry-and perhaps liturgical music-was deeply indebted to

the highly developed tradition of Syriac liturgical and theological poetry; St
Romanos the Melodist, a native ofEmesa, the greatest writer of kontakia, is
the most notable example of the link between Syria and the capital in his con-
text. The support heresy found on the periphery-whatever the reason for
this-certainly also contributed to the refining of Christian Orthodoxy. The
loss of this multi-culturalism was a diminishment for the surviving Byzantine
Church and Empire, though it was not total, for there continued to be links
between those Byzantine Christians who found themselves living under Arab
rule and the Byzantine capital, at least for a few centuries. In the Latin West
the situation was rather different. Whereas the structures-political, fiscal and
also educational-of the Empire continued in the East, in the West these had
mostly collapsed, and though the barbarian kingdoms in the West were eager
to define themselves in Roman political terms (what others were there?),
these had to be recovered, or reinvented. The Church was the only institu-
tion surviving from the Roman Empire, so it inevitably came to play a major
role in reconstituting these relics of Romanitas into a Latin culture. The king-
doms of the West, however, represented a variety of cultures, and these had
their effect on the emerging culture of the Latin West. At the commencement
of our period we find Bede in Northumbria beginning to create a vernacular
Christian culture in Anglo-Saxon, with some translations of the Scriptures
and prayers in Anglo-Saxon; we also find some vernacular expression of
Christianity in Irish, but these seem to be exceptions: the flowering of the
latent multi-cultural diversity of the West did not take place until after the
end of our period.
The principal factor in the transition &om multi-cultural Byzantium to
Greek East and Latin West was the rise of Islam and the Arab destruction of
the stability of the Mediterranean world in the seventh century. The conquest
of the Eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire and the collapse of the Per-
sian Empire took place in an astonishingly short space of time: within barely
a dozen years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad in 632, the Arabs
controlled Egypt, the Fertile Crescent and Persia, and in 661 the Umayyad
Empire had emerged with its capital at Damascus, which eventually stretched
from Spain to the Hindu Kush. The Umayyad Dynasty, with its successors-
the Abbasid Empire with its capital in Baghdad and Ottoman Empire with
its eventual capital in Constantinople-was to alter the political geography of
Introduction 5
the Mediterranean world and the Near East forever. Whatever doubts there
may be about details of Pirenne's famous "thesis,"2 there can be little doubt
that his central perception of the significance of Muhammad and the rise of
Islam for the division of Christendom remains valid. For the whole of our
period, it could be argued that the centre of the action lay with the huge, and
hugely wealthy, Muslim civilization to the east of our Greek East, and that
the events of the history of the now divided Christendom were simply reac-
tions to what was taking place in the Dar al-Islam.
This applies, first of all, to the changes that took place in the political
structure of the Byzantine Empire that were already under way at the begin-
ning of our period: the move from a system of provincial government, with
a clear separation with civil and military authority, to the system of military
themes, ruled by a governor (a general or strategos) who combined both civil
and military authority and was responsible to a much more centralized
bureaucracy, located in the imperial court at Constantinople, administered
by the sakellarios and his assistants, called logothetes ("secretaries"). At the head
of the Empire was the emperor, a position that had traditionally been that of
commander-in-chief, and once again became a post that generally required
military expertise, many of the emperors in our period emerging from the
ranks of the strategoi who governed the themes. This produced a curious ten-
sion in the "constitution" of the Empire. The early Byzantine period (from
Theodosios the Great onwards, if not from Diocletian and the reforms insti-
tuted by him and Constantine the Great) had seen a change in the percep-
tion of the emperor from a predominantly military man to a figure of the
court, instinct with "divinity" increasingly defined in terms of sacred protec-
tion by God, the power of the Holy Cross, and the care of the Heavenly
Court, that is, the saints and especially the Mother of God, whose particular
concern was the "~een of Cities," Constantinople or New Rome. This
sacred protection was objectified in the rapidly expanding cult of holy images
or icons. 3 The notion of the emperor as a sacral figure of the court strength-
ened the natural desire of emperors to establish a dynasty, and our period is
customarily defined in dynastic terms. However, the military exigencies
imposed largely by the pressure oflslam (though in changing forms) required
2
Henri Pirenne, Mohammed and Charlemagne, London: George Allen and Un win, 1939.
3See Averil Cameron, "Images of Authority: Elites and Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantiwn,~
Past and Present 84 (1979): 335.
6 GREEK EAST AND LATI N W EST
genuine military competence in the emperor that could not be reliably

secured by dynastic means. What we find, then, in our period is sometimes
quite extended attempts to preserve dynasties, qualified by the ready accept-
ance of successful usurpation.
Though dwarfed by the Islamic civilization in the East, the parallel civi-
lizations of the Greek East and-after the emergence of the Carolingian
Empire-the Latin West became powerful and wealthy Empires, both laying
claim to the heritage of the Roman Empire. This sense of a common heritage
was the source of enduring similarities, especially those rooted in their com-
mon faith, and also the cause of constant frictions. Their common faith
entailed in both cases a church consisting of episcopally governed commu-
nities, which were the successors of the poleis and civitates of the Roman
Empire and the Mediterranean societies that had preceded it; an investment
in monasticism as a home for ascetic endeavour, charitable outreach, a Chris-
tian literary culture based on Scripture and the Fathers (and the- Greek or
Latin-classics), a source of inspiration and spiritual guidance for the rest of
the Church (... and also an acknowledged way of disposing of superfluous
wealth), as well as, though fitfully, a sense of the missionary task of taking the
Christian gospel to those people who had not yet heard it (. .. and also a con-
venient way of acculturation of newly conquered people).
Not only did Greek East and Latin West have much in common, the
rhythms of their development often seem to match each other throughout
our period, producing a series of curious synchronisms.4 Both societies expe-
rienced a literary renaissance in the ninth century, each marked by the aban-
donment of the old majuscule ("uncial") script for literary manuscripts in
favour of the cursive script written in minuscule, not hitherto used for liter-
ary texts; in both societies there are synchronisms in monastic reform-St
Theodore of Stoudios and St Benedict of Aniane at the beginning of the
ninth century, Cluny and Mount Athas in the tenth. The case of missionary
expansion is even more interesting; not only are there synchronisms- St
Anskar's mission to Sweden and the conversion of Bulgaria in the ninth cen-
tury, the conversion of Scandinavia and the conversion ofRus' in the tenth-
but the very notion of mission as an essential mark of the Church seems to
4There is a lot of relevant and interesting discussio n in Michael McConnick, "Byzantium's Role
in the Formation of Early Medieval Civiliza tion: Approaches and Problems," minois Classical Studies
12 (1987): 207-20.
Introduction 7
be something that emerges at the beginning of our period. As Ian Wood has
recently pointed out, the first saint's life to portray the saint as a missionary
seems to be the LifeofStAmandus, dated no earlier than the late seventh cen-
tury, while the first church history to see the history of the Church as a his-
tory of mission is Bede's Church History ofthe English People, completed in 731. 5
What these synchronisms reveal is less easy to discern: in some cases it may
be mutual contact, particularly in the case of monastic reform, though the
nature of the reform (and even what might be meant by "reform") is some-
what different in East and West. The other synchronisms may relate to the
fact that economic development seems surprisingly to have followed a simi-
lar pattern in Greek East and Latin West, producing the same periods of con-
fidence necessary for both cultural renewal and missionary expansion. But
whatever these synchronisms reveal, they are certainly striking.
Equally, however, there are features of the Greek East missing from the
Latin West, and vice versa. Some are particularly striking. Although women
had exercised political power in the West before our period-one thinks of
the formidable Merovingian reines-meres, or of the equally formidable Anglo-
Saxon abbesses of royal blood like Hild and /Ethelthryth, in our period they
are strangely absent. This was not so in the East; the powerful women of the
Byzantine court have long been a source of fascination, 6 and in our period
there is no lack of them. Each time the icons were restored, it was by a Byzan-
tine Empress-indeed Eirene was the only woman to hold the supreme power
in her own right and not as a regent for her infant son. These powerful
women have attracted a good deal of attention lately. 7 Heresy is another con-
trasting feature. In our period, heresy does not seem to have been much of a
problem in the West. There were, of course, theological controversies-about
adoptionism in eighth-century Spain, about the nature of the eucharistic
5Jan Wood, The Missionary Lift: SainJs and the Evangtlisation ef Europe, 400-1050, London: Long-
man, 2001, pp. 39-43. It is striking how little the Fathers see mission as a matter of contemporary con-
cern. St John Chrysostom, for instance, regards the dominical command in Matt. 28:I9-20 as addressed
exclusively to the apostles: see my article, "The Church's Mission: Patristic Presuppositions," Greek
Orthodox Theological Review 44 (1999): 649-56.
6Cbarles Diehl, Figures Byzantines, 2 vols., Paris: Armand Colin, 1924-25, is entirely concerned with
women of the imperial coun.
7See, e.g., Lynda Garland, Byzanline Empresses: \%mm and Power in Byzantium, AD 527-1204, Lon-
don : Routledge, 1999; Judith Herrin, Womm i11 Purple: Rulers ofMedieval Byumtium, London: Weiden-
feld and Nicolson, 2001; Lii James, Empmses and P<noer in Early Byzanlium, London-New York:
Leicester University Press, 20m; not to mention several recent symposia.
presence in ninth- and eleventh-century France, about predestination again

in the ninth century-but these controversies only concerned scholars. It is
not until the end of the eleventh century that heresy became a wider prob-
lem in the West, leading to the setting up of the Inquisition. 8 The story in the
East is very different: in om period there is a good deal of evidence for the
activities and beliefs of groups such as the Paulicians and Bogomils, and there
is certainly a link between Byzantine dualistic heresy (for the Bogomils were
definitely dualistic, though it is less clear in the case of the Paulicians) and
later Western dualistic heretics, such as the Patarenes and the Cathars. 9
Another contrast between Greek East and Latin West is to be found in the
controversy that dominates the history of the Church in the Byzantine world
for the first half of our period, namely iconoclasm and its final rejection in
favour of a clearly articulated theology of the nature of Christian art.
Although the contrast can be exaggerated, it seems clear that the question of
the making and veneration of religious images or icons was far more con-
tentious in the Greek East than in the Latin West. The West was opposed to
iconoclasm, and the pope had no intention of obeying the imperial edict
requiring him to destroy religious images; nevertheless religious imagery does
not seem to have been invested with the same profound significance in the
West as in the East. As a result, the emergence from the period of iconoclasm
of an Eastern theology of the nature, and indeed necessity, of Christian art
meant that the development of Christian art in the East was guided by a
much more clearly articulated theology than the development of Christian
art in the West from the Carolingian period onwards. This does not mean
that Christian art in East and West developed separately: far from it, East and
West continued to borrow from each other, but there was a much more
clearly defined sense of the purpose of Christian art in the East. This, added
to the way in which iconoclasm had led to estrangement between the papacy
and the Byzantine emperor just when the papacy needed military support
against the Lombards, forcing the papacy into the arms of the emerging Car-
olingians, means that the iconoclast controversy marks a crucial point in the
deepening estrangement between Greek East and Latin West that would
SSee Malcolm Lambert, Medieval Heresy: Popr,lar ,"v!uvements.from the Gregorian &form lo the Rtfor·
mation, Oxford: Blackwell, 2nd ed., 1992.
9See Janet Hamilton and Bernaid Hamilton, Christian Dualistu Heresies in the Byzantine Wlor/J
c.6,o--c.1405, Manchester-New York: Manchester University Press, 1998.
Introduction 9
eventually lead to the Great Schism. This schism was never fully effected in
our period; as we shall see, the events of 1054 had less significance at the time
than has been bestowed on them by later ages. What does happen in our
period, however, is the formation-in terms of doctrine, church life as defined
in canon law, and liturgical practice-of that Byzantine Orthodoxy which will
define the Greek East over against the Latin West. In that definition of Greek
East against Latin West, one, at least, of the synchronisms will serve to
heighten the contrast. For, as we shall see, the missionary expansion of Greek
East and Latin West took different forms . Although, to begin with, both East
and West preached Christianity in a linguistically defined form, the experi-
ence of Bulgaria, where pagan resistance to Christianity, feeding on Slav
resistance to Hellenization, led the Byzantines to accept the idea of Byzan-
tine Christianity in a non-Greek dress, whereas, in the West, to accept Chris-
tianity entailed accepting the Latin culture-which was also a clerical
culture-that went with it. In opposition to the Latin West, there came to be
not simply a Greek East, but rather a Byzantine East, that had grown out of
the Greek East: a Byzantine East, united by the Byzantine Orthodoxy formed
in the wake of iconoclasm, in which those aspects of Christian culture that
could slip past the "linguistic filter," namely liturgical ceremonial and the cult
of icons, assumed even greater significance, and further heightened the con-
trast between the two halves of a formerly united Roman/Byzantine Chris-
tendom.
The greatest contrast, however, between East and West in this period con-
cerns the development of the papacy. At the beginning of our period, the see
of Rome had not even effectively established itself as the patriarchate of the
West, as Fr Meyendorff emphasized in volume II of this series; particularly
in the wake of the condemnation of the Three Chapters at the Fifth Cfficu-
menical Synod in 553, the pope found himself unable to exercise theological
leadership in the West. This failure was even more manifest in the seventh
century, for it was Pope Honorius himself who seems to have proposed the
Christological compromise ofMonothelitism, for which he was condemned,
along with a number of patriarchs of Constantinople, at the Sixth Cfficumeni-
cal Synod, Constantinople III, though the papal reputation for Orthodoxy
had been restored by Pope Martin, who called the Lateran Synod in 649 and
for his pains died as a confessor in 655. The pope's reputation as guardian of
Orthodoxy was further enhanced in the course of the iconoclast controversy,
IO GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
a fact of great importance to St Theodore of Stoudios, and in the wake of that

controversy the papacy began to articulate claims that the Church of Rome
was mater et caput ecclesiarum, and involved itself directly in the affairs of the
patriarchate of Constantinople, claiming the right to adjudicate over elec-
tions to the see of Constantinople. Such claims were resisted, not only by the
Byzantines, but also by some of the bishops of the Frankish Empire. In the
tenth century, a period of scandal for the papal throne, the papacy was in no
fit state to exercise itself over such claims, but by the eleventh century, a
revived and purified papacy once again began to make claims to authority
over the whole Church, in virtue of being successor to the Apostle Peter. The
establishment of what has been called a Papal Monarchy was part of the pro-
gramme of the Hildebrandine Reform, and it was resistance to these claims
that lay at the root of the growing rift between Greek East and Latin West.
We shall now embark on the account of the long process by which, in
theological, religious, cultural and political terms, the two paths of Greek
East and Latin West diverged from their formerly common route.
PART I
AD 681-800
CHAPTER ONE
THE CHURCH AT THE END OF

THE SEVENTH CENTURY
I twill be convenient to divide this chapter into three sections: the Church
in the West, under [slam, and in the Byzantine Empire. Even that divi-
sion could be deceptive, for it will rapidly become apparent that to speak of
"the Church" in the West, or under Islam, is to create a unity where there is
none. In the West the Church was experiencing different conditions in Italy,
in France and in Spain, in England and in Ireland. There were certain con-
stants, to be sure-the use of Latin as a liturgical language, and respect (or
more) for the papacy-but in many other aspects the situation of the Church
in these several areas was different. The diversity is even greater for the
Church under Islam. In the case of the Byzantine Empire, it is possible to
speak in unitary terms, but that is mainly because the most important piece
of evidence is constituted by the canons of the Synod in Trullo, which repre-
sent a more or less unified policy on the part of the emperor for the Church
in his domains.
In the West
For most of the West, as for the rest of the Church in the lands that had once
formed the Roman Empire, the Church was organized on the basis of Chris-
tian communities, ruled by a bishop, who was attached to a city. The gradual
collapse in most of the West of the political structures of the Empire had actu-
ally strengthened, rather than weakened, the link between the bishop and the
city: in much of Gaul, for instance, the old cities only survived if they had
acquired a bishop, for it was the presence of a bishop, his cathedral and
administration, that came to provide a focus for the city. By the end of the
seventh century, the various "barbarian" kingdoms had long been Christian,
13
GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
the Lombards in Italy and the Anglo-Saxons in England being the latest to
embrace Christianity. The relationship between the bishops and the military
aristocracy provided by the descendants of the barbarians varied; sometimes,
as in Gaul, there was a close relationship, elsewhere, as with the Lombards,
the bishops were marginalized.
Not a great deal is known for sure about pastoral provision within a dio-
cese: the existence oflocal churches doubtless depended on patronage by the
local magnates, which could be patchy and complicated by the greater ben-
efits that might be expected to flow from endowing a monastery. Before the
eighth century we know about various monasteries founded by kings and
queens, and especially about the monasteries founded as a result of the pere-
grinatio oflrish monks, Columbanus and others, but this is doubtless only a
part of the picture. We are equally in the dark about the forms of monasti-
cism followed in early Western monasteries. Those founded by Irish monks
adopted rules such as that ascribed to Columbanus, but there were other
sources of inspiration. Provence had a rich tradition of monasticism: that
associated with the isle ofLerins found expression in the rule of St Caesarius
of Aries, and Cassian's writings, interpreting the monastic traditions of the
East-of both Egypt and Palestine-to the West, were widely read. There was
also the even older tradition of monasticism associated with St Martin of
Tours. What is certainly the case is that one cannot speak of any kind of Bene-
dictine uniformity as early as this, despite the impression given by histories
of monasticism, especially those written by Benedictines. 1 The Rule of St
Benedict was one of the rules that might be used, but exclusive, or even pre-
dominant, use of it (e.g., by St Wilfrid at Ripon) 2 seems exceptional.
The seventh century had been an ambivalent period for Rome and the
papacy. To a degree hitherto unknown, Rome had become embroiled in the
Christological controversies of the seventh century. It was a pope-Hono-
rius-who had suggested the idea that Christ had a single will, the heresy
known as monothelitism. 3 Likewise, Pope Martin had defended Orthodoxy
1Cf., e.g., David Knowles OSB, Christian Monasticism, New York: McGraw-Hill, 1969, who afi:er a
brieflook at Irish monasticism has two chapters entitled "The Benedictine Cenruries."
2 For Wilfrid and the Benedictine Rule, see David Knowles OSB, The Monastic Order in En/jand,
2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 1963, pp. 2r-z2; Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming ofChristianity
to Angw-Saxm England, 3rd ed., London: Batsford, 1991, p. 157; John Blair, The Church in Angw-S11Xon
Society, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. So.
3St Maiumos the Confessor, however, always defended him against the charge of heresy.
The Church at the End ofthe Seventh Centu1y
to the point of calling the Lateran Synod in his cathedral in 649, which con-
demned monenergism and monothelitism and those who had propagated it
(including Pope Honorius), and he suffered the consequences-arrest, con-
demnation and death in exile in the Crimea. However, later popes were more
compliant to the imperial will. The securing of the final condemnation of
monothelitism at the Sixth C1Ecumenical Synod of Constantinople in 680-81
reveals some of the strengths and weaknesses of the bishop of Rome. Agatha
(pope, 678-81) sought to build up support in the West for the proposed synod
by securing condemnations of monothelitism at local synods, including one
in England, called by the new archbishop of Canterbury, Theodore, at "Hat-
field," but in the wake of the synod his successors had some difficulty in get-
ting its decrees accepted: they were only accepted in Spain after lengthy
scrutiny at a synod in Toledo in 684. Pope Agatha's methods show the way
in which the papacy was moving: on the one hand, going to pains to secure
agreement by negotiation, but at the same time seeking to advance papal
claims to ultimate jurisdiction. It was he who revoked Ravenna's independ-
ence from Rome, granted by Constans II in 666, securing the right to conse-
crate the archbishop of Ravenna and grant him the pallium. This was a further
step in the development of the Western notion that the provincial bishop-
metropoli tan or archbishop-was not to be elected by his bishops, but
appointed by the pope. The pallium, generally granted in person, was the sym-
bol of archiepiscopal authority and bestowed by the pope. One of the effects
of the troubles of the seventh century, which would become even more
marked in the eighth, was that Rome became a refuge for Christians, espe-
cially monks, from the East, fleeing before the Muslims, or seeking refuge
from the imposition of heresy in the Byzantine Empire (monothelitism in
the seventh century, iconoclasm in the eighth). These exiles from the East
found a Rome that was already quite cosmopolitan, owing to its pre-emi-
nence as a place of pilgrimage. From the time of Pope Damasus, in the fourth
century, and indeed even earlier, Rome had exploited its martyrs, beginning
with the Apostles Peter and Paul, but including a host of martyrs who had
met their end in Rome, often in the Colosseum. The pope's prestige through-
out Christendom was as much attributable to his position as the guardian of
the accumulated relics of early Christian martyrs in Rome, as to his claim to
be the successor of the chief of the apostles. Pilgrimage to Rome often meant
more than a fleeting visit, and some stayed in Rome to die close to the relics
of the martyrs: several of the Anglo-Saxon kings abdicated their earthly reign
to achieve such a goal. The presence of pilgrims brought wealth, and also fos-
tered the building and decoration of churches in Rome. The Book ofthe Pon-
tiffs (Liber Pontificalis), 4 which contains biographies of the popes up to the
ninth century, devotes much space to detailing the building and adornment
of the churches of Rome.
The presence of Greek monks in Rome and the responsibilities assumed
by the pope through his attempt to exercise a wider jurisdiction through his
direct involvement in the appointment of archbishops led at one point in the
seventh century to an unusual development: the appointment of one of the
Greek monks, Theodore of Tarsus, as Archbishop of Canterbury. 5 Rome's
involvement with the establishment of the Church in England was excep-
tionally close, as it had been on the initiative of Pope St Gregory the Great
that a group of monks from Rome travelled to England at the end of the sixth
century to restore to Christendom the Roman provinces of Britain that had
been lost to Christianity as a result of the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the fifth
century. By the third quarter of the seventh century the mission was founder-
ing and needed fresh leadership. Pope Vitalian had great difficulty in finding
anyone to undertake this task, and an elderly monk, Theodore, then in his
late sixties, was persuaded to accept the position of Archbishop of Canter-
bury. Theodore had been born in Tarsus in Cilicia, and may have received
some of his education in Athens, but we know practically nothing about his
early life, or why or when he came to Rome. He may have been the
"Theodorus abbas" who signed the decrees of the Lateran Synod of 649, but
that is conjecture. Having been consecrated by the pope, Theodore went to
England, accompanied by an African monk, Hadrian, who was to keep an
eye on him and prevent him from introducing any unorthodox practices
from the Greek East. Once in England he set about reorganizing the English
Church, introducing a unified system of dioceses under his overall leader-
ship, appointing new bishops, establishing the government of the Church in
accordance with canon law, particularly over the date of Easter, and encour-
4 Edited by L. Duchesne, 2 vols., Bibliotheque des Eccles d'Athenes et Rome, 2nd ser. J, Paris,
1886--92 (plus supplementary volume, ed. C. Vogel, 1957); valuable English translation by R. Davis,
Translated Texts for Historians 5, 13 , 20, 1989---95.
5 0n Theodore, see Michael Lapidge, ed., Arch/nshop 1beodore, Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon
History n, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

The Church at the End ofthe Seventh Century 17
aging learning, not only in the Scriptures, but, as Bede put it, "in the art of
metre, astronomy and ecclesiastical computation." In the course of his archi-
episcopate of a little over twenty years, he became, to quote Bede again, "the
first of the archbishops whom the whole English Church consented to obey."6
The English Church that Theodore encountered owed its Christianity to
several sources. There was whatever remnant remained of the British Church,
which traced its Christianity back to Roman times and had survived the
arrival of the pagan Anglo-Saxons. Bede, virtually our only source, had no
interest in this group, so we know little about them. At the end of the sixth
century, Anglo-Saxon England had experienced two separate missionary
movements. The first was the mission of St Augustine from Rome, which cen-
tred on Canterbury, where he had been welcomed by the king of Kent,
/Ethelberth, and of which he became the first archbishop. This mission made
its impact mainly in the southeast and east of England, though Paulin us, sent
to England in 601 to reinforce Augustine's mission, became Archbishop of
York in 625, when Edwin, king of Northumbria, married /Ethelburh of Kent.
The second came ultimately from Ireland, and centred on Iona, the Scottish
island where the Irish monk Columba established a monastery soon after 563.
Aidan came from Iona to the north of England at the request of Oswald, king
of Northumbria, after Paulinus' departure from York in 633. He became
bishop of Lindisfame, an island off the northeast coast of Northumbria, in
635, where he established a monastery, and whence he journeyed across the
mainland, strengthening Christian communities and establishing new ones.
These two missionary influences engendered conflict, notably about the date
of Easter, which was settled in favour of the Roman custom at the Synod of
Whitby in 664, four years before Theodore arrived in England.7 But they also
6Bede, Falesiastical Hirtory 4 .2.

7
Dispute over the date of Easter has been recurrent throughout the history of Christianity. The
earliest dispute in the second century was over whether the Christian Pascha was to be celebrated at
the same time as the Jewish Pascha (or Passover), or on the following Sunday, the weekly commemo-
ration of the Resurrection. The latter use prevailed, the followers of the Jewish Pasc:ha being called by
their opponents "Q!lartodecimans" (i.e., "Fourteeners," for keeping Pascha on the fourteenth day of
the Jewish lunar month Nisan). Thereafter there has been agreement that Easter is to be observed on
the Sunday after the first full moon after the Spring Equinox. This date could not, however, be ascer-
tained by observation (as the Jewish Passover had been in Palestine), as from the fourth century
onwards Christians kept a forty-day Lenten fast before Easter; it was therefore worked out by an astro-
nomical calculation based on the calendar. From the third century onwards, various such computa-
tions were proposed, the last and most accurate being that devised by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth
century; this was the "Roman" computation that prevailed over older computations still obser\'ed by
provoked cultural creativity of a high order, manifest especially in the so-

called "Northumbrian renaissance," at the centre of which stands the figure
of Bede. Bede's Roman sympathies are more obvious, because he made a
good deal of them himself. These sympathies he acquired in his monastery,
the double monastery of Jarrow-Monkwearmouth (that is, a monastery on
two sites), founded by Benedict Biscop, who had accompanied Theodore to
England in 668- 69, and had earlier been abbot of the monastery of St Peter
and St Paul in Canterbury. Both before and after this, he had made journeys
to Rome, and the monasteries he established in Northumbria benefited from
his enthusiasm for Rome, receiving paintings, relics and manuscripts (he also
had John, the archcantor of St Peter's Rome, to teach his monks Roman
chant, which probably sounded a good deal more like Greek chant than what
came to be known as Gregorian chant). But Bede's sympathies with the Irish
tradition are also manifest. He composed two Lives of St Cuthbert, bishop
and abbot of Lindisfarne, an Irish foundation, as we have seen. The most vis-
ible evidence of the Northumbrian renaissance is the illuminated manu-
scripts from the scriptoria of the Northumbrian monasteries: the Codex
Amiatinus, one of three codices of the Bible made in the monastery during
the abbacy of Ceolfrith, the Lindisfame Gospels, written and decorated in hon-
our of St Cuthbert at about the same time, and possibly, even, the Book ef
Kells, now in Dublin. These magnificent works of art-and devotion-form, as
it were, the coping-stone of a much larger edifice oflearning. At the heart of
this was the understanding of Scripture, which involved study of the com-
mentaries on them by the Fathers; Bede's own work of biblical commentary
can be understood as partly making accessible the riches of the Latin Fathers
(for instance in his commentary on Genesis), and partly as completing their
work (as with the commentaries on Mark, Acts and the Apocalypse). But to
approach the Scriptures at all, as Augustine had argued in his On Christian
Doctrine, one needed a knowledge not only of grammar and rhetoric, but also
of the branches of learning presupposed by the scriptural writers-history,
geography, astronomy, and so on. To this end Bede composed works on
grammar and rhetoric, chronology and cosmology (especially relating to
determining the date of Easter). What was envisaged was a whole structured
the Irish and British Christians in the course of the seventh and eighth centuries. For more detail, see
Faith Wallis, Bede: The ReckoningofTime, Translated Texts for Historians 29, Liverpool University Press,
1999, PP· xxxiv-lxiii.
The Church at the End ofthe Seventh Century
body of learning, focusing on the understanc:ling of Christ revealed in the

Scriptures. Bede's understanding of his task in his "extreme corner of the
world" (as Symeon of Durham described Northumbria) went beyond this
Latin-based culture. He was also concerned, at some level, to make the truths
of the gospel available not just to the learned, or those who aspired after
learning, but to his Anglo-Saxon countrymen: he translated the Lord's Prayer
into Anglo-Saxon and on his deathbed was engaged in translating the Gospel
ofJohn.
It is, however, easy to isolate the achievement of the Northumbrian ren-
aissance. Theodore's teaching in Canterbury-together with Hadrian, and to
begin with Benedict Biscop-also left a tradition of learning based on the
Bible, and indeed introduced into England the sober tradition of "Antioch-
ene" exegesis that supplemented the traditions that had developed in the
Latin West. Neither was Theodore building without foundations of any kind.
One of the great scholars of seventh-century England was Aldhelm, who
became abbot ofMalmesbury in 675 and Bishop ofSherbome, after the divi-
sion of the old diocese ofWessex, in 705. He was one of those who supported
Theodore in his efforts to revive learning, though he represents a rather more
flamboyant tradition. He also wrote in Anglo-Saxon, though nothing of this
survives (no more than does any of Bede's Anglo-Saxon). The position of
Bede on a cusp between Irish and the mainline continental Latin tradition is
easy to indicate, but Aldhelm, too, provides evidence for the importance of
Ireland to English literary culture, for he speaks in a letter of "boatloads of
Englishmen" going to Ireland to study. That Ireland prized learning we know:
learned men, scriba,e or sapientes, are among the men, along with bishops and
abbots, who participated in church synods, in contrast to continental synods,
largely confined to bishops.
I have devoted what must seem disproportionate time to England,
because it is surprisingly interesting, manifesting far greater cultural activity
at the turn of the seventh century than almost anywhere else, in the West at
least, and also because it encourages us, from the beginning, not to oversim-
plify the Latin West by identifying that with what became Western Europe or
with Rome itself. It was not the only time when the periphery was more
important than the centre in the centuries covered by this book.
It is not easy to sum up the state of the Church in the West at the end of
the seventh century. Too much is unknown; the growth of what was to
become the Carolingian Empire in the course of the eighth century swept
much away. It is perhaps important to remember, too, that despite the appar-
ent fragmentation of the former Roman Empire at the end of the seventh
century, it is doubtful how deeply this fragmentation was felt. Somebody like
Bede still felt himself part of the ancient Roman Empire, now subject to
Christ, and had a vivid sense of the place of Rome in his understanding of
the world. As we shall see, this was shared by those in the lands that had fallen
to Islam. While the "Byzantines," despite their shrunken circumstances,
found it difficult to abandon their sense of being Rhomaioi, "Romans," it
could be said that the Latin West and the Greek East found themselves draw-
ing apart because they shared a sense of being "Romans," or at least having
the Romans as their ancestors, but found themselves compelled to make
sense of this in different ways.
Under Islam
The Arab conquest of the Eastern provinces of the Byzantine Empire was
rapid. Within little more than a dozen years after the death of the Prophet
Muhammad in 632, Syria Palestine and Egypt had been conquered, and the
Persian Empire also had fallen to the Arabs. This followed close on the heels
of the Persian invasion of the Byzantine Empire that had started soon after
the death of the emperor Maurice at the h.ands of the usurper Phokas. In that
invasion the same territory was lost, Jerusalem itself being taken in 614. The
Persian Shah, Khusrau II, had exploited the divisions among the Christians
of the East, and favoured those Christians who had rejected the Christology
of the imperially convoked synods of the fourth century-Ephesos (431), most
of whom had migrated to the Persian Empire, and Chalcedon (451), who had
remained in the Byzantine Empire as a persecuted minority-at the expense
of the Chalcedonians, who came to be called, because of their support for
the Byzantine emperor or king (in Syriac, ma/Jui,), "'Melkites"; the non-Chal-
cedonian (or Jacobite or "monophysite") patriarch of Antioch, Athanasius
the Camel-Driver, rejoiced at the passing of the "'Chalcedonian night." It was
these divisions, especially the divisions between those who accepted and
those who rejected Chalcedon, which the emperor Herakleios and his succes-
sor Constans II had attempted to heal by pursuing the compromise Christo-
logical doctrines of monenergism and monothelitism. The failure of these
ecumenical ventures meant that the Christians in the Eastern provinces, now
subject to Islam after the Arab conquests, remained divided. The Muslims
seem to have been even-handed in their treatment of the different Christian
groups-and also of the adherents of other religions that could claim to be
"people of the book," such as the Jews, the Manichees, and perhaps also the
Samaritans-but they must have looked with less disfavour on those Chris-
tians who did not share the faith of the Byzantine emperor. Despite the fact
that monenergism and monothelitism were imperial policy, the Melkites
remained staunchly Chalcedonian; the only group of Christians to embrace
monothelitism were the Maronites of Lebanon, who adhered to this Chris-
tological doctrine long after it had been abandoned by the Byzantines (for-
mally at the Sixth CIEecumenical Synod of 681-82, though the usurping
emperor, Bardanes Philippikos, attempted to revive it at a synod held in Con-
stantinople in 712).
The Muslims' attitude to the Christians in their newly acquired domains
was one of tolerant disdain. As non-Muslims, they were required to pay a poll
tax, the jizya, but otherwise, to begin with at least, the Christians were left
alone. There seems to have been little attempt in the seventh century to con-
vert non-Arab Christians to Islam. In this period, too, the Muslim presence
was largely a military presence, which remained in a minority. The civil struc-
tures of the societies they had conquered they left intact; the personnel of the
Byzantine administration remained Christian. The fiscal administration in
Damascus, from 661 to 750 the seat of the caliphate, was headed in the sev-
enth century by members of the Christian family to which the monk and
theologian, St John of Damascus, belonged. In such a climate, the principal
change for Melkites as a result of the Arab conquest may have been less the
presence of Islam than the new freedom experienced by those religious
groups that had experienced persecution under the Byzantines: Jews,
Manichees, Samaritans and Christians who rejected Imperial Orthodoxy.
There certainly seems to be a growth of polemical literature in the seventh
century, not least, evidence of disputes between Jews and Christians; the first
evidence in this period we have of attacks on Christian veneration of the cross,
and relics and icons of the saints, comes from Christian defences of these prac-
tices against Jewish objections. Particularly interesting are the long passages
preserved in the eighth-century florilegia compiled by defenders of the vener-
ation of icons from a work against the Jews by Leontios of Neapolis. Leontios,
bishop of Neapolis, near modem Limassol in Cyprus, is mainly known for

his Lives of the saints: St Symeon the Fool of Emesa, St John the Merciful,
patriarch of Alexandria, and one, now lost, on St Spyridon, fourth-century
bishop of Trimithous on Cyprus. He may also have attended the Lateran
Synod in 649 (a Leontios of Neapolis is among the signatories). In his work
against the Jews, he argues on the basis of the Scriptures accepted by the Jews,
and displays a close knowledge of the Old Testament: he defends icons and
relics by drawing attention to passages in the Old Testament, where the Jews
are seen venerating articles of human manufacture, mainly in connexion with
Temple worship. It is striking that he argues with Jews on their own ground,
with the apparent hope of convincing them-a far cry from the days when a
Byzantine bishop could ignore the powerless voices of an oppressed religious
minority. But besides such evidence ofJewish-Christian controversy, there is
plenty of evidence of controversy between Christians of various persuasions,
and even against groups like the Manichees. St John Damascene' s Dialogue
against the Manichees, possibly written in the seventh century, before John
became a monk, seems to be more than a rhetorical exercise (as some Byzan-
tine attacks on the Manichees certainly were), and may be evidence that the
Manichees, who had been driven from the Byzantine Empire by Justinian's
savage persecution in the sixth century, had been able to return to
Mesopotamia, where they began, after the Arab conquest.
The latter half of the seventh century probably, then, saw a flourishing of
the different religions of the Middle East under the benign disdain of the new
religion of Islam. The Christian attitude to Islam itself in these early days of
the new religion is most fully represented in the final chapter ofJohn Oam-
ascene's On Heresies, 8 which presents Islam as the last heresy, the forerunner
of the Antichrist. The use of such language indicates the alarm caused by the
rapid advance oflslarn, provoking an apocalyptic mode, manifest also in the
Apocalypse, composed about this time, ascribed to Methodius, the early
fourth-century bishop of Olympus. 9 Such an apocalyptic mode could not see
the emergent Islam of the seventh century, as we can see it now with many
8 For John o n Islam, see D an iel J. Sahas,fohn ofDamascus on Islam: 'Jbe "Heresy ofthe lshm,u/iies, »
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972; and, more recently, Raymond Le Coz, ed., Jean Damasci:ne, Ecrits s11r Islam, SC
383, 1992.
9 See Paul]. Alexander, The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition, Berkeley-Los Angeles-Lond o n : Univer-
sity of C alifornia Press, 1985.
centuries of hindsight, as the birth of a new world religion. The first Chris-
tian reactions see Islam as a kind of apocalyptic Judaism caused by the rise of
a new prophet. Something of this remains in St John of Damascus, probably
writing in the early eight century, though on the basis of knowledge gained
during his time in Damascus, at the centre of the Umayyad Empire. For John
calls the adherents of this new heresy "Ishmaelites," "Hagarenes," "Saracens" :
all of which names he derives from the account of Abraham's son, Ishmael,
by his slave, Hagar, in Genesis 16. They are the descendants of Ishmael, the
progeny of Hagar, the descendants of the mother and child whom Sarah had
cast out. (The terms "Hagarene" and "Saracen" for Bedouins are long-standing
and quite independent of this proffered etymology.) This picture of Islam as
a kind of para-Judaism is far from the account of a universalist, prophetic reli-
gion presented in the ~r'an. For John, this lapse back into a deviant form
of Judaism was brokered by a heretical Arian monk. Despite this very nega-
tive attitude to Islam,John's presentation of the religion is, in essence, accu-
rate: he presents it as a form of strict monotheism, attacking Christians as
"associators" for worshipping Christ alongside God; it is also a prophetic reli-
gion, having much in common with the Scriptures, treasured by both Jews
and Christians, with new revelations, which John knows as distinct suras, per-
haps not yet in the unified form of the Qyr'an. John thought that, as a heresy,
Islam would flourish for a time and then pass away, though maybe not before
the times of tribulation that would soon herald the Second Coming.
The non-Chalcedonian forms of Christianity included the Syrians, called
Jacobites (after Jacob Baradaeus, who had established an episcopal hierarchy
parallel to that of the Byzantine Church after his consecration in 542), and
the Egyptians, called Theodosians (after Theodosius, the Patriarch of Alexan-
dria, 535-66, who consecrated Baradaeus)-both also dubbed "monophysites"
by the Byzantine Orthodox-as well as the "Church of the East," the descen-
dants of those who had refused to accept the Synod ofEphesos in 431-and
thus called "Nestorians" by the Orthodox-who had established themselves,
out of the reach of the Byzantines, in the Persian Empire, but were now part
of the Arab Empire. There were also, as already mentioned, the Maronites,
who embraced monothelitism. All these Churches continue to exist, having
preserved their traditions through many centuries of Muslim rule, which later
included periods of active proselytism and consequent persecution. Eventu-
ally, most Christians in the Middle East became Arabic speakers, but to begin
GRE EK EAST AN D LATIN WEST
with they preserved their own languages: Greek, Coptic and Syriac (eventu-
ally the use of Coptic and Syriac became the mark of non-Chalcedonians,
but it is not clear that, even as late as the end of the seventh century, the lin-
guistic boundaries corresponded with religious boundaries).
The picture we have of these Churches at the turn of the seventh century
is very uneven. Of the Coptic Church we know very little. At the end of the
seventh century the Maronite Church 10 was established for a second time
under St John Maron, who, after the destruction of the monastery of St
Maro, near Antioch, by the Byzantines iri 694, led his people into the steep
valley of ~disha, iri which iriaccessible place, safe from attack by either
Arabs or Byzantines, he established his patriarchate (where it still remains
today). The Jacobite Church was flourishing at the end of the seventh cen-
tury. The monastery of Kenneshre, established in the seventh century,
became a centre for the study of Hellenistic philosophy, mathematics, astron-
omy and theology. Its most famous son was Jacob (c.640-708), who b ecame
bishop of Edessa in 684. A man of enormous learnirig, he wrote biblical com-
mentaries, produced a partial revision of the Syriac translation of the Old Tes-
tament, the Peshitta, based on both the Septuagint and the Hebrew text, and
wrote a continuation ofEusebius' Church History down to 692. He was also a
stem reformer, and after only five years as bishop, he resigned when his flock
refused to accept some of his reforms.
The Church of the East was to become a great missionary Church. Already
iri the seventh century, missionaries of the Church o f the East had reached
India, and the Sigan-Fu stone, set up in 781, records that iri 635 a certairi
Olopan had reached northwest Chiria. St Isaac the Syrian, after his brief
period (five months in 676) as bishop of Nineveh, lived as a solitary in the
mountairis ofKhuzistan during the last years of the seventh century, and com-
posed his homilies and kephalaia, which were to convey his profound spiritual
teaching to generations to come, making him one of the most beloved of spir-
itual writers, not least iri Russia. Nor was Isaac alone; Dadisho, another spiri-
tual writer was a contemporary, and in the next century the Church of the East
produced John Hazzaya (the Visionary), and John of Dalyatha.
But as iriteresting as any of these Churches, for which the Arab conquest
brought freedom from harassment and persecution, is the story of the Chal-
10 Named after the monastic leader St M aro, 350-433, who preached Christianity in the region of
the Upper Orontes.

The Church at the End efthe Seventh Century
cedonian Church in the Middle East in this period. Although non-Chal-

cedonian forms of Christianity had many adherents in the Middle East, there
were also communities of Christians who remained faithful to the cecumeni-
cal synods-the synods of the oikoumene. None were so staunchly faithful to
Chalcedon as the monasteries in and nea1 Jerusalem. The principal reason for
this faithfulness to the official Christianity of the Empire was doubtless the
role these monasteries played as guardians of the Holy Places and hosts to the
pilgrims who had made their way to Jerusalem, especially since the building
of the Church of the Anastasis (or the Holy Sepulchre ChUJch, as it is known
in the West) and the other chUJches on the Holy Sites after Constantine's
conversion and his mother, Helena's, pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 326. The
constant presence of Christians &om the whole of the Christian oikoumene
would have added to the strength of Chalcedonian Christianity in the Holy
Land. It must also have been the case that continued imperial patronage of
monasteries and chUJches in the Holy Land fostered faithfulness to the form
of Christianity endorsed by the emperors-at least until the collapse of impe-
rial authority there. For all of these reasons, the state of affairs in the Holy
Land was such that, as an eminent scholar has put it, "the function of the
monasteries of Palestine was to be one of the strongholds, perhaps, for the
East, the very hearth, ofChalcedonianism." 11
This loyalty to the Christology of the synods went deep, and did not waver
in the seventh century with the abandonment by the emperor himself of the
Christology of Chalcedon- or at least, his compromising it- nor with con-
quest of the Holy Land by the Muslims. On the contrary, the monasteries of
the Holy Land remained the "hearth of Chalcedonianism." Nevertheless,
these events had an impact on the Orthodox monks of Palestine. First of all,
they had to set about defending the faith they professed-agairtst challenges,
not just &om othe1 Christians they regarded as heretical, but agairtst other reli-
gions now experiencing religious freedom. To defend that faith, they needed
to be able to define that faith. How they defined that faith is manifest in the
nickname given to the Orthodox Christians by Christians they regarded as
heretical. Just as they called other Christians "Jacobite," "Theodosian,"
"monophysite," "rnonothelite," so these other Christians called them "Max-
imians," after Maxirnos the Confessor, who had, nearly alone in the Greek
11
Bernard Flusin, Saint Anasthase k Perse ti l'histoire de la Pakstine au dlbut du VII' sieck, Paris: Edi-
tions du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, vol. 2, 1992, p . 59-
East, stood up to the Christological compromises of Emperor and Patriarch

in the seventh century. St Maximos, in his various writings, had not only
defended Orthodox Chalcedonian Christology against monothelites and
monophysites, he had also in earlier writings defended Orthodoxy against
"Origenism," speculative ideas developing the cosmological and ascetic intu-
itions of Origen and Evagrios (and sometimes apparently claiming the author-
ity of St Gregory of Nazianzus, "the Theologian"). Behind these attacks on
Christian misunderstanding lay a theological vision that drew together the var-
ious traditions that made Christian Orthodoxy-the Christology of Sts
Athanasios and Cyril of Alexandria, the cosmology and anthropology of the
Cappadocian Fathers and Nemesios of Emesa, the ascetic wisdom of the
Desert Fathers and their successors, and the intoxicating metaphysical theol-
ogy of the one who called himselfDionysios the Areopagite. It would be going
too far to say that the Palestinian monks identified Orthodoxy with the vision
of the theologian-confessor-for one thing, certain elements of his speculative
theology were probably too abstruse for most of them-but the pattern of
Orthodm.y they defended, and the patristic sources on which they drew in
their exposition ofit, were the same. These patristic sources were presented in
convenient and simplified form as anthologies of extracts, called florilegia.
Defining the faith was one thing, defending it another: and that required
some logical skill and conceptual clarity. It was to serve this purpose that
there began to appear in the seventh century handbooks of logic intended
for Christians. These presented a simplified version of the standard classical
textbooks of logic-Aristotle, as interpreted by the third-century Neoplaton-
ist, Porphyry. That they were written for Christians is betrayed by the way
examples involve characters called Peter or Paul, rather than Socrates. They
included definitions of key terms used in the Christological controversies,
such as hypostasis, prosopon (person), ortsia (being), physis (nature), as well as
terms like energeia (activity) and thelema (will). Many of the fruits of this activ-
ity have now been lost, but the peaks of the icebergs they represent can still
be seen in works such as Anastasios of Sinai's Guide or Hodegos, the extensive
florilegium known as the Doctrina Patrum-and, par excellence, in some of the
works of St John Damascene, notably the three parts of his Fountain Head of
Knowledge, which consists of a handbook oflogic, a summary of heresies, and
a presentation of the central points of the Christian faith, virtually in the
form of an edited florilegium.
This massive work of recapitulation and epitome of the patristic tradition

is the legacy of the seventh-century Palestinian monks to the Orthodox
Church, for John was no lonely genius, but rather one who entered into a col-
laborative work, and presented it in a lasting form. The monks of the Holy
Land did not simply define and defend: they also celebrated. For another
development belongs to the years of apparent defeat, when the monks lived
in the shadow of the two great mosques, then being built on the site of the
former Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. This is the development that took place
in the round of services that were, and are, the heart of the monastic life. The
detail is hidden from us, particularly the extent to which this was a develop-
ment in which all the monks of the Holy Land took part (in principle, not at
all likely), or a development in some of the churches, and/or monasteries,
particularly, perhaps, the Church of the Anastasis. Central to this liturgical
development was the evolution of the canon, the nine (in practice eight) sets
of troparia that came to accompany (and eventually to replace) the singing
of the nine biblical odes or canticles at the dawn office of orthros (or matins).
Everyone associated with the emergence of the canon at the end of the sev-
enth century (or the beginning of the eighth) has links with the Holy Land
in general, and Jerusalem in particular: Andrew of Crete was tonsured at the
monastery attached to the Church of the Anastasis,John Damascene is some-
times given the title of hierokiryx (sacred preacher) of the Church of the Anas-
tasis, while Kosmas the Melodist was John's companion in his Palestinian
monastery (traditionally, the monastery of St Sabas, though the tradition is
late). The Great Penitential Canon of St Andrew of Crete and the Easter
Canon of St John Damascene are perhaps the finest examples of this genre,
but between them these three melodists composed a great number of canons,
many of which are still sung today.
There are two other areas in the East that need to be included here: Geor-
gia and Armenia. Both these regions, on the northeastern rim of the Byzan-
tine Empire-Georgia stretching between the Black Sea and the Caspian,
straddling the Mountains of the Caucasus, while Armenia occupies the
mountains to the south that reach down towards Syria-had long been Chris-
tian. Indeed, at the beginning of the fourth century, Armenia had been the
first nation to embrace Christianity, as a result of the preaching of St Gregory
the Illuminator, while Georgia became Christian slightly later, c.330, tradi-
tionally as a result of the teaching of a slavegirl, St Nino. The corning of
Christianity in both cases led to their languages taking a literary form , so from
the beginning Georgians and Armenians celebrated the liturgy and read the
Bible in their own languages. 12 Eastern Georgia very quickly fell to Islam,
with an emirate being established in Thilisi (Tiflis), in the late 640s. Western
Georgia was protected from Islam by the Caucasus; the Church there seems
to have remained faithful to Byzantine Orthodoxy. Georgia had, indeed,
played a significant role in the Christological controversies of the seventh
century: Kyros, one-time bishop of Phasis (Poti) in Lazica, had been
appointed Patriarch of Alexandria and Augusta! Prefect by Heral<leios and
had there achieved a great ecumenical triumph in reconciling many of the
Theodosians to the Church on the basis of monenergism; Lazica itself was
the destination of Maxirnos the Confessor's final exile, and it was there that
he died in 662, and there that the beginnings of his veneration and cult are
to be found. 13 The Church in Armenia, not having participated in the Synod
of Chalcedon, preserved older Christological traditions, and came to side
with those who rejected Chalcedon. Its proximity to the Byzantine Empire
meant that its adherence to non-Chalcedonian Christology remained a
potential problem in its relations with the Byzantines, as we shall see. The
protection afforded by its mountainous situation meant that Armenia did
not fall to Islam until the beginning of the eighth century. 14
The picture of the Church under Islam is then one of great variety. Many
Christians experienced a surge of freedom with the removal of Byzantine
authority; it was only later that the constraints that Islam could impose
became apparent. But even those Christians, the Melkites or Maximians, who
remained faithful to Imperial Orthodoxy as it was reaffirmed at the Sixth
Cfficumenical Synod of Constantinople in 680-81, responded to the new chal-
lenges with vigour and developed both a refined understanding of the Ortho-
dox faith and a more elaborate form of its celebration in the monastic office:
both of which would eventually come to characterize the expression of
Orthodoxy in the capital, Constantinople.
12 SeeMeyend orff, Imperial Unity, pp. 102- 9 .

13See Epistula A nastasii ad Tbeodorum 5, wh ich speaks of the "three sh ining lamps [that] illuminate
the holy tomb of that holy martyr Maxim us, and c£ Hypomnestiam 9 (which confirms the informa-
D
tion of Ep. Anastasi1), and 10 (the bloody band ages, preserved as relics): in Pauline Allen and Bronwen
Neil, Ma.ximus the Co,ifessor and His Companions, O xford University Press, 2002, pp. 136, 162, 166.
14 Ali:er a somewhat bruising encounter with the Byzantine emperor Justinian II: see below, p. 36.
In Byzantium
The ultimate aim of the Arab conquest of the Middle East had been to secure
the capital of the Byzantine or Roman Empire, Constantinople or "New
Rome," or simply "Rome" to the Arabs. Unlike the Persians, who had sought
to seize the capital by land, after advancing through Asia Minor, the Arabs
approached Constantinople by water. Already in the early years of the
caliphate of Mu'awiya, the first of the Umayyad caliphs (661-80), the Arabs
held the islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, Kos and Chios. In 670 one of his gener-
als seized the peninsula of Kyzikos, which jutted out into the Sea of Marmara,
and the Arabs furthered their command of the sea by capturing Smyrna in 672
and the coast ofLycia and Cilicia. In 674 the Arabs began their assault on Con-
stantinople from their base on Kyzikos. Their attempts continued for four
years, and were finally abandoned in 678, after their fleet had suffered heavy
losses, partly owing to the Byzantine use of a new secret weapon, "Greek fire,"
probably petroleum, enhanced by other highly inflammable substances,
pumped in the form of burning flames from siphons. These heavy losses were
compounded by the fierce storms the retreating fleet encountered, and by the
defeat of the Arab forces in Asia Minor that were to have followed up the fall
of the Qyeen City. Mu'awiya established a thirty years' peace with Byzantium
in return for annual tribute. This comprehensive defeat of the threats to Con-
stantinople greatly encouraged the Byzantines and confirmed the hopes that
the emperor had raised by taking the name Constantine (IV). The emperor
proceeded to fulfil the expectations of a great Christian Roman emperor by
convoking an crcumenical synod that met in Constantinople in 680-81, and
attempted to draw a line under the Christological controversies of the seventh
century that had been provoked by imperial attempts to broker a union
between the Chalcedonians and the non-Chalcedonians. 15
Constantine IV died in 685 and was succeeded by his son, who took the
equally splendid name ofJustinian (II, or the New). He led a successful cam-
paign against the Bulgars, who had crossed the Danube in the 670s under the
leadership of Khan Asparuch, and whom his father had disastrously chal-
lenged after the relief of Constantinople. The Bulgars were beginning to
establish themselves as the rulers of the Slavs who had settled south of the
15This synod has been treated in the previous volume of this history: see Meyendorff, Imperial
Unity, pp. 369---73-
GREEK EAST A D LATIN WEST
30
Danube, and eventually founded a Bulgarian Empire that remained a threat

to the Byzantines for centuries. Justinian made a triumphal entry into Thes-
saloniki and paid homage to St Demetrios, the patron saint of Thessaloniki.
To make his way to Thessaloniki, he had to defeat not only the Bulgars, but
also the Slavs, many of whom he resettled in Asia Minor. Justinian also trans-
ferred the Archbishop of Cyprus and many of his people to the peninsula of
Kyzikos, which had suffered during the siege of Constantinople, and
founded there the city of New Justinianopolis. 16 This venture, endorsed in
the canons of the ~inisext Synod, did not last, although the Archbishop of
Cyprus is still styled the Archbishop of Constantia and New J ustinianopolis.
These transfers of population were part of a grander scheme of colonization
by which Justinian II sought to renew the strength of the Byzantine Empire.
He also continued the persecution of a group of heretics called Paulicians,
which had begun in his father's reign, when their founder, an Armenian
called Constantine Silvanus, was put to death. On his coins, Justinian placed
an image of Christ: the first emperor to do so.
All of this points to an emperor who sought to promote himself as a deci-
sive leader of his people, and a guardian of Orthodoxy. Such an emperor
ought to convoke a synod, and indeed Justinian did convoke a local synod
to confirm the condemnation of monothelitism of the Sixth <Ecumenical
Synod. However, he wanted something grander and in 691 he convoked a
synod that came to be called the Synod in Trullo, from its being held in the
darned hall (trullus in later Latin) of the imperial palace. From the beginning
it claimed to be an cecumenical synod, and was regarded as a continuation
of the Sixth C!Ecumenical Synod, held a decade earlier. The Fathers of the
synod themselves, in their address to the emperor that prefaces the canons,
explained that the purpose of the synod was to supplement both the Fifth
and the Sixth <Ecumenical Synods that "had explained with the authority of
the Fathers the mystery of faith" but, "unlike the other four cecumenical syn-
ods" had drawn up "no sacred canons through which the people might desist
from their less noble and lowly conduct, and might be brought to a better
and loftier way of life." 17 For this reason, from the time of the twelfth-
16See Benedict Englezakis, "Cyprus, New Justinianopolis," in idem, Studies on tht His1ory of the
Church ofCyprus, ,µh-20th Centuries, Aldershot: Variorum, 1995, pp. 63- 82.
17The canons of the Synod in Trullo are not very accessible, as they are not included in Western
ollections of synodical canons, owing to doubt as to their authority in the West They are not included
in, e.g., Norman P. Tanner SJ, Decrees of tht &umenical Councils, 2 vols., London : Sheed and Ward/
The Church at the End efthe Seventh Centu,y 31
century canonist Balsamon, it has been called the Q!iinisext (Fifth-sixth, in

Greek: Penthekte) Synod. Its purpose was purely pastoral: to recapitulate the
tradition of the canon law of the Greek Church, and provide extensive sup-
plementation in new canons. It was, in a way, a reforming synod, clarifying
the, by then somewhat tangled, tradition of canon law and setting forth with
a new clarity a renewed vision of the life of the Church.
The first two of the 102 canons list the canons already accepted as authen-
tic by the Church. Canon 1 affirms the apostolic tradition, especially as it has
been handed down in the doctrinal decisions the six cecumenical synods,
which it lists and briefly summarizes. Canon z confirms the 85 apostolic
canons, and the canons of the synods of Nicaea 625), Ancyra (314), Neocae-
sarea (between 314 and 319), Gangra (early 340s), Antioch (341), Laodicea (end
of fourth century), Constantinople (38r), Ephesos (431), Chalcedon (451),
Serdica (343-4), Carthage (419), and Constantinople (394), as well as the
canons of the Fathers: Dionysios and Peter of Alexandria, Gregory the Won-
derworker, Athanasios of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa,
Gregory the Theologian, Arnphilochios oflkonion, Timothy l, Theophilus I
and Cyril of Alexandria, Gennadios of Constantinople and Cyprian "arch-
bishop of the African land and martyr." It is immediately apparent that this
is a list representing the canonical tradition of the Church of the Greek East:
material from the West (Serdica and Carthage, together with Cyprian of
Carthage) is supplementary (though the canons of Carthage are extensive:
133, more than the Quinisext). This bias to the East in the selection of canons
included is probably only a matter of neglect, not deliberate intent.
On the question of married clergy, however, the synod consciously
adopted a policy different from that of "the most holy Church of Rome." Its
position, set out in canon 3, is that married men may be ordained to the
orders of sub-deacon, deacon and priest, so long as their wives are not wid-
ows, divorcees, courtesans, housemaids or actresses, but that twice-married
Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 1990. A critical edition of the text, with a Latin trans-
lation (in fact, that of Gentien Hervet [1499-1584], lightly revised) and a French translation, is found
in Pe.rides-Pierre Joannou, ed ., Disciplint ginirale antufue (11'-/X' sih:ks}, to me I, 1: Les canons des con-
ciles cecumen.iq ues, Grottaferrata (Roma): Tipografia ltalo-Orientale •S. Nilo», 1962, pp. 98-241;
reprinted with an English translation replacing the French translation, together with some valuable
studies, in George Nedungatt-Michael Featherstone, eds., The Council in Trulk Re1Jisited, Kanonika 6,
Rome: Pontificio lstituto Orientale, 1995. An o lder translation can be found in The Seven Ecumenical
Councils, translated by Henry R. Percival, N icene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, XJY, Grand
Rapids MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1977 (first published 1899).
men may not be ordained, nor may those in holy orders enter into marriage
(made explicit in canon 6). This is presented as a reform of an existing lax
practice in the Church of Constantinople (canon 3 contains regulations for
those who had followed the existing lax practices before the introduction of
this canon), taking a middle way between the "harsh severity" of Rome and
the hitherto "unrestrained mildness" of Constantinople. The Roman posi-
tion (made explicit in canon 13) required a celibate clergy, or at least dissolved
the marriages of those ordained and forbade conjugal intercourse. Canon 13
is quite explicit that ordained married men are not to divorce their wives, or
abstain &om intercourse, "otherwise we should virtually mock the marriage
ordained and blessed by God through his presence" ; indeed clergy who repu-
diate their wives "on the pretext of piety" are to be excommunicated. It also
interprets canons 25 and 70 of Carthage, which would normally be taken as
requiring clerical celibacy, as simply requiring continence of clergy when they
approach the altar to offer the holy gifts. With bishops, however, the case is
different: if married, they are no longer to live with their wives after conse-
cration (canon 13). If a married man is elected a bishop, he and his wife are
to separate by mutual consent (presumably giving the wife a veto), and the
woman to enter a monastery, remote from her former husband's episcopal
residence, where she may enjoy the provision made for her by the bishop,
and if worthy, advance to the order of deaconess (canon 48). This is the posi-
tion that still holds in the Orthodox Church today (apart from the provision
about becoming a deaconess, that order having long fallen into desuetude).
The history of clerical marriage is by no means clear. In the early Church, it
seems that clergy were often married (the Synod of Gangra attacks those lay
people who refused the ministry of married clergy in favour of that of celi-
bate clergy)-even bishops. Gradually, clergy, at least bishops, were required
not to live as married men, partly because of a sense of the sacredness of their
rank, and partly to prevent any alienation of church property to a bishop's
relatives, but in the West there were canons from early on (e.g., the early
fourth-century Synod of Elvira in Spain) that required celibacy for all higher
clergy. It is also clear that, in the West, the ideal of a celibate clergy was an
ideal, rather than a reality, at least until the eleventh century, when the prac-
-tice of clerical celibacy became one of the demands of the Gregorian
Reform. 18
18See below, pp. 295---96.
The requirements for married clergy were partly to do with what one
might call respectability-no divorcees, housemaids or actresses! Other
canons sought a similar respectability in the clergy: they were not to run pub-
lic houses (canon 9), or lend money on interest (canon ro), or go to the hip-
podrome (canon 24), or abandon clerical garb (canon 27). There are canons
to strengthen the traditional episcopal organization of the Church: clergy
were not to go to another church without episcopal permission; bishops had
a duty to instruct their clergy, as well as the laity (canon 19); country parishes
were to remain under the authority of the bishop of the city (canon 20), and
the use of private oratories required episcopal permission (canon 31); nor are
bishops to encroach on the territory of other bishops by preaching there
(canon 20). The hierarchy of the Church is clarified: canon 36 makes explicit,
for the first time, the Pentarchy of the patriarchates with the order: Rome,
Constantinople (first equal), Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem. Some canons
concern fasting, and often have in mind the different practices of the West:
Saturdays and Sundays are exempt from the full rigour of fasting, even dur-
ing Lent, save for Holy Saturday (canon 55, in explicit contradiction of the
Roman practice). That this is what proscribing fasting on these days means is
evident from the next canon, which censures the Armenians for eating eggs
and cheese on Saturdays and Sundays during Lent. Holy Saturday is a day of
strict fasting right up to midnight (canon 89). Priests must celebrate while fast-
ing, even on Holy Thursday, exempted from fasting by canon 41 of Carthage
(presumably because the liturgy of the Lord's Supper was celebrated in the
evening).
There are canons regulating monks and nuns, which subject them to the
oversight of the local bishop, especially concerning rules for admission or
for those who wish to become hermits, who must first enter a coenobitic
monastery (canons 40, 41). Long-haired hermits are not to live in towns; if
they do, they must cut their hair and join a monastic community (canon 42).
No crime is to prevent anyone embracing the monastic life (canon 43). Nuns
are not to wear jewelry or fine clothes (canon 45), and monks and nuns are
to keep to their monasteries, only leaving them when accompanied and never
sleeping outside them (canon 46).
Nor were the laity exempt from canonical regulation. They are not to play
dice, nor go to mimes, animal fights and dancing on the stage (canons 50, 51).
They are not to consult diviners, nor keep bears or other animals in tow, nor
resort to fortune-telling, or "so-called cloud-chasers, sorcerers, purveyors of

amulets, and diviners" (canon 61). These last are called "deadly pagan prac-
tices," and there are other canons that proscribe pagan practices: observing
Kalends, Vota and Brumalia, public female dancing, dancing associated with
pagan rites, cross-dressing, use of comic, satyr or tragic masks, and Dionysiac
frenzies (canon 62), lighting fires at the beginning of each month and jump-
ing through them (canon 65); law students, in particular, are not to adopt
pagan customs (canon 71); seizure of women on pretext of marriage, perhaps
an old marriage custom, is forbidden (canon 92), as are pagan vows (canon 94).
These practices are described in the canons as "pagan," but it is probably a mis-
take to think of them as a survival of paganism. It is rather a matter of ancient
customs continuing to be observed by people who thought of themselves as
Christians. In the fourth century, as Christianity became a socially accepted
practice, it is clear that some pagan ceremonies were ~secularized" and contin-
ued to be observed by Christians: see, for instance, the "Calendar of 354,"
which records, side by side, pagan and Christian festivals. 19 Rome, where the
power of the Church quickly asserted itself, sought to outlaw these customs
towards the end of the fifth century. In Constantinople, where many of these
customs had a novelty associated with the imperial status of the city, such cus-
toms lingered-and were not prevented by the canons of the Trullan synod. 20
Other canons positively set out the liturgical observance expected of the laity.
There are the rules of fasting already mentioned. Canon 52 requires the LitUigy
of the Presanctified Gifts to be celebrated every weekday during Lent (contrast
the present Orthodox practice of celebrating it only on Wednesdays and Fri-
days). Lay Christians are to go to church throughout the whole week of the
Resurrection (canon 66: again contrast current practice). They are not to stay
away from church for three Sundays in a row (canon 80). They are not to kneel
on Sundays (canon 90). Nor are they to aspire to p reach in church (canon 64),
nor, with the exception of the emperor (clearly included among the laity), to
enter the sanctuary; they are not to administer communion to themselves
(canon 58), but they are to receive communion in their hands (held together
in the form of the cross), and not in material vessels, even of gold, for
19See M.R. Salzman, 77Je Cotkx-Cakndaro/J54 and the Rhy thms efUrban Lifa in Lale Antiquity, Berke-
ley-Los Angeles-Oxford : University of California Press, 1990.
20
0n the question of what is meant by these "pagan survivals," see the discussion in J.F. Haldon,
Byzantium in the Seventh Century: Tht Transformation ef a Culture, Cambridge University Press, 1990,
pp.3z7-37.
humankind is created in God's image, and therefore transcends material

things (canon rnr). There are also various canons regulating marriage (canons
53, 54 on prohibited degrees, canon 72 against marrying heretics), though it is
not at all clear how much authority the Church had over marriage practices at
the end of the seventh century.
A couple of canons concern visual art. Canon rno proscribes paintings (or
any other form of art) that incite to pleasure, meaning by this, presumably,
pornography. More important, though, is canon 82, which proscribes the
depiction of Christ as a lamb, to which John the Forerunner points, exclaim-
ing, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" Gohn
1:29). The canon argues that this depiction is taken as a "representation of
grace, prefiguring for us through the law the true Lamb, Christ our God," but
though we venerate these "ancient representations and foreshadowings" as
"symbols and prefigurations," nevertheless "grace and truth," the fulfilment
of the law, has been given us through the Incarnation of the Son of God as
a human being. Therefore, Christ is to be depicted in
images of human form, instead of the ancient lamb; for in this way we
apprehend the depth of the humility of the Word of God, and are led to
the remembrance of his life in the flesh, his passion and his saving death,
and of the redemption which thereby came to the world.
Perhaps what is most important about this canon is that it is an official theo-
logical interpretation of Christian art, emphasizing the centrality of the Incar-
nation. Hitherto, depictions of Christ in the form of a lamb had been not
uncommon: one thinks of the vault of the presbytery of S. Vitale in Ravenna
or the triumphal arch ofSS. Cosma e Damiano in Rome-both sixth century.
And they continued in the West: for example, on the sanctuary arch of the
ninth-century S. Prassede in Rome. This was another point in which the Trul-
lan synod proscribed a Western practice, though it is not explicit on this
point. Indeed, it may well be that the introduction of the chant Agnus Dei
into the Roman mass at the moment of the fraction by Pope Sergius (687-
701), who rejected the canons of the Synod in Trullo, was a reaction against
canon 82,21 though the canon only concerns visual representations of Christ,
and the imagery of the consecrated bread as the Lamb of God is just as pres-
ent in the Byzantine liturgy as it is in the Roman mass.
21 Liher Pontificalis 86, ed. Duchesne, I, p. 386, U-3-4.
Several of the Trullan canons, either explicitly or implicitly, concern the

practices of the Armenians. This needs placing in its historical context. Just
before the Synod in Tntllo, Justinian II had broken the thirty-year peace
Mu'awiya had concluded with his father and sought to subject Armenia to
Byzantine control. The Armenians had been cut off from the Roman Empire
at the time of the Synod of Chalcedon in 451, and so were no party to its deci-
sions. When they learnt about it, they were inclined to reject it, as overthrow-
ing the two synods of Ephesos (4.31 and 449) that they had accepted. They
therefore aligned themselves with the non-Chalcedonians. Incorporating
Armenia into the Byzantine Empire, as the Byzantines were to discover not
only in Justinian's reign, involved a Church that was disinclined to accept the
dogmatic settlements of the Byzantine synods, as they developed after Eph-
esos in 431. That caused problems, but further problems were caused by the
fact that the liturgical practices of the Armenian Church, which had devel-
oped in independence of the Byzantine Church (as had those of the Western
Church), were in several respects distinct. Justinian's response was to make
clear the Byzantine position by condemning Armenian practices (sometimes
explicitly, sometimes not) in several of the canons of the Trullan synod.
Canon 32 on the comrnixture of wine and water in the eucharistic chalice is
explicitly directed against the Armenians, as is canon 33 on the "Jewish" prac-
tice of only ordaining clergy from priestly families. Canon 56, already referred
to, proscribes the Armenian practice of including eggs and cheese among
foods that can be eaten when fasting. Canon 99 is directed against the prac-
tice, explicitly said to be Armenian, of offering cooked meat within the Chris-
tian sanctuary, which probably means the offering of burnt sacrifices of
animals. Although the Armenians are not mentioned, canon 81, against the
theopaschite addition of "who was crucified for us" to the Trisagion, is
directed against an Armenian practice. Sahak III was constrained to be pres-
ent at the Trullan synod, and there survives a discourse from him, setting out
the Armenian position, and responding to most of the points made by the
Trullan synod, as well as attacking Chalcedonian Christology. It also defends
the Armenian practice of using unleavened bread in the Eucharist, oddly not
mentioned in the Trullan canons.2 2 These liturgical differences-as well as
those mentioned in connexion with the Latins-may seem trivial, but as the
22See Michel van Esbroeck, "Le discours du Catholicos Sahak 111 en 691,9 in egungatt-Feather-
stone, eds., 1be Council in Troilo &visited, pp. 325-451.
different parts of the Church began to go their separate ways, such differences
of practice were to prove both more visible and more intractable than differ-
ences of doctrine, for while differences of doctrine were often highly recon-
dite and not infrequently amounted to different ways of asserting the same
thing (as the conversations between the Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox
Churches came to discover in the twentieth century), differences of devo-
tional and liturgical practice affected ordinary people, and made differences
apparent. 23
The final canon of the Synod in Trullo is worth comment. Based on the
canons of St Basil (canon 3 is quoted, but see also canons 74, 95), it concerns
the principle of economy, oilwnomia. According to canon 102, those who
have received from God the power to bind and to loose, that is, primarily the
bishops, but also in certain circumstances priests, need to apply the canons
of the Church in a pastoral way, paying attention to the unique circumstances
of each case, for
the entire concern of God and of the one entrusted with pastoral author-
ity is to bring back the lost sheep and heal the serpent's bite: neither push-
ing the sufferer to the precipice of despair, nor giving him rein to lead a
dissolute or contemptuous life, but by one means or another, be it more
severe and stringent medicines, or milder and more soothing ones, to stay
the suffering and strive for the cicatrization of the ulcer, examining the
&uits of repentance and wisely guiding (oikonomountz) the man who is
called to the splendour on high.
The quotation from St Basil's third canon that follows speaks to "two
ways, that of strictness (akribeia) and that of customary usage (synetheia),"
which the pastor is to use: it is the role of oikonomia to discern what is most
appropriate. This suggests a different understanding of oikonomia from that
which has become traditional, which opposes oikonomia to akribeia, taking it
to mean dispensation from the strict application of the canons. Rather this
canon (and those of St Basil) seems to suggest that oikonomia means the way
in which the canons are applied in the particular case, whether strictly (using
akribeia) or more gently: oikonomia is the aim of the pastor in all cases. This
230 n the importance of matters of practice in the relations between the Byzantine and the Latin
Churches, see Tia M. Kolbaba, The Byzanti,u Lists: Errors ofthe Latins, Urbana-Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 2000.
.38 GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
means that the canons are to be understood, not primarily in a legalistic way,
but with a view to pastoral efficacy. 24
We have noted that several of the canons consciously depart from what
was known to be the practice of the Roman Church. It is not, then, surpris-
ing that the Roman Church showed some reluctance in endorsing the
canons. Pope Sergius, we have already noted, refused to accept the Trullan
canons, thus incurring the wrath of the emperor Justinian II, despite the fact
that the papal apocrisiarii had signed the acts of the synod. In 705, Justinian,
once again emperor, sent two metropolitans to Rome with copies of the
canons, hoping to persuade Pope John VII (705-7) to accept them, with no
success, though John VII seems in other ways to have been pliant to the
imperial will, modelling depictions of Christ on the form found on Justin-
ian's coinage, and following the 82nd canon over the depiction of Christ.
Pope Constantine I (?08-15), on his visit to the East in 710-n, seems to have
given verbal assent to the Trullan canons, at least those that were not repug-
nant to Western usage. Later in the eighth century, Pope Hadrian I seems to
have accepted the Trullan canons as canons of the "Sixth Synod." Neverthe-
less, as noted earlier, Western acknowledgment of the Trullan canons has
been ambivalent, though more recently there has been a greater readiness on
the part of the Roman Catholic Church to accept the ~cumenicity of the
Trullan canons. 25
One topic not mentioned in the canons of the Trullan synod is heresy.
This is perhaps not surprising given that the purpose of the synod was explic-
itly concerned with disciplinary (or pastoral) matters: heresy was a matter of
doctrine, dealt with by the doctrinal definitions and canons of the recognized
"~cumenical" synods. One, perhaps, needs to make a distinction between
"heresy" as departure from the "orthodoxy" of the imperially convoked syn-
ods-heresy, that is, concerning a proper understanding of the doctrine of the
Trinity or of the Incarnation-and "heresy'' in a less clearly defined sense, as
rejection of the customs and practices, and implied underlying doctrines,
of the Church. Heresy in the former sense-Arianism, Apollinarianism,
Nestorianism, monophysitism-seems to become less of an issue in Byzan-
24
See, though it is concerned with a somewhat narrower copic, John H. Erickson, "The Problem
of Sacramental 'Economy,'" in idem, Tht Chalknge ofour Past, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1991, pp. n5-32.
25 See Vittorio Peri's introduction to the volume The Council in Trullo Revisiled, already cited,
pp.15-39.
tium; iconoclasm, we shall see, is ranked with such as a heresy threatening

the doctrine of the Incamation, but thereafter such controversies are treated
as already settled. Heresy in the latter sense, however, seems to have become
endemic in the Byzantine Empire and to have its roots in the period just dis-
cussed: later accounts maintain that the founder of the Paulician sect, Con-
stantine Silvanus, had been executed (by stoning) under Justinian's father;
and, as already noted, that Constantine's successor, Symeon (who took the
name Titus), had been condemned to death and burnt alive under Justinian
himself. The Paulicians seem to have originated in Armenia, and started as a
movement of reform seeking to revive the Christianity of the New Testament.
Byzantine sources universally identify them with the Manichees, but this
seems most unlikely. We shall encounter the Paulicians in later chapters, but
our knowledge of them is such that we can do little more than register their
existence in the closing decades of the seventh century.
CHAPTER TWO
ICONOCLASM: FIRST PHASE

AND AFTERMATH
T he history of the Church in the East in the eighth and first half of the
ninth centuries is dominated by the iconoclast controversy, that is, the
controversy over the legitimacy of religious art between those who rejected
religious images (Greek eilwn, whence the Anglicized "icon"), called "icono-
clasts," those who wanted to destroy the icons (though in the Greek sources
they are more generally called eilwnomachoi, those who fight against the
icons), and those who defended icons and their veneration: the iconodules
("those who venerate icons") or iconophiles ("those who love icons"). The
religious art involved included more than what are now customarily called
"icons" (i.e., panel paintings), and embraced any kind of artistic depiction:
panel paintings, mosaics, frescos, decoration on sacred vessels and vest-
ments.1 However, it is not just the history of the Church in this period that
was affected by the iconoclast controversy, for the controversy had implica-
tions for the whole fabric of Byzantine society, from the emperor who insti-
gated it, to the relations of the Empire with the West, and maybe also for the
internal organization of the Byzantine world. Or perhaps this should be put
another way: namely, that iconoclasm is one aspect of the way in which the
Byzantine Empire tried to adjust to the changed circumstances of the eighth
century, hemmed in between a powerful Muslim Empire to the east and the
newly forming Western Empire of the Carolingians. The iconoclast contro-
versy also affected the West, both directly, in that Italy, including Rome, was
still part of the Byzantine Empire when Leo III issued his edict requiring the
destruction of icons, and was therefore expected to observe the edict, and
more widely, in that the difficult relationship between Emperor and Pope,
brought about by the policy of iconoclasm, was at least a factor in the weak-
1See the Definition (HorOJ} of the Seventh GEcumenical Synod, quoted on p. 62.
ening of the papacy's political allegiance to the Eastern Empire ofByzantium

and its seeking support from the Frankish rulers in the West: Pepin and his
successors, the Carolingians. Although the iconoclastic controversy affected
the whole of Christendom, both East and West, it affected it in different ways
and to different degrees. In the East, there was persecution, even though our
iconodule sources doubtless exaggerate it, and maybe even (as we shall see)
find iconoclast motives for attacks on Christians, especially monks, that took
place for other reasons; in the West, there was no such persecution, but it
seems that the West, and Rome in particular, became a haven for those, again
especially monks, who were seeking refuge from iconoclasm. 2 There seems,
however, to be a further difference: the iconoclast controversy seems to have
been fought with a far greater intensity in the East than in the West. Th.is was
not, as is sometimes thought, because the West had a radically different theol-
ogy of religious imagery than the East; nonetheless, the West seems not to
have seen the issue of icons in such stark terms as did the East. This, again, is
something that we hope to elucidate in the following pages. There was, how-
ever, a difference between East and West in the way they emerged from the
threat of iconoclasm: in the East, this was celebrated as the Triumph of
Orthodoxy itself, and led to a clearly articulated theology of the icon as an
essential part of the life of the Church, both publicly and in private devo-
tion-something without any real parallel in the West.
Background to the Iconoclast Controversy

Consideration of the background of the iconoclast controversy falls into two,
rather uneven parts. First, there is required some understanding of the role
devotion to icons had come to assume in the life of the Church, especially
in the East. Secondly, there are the immediate historical circumstances, out
of which the policy of iconoclasm emerged. The first of these is more funda-
mental and will thus be treated first.
At the heart of the iconoclast controversy was a question about tradition:
were icons part of the tradition, indeed the apostolic tradition, of the Church,
or were they a later innovation? The iconoclasts were clear that icons were no
part of the apostolic tradition of the Church, but an innovation that had been
2See J.M. Sansterre, Les moines grecs et orientaJ1x aRomea10: ipoques Byzantine et carolingienne, 2 vols.,
Brussels, 1980.
Iconoclasm: First Phase and Aftermath 43
resisted by some, at least, of the Fathers, but which had spread, like a cancer,
throughout the Church. Those who defended the making and veneration of
icons regarded them as an apostolic tradition, to which the Fathers could be
demonstrated as having given their full support. Modern scholarship on this
question has, almost universally, taken the side of the iconoclasts; for most
scholars it is beyond question that icons and their veneration are a late phe-
nomenon in the life of the Church. 3 This is often represented as the triumph
of popular devotion, still in thrall to the polytheistic paganism to which it
had been accustomed, and which found expression for its religious needs in
the cult of the saints and the worship of their images. The Church is seen as
having abandoned the austere aniconism it had inherited from the Jewish
Synagogue, succumbing to the religious customs of the Mediterranean
world, where it had established itself. Of such a caricature of the history of
images in the Church, it needs to be said that the starting point-the aniconic
Jewish Synagogue-is a later development, not something the early Christians
would have been familiar with: the synagogue at Sepphoris in Palestine, one
of the centres of Rabbinic Judaism after the fall of the Temple, and the
famous synagogue at Dura Europos bear witness to that. It is true that the his-
tory of religious art in early Christian worship is unclear in the extreme: the
archa:ological evidence, though scanty, provides evidence for Christian art
quite early on, but the literary texts do not give us enough help in interpret-
ing it. Evidence becomes more abundant from the fourth century onwards,
but that is simply because all evidence of Christian belief and practice
1For the traditional scholarly account, see E. Kiczinger, "The Cult of Images in the Period before
Iconoclasm," Dumbarton Oaks Papm 8 (1954): 85-150. This account bas been sharply criticized, first by
Mary Charles Murray, "Art and the Early Church," journal ofTbtological Studies, NS, z8 (1977): 304-45,
whose argument has been taken further by Paul Corby Finney, Tbt Invisible God: 7ht F.arlitsl Christians
on Art, New York-Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994. This challenge is largdy ignored in the fine
collection of texts: Hans George Thiimmel, Die Friihgtschichtt du ostkirchlichtn Bilderlehrt, Texte und
Untersuchungen 139, Berlin: Akadernie Verlag, 1992. There is no full up-tCKiate account of the icono-
clast controversy. Antbony Bryer and Judith Herrin (eds.), Iconoclasm, Birmingham: Centre for Byzan-
tine Studies, University of Birmingham, 1977, is uneven. There are accounts in Charles Dagron, Pierre
Riche and Andre Vauche2, Eveques, »wines et tmpereurs (610- 1054), Histoire du Christianisme 4, ed. J .
Mayeur et al., Paris: Desclee, 1993, pp. 93-165,J.M. Hussey, The Orthodnx Church in tht Byzantine Empire,
Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1986, pp. 30-68, and Jaroslav Pelikan, The Spirit of Eas/Lm Christendom
(600- 1700), Chicago-London: University of Chicago Press, 1974, pp. 91-145; see also idem, ImagoDei:
Tbt Byzantine Apologiafor Icons, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990. Leslie Brubaker and John Hal-
don, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca 680-850): Tbt 5-0urcts; An Annotated Survry, Birmingham Byzan-
tine and Ottoman Monographs 7, Aldershot: Asbgate, 2001, is a comprehensive survey of sources, an
indispensable prologomenon to any future study.
becomes more abundant once Christianity ceased being persecuted. There is

very little evidence of Christian opposition to religious art as such: the icon-
oclasts adduced texts from Eusebios of Caesarea and Epiphanios of Salamis,
but, even if these texts could simply be accepted as authentic (and in the case
of Epiphanios, in particular, there are problems both of interpretation and
authenticity), it does not amount to very much. Other patristic objections
adduced to Christian art-for instance, Severns of Antioch's objection to
angels being depicted as military generals-are not objections to Christian art
as such.
Nevertheless, it is in the fifth and sixth centuries that we begin to find
plentiful evidence of a developed cult of icons. There are many examples of
images of saints that were sold at sites of pilgrimage, such as the monastery
of St Symeon Stylites at Telanissos in Syria, and the shrine of St Menas in
Egypt; these were presumably used in private devotion. At the shrines them-
selves there were icons, which were often wonder-working; St Theodore of
Sykeon is reported to have been healed as a child from the plague by drops
emerging from an icon of the crucified Christ in a shrine dedicated to St John
the Baptist, and later in life saved from a fatal illness by the healing saints,
Cosmas and Damian, who come out from their icon and treat him. 4 St Mary
of Egypt was called from her life of prostitution by the Mother of God
appealing to her from her icon at the entrance to the Church of the Resur-
rection in Jerusalem. 5 The use oficons of Christ and the Mother of God came
to be used to underwrite the authority of the emperor in the later sixth cen-
tury from the time of Justin II onwards. 6 Cities put their trust in icons and
were not confounded: the most famous example being St Demetrios' defence
ofThessaloniki, where his cult in the church dedicated to him focused on the
icon housed there. 7 The defence of the city of Constantinople is regularly
attributed by chroniclers (e.g., Theophanes) to the Mother of God from the
4 Lifi ofSt Theodore ofSykeon 8 and 39 (in Three Byzantine Saints, trans. by Elizabeth Dawes and Nor-
man H. Baynes, London-Oxford: Mowbrays, 1948, pp. 91f., rr5f).

5LifiofSt Ma,y ofEgypt 23 (trans. Maria Kouli in Alice-Mary Talbot, ed., Holy \.%mm ofByzantium,
Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation I, Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Col-
lection, 1996, p. 82f)
6See Averil Cameron, "Images of Authority: Elites and lcoru in Late Sinh-Century Byzantiurn,n
Past and Present 84(1979): 3-35 (reprinted in eadem, Continuity and Change in Sixth Century Byzantium,
London: Variorum, 1981, XVIII).
7See P. Lemerle, usplus anciensrecueils des miracles de saint Dimltrius, 2 vols., Paris: Editions du Cen-
tre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, 1979-81.
lconodasm: First Phase and Aftermath 45
siege of the city by the combined forces of the Avars and Slavs and the Per-
sians in 626 onwards. 8 It is in memory of the Virgin's assistance in 626 that
the famous troparion (Tn 'YnEgµcxx~) is said to have been composed by the
Patriarch Sergios:
To you, my Champion and Commander, I, your city, saved fi-om disasters,

dedicate, O Mother of God, hymns of victory and thanksgiving; but as
you have unassailable might, from every kind of danger now deliver me,
that I may cry to you, Hail, Bride unwedded!
Apart &om the few texts adduced by the iconoclasts, mentioned above,
there is virtually no evidence of any Christian reaction against veneration of
icons, which tells against any idea that such veneration was a sudden innova-
tion in the sixth century (or even the fourth). The three bishops, to whom
Germanos, the patriarch of Constantinople at the time of the outbreak of
iconoclasm, wrote-John of Synnada, Constantine ofNakoleia, and Thomas
of Claudiopolis-may be not so much evidence of any already existing Chris-
tian tendency to iconoclasm as of a readiness on the part of some bishops to
fall in with the imperial will. The earliest incontrovertible evidence of objec-
tions to the veneration of icons seems to have come in the seventh century
&om Jews, who regarded such veneration as tantamount to idolatry. As there
is little evidence of opposition to icons, so there is little evidence as to how
they were regarded; some reflection on icons is provided by canon 82 of the
Qyinisext Synod, discussed in the last chapter, which lays stress on the real-
ity of the Incarnation, but is otherwise uruevealing. Otherwise there are the
Christian responses to the accusations of the Jews by such as Leontios of
Neapolis, Stephen ofBostra and Jerome ofJerusalem, who rebut the charge
of idolatry by making a distinction between veneration expressing worship
(latreia) and that expressing honour (time) .9
By the time of the outbreak of iconoclasm in 726 or 730, 10 the veneration
of icons seems to have become part of the fabric of Christian devotion,
8
See Theophanes, Chronograpbia, a.m. 6u7 (De Boor 316; Mango/ Scott 447), and cf. a.m. 6165 (De
Boor 354; Mango/Scott 494), a.m. 6209 (De Boor 396; Mango/Scott 545). Later accounts associate this
defence of the city with one or other of the famous icons of the Mother of God kept in Constantino-
ple; the only icon mentioned in the earliest accounts is an icon "made-without-hands" (achtiropoietos)
of Christ: see CyrjJ Mango, "Constantinople as Theotokoupoljs," in Maria Vassi!aki, ed., Mother ef
God: RepmentaJions efthe Virgin in Byzantine Art, Milan : Skira, zooo, pp. 17-25.
9Cf. Thiimmel, Fruhgeschichte, pp. 34o--67.
1
°lhere is a long-itanding dispute as to whether Leo issued a decree in 726, or only in 730, at which
unreflected on, for the most part, simply because it was taken for granted. The
situation in the West seems to be much the same. The case of Serenus of Mar-
seille, who whitewashed the walls of a church because people had venerated
the saints depicted thereon, for which he was censured by Pope Gregory the
Great, is an isolated case, from which nothing very firm can be drawn. It is cer-
tainly going too far to conclude that while the West allowed paintings as
"books for the illiterate," the East on the contrary regarded icons as objects of
devotion. But, just as Peter Brown long ago argued that there was a difference
between East and West in the development of the cult of the saints, in that in
the West the bishops managed to assert their authority and confine the cult of
saints to authorized saints (authorized by them), and further to deceased
saints, so that the cult of saints became a cult of relics, while in the East the
appeal of the living holy man continued, it might be argued that something
similar was the case with the cult of the icon.11 In the West this was controlled
by the episcopal hierarchy, whereas in the East it was not. It is striking, in this
respect, to note that the Seventh Cl&umenical Synod made no direct response
to the iconoclast accusation that icons were not blessed, and therefore not
holy, while in the West Hadrian I was able to affirm that no icons were vener-
ated by the faithful without first receiving a sacred anointing. 12
So much for the veneration of icons before the outbreak of iconoclasm.
The immediate historical circumstances that led to the outbreak of icono-
clasm can be sketched in quite briefly. Justinian II was deposed within a few
years of calling the Qyinisext Synod. The expense of pursuin g his Justinianic
vision-which involved grandiose extensions to the imperial palace-had to
be borne by his subjects, and the ensuing unrest came to a head in 695, when
a revolt led by Leontios, the strategos of the new theme of Hellas, deposed Jus-
point G ermanos the Patriarch resigned. The evidence of the Liber Pontificalis, though confusing, seems
to suggest that Pope Gregory found himself resisting pressure to introduce iconoclasm about 72£,,
which confirms the chronology ofTheophanes and, less clearly, Nikephoros, as well as what seems to
me the stages ofJohn Damascene' s reaction in Palestine as manifest in the different editions of his trea-
tise against Byzantine iconoclasm. See Milton Anastos, "Leo III's Edict against the Images of the Year
726-27 and ltalo-Byzantine Relations between 726 and 730," Byzanlinirche Forschungen 3 (1968): 5-41,
who supports the idea of a formal edict in 726. Others think there was no formal edict until 730: see
J.M. Hussey, 1bt Orthodox Church in tht Byzantine Empire, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 1986, pp. 37-38.
11 See Peter Brown, "Eastern and Western Christendom in Late Antiquity: A Parting of the Ways,"
in The Orthodox Churches and the West, SCH 13, ed. D erek Baker, Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1976, pp. 1-24
(reprinted in idem, Society and the Ho{y in Lau Antiquity, London: Faber and Faber, 1982, pp. 166-95).
12See below, pp. 85-86.
tinian and his close associates: Justinian had his nose cut off (such disfigure-
ment regarded as disqualifying him from the imperial office) and exiled to
Cherson. Leontios declared himself emperor and reigned for three years
before he was himself deposed by Apsimar, droungarios (the naval equivalent
of strategos) of the Kibyrrhaiot theme, who ascended the throne as Tiberios
II. About this time, Justinian managed to escape from his exile in Cherson
and made his way to the empire of the Kbazars, where he married the Khan's
sister, who became a Christian and took the name of Theodora. Despite this,
he was nearly betrayed to the Byzantines by the Khan, but escaped and made
his way to the Bulgarians, where he befriended the Khan, Tervel, whom he
persuaded to besiege Constantinople and restore him to the throne, in return
for tribute. Despite the vast forces of the Khan, Constantinople showed no
sign of falling, until Justinian with a few followers crawled along the pipe of
an aqueduct into the city, where the surprise of their arrival caused Tiberios
to flee, and enabled Justinian to resume the throne. His second reign, as
Rhinotmetos, "with the severed nose," was a reign of terror, which extended
beyond Constantinople to Ravenna and, later, Cherson, the scene of his
exile. The bitterness of his revenge provoked insurrections in Ravenna and
Cherson, and out of the latter uprising emerged an Armenian, Bardanes,
who, with Khazar support, advanced on Constantinople, which opened its
gates to him. Justinian and his son and heir, Tiberios, were murdered, and the
dynasty of Herakleios came to an end. The high hopes of imperial renewal,
evoked by such names as Constantine and Justinian, evaporated in blood-
shed and insurrection.
Bardanes took the name of Philippikos. Perhaps because of his Armenian
background, he was inclined to return once again to the Christological nos-
trums of the preceding century, which had had the purpose of reconciling
Imperial Orthodoxy with the non-Chalcedonians, amongst whom were
numbered the Armenians, and soon called a synod that repudiated the Sixth
Cfficumenical Synod of Constantinople and reinstated the monothelite doc-
trine. The Roman pope, Constantine I, reacted to his action by ordering pic-
tures of all six a::curnenical synods to be set up in St Peter's. Bardanes'
accession to the throne exposed the frailty to which the Byzantine Empire
had been reduced by Justinian. Justinian had reigned with Bulgar support,
and with his deposition the Khan Tervel waged war against the Byzantine
Empire, reaching the walls of the capital, and devastating the land outside.
The Arabs meanwhile began to make incursions into Asia Minor. To repel
Tervel's forces, Philippikos had soldiers brought across the Bosphoros from
the Opsikion theme; but these troops rebelled and Philippikos was deposed
in 713. There followed in rapid succession Anastasios I, a former civil servant,
and Theodosius HI, a former strategos, who was quickly deposed by Leo III,
the strategos of the Anatolikon theme who ascended the throne in 717. The
empire Leo took control over was in a parlous state. Within months of assum-
ing the throne, the brother of the Caliph, Maslama, was before the walls of
Constantinople with an army and a fleet. There ensued a prolonged siege,
which lasted through the winter, the severity of which favoured the Byzan-
tines. Eventually, aided by Greek fire, and the prayers of the Virgin, the
Byzantine forces defeated the Arabs; on 15 August 718, the feast of the Dor-
rnition of the Mother of God, the siege was lifted and the Muslim fleet left
Byzantine waters. But the Arab threat remained. After a lull of a few years, in
every year from 726 the Arabs invaded Asia Minor, besieging cities such as
Caesarea and even Nicaea; only at the end of his life did Leo III achieve a
decisive victory over the Arabs at Akroinon, not far from Arnorion, in 740.
It was in the context of such continued threats to the Byzantine Empire that
Leo III invoked the policy of iconoclasm.
Leo III and the Orthodox Reaction

According to the Byzantine chronicler Theophanes, in the summer of 726
there was a volcanic eruption in the sea between the Cycladic islands ofThera
(Santorini) and Therasia in the Mediterranean, which created another small
island-just as Thera and Therasia had themselves been formed out of a vol-
canic eruption more than 2,000 years earlier. Alarmed by this portent, the
emperor Leo III instigated an attack on the holy icons, beginning with the
icon of Christ that stood above the Chalke, the Bronze Gate that formed
the entrance to the imperial palace in Constantinople. 13 This policy is said
to have provoked unrest in Constantinople itself and an uprising by the peo-
ple of the theme ofHellas (southeastern part of modern Greece, from Euboea
to the Eastern Peloponnese) and the Cyclades, which was defeated before the
walls of Constantinople in 727. The emperor also sought to introduce the
policy of iconoclasm to Italy, but met with the firm resistance of the pope,
13
Theophane5, a.m. 6218 (De Boor 404-5; Mango/ Scott 559).
Gregory II, who condemned iconoclasm in letters to the emperor. His suc-
cessor, Gregory III, called a synod in Rome in 731, which condemned icono-
clasm and excommunicated anyone who caused the destruction of images.
In retaliation, Leo Ill confiscated the papal patrimonies in Calabria and
Sicily, and transferred the ecclesiastical provinces of Calabria, Sicily, and
Illyricum, formerly under papal jurisdiction, to the patriarch of Constantino-
ple. In 730, Leo required the patriarch of Constantinople, Germanos 1, to sup-
port imperial policy. When he refused, he was deposed and withdrew to his
country estates at Platanion. He was replaced by the more compliant Anas-
tasios. The iconodule sources speak of extensive persecution, and see this as
directed not just at the cult of icons, but also at the veneration of relics, and
indeed the cult of the saints itself It is not clear how much of this is to be
credited. Byzantine emperors expected to be obeyed, so it is likely that those
who resisted the imperial will were persecuted, but we have no clear picture
how extensive this was.
A good deal of obscurity surrounds the early period of iconoclasm; it is
even doubted whether there was an icon of Christ above the Chalke. Apart
from the sequence of events, there is no hard evidence as to the motive or
the cause of the policy. Shortly before Leo's introduction of iconoclasm,
there had been an iconoclastic decree issued in the Umayyad Empire by the
caliph Yazid II; there is also arch~ological evidence for the disfiguring of
images ofliving beings, animal and human, in the Middle East at this period,
though it is not clear that there is any connexion between the decree and the
evidence of destruction. 1t hardly seems likely that Leo III-for all that the
Orthodox called him "saracen-minded" -was imitating his Muslim counter-
part. Nevertheless, the political instability in Byzantium before the constant
Muslim threat, manifest in the rapid succession of emperors that had pre-
ceded Leo, may have led Leo to put the blame on the veneration of icons in
the Byzantine Empire, regarding it as idolatry, given the contrasting anicon-
ism of the successful and threatening Muslims. That something like this may
have been the case finds support in the reactions of Leo's policy by the patri-
arch Germanos and the monk of Jerusalem John Damascene, who wrote
denouncing the imperial policy of iconoclasm. For both these writers seem
to be responding to an attack on icons as idols, veneration of the icons being
regarded as contravention of the second of the Ten Commandments against
the making and veneration of icons. The second commandment reads: ''You
shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of anything that is in
heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under
the earth; you shall not bow down to them neither shall you worship them
... " (Exod. 20:4f., translated from the text of the Greek Septuagint). The word
for "bow down" is 11eoaxuvriost<;;, usually translated "venerate," but it refers
to the physical act of bowing down, and is the Greek word used for the act
by which the icons were venerated.
The banning of icons would have dramatically changed the visual scenery
of Byzantine society, both in and outside churches. What it left was the visual
imagery of the imperial cult: the images of the emperor or emperors, and the
sign of the cross, which from Constantine onwards had became very much a
part of the imperial cult. In some cases, the destroyed icons were replaced
with the sign of the cross (for instance, in the apse of the church in Nicaea).
It is hard not to interpret this as an affirmation of the sole authority of the
emperor throughout his domains, by banishing symbols of the authority of
the holy-the holiness of Christ, his Mother, and the saints-an authority that
from the sixth century had been used to underwrite imperial authority, but
which had, perhaps, tended to diminish the authority of the emperor in con-
trast with the more immediately divine authority of the saint, or holy man.
There is evidence suggesting that Leo saw his authority in terms that
encroached on the sacred authority of the Church and the priesthood. He is
said to have asserted, "I am king and priest," 14 and in the preface to the
Ekloga, the law code issued by Leo in 726, he applies to himself the Lord's
command to Peter to feed his sheep (cf. John 21:15-17), though he interprets
this in a way that does not seem to envisage any priestly pretensions. 15 The
easy compliance of the higher clergy (n8 bishops attended the iconoclast
Synod of Hiereia in 4 54-more than for any of the <:ecumenical synods, save
Chalcedon) may have more to it than just that, for the episcopal hierarchy
itself stood to gain from some restriction on the power of the holy in favour
of established authority. 16 But the replacement of images of Christ and the
14
Mansi 12, 975 (= Caspar, ZKG 52, 85, l. 382).
15See the preface to the Ekloga, in Ernest Barker, SocialandPolitica/Tbought in Byzantium, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1957, pp. 82-83. On the whole question of the relationship between Emperor and
Church, see, most recently, Gilbert Dagron, Emperor and Priest: The Imperial Offia in Byzmztium, Cam-
bridge University Press, 2003.
16
See Sebastian Brock's concluding paragraph in his article, "Iconoclasm and the Monophysites,"
in Iconoclasm, eds. Bryer & Herrin, pp. 53-57.
Iconoclasm: First Phase and Aftermath
saints by the symbol of the cross may have had more theological motives.
The cult of the cross had increased in popularity during the seventh century,
after Herakleios' recovery of the relic of the True Cross from Ctesiphon and
his placing it in Constantinople. Here was a visual symbol that laid empha-
sis on divine victory, and as a symbol did not draw attention to the frailty of
the humanity the Son of God had assumed.17
The most comprehensive response to Leo Ill's iconoclasm came from a
Palestinian monk, born in Damascus, who had taken the name John: hence
known as John of Damascus. John was an Umayyad subject, and thus wrote
from a vantage point beyond the emperor's reach. However, although he
wrote from Umayyad territory, he wrote with the consciousness of being a
Byzantine chrnchman, and provides a characteristically Byzantine statement
of the relationship between Church and Emperor. There are three treatises
"against those who attack the holy images" from John's hand; they are, how-
ever, very closely related, the second being (explicitly) a simplified reworking
of the first, and the third a reworking of the first two. Each of the treatises has
attached to it a florilegium, that is, a collection of passages selected from the
Fathers, though in the case of the first treatise (despite the witness of the man-
uscripts, which preserve the florilegia separately) th.is appeal to the Fathers is
an integral part of the treatise, not really an appendix, as with the other two
treatises. It seems, from internal evidence, that the first treatise was composed
immediately on hearing the news of the beginnings of iconoclasm in the
Byzantine Empire in 726; that the second was composed on hearing the news
of Patriarch Germanos' deposition in 730; while the third, together with its
florilegium, both of which are much more systematic, could well be a decade
or so later. What is striking about these treatises, especially the first, which
seems to have been written in the heat of the moment (though with con-
scious-almost self-conscious-rhetorical skill), 18 is both the assuredness with
which John presents his defence of the icons, and his conviction that to attack
the icons is not to attack some peripheral area of Christian devotion, but to
attack the very root of the Christian faith itsel( After his introductory para-
graphs,John cites a series of texts affirming biblical monotheism and the bib-
17
See Charles Barber's compelling discussion in his Figurt am/ Likeness: On the Limits of&presenta-
tum in Byzantint Iconoclasm, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002, pp. 83-105.
18 See Alexander Alexakis, "The Modesty Topos and John of Damascus as a Not-So-Modest
Author," BZ 97 (2004): 521-30.

lical condemnation of idolatry, and then summarizes his faith in the Trinity
and the Incarnation, and already argues, from the Incarnation of the Word,
that, although he cannot "depict the invisible divinity," he can "depict God
made visible in the flesh" (imag. 1.4). 19 Idolatry is, he argues, worshipping the
creature instead of the Creator, and the veneration of icons is far from this,
for two reasons: first, because of what an image is; secondly, because of what
is meant by veneration (or "bowing down").
John goes on to discuss the different kinds of image. First, there is the way
in which the Son is an image of the Father: this is a consubstantial image that
constitutes one of the relationships within the Trinity. Secondly, there are in
God images or paradigms of what he is going to bring about in the world
through his providence; these are something like the Platonic forms or ideas.
Thirdly, we form images from visible things to give us some kind of glimpse
of invisible things; these visible images point us to the invisible realm.
Fourthly, there are images as prefigurations of the future, such as the figures
in the Old Testament that point to the New; for instance, the ark of the
covenant as a prefiguration of the Mother of God. Fifthly, there are images
of the past, either visible memorials or written records that recall the events
and persons of the past. In his expansion of this discussion in the third trea-
tise, John adds human creation in the image of God as a further example.
Icons are the last and the least; but John's point is that images and the use of
imagery are essential to our understanding of anything, from the heights of
divinity to the recollection of the human past. If images are taken away, then
any hope of human understanding goes with it. Iconoclasm is, then, not sun-
ply an attack on a particular devotional practice, but cuts at the root of any
human understanding of the divine, or anything else.
But how do we use images without allowing them to become idols? This
is the subject ofJohn's second discussion: the nature of veneration. Accord-
ing to John, we bow down for various reasons: sometimes we bow down to
express honour for things or persons (and John gives various biblical exam-
ples of this); sometimes, however, we bow down in worship of God. Venera-
tion, bowing down, proskynesis, is one thing; why we do it is another. We can
19 For John's treatises against the iconoclasts, see B. Kotter OSB, Du Schri.fien tks Johannes van
Damaslws, vol. 3, Patristische Texte und Studien 17, Berlin-New York: Walter de Gruyter, r975, and the
English translation : St John of Damascus, Three Trealises on the Divine Images, trans. A. Louth, Popular
Patristics Series, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 2003, from which the quotations are taken.
bow down to express honour (time), or to express worship (latreia, the word
used in Exodus 20:5: "you shall not bow down or worship them ... "). Idola-
try is to worship things created, not simply to honour them. This is the heart
ofJohn's defence of the ma.king and veneration of icons; the two discussions
are set out systematically in the third treatise (3-16-23 : images; 3.24-40 : kinds
and objects of veneration). But many other points are fitted into this defence
of icons. John defends the very materiality of icons, and accuses his oppo-
nents of despising matter, indeed being little different from Manichees, with
their belief that matter is evil:
I do not venerate matter, I venerate the fashioner of matter, who became

matter for my sake and accepted to dwell in matter and through matter
worked my salvation, and I will not cease from reverencing matter,
through which my salvation was worked. (u6)
Matter is to be valued, because God created it, and because God himself
assumed it, in assuming humanity. Indeed, John goes so far as to say that
because of the assumption of material humanity in the Incarnation, "I rever-
ence the rest of matter and hold in respect that through which my salvation
came, because it is filled with divine energy and grace." At the heart of his
case against the iconoclasts lies the truth of the Incarnation: "when the invis-
ible becomes visible in the flesh, then you may depict the likeness of some-
thing seen" (3.8). John also appeals to the cu.It of the emperor's image and the
cross that remained after the despoliation by the iconoclasts. He further
appeals to a passage in St Basil's On the Holy Spirit, which justifies veneration
of the imperial image on the grounds that «the honour offered to the image
passes to the archetype": i.e. in venerating the emperor's image, you are ven-
erating the emperor. That phrase from St Basil occurs repeatedly in John's dis-
cussion of icons, and was to become a favourite of the iconodules. In respect
of veneration of the cross, John remarks, "if therefore we venerate the form
of the Cross, ... how is it that we should not venerate the image of the Cru-
cified One?" (1.55). On the question of the right of the emperor to involve
himself in sacred matters, John is quite uncompromising:
We shall not suffer the custom of the Fathers to be subject to an imperial

constitution that seeks to overthrow it. For it is not for pious emperors to
overthrow ecclesiastical laws. For this is not the way of the Fathers; since
it is piratical for these things to be imposed by force, and they shall not
prevail . . . It was not to emperors that Christ gave the authority to bind
and loose, but to apostles and those who succeeded them as shepherds and
teachers. (1.65)
John's defence o f the O rthodox veneration of icons was extensive and

profound. Strangely, it is n ot clear how widely it became known, either
among the iconoclasts or among those who followed John in defending the
veneration of icons. It was certainly known that he had defended the icons-
his is the most prominent name among those condemned at the iconoclast
Synod of Hiereia-but there does not seem to be much evidence for any
knowledge of the detail of his arguments.
Constantine V and the Synod of Hiereia

Leo III died in 740, and was succeeded by his son Constantine V, who had
been co-emperor with his father for twenty years. There was very soon a rebel-
lion against Constantine, led by his brother-in-law, Artabasdos, who had, as
strategos of the Armeniakon theme, supported Leo III in his bid for the impe-
rial throne. For this he had been rewarded with the hand of Leo's daughter,
been given the title of kouropalates, and been promoted to the position of
count of the Opsikion theme, the large theme in northeast Asia Minor, close
to the capital and of great military importance. Artabasdos was initially suc-
cessful, and Constantine fled from Constantinople. It is said, and indeed it
seems likely, that Artabasdos overthrew iconoclasm, but it is disputed. Con-
stantine made his way to the Anatolikon theme, of which his father had for-
merly been strategos, and there began to form a power base. Eventually in 743,
he advanced on Artabasdos and his supporters, and in the summer over-
whelmed their advance forces . In September, he was before the walls of Con-
stantin op le. After a brief siege he entered the city and wreaked savage
vengeance : Artabasdos and his sons were blinded, some of his supporters
were executed, others mutilated; the patriarch, Anastasios, he had publicly
scourged and paraded in the Hippodrome, sitting backwards on an ass-thus
discredited and humiliated, he was permitted to remain in office.
In political and military terms, Constantine V was an effective emperor.
In relation to the Arabs, this was largely due to political changes in the Arab
Empire. As the 740s progressed, the Umayyad Empire found itself tom by
internal strife, which led to the fall of the Umayyad caliphate; it was replaced
by the Abbasid caliphate, named after the uncle of Muhammad, al-'Abbas,
from whom the new line of caliphs traced its descent. As the Umayyad
caliphate had been established in 66r after victory over the claims of Muham-
mad's son-in-law, Ali, so now the tide had turned, and the caliphate passed
to those who claimed lineage from the prophet. The Abbasids moved the
capital of the Arab Empire from Damascus to Baghdad, close to ruins of the
former Sasanian capital, Ctesiphon. Civil war in the 740s, followed by the
establishment of the Arab capital in former Persia, meant that the pressure
from the Arabs was greatly reduced; even re-established in the Abbasid
Empire, their attention turned rather towards the East. This left the Byzan-
tines no longer on the defensive, and Constantine was able to take advantage
of this. He invaded northern Syria and took Germanikeia, whence his father
hailed, while in the Mediterranean the Byzantines scored victories over the
Arab fleet. Constantine also successfully advanced into Armenia and
Mesopotamia, though he was soon repelled. As the threat of the Arabs dimin-
ished, so that of the Bulgarians increased. During Constantine's reign there
were a series of wars between the Byzantines and the Bulgars, culminating in
the battle of Anchialus, on the shores of the Black Sea, where the Bulgars suf-
fered a heavy defeat. Although defeated, the Bulgars remained a constant
threat to Byzantium, and indeed, because defeated, they became bitter ene-
mies of the Byzantines. Constantine's success in the East went with an
extraordinary neglect of the Byzantine territories in the West, in Italy, but that
is a story we shall tell later.
So far as the Church was concerned, Constantine continued the policy of
iconoclasm, though there is little sign of any active persecution until the call-
ing of a synod in 754 in the imperial palace of Hiereia on the Asian shore of
the Bosphoros, after which the synod is generally known. It called itself an
cecurnenical synod-the seventh-and gave formal synodical support to the
imperial doctrine of iconoclasm. Constantine himself took a lead in the theo-
logical preparations for this synod. In the years before the synod, rather like
Henry VIII in England in the late r53os, he seems to have circulated to the
bishops a series of theological working papers called Inquiries or Peuseis. These
papers, like virtually all the treatises by the iconoclasts, are lost, and can only
be reconstructed from the attacks on them by later iconodule theologians,
notably Nikephoros, the patriarch who was deposed in 815, when iconoclasm
was again introduced, and who, in his retirement, devoted himself to refut-
ing the doctrine of the iconoclasts; in his three Antirrhetici against Constantine
Copronymus20 he dealt with the teaching put forward in the Peuseis. Various,
not altogether consistent, attempts have been made to extract passages of the
Peuseis from the Antirrhetici. 2 1 These Peuseis take the iconoclast case against
the icons on to a much more refined theological level than seems to have
been the case when iconoclasm was introduced by Leo III. The crude charge
of idolatry is muted. Instead are found much subtler forms of argument. First
of all, it seems, there was a discussion about what is meant by an icon or
image, in which it is argued that a true image must be consubstantial with the
one depicted. This cannot be the case with an icon, which is simply material,
whereas Christ or one of the saints is both spiritual and material. But in the
case of Christ, if a true image is consubstantial, then a true image of Christ
must be both consubstantial with the divine and consubstantial with our
humanity. This dilemma Constantine's iconoclast argument presses relent-
lessly, making it turn on questions of Christology. What is it that is depicted
when an artist depicts Christ? If it is the humanity of Christ that is depicted,
then there is implied an understanding of Christ that reduces him to a mere
man (psilos anthropos: a term often used to characterize the understanding of
Christ by adoptionists and Nestorians). The divinity of Christ, however, can-
not be depicted, for it is uncircumscribable; if the divinity were in some way
depicted in the flesh, then the divinity would be reduced to the level of a crea-
ture. The argument is often put in a way that uses the technical language of
Christology. For example:
Since [Christ] has another immaterial nature united to his flesh and exists
as one together with these two natures, and his person or hypostasis is insep-
arable from the two natures, then we cannot suppose that he can possibly
2
D'Jbis epithet for Constantine (meaning "shit-called"), a favouri te amongst the iconodules, per-
haps refers to the sto ry that, d uring his baptism , he defecated in the font (see Theophanes, a.m. 62rr,
de Boor 400, M ango/Scott 551-52), or maybe to the habitual odour of one who spent m uch rime with
his horses: his other epithet was Caballinus ("horsey").
21
See the different attempts in H. Hennephof, ed., Texti Byzanlini ad iconomachiam pertinmtes, Lei-
den: E.J. Brill, 1969, pp. 52.- 57, and in H .-J. Geischer, ed., Der byzantini.sche Bi/dustreit, Texte zur Kirchen-
und Theologiegeschichte 9, Giitersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1968, pp. 41-43. I know of no published English
translation of the Peuseis. The text used of the Peuseis is that compiled by Hmnephof; references, how-
ever, are to the columns of M ansi 12, given in Hennephof, as more generall y useful.
be circumscribed, since what is depicted is one person, and one who cir-
cumscribes that person clearly circumscribes the divine nature, which is
uncircumscribable. (236C)
The iconoclast argument, as presented by Constantine in his Peuseis, is

not, however, a simply negative argument. It offers as a true image of Christ
an alternative to the icon:
[The Lord] commanded his holy disciples and apostles to pass on a type
of his body in reality, through which he might be loved, in order that,
through the priestly leading upwards, which comes about through partic-
ipation and ordinance, we might receive it as genuinely and truly his body.
(333B)
Thus, the consecrated bread and wine is offered as a true image-or type-of
Christ. The iconoclast argument picks up the word typos, which is used in
eucharistic prayers to refer to the eucharist:ic elements. Here, Constantine
argues, is the "image" Christ has given us, as opposed to one made up by an
artist. But it is to be noted how much stress is laid on the priestly involve-
ment in the making of this image or type: it is dia hieratikis anagogis-through
the priestly leading upwards-that this takes place. Or as Constantine argues
further on: "not all bread is his body, just as not all wine is his blood, but
only that which has been lifted up by the priestly rite from that made by hand
to that not made by hand" (337C). The emphasis on priestly involvement
might be expected to appeal to a group of bishops, and is perhaps further evi-
dence of the keenness of the iconoclasts to bring the symbols of the holy
under some institutional control. A further true typos is offered as well: "we
venerate the typos of the cross, because of the one who was stretched upon it"
(425D).
It is the position set forth in the Peuseis that was endorsed by the Synod
of Hiereia. Three hundred and thirty-eight bishops gathered together to
deliberate, under the presidency ofTheodosios, bishop of Ephesos, Anasta-
sios the patriarch having died just before the synod, while his successor, Con-
stantine, was not appointed until the last session of the synod; the synod,
therefore, had no representatives from the patriarchal Pentarchy, as no other
patriarchs or their representatives were present. The acta of the synod do not
survive, but the Definition (the Horos) drawn up by the bishops is preserved
GRE EK EAS T AND LATIN WEST
in the acta of the Seventh CIEcumenical Synod, where it was recited by one
of the bishops who had been present at Hiereia and was refuted, section by
section. 22 The Haros-unusually for a synodical statement-does not simply
present its teaching, but puts forward arguments against icons and their ven-
eration. It begins, however, with an assertion of the duty of the emperors to
cleanse the Church and restore it to its original purity, a task compared to
that of the apostles themselves. The principal argument is the Christological
one, presented in an explicit form: in depicting the image of Christ, the
natures are either separated, and only the human is depicted-which amounts
to Nestorianism-or they are confused, and the resulting confusion depicted-
which amounts to monophysitism (252A-260B). The Definition then presents
the Eucharist as true image of Christ (261D-264C). There follows an assertion
that icons cannot be justified by appeal to the tradition of Christ or the apos-
tles or the church fathers, to which is added the statement that they are not
blessed by any priestly prayer (268B-269D). Only after all this is it maintained
that icons are forbidden by the second commandment (284C-285C). The Def
inition provides a brief florilegium of patristic authorities, beginning with
Epiphanios and ending with the apparently newly discovered letter of Euse-
bius of Caesarea to the Augusta Constantia, and including statements from
other Fathers either directed against idolatry or emphasizing the importance
of imitating the saints by the moral quality of our lives (292D-324E). All this
is then summarized in a series of anathemas, ending with a solemn anathema
against Germanos, George of Cyprus (about whom we know little else), and
John of Damascus, called by his Arab name Mansur, who is anathematised
four times, to the others' once (356CD).
It is often said that the Synod of Hiereia tempered Constantine's attack
on traditional Orthodox doctrine, restricting its approval to his iconoclasm,
and not following him in his rejection of veneration of the Mother of God,
the saints, and their relics. Certainly Nikephoros, and others, ascribe to Con-
stantine a comprehensive rejection of the cult of the saints in all its forms ,23
22Jbe whole of the sixth session, with the Horos of Hiereia, is translated in Sahas, Icon and Logos,
pp. 47-175. Extracts are trarrslated in Deno Jo hn Gearrakoplos, Byzantium: Chitrch, Society, and Civiliz.a-
tion Seen through Cont,mporary Eyes, C hicago-London: University of C hicago Press, 1984, p p . 154--56, arid
in C yril Mango, 77,e Art of the Byzantine Empire312-1453, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986
(originally published in 1972), pp. 165-68. References to the Horos are taken from HennephoPs editio n
(pp. 61-78), but references given are to the columns ofMarrsi 12.
23See Nikephoros, Antirr. 2.4 (PG 100.341A-D).
but nothing is cited from the Peuseis in support of this allegation. Theophanes
also reports Constantine's opposition to the cult of the saints, his destruction
(or attempted destruction) of their relics, in particular the relics of St
Euphemia, 24 and tells a story about Constantine asking the patriarch what is
wrong with the Nestorian title "Mother ofChrist,"25 though all this relates to
a period later than the Hiereian synod. Theophanes also affirmed, though in
less specific terms, that Leo III's iconoclasm was an outright attack on the
cult of the saints in all its forms. 26 Again, lack of evidence prevents any cer-
tainty on the matter. After the synod, those who resisted its decrees suffered
persecution, but the extent of this persecution is not clear, and some of the
evidence is capable of other interpretations. The most famous martyr from
his period was St Stephen the Younger, whose Life was composed by Stephen
the Deacon at the beginning of the ninth century. The Life certainly presents
St Stephen as an iconophile martyr, and contains a striking justification of
the veneration oficons: "The icon is said to be a door, which opens our mind,
created after God, to its inward likeness to the archetype." 27 But the other
accounts of St Stephen's martyrdom-in Theophanes and Nikephoros 28-do
not relate his martyrdom to the Synod ofHiereia, but present it 1ather as part
of Constantine's persecution of the monastic state, St Stephen being pe-
rsecuted as a monk, and as one who encouraged courtiers to abandon the
court and embrace the monastic life. Marie-France Auzepy's careful analysis
of the sources suggests that St Stephen found himself caught up in a court
plot against the emperor, and suffered the consequences. 29 Of Constan-
tine's antipathy to the monastic state, there is ample evidence, including
several accounts of his insulting monks by forcing them to take part in
mock ceremonies of marriage, torturing and killing others, and of similar
actions, approved by the emperor, by Michael LachanodJakon, strategos of the
24Tbeophanes, a.m. 6258 (de Boor 439; Mango/ Scott 007).

25 Tbeophanes, a.m. 6255 (de Boor 435; Mango/ Scott 601).
26Theophanes, a.m. 6218 (de Boor 406; Mango/ Scott 561).
r, Life ofSt Stephen the ¼ungtr 26 (La Vie d'Etiemu leJeunepar Etienne de Diacre, introduction, ed. and
rrans. by Marie-France Auzepy, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 3, Aldershot: Var-
iorum, 1997, p. u2).
2
8Theophanes, a.m . 6257 (de Boor 436-37; Mango/ Scott 6o4); ikephoros, Short History 8t (ed.
Cyril Mango, Dumbarton Oaks Texts to, Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 1990, pp. 154-55).
29See the introduction to her edition of St Stephen's Lift, and also her CHagiographit et l'famo-
dasme Byzantin: Lt ca.s de la Vie d'Etimnt leJeune, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs 5,
Aldershot: Ashgate, 1999.
Armeniakon theme. 30 What lay behind this fury against the monastic state is
unknown. The Empire was severely depopulated, partly the result of endemic
plague since the mid-sixth century, and partly because of the sustained incur-
sions onto imperial territory by Arab forces over many decades, and in the
case of Constantinople, repeated sieges; Constantinople, itself, we are told
had "become almost deserted."31 Constantine attempted to reverse this by
transferring population to the great city. He was also a committed military
emperor. Perhaps both of these concerns led him to look with less than
favour on the monastic state. The extent of his attack on the monastic state
is impossible to determine. The evidence is anecdotal, and how diminished
monasticism became is unknown.
Nicaea II and the Reign ofEirene

Constantine V died in 775 and was succeeded by his son, Leo IV. The policy
of iconoclasm continued but, according to Theophanes, it was softened, and
the new emperor showed himself to be a "friend of the Mother of God and
the monks," and appointed senior bishops from the ranks of the monks. 32 In
780, however, he died, and was succeeded by his ten-year-old son, Constan-
tine VI, who reigned together with his mother, Eirene. There was initial resist-
ance, and an attempt made to depose them in favour of Nikephoros, the
third son of Constantine V, but the plot was discovered, and the perpetrators
banished. Eirene, who came from Athens, in the Helladic theme that had
early on rebelled against Leo III's iconoclasm, was probably from the begin-
ning in favour of the veneration of icons. Iconoclasm had, however, been
imperial policy for half a century, and all posts of authority-in the Church
as well as the State-were held by iconoclasts. But gradually, it seems, the way
was opened for the restoration of the icons. In 784, the patriarch Paul IV
resigned in ill health, and is said to have explained to Eirene that he repented
of having been patriarch, separated from the other patriarchates and anathe-
matized by them, and added that only the calling of an recumenical synod
30See Theophanes, a.m. 6253 (martyrdom of St Andrew Kalybites), 6257 (St Stephen, mock mar-
riage), 6258, 6259, 6262 and 6263 (Lachanodrakon) (de Boor 432, 436-43, 445-46; Mango/ Scott 598,
6o4-n, 614-15).
31 Nikephoros, Short History 68 (ed. Mango 143).
32Theophanes, a.m. 6268 (de Boor 449; Mango/ Scott 620).
could restore the Empire to God's favour. To succeed him on the patriarchal
throne, Eirene appointed Tarasios, her trusted secretary, who was both theo-
logically and politically competent, although still a layman. After his rapid
ascent through the priestly hierarchy and his consecration as patriarch, prepa-
rations were made for an recumenical synod.
Invitations were sent to all the bishops in the Byzantine Empire, includ-
ing the bishop of Rome, Pope Hadrian I, who sent legates to the synod, bear-
ing two letters, one to the imperial couple and the other to Tarasios. These
letters supported the intention of the coming synod to condemn iconoclasm,
and defended the veneration of icons with arguments supported by florilegia
of quotations from the Fathers. Other issues were raised. Hadrian requested
the return of the papal patrimonies confiscated by Leo III, and the restora-
tion of his jurisdiction over Calabria, Sicily and Illyricum; he affirmed the
primacy of Rome in ecclesiastical matters; furthermore he criticized the elec-
tion of Tarasios, a layman, to the patriarchal throne, though recognized him
on account of his orthodoxy, manifest in his acceptance of the six cecumeni-
cal synods and his opposition to iconoclasm. Initially a synod was convoked
in the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople on 31 July 786. This
was, however, broken up by soldiers of the palace guard, faithful to the mem-
ory of Constantine V, who threatened the fathers of the synod with drawn
swords. The next year Eirene had rebellious soldiers of the palace guard trans-
ferred to Asia Minor on the pretence of defending the Empire against the
Arabs, replacing them with soldiers loyal to her, and in September 787 the
synod met again, this time in Nica:a, the site of the First Cl£cumenical Synod.
The principal business of the synod was the condemnation of iconoclasm
and the proclamation of the orthodoxy of the veneration oficons.33 The con-
demnation of iconoclasm took place at the sixth session, when Gregory,
Bishop ofNeocaesarea, one of the few bishops present who had participated
in the Synod of Hiereia, was subjected to the humiliation of reading out the
Horos of that synod, paragraph by paragraph, each paragraph being refuted
by a text (maybe written by Tarasios), read out by a Sicilian deacon, Epiphan-
ios. Several of the other sessions considered the texts of the Fathers that could
be cited in favour of the veneration of icons: texts that were not simply read
33Qn Nicaea II, see F. Bcespflug and N. Lossky, eds., Nicie II 7&j-r98-J, Douze siecks d'images
rdiguuses, Paris: Editions du Cerf, 1987; and for its theology, Ambrosias Giakalis, Images ofthe Divine:
1be TT,eo!ogy ofIcons aJ the Seventh Ecumenical Council, Leiden : E.J. Brill, 1994.
out from florilegia, but verified from the codices of the writings of the Fathers
themselves, to ensure that they were not taken out of context. In contrast to
the Synod of Hiereia, the Synod of Nica:a follows the traditional synodical
practice of affirming the faith and condemning error, rather than embarking
on argument. The central argument of the iconoclast synod, from Christol-
ogy, is dismissed as "empty talk," "shameless polemic," and countered with
an affirmation of the reality of the Incarnation and the distinction between
an icon and that which it represents. The idea of the Eucharist as the true
image of Christ is met with an accusation that the iconoclasts endanger the
doctrine of the real presence by calling the consecrated bread merely an
"image" of the Body of Christ. The argument that icons cannot be holy,
because they are not blessed, simply the products of the artist's craft, is met
with an affirmation that many sacred things do not need a prayer, while the
making of icons is "not an invention of painters but an accepted institution
and tradition of the catholic Church." 34 The Haros of the Seventh OEcumeni-
cal Synod itself affirms the truth of the veneration of icons in these terms:
We declare that, next to the sign of the precious and life-giving cross, ven-
erable and holy icons-made of colours, pebbles, or any other material that
is fit-may be set in the holy churches of God, on holy utensils and vest-
ments, on walls and boards, in houses and in streets. These may be icons
of our Lord and God the Saviour Jesus Christ, or of our pure Lady the holy
Mother of God, or of honoured angels, or of any saint or holy man. For
the more these are kept in view through their iconographic representation,
the more those who look at them are lifted up to remember and have an
earnest desire for the archetypes. Also that one may render to them the
veneration of honour: not the true worship of our fuith, which is due only
to the divine nature, but the same kind of veneration as is offered to the
form of the precious and life-giving cross, to the holy gospels, and to the
other holy dedicated items. Also that one may honour these by bringing
to them incense and light, as was the pious customs of early [Christians];
for "the honour to the icon is conveyed to the archetype." Thus, one who
venerates the icon venerates the reality of the one depicted on it ... 35
34 Mansi, 12.252.B; translation in Sahas, Icon and Logos, p. 84.

35Mansi 377DE; text in Geischer, op. cit., p. 57 (Sahas 179, somewhat modified).
There is little here of the profound iconodule theology of the Damascene

(though the refutation of the iconoclast Horos does begin by asserting the
doctrine of human creation in the image of God), 36 but that is the way of syn-
odal definitions. There may, however, be a further reason for the cautious
endorsement of the veneration of icons by the synod: the need to secure gen-
eral agreement from a body of bishops, most of whom would have been
appointed by iconoclast emperors. Tarasios was clearly keen to be concilia-
tory: former iconoclasts were simply required to repent, including the few
bishops who had been present thirty or more years before at Hiereia. Tara-
sios' leniency was not universally welcomed; there were those who would
have preferred a harsher policy, among them monks, including one who was
to become known as St Theodore of Stoudios, ordained priest by Tarasios in
the year of the synod. Tarasios' policy, however, doubtless weakened the icon-
oclast resistance to the policy of Eirene.
Eirene's son was growing up, and by the end of the decade he sought to
claim the imperial throne for himself. To begin with, however, Eirene seemed
only to strengthen her position and in 790 nearly secured recognition of what
had been fact for a decade: her position as senior ruler. This was accepted by
the army in the capital, but in Asia Minor the thematic armies were more
reluctant to accept her claims, and by the end of the year with their support
Constantine VI was declared sole emperor. Within two years, Eirene was
back, as co-emperor with her son. Her return coincided with a tum for the
worse in relations with Bulgaria. Constantine had sought to meet the threat
of the Bulgarians by military engagement, but in 792 the army was defeated
at the frontier fortress ofMarkellai, the emperor fleeing and several of his gen-
erals being captured. This, and the return of Eirene, provoked a further
attempt to secure the throne for the emperor's uncle, Nikephoros. Constan-
tine acted first: Nikephoros was blinded and his other four uncles mutilated.
This provoked further rebellion, which Constantine met with extreme cru-
elty. Matters were compounded when Constantine fell in love with a lady at
court called Theodote, and divorced his wife Maria, in order to marry her.
Tarasios refused to conduct the marriage, but allowed one of the clergy of
Hagia Sophia, Joseph the Oikonomos, to perform the ceremony (or at least
did not prevent him). The marriage was exceptionally splendid and Theodote
was crowned empress. All this was greeted with dismay in orthodox circles,
36
Mansi 213E-216A (Sahas 57).
nowhere more so than by a group of monks led by Plato, the abbot of the
Sakkoudion monastery in Bithynia, and his nephew Theodore, whose cousin
Theodote was. Constantine banished the recalcitrant monks, but the so-called
Moechian controversy (&om the Greek moicheia, adultery) was to have long-
lasting consequences.
Constantine's unpopularity increased to such an extent that, on 15 August
797, at the orders of his mother, Constantine was blinded in the Purple
Chamber where he had been born, and sent into exile. Eirene was now the
sole Autocrator in her own right. Her methods of government met with lit-
tle success. To gain popularity, she granted tax concessions, especially to
monasteries and the people of the capital. In 798, she invited Theodore, since
794 the abbot of the Sakkoudion monastery in succession to his uncle, to
bring his monks to the capital and re-establish the Stoudios monastery, just
inside the Golden Gate in the city walls. Theodore accepted the challenge
and in the course of the next decade established a large monastic commu-
nity, extending the buildings and bringing into effect a monastic reform. This
reform was to have a lasting effect on Byzantine monasticism, and indeed on
Byzantine culture more generally, but that story belongs to part II. The insta-
bility of Eirene's government was not simply due to the circumstances of her
acquisition of power. (Theophanes, who has little good to say about her,
seems to suggest that Constantine's marital behaviour was, to some extent,
engineered, or at least exploited, by his mother.) Constantine had left the
Bulgarian frontier in a weak state; the Byzantines could only secure peace at
the cost of paying tribute. The Abbasid Empire, now at its height under the
Caliph Harun al-Rashid, had once again turned its attention to the Byzan-
tine Empire. To the West, the Carolingian Empire was approaching its height,
and a woman on the imperial throne lent legitimacy to the Western claim
that the imperial throne was vacant, making way for the claim that the
Empire of the Romans could be reconstituted under Charlemagne, crowned
Emperor of the Romans by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day, 800. An offer of
marriage between Charlemagne and Eirene, "re-uniting East and West once
more," was made in 802, but was thwarted by a palace revolution that
deposed Eirene in favour of Nikephoros I, former logothete of the treasury.
Eirene went into exile and soon died.
Despite this somewhat damning record, the Orthodox Church has pre-
served fond memories of Eirene. She is remembered for her piety, manifest
in her part in the restoration of the icons and her opposition to her son's
divorce and second marriage, in her support for and encouragement of the
monks, especially the monks of St John ofStoudios, who benefited from the
tax concessions that contributed to the ruin of the Empire. In a surviving let-
ter addressed to her, St Theodore speaks in fulsome terms of her faith, her
charity, and her ability to raise her "most pure mind to contemplation of the
very heights of the truth." 37 She is naturally acclaimed in the Synodikon of
Orthodo:,ry, which celebrates the final restoration of the icons in 843, and she
came to be included among the imperial saints. We need to recall that our
sources present Eirene in an exceedingly hostile light, mostly because she was
a woman who dared to exercise imperial authority in her own right; this is
especially true of the most important of these sources, the Chronicle of Theo-
phanes, who, we have already noted, is consistently negative in his attitude
to imperial women. 38
Some general reflection on the course of the first period of iconoclasm is per-
haps in order, especially as a narrative account, such as we have given,
inevitably focuses on the main players-emperors (and an empress) and patri-
archs-and thus gives the impression that iconoclasm was imposed, or
rejected, from the top down. To a large extent that impression is justified:
iconoclasm was indeed introduced and renounced as imperial policy. The
motives behind such imperial policy, as we have remarked, are hard to dis-
cern. It seems that Leo III introduced iconoclasm because he came to see the
veneration of icons as idolatry, invoking God's displeasure, manifest in the
parlous state of the Byzantine Empire. Constantine V both rectified the sit-
uation in legal terms by securing the support of an imperial, that is "cecu-
rnenical," synod, and elevated the question of icons theologically by drawing
on the Christological decisions of earlier synods to argue that icons of Christ
were impossible. The (temporary) restoration of icons and their veneration
under Eirene is equally puzzling. Although the icons were-both on this occa-
sion and after the revival of icons in the ninth century-restored by an
empress, it is not easy to render more than interesting the suggestion that this
371beodore of Stoudios, Ep. 7 (Fatouros, 1.24}.

38For fuller accounts of Eirene, see Garland, Byzanline Empresses, pp. 73-94, and Herrin, \~mm in
Purple, pp. 51-129.
has something to do with any peculiarly feminine devotion to icons. Nor is

the opposition between iconoclast soldiers and iconodule monks-occasion-
ally advanced-a suggestion that can be pursued very far. Paradoxically, the
very success of the iconoclast emperors, Leo III and Constantine V, in put-
ting the Empire back on its feet may have contributed to the restoration of
icons, for the restoration of God's favour may have rendered less plausible
the scapegoating of icon veneration. Similarly, Constantine V's elevating the
theological level of the discussion of icons may have also contributed to the
eventual success of the iconodules, for his argument against the very possi-
bility of icons seemed to prove too much-to demonstrate, indeed, the
impossibility of the Incarnation itself (as Theodore the Stoudite was later to
argue forcefully). So it may have been that iconoclasm lost the theological
argument; certainly, as we shall see, in the second phase of iconoclasm the
iconoclasts seem to fall back on the old arguments, while it is the iconodules
who break new theological ground. But behind all these considerations lay
the powerful presence to the east of the vast Islamic Empire. In some way,
not easily discerned, iconoclasm was a way of negotiating the catastrophe
experienced by the Byzantine Empire as a result of the rise of the Umayyads.
With the fall of the Umayyads and the rise of the Abbasids and the change
from an empire with its capital in Damascus looking west to devour the rest
of the Byzantine Empire to an empire with its splendid new capital in Bagh-
dad, looking east for expansion and wealth, the pressure was off the Byzan-
tines, and they reverted to ingrained ways of thought and devotion. That
being the case, the resurgence of iconoclasm in the ninth century becomes
little more than an echo of the first phase of iconoclasm, with perhaps a
somewhat different agenda so far as the Christian West was concerned. For
iconoclasm and Nicaea II had had repercussions in the West, which had
responded rather differently from the East. To this topic we now turn.
CHAPTER THREE
THE C HURC H IN THE WEST
T he history ofWeste~ E~rope in the eighth century is overshadowed by

the rise of the Carolmg1ans; at the end of the eighth century the only
part of Christian Western Europe that was not part of the Carolingian Empire
was the British Isles. By then the Carolingian Empire, together with the areas
under Frankish control, incorporated the whole of modern-day France, Ger-
many, the Low Countries, Austria, Switzerland, Bohemia in the Czech
Republic, western Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia, together with
Italy north of Naples, Corsica, and most of Catalonia and Navarre in the
northeast of Spain. Much of this expansion took place during the long reign
of Charles the Great-Charlemagne-who reigned from 768, when he was
twenty, to his death in 814 . This legacy is still palpable today in the tensions
of identity manifest in the European Union. The significance of Charle-
magne's Empire is not simply to be grasped in terms of quantity, though size
and consequent power and wealth provided a strong undergirding for any sig-
nificance it claimed. The magnitude of the Empire came to have profound
cultural implications, focused on the court of the emperor, and made
inevitable a reorientation of the Church in the West, with fateful conse-
quences.
The Rise of the Carolingians

The story of the rise of the Carolingians is well known, but needs to be briefly
related here. The Franks embraced Christianity, in its Catholic form (in con-
trast to the Arianism of most of the barbarian tribes), at the end of the fifth
century, under their king, Clovis (or Louis). The Frankish realms were there-
after ruled by kings belonging to the Merovingian dynasty. Like most of the
barbarian kingdoms that appeared in the Western Roman Empire, they inher-
ited something of the administrative structure of the Roman Empire, and
67
could claim to rule as representatives, in some way, of the true Roman

emperor, who resided in New Rome, Constantinople. This understanding
was fictional in several respects: the Roman or Byzantine emperor had no
choice over his Merovingian representative in Gaul and, although taxes were
still being collected, the dynamics of political society in the West were chang-
ing in the direction of a society ruled by military warlords, who gave protec-
tion to those who lived in their domains and rewarded their followers with
booty from fighting amongst themselves, and further afield, and who
accepted the overlordship of the Merovingian kings. The fiction was
nonetheless significant, not least in the way it articulated political legitimacy
in terms of the ideals of the Roman Empire. From the end of the sixth cen-
tury onwards, the rule of the Merovingian dynasty became increasingly theo-
retical, as the chance of succession led to the reign of child kings and others
unable to exercise direct power. Power passed to those at court who sup-
ported them, particularly to those known as the "mayors of the palace." The
early seventh century saw a succession of powerful mayors of the palace pow-
erful enough to secure succession for their relations. Charles Martel ("the
Hammer") was mayor of the palace from 714 until his death in 741, during
which period he consolidated the Frankish realms under his rule, and
extended his power eastward as far as Bavaria. Most significantly, perhaps, he
turned back the advance of the Muslims, who having established themselves
in southern Spain at the beginning of the eighth century had begun to cross
me Pyrenees and encroach on Frankish territory. In 732 or 733 at Poitiers,
Charles Martel won a decisive victory over the Muslim armies. Charles Mar-
tel was succeeded by Pepin the Younger, who in 751 put to Pope Zacharias the
famous question whether it was a good thing that the Merovingian kings had
no real power. Encouraged by the pope's response, Pepin deposed the last
Merovingian king, Childerich III, and declared himself king. This declaration
was given a religious aura by being accompanied by a ceremony of anointing
with holy oil, a ceremony borrowed immediately from the Christian Visig-
othic kings of Spain, but more fundamentally from the Old Testament, with
its anointed kings. This ceremony was repeated in 754, when Pepin, now free
from any sibling challenge to his authority after the death of his elder brother
Carloman, had himself and his sons, Charles (Charlemagne) and Carloman,
anointed by Pope Stephen. From the beginning, the Carolingian claim to
royal power implicated the papacy, the pope himself being keen to enlist the
The Church in the West
rising (or established) power in Francia to defend him against the power of
the Lombards in Italy, given that the Byzantines, as we shall see, were unwill-
ing (because of the pope's refusal to endorse iconoclasm) or (in reality)
unable to offer him protection.
When Charlemagne came to power in 768, he inherited a powerful con-
solidation of Frankish power. After 771 with the death of his elder brother
Carloman, Charlemagne became sole Frankish ruler. The next three decades
saw campaigns every year, almost all of them successful, the most notable
defeat being the campaign against the Spanish Moors in 778, celebrated in
the twelfth-century poem The Song of Roland. This extension of power and
consequent accumulation of wealth culminated in the conquest of the Avars
in 796 and the acquisition of their immense hoard of booty and plunder,
built up over hundreds of years.
Early on in his reign, Charlemagne was able to use his power in support
of the papacy, facing the hostile encroachments of the Lombard kingdom as
it sought to expand towards the south. In this he followed the example of his
father, Pepin, who in 754 and again in 756 had gone to the support of the
papacy and defeated the Lombard king, though without restoring to the
papacy all the territory it claimed. Pepin had been rewarded for his support
of the papacy by receiving the title patricius Romanorum. In 774 Charlemagne
achieved a more decisive victory over the Lombards, deposing their king and
establishing himself as rex Francorum et Langobardorum-king of the Franks
and the Lombards. No more than his father, however, did he satisfy the
pope's demands for the restoration of territory acquired by the Lombards,
save in insignificant ways. The relationship between Charlemagne and the
pope was a complex one, each side seeing in this relationship a way of advanc-
ing its own interests. Charlemagne found himself dealing with two popes,
both of whom had relatively long reigns: Hadrian I (772-95) and Leo III
(795-816). The aim of the popes was to secure as much independence as was
possible consonant with their comparative lack of political power. The aim
of Charlemagne and his court was less well defined, though it included a nat-
ural reluctance to relinquish any more power than was necessary. How far
their policy envisaged the papacy as a way of securing a legitimate claim to
the authority of the Roman imperi1,m, involving a direct challenge to the
authority of Constantinople, is less clear, though when the chance presented
itself, it was seized with alacrity.
That chance came in 800. Pope Leo III had been elected in 795 and, like
his predecessors, had announced his election to Charlemagne and acknowl-
edged his suzerainty. Leo was a man of humble Italian background who had
risen through the papal chancery, in marked contrast to his predecessor,
Hadrian, who had hailed from the Roman aristocracy. His election was
resented by the aristocracy, and in 799, he was seized by a mob, deposed and
imprisoned in a monastery. From there he escaped and made his way to
Charlemagne at Paderbom, who received him as pope. Supporters of the
rebels also arrived at the court, making accusations against Leo in justifica-
tion of his deposition. Charlemagne was placed in a difficult position, for, as
his adviser Alcuin reminded him, no earthly power could sit in judgement
on the apostolic see. The matter was eventually settled when Charlemagne
visited Rome at the end of 800, where he was received as patricius Romanorum
with the dignity due to an emperor. The pope's declaration, on oath, of inno-
cence was accepted by a synod of Roman and Frankish dignitaries, presided
over by Charlemagne, and Leo's position as pope confirmed, without any-
one sitting in judgment on him. The conspirators were condemned to death,
on Leo's intercession commuted to exile. Two days later, on Christmas Day,
25 December, at the beginning of the third mass of Christmas, Pope Leo
solemnly crowned Charlemagne "Emperor of the Romans" to the acclama-
tion of those present, and made formal obeisance to him (the first and last
time any Western emperor was thus honoured by a pope). Both pope and
emperor gained from this action: Charlemagne was acknowledged as, not just
a king-of the Franks, Lombards or whomever- but as emperor of the
Romans, the successor of the emperors of the Roman Empire (thereby chal-
lenging the authority of the emperor in Constantinople, at that time,
uniquely, a woman, the Empress Eirene, whose claim could be held to be
compromised by her sex), while the pope insinuated himself as the one on
whom any claim to the imperial dignity depended-a claim that came to be
accepted in the West, in the "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation"
that a century or so later claimed succession from Charlemagne and lasted
until finally extinguished by Napoleon in 1806. Thus was formally established
the Carolingian Empire.
The Church in the West 71
The Church under the Carolingians

Charlemagne had clear, though traditional, ideas about the relationship
between political authority, imperium, and priestly power, sacerdotium. In his
response to Leo's announcement of his election as pope in 795, he affirmed
that, while it was the duty of the earthly ruler to defend the Church and pro-
mote the faith, it was the duty of the pope and the clergy, like Moses, to lift
their hands in prayer for the realm and for victory over its enemies. Charle-
magne's capitularies-decrees set out in a series of chapters (capita)-issued
after his coronation as emperor show how seriously he took his part in this.
This was, however, a traditional understanding of the relationship between
imperium and sacerdotium, not essentially different from the way the Christian
East saw the relationship between ~ocmAEto: and foecirnuµcx. Charlemagne's
reforms in the capitularies therefore built on what was already current, rather
than representing any fundamental change. How then did Charlemagne
envisage the Church and set about protecting it?
We have already noticed that in the West the Church had come to fulfil
a role in political administration as one of the more enduring organizations.
Bishops were figures of local authority, and had come to exercise a role in
local government and the administration of justice. The organization of the
Church into provinces meant that there were figures who could command
respect and authority over large areas throughout the Frankish realms:
namely, those bishops called metropolitans, who came in the West to be
named archbishops. Again, as we have seen, this was not just a matter of
nomenclature, for the pope claimed the right to appoint archbishops, and
personally to confer the pallium, the emblem of archiepiscopal dignity. This
right, without being denied, was not always, or even often, accepted in its
fullest sense, either in practice (popes were often presented with a fait accom-
plz) or in its implications for archiepiscopal authority (archbishops did not
always see their authority as simply deriving from the pope). Bishops and
archbishops, especially, were men of importance, and it was therefore a mat-
ter of concern to the emperor who they were. Technically they were elected
by cathedral chapters-the canons who ran the cathedral. But, in practice, the
opinions and needs of those with political responsibility were respected-
from local magnates, through representatives of the emperor (counts and
dukes), to even, in important cases, the emperor himsel( Something similar
was true of the appointment of abbots, particularly of the larger or more

wealthy monasteries. Here, again, various interests were involved: those of
the monks, who sometimes had-at least theoretically-the right to elect (for
instance in communities that followed the Benedictine rule), those of the
founder and his family, and then those of the emperor or other powerful fig-
ures (these last two groups often overlapped). We know too little about prac-
tice in detail (and what we do know often relates to problem cases), but it
seems likely that for the most part a modus vivendi was achieved in which the
various interests were represented. In future, from the eleventh century
onwards, claims were to be made, and acknowledged, at least in theory, for
the exclusive right of the Church (in practice, the clergy) to determine eccle-
siastical appointments. From that perspective, the Carolingian Church seems
very much under the control of the emperor and his representatives, but the
reality was probably more complicated.
The Church was important to the emperor primarily, at least to judge
from explicit assertions such as Charlemagne's reply to Pope Leo III, because
ofits power to prevail with God through its intercession. How important that
was to the perceptions of the Carolingians themselves is evident from the
capitularies concerned with monastic reform, where the peace and prosper-
ity of the Empire is related directly to the purity of the prayers of the monks.
But the Church was clearly important in ways that we might regard as more
practical: as a power for unity and political stability, as a force for domestic
and social harmony, as a break on lawlessness and civil strife. How far this is
true at the level of local communities is simply something beyond our per-
ception. At a more formal level, it seems that it would be some centuries
before the Church in the West began to determine matters like marriage law,
where the Church only began to flex its muscles in the eleventh century. This
is in some contrast to the Byzantine East, where marital irregularity could
spell disaster, or serious trouble, for an emperor (e.g., Constantine VI or Leo
VI); Charlemagne himself had twenty acknowledged children by five wives
and six concubines. 1
The spread of Christianity went hand-in-hand with the expansion of the
Carolingian Empire, which took place mostly towards the north (Saxony)
1Cf. Alessandro Barbero, Charkmagne: Faibtr of a Continent, Berkeley: University of California
Press, 2004, p. 139. I have found this book very useful for Charlemagne, as also Matthias Becher, Charle-
magne, New Haven: Yale University Press, 200_3.
The Churd1 in the West 73
and the east (Bavaria and Pannonia). This is vividly the case with the expan-
sion of the Empire among the Saxons. In 772, Charlemagne destroyed the
Irrninsul, the giant tree held to be the axis of the world and the support of
heaven, a central shrine for the Saxons, and his notorious capitulatio de part-
ibus Saxoniae threatened the death penalty to those who refused baptism, or
destroyed churches, or plotted against Christians, or broke a royal oath, or
violated rules about paying tithes and fasting. How, exactly, Christian mis-
sion and imperial expansion went together is another matter. The extant
accounts generally give the impression that Christian mission followed or
closely accompanied imperial expansion, but, as we have already seen, the
traditional accounts of Christian mission need to be read with care, and such
careful reading tends to suggest that the great missionaries whose Lives have
come down to us were not engaged in primary mission-preaching to and
converting pagans who knew nothing of Christianity-but rather building on
the work done by their unnamed predecessors. The existence of Christianity
amongst the Saxons was as much a reason for imperial expansion among
them as the need to fulfil the dominical command to take the gospel to the
nations. Nonetheless the establishment of Christianity in newly conquered
lands was part of what was involved in the expansion of the Empire, and that
meant the foundation of dioceses and monasteries, and the provision of
priests and monks. Tolerance of paganism was not an option. The settlement
of monasteries and cathedrals meant the spread, not simply of Christianity,
but of a literate culture, indeed a Latin culture.
In 795, Charlemagne established his winter palace at Aachen, or Aix-la-
Chapelle, possibly because of hot springs there in which Charlemagne could
indulge his passion for swimming, and also the extensiYe forests to the west
where he could hunt. Aachen became the centre, too, for a court culture in
which the plans for the reformation of Church and Empire were drawn up,
especially after the accession to imperial dignity in 800. At the heart of this
was the creation, or re-creation, of a genuine Latin culture, for Latin had been
the language of the Scriptures and the liturgy since the third century (before
that Greek had been used in several parts of the West-the Rhone Valley, and
even Rome), and without it the essential role of the Church, pondering and
proclaiming the divine truth of the gospel, praying and praising God, could
not be accomplished. This learned court culture was older than the court at
Aachen; indeed by the time that court was established many of the scholars
associated with the Carolingian court had either left or were shortly to leave:
Paulin us to Aquileia in 787, Peter to his home town of Pisa by 790, Paul the
Deacon to Monte Cassino by 787, Theodulf to Orleans by 797, Alcuin to
Tours in 796. Yet again, we see the development of something with deep roots
rather than something new. The promotion of purer Latin through study and
education meant revived interest in the Latin classics, leading to the practice
of literature itself: the poetry of the Carolingian court, letters, histories, and
Lives, not least the Life of Charlemagne himself by Einhard. The use of Latin
models-in the case of Einhard's Life not traditional Latin hagiography, such
as Sulpicius Severus' Life ofMartin, but Suetonius' Lives ofthe Twelve Caesars-
gave imaginative substance to the revival of the Roman Empire implicit in
Charlemagne's imperial title. But it also gave the renaissance, which was to
continue into the ninth century, a literary orientation: recourse to texts, pri-
marily the text of the Scriptures, but also of the Fathers of the Church, and
the conciliar tradition that had largely bypassed the Latin West since the fifth
century. A particular example of this literary orientation may be the attempt
to direct monastic reform in accordance with a text, namely the Rule of St
Benedict, which became the guiding Light of the monastic reform led by
Benedict of Aniane, something also that belongs to the next century, and a
later chapter.
None of this would have been possible without education. So far as
higher education was concerned, the Frankish court itself seems to have led
the way, initially under the guidance of an Englishman from York, Alcuin.
But the educational system required a much broader base, and Charlemagne
sought to ensure, through his capitularies, that this was so. Monasteries and
cathedrals were required to provide instruction in reading for children of all
classes, and further in the psalms, chant, the computus (for establishing the
date of Easter) and grammar. Those who could read needed texts, and such
texts needed to be accurate, so another concern of the "reform" was the pro-
vision of accurate texts through scholarship and the provision of scriptoria,
where such texts could be copied. To see that all this took place, Charlemagne
instituted missi, his representatives, usually sent in pairs, one clerical, one lay,
to see that the reforms set out in bis capitularies were being put into practice.
How effective this was is another matter.
The Papacy in the Eighth Century

The development of the papacy is one of the most striking features of the first
Christian millennium, and the result of that development a dominating fea-
ture of the second Christian millennium. Several different strands were
involved in that development, and their coming to be woven together a
lengthy process. It is, so far as vocabulary is concerned, an anachronism to
speak of the "papacy" in the first millennium, as the Latin word papatus was
only coined at the beginning of the second millennium, though it was coined
to designate a reality that by then certainly existed. In the first millennium,
for the most part, the reality to which the later term "papacy" refers is not so
much the pope himself as the Church of Rome, over which the pope
presided. What was developing were the claims made for the Church of
Rome, rather than for the pope personally, though these claims were, of
course, exercised by the pope, nfJ.nnCJ.r,,papa, as the bishop ofRome was called
from the fourth century onwards (the term had been earlier used, and is still
used, both as a term for any priest in the Greek East, and from the third cen-
tury as one of the titles of the bishop of Alexandria). The central feature of
these claims, for the first millennium, concerned the position occupied by
the Roman see in the structure of the worldwide ("cecumenical" was the con-
temporary term) Church. As early as the First CIEcumenical Synod of Nicaea
in 325, there had emerged an ecclesiastical structure, modelled on the provin-
cial structure of the Roman Empire (then in the process of reorganization),
in which certain named sees exercised some wider authority. Corresponding
to the civil provinces were ecclesiastical provinces, consisting of all the epis-
copal sees of the province, under the leadership of a metropolitan bishop-
the bishop of the provincial capital-who was to call synods twice a year and
exercised general oversight in the appointment of bishops (canons 4-5). 2
Canon 6 concerns the wider authority commanded by the three named sees:
Alexandria, Rome and Antioch. The original intention was probably to set-
tle some dispute concerning the authority that Alexandria had traditionally
exercised over a group of civil provinces (Egypt, Libya and Pentapolis), citing
the parallel examples of Rome and Antioch. Gradually it came to be under-
stood as outlining a higher level of ecclesiastical authority, exercised over
groups of provinces: an authority exercised by sees that came to be called
2 For the canons of icaea I, see Tanner, Decnts oftht Ecumenical Cowu:ils, pp. 6-16.
patriarchates. To the three mentioned in the Nicene canon, Constantine's

new capital, Constantinople or New Rome, was added by canon 3 of Con-
stantinople I (381), 3 confirmed by canon 28 of Chalcedon, which also granted
the see of Jerusalem some sort of equivalent, though honorary, status. 4
Canon 3 of Constantinople implied, and canon 28 of Chalcedon made
explicit, that Rome's pre-eminence was due to its being an imperial city, for
which reason the new imperial city, Constantinople, was to be granted simi-
lar dignity: equal privileges and second place after Rome. Thus evolved what
came to be called the principle of the Pentarchy, the authority of the five
patriarchal sees.
Rome, famously, refused to accept the canons of Constantinople I and
Chalcedon that ranked Constantinople after her in dignity. This was partly
because it was an innovation that threatened her sense of her own supremacy,
but more deeply it was because of the grounds implied for her own primacy,
namely being the imperial city, for Rome had never justified any of its claims
in terms of its civil pre-eminence, rather it had argued that its pre-eminence
rested on its status as an unequivocally apostolic see, claiming not only Peter,
who had founded the see, but also Paul, who had died there, as Peter had, a
martyr's death. The term "apostolic see," apostolica sedes, was first used by
Pope Darnasus (366-84). It was, therefore, a spiritual authority, derived from
the apostles, and particularly from St Peter, that Rome claimed. What this
authority entailed was less clearly defined and not universally accepted.
Already Pope Damasus' successor, Siricius, had claimed that no bishop was
to be appointed without the knowledge of the "apostolic see," though
whether this claim was as universal as it seemed, or just applied to the North
African churches to which it was addressed, is less clear; it was certainly largely
rhetorical. What is clearer is that Rome claimed a universal appellate jurisdic-
tion, that is, the right to hear appeals against the decisions of any bishop of
the Church, maintaining that this jurisdiction had been laid down in the
third canon of the Synod of Serdica (343). 5 For the most part, this appellate
jurisdiction was exercised in Western provinces (including North Africa),
which might be thought to belong to the Western patriarchate of Rome,
3
Ibid., p. 32.
4Ibid., pp. 99-100.
5See Joaonou, Discipline Ginirale Antique, 1.2, p. 162-63. Also in Hamilton Hess, The Early De"<Jtiop-
mmt ofCanon Law and the Council efSerdica, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 212, 226-28.
though appeals were made to Rome &om the East, notably in the Christo-
logical controversies of the fifth century; and in the seventh century Rome
had been ready to sit in judgment on the various decrees and agreements pro-
moted by patriarchs of Constantinople and Alexandria, as well as by the
emperor himself, in favour of monenergism and monothelitism, condemn-
ing them at the Lateran Synod of 649. There was, however, a gap between
rhetoric and reality for most the period up to the end of the seventh century,
as Fr Meyendorff made clear in an earlier volume of this series. 6
Although Rome sought to put a distance between her pre-eminence as the
first city of the Roman Empire and her spiritual authority as the apostolic see,
there is no question that the church of Rome owed something to being
Rome. This applied both at the level of myth and symbol and also at a more
practical level. One can get a glimpse of what this means at the level of sym-
bol by noticing the way in which the ideal of Roma aeterna changes in the
rhetoric of someone like Pope Leo the Great &om meaning something like
"'unconquerable Rome" to indicating the place where heaven and earth meet:
as manifest, for instance, in the wealth of martyrs' relics at Rome. But being
Rome had practical consequences. Rome was a wealthy city and the Church
in Rome soon came to share in that wealth; no one had greater access to the
Church's wealth than the pope of Rome. When Damasus urged the highly
esteemed and devoutly pagan Praetextatus to convert to Christianity, he is
said to have replied, "'Willingly, if you will make me Bishop of Rome!" The
position of pope was eagerly sought after, and the election of Damasus him-
self involved riots during which 137 people were killed and left in the Julian
basilica. Arnmianus Marcellinus, who relates this, commented:
Considering the ostentatious luxury of life in the city it is only natural that
those who are ambitious of enjoying it should engage in the most strenu-
ous competition to gain their goal. Once they have achieved it they are
assured of rich gifts from ladies of quality; they can ride in carriages, dress
splendidly, and outdo kings in the lavishness of their table. 7
Another practical consequence was that the Roman Church, because of

its size and responsibilities, very quickly developed an effective administra-
6See Meyeodorff, lmptrial Uni,:y, esp. ch. 9 (pp. 293-332).

7Amm ianus Marcellinus, & s gesttU 27.3 (trans. Walter Hamilton in Ammianus Marcellinus, The
Laler Roman Empirt (AD 354-378), Penguin Classics, 1986, p. 336).
tion, centred on the cathedral of St John Lateran. It is a striking witness to

the importance of the Lateran chancery that, virtually without exception,
popes were drawn &om those trained there. Popes were elected by the clergy
and people of Rome, though how the people participated is not clear; in this
they were no different from other bishops. Papal elections were also con-
firmed by the emperor, or by his exarch in Ravenna, from some time in the
fourth century until Gregory Ill's accession in 731. Furthermore, because "all
roads lead to Rome," the appellate jurisdiction claimed by Rome and gener-
ally conceded-that is, the right of the pope as bishop of Rome to hear
appeals from any part of the Church-was something that could be exercised
relatively easily.
The eighth century saw a number oflasting changes in the position of the
pope. Put baldly, at the beginning of the century, the papacy is still evidently
part of the Byzantine Empire, papal elections being confirmed by the
emperor, with the pope being involved in the ecclesiastical affairs of the
Byzantine Empire as the senior bishop; by AD 800, the pope has achieved a
certain independence from the Byzantine emperor, no longer having his elec-
tion confirmed by the emperor, who had ceased to have an exarch in
Ravenna after its capture by the Lombards in 751; moreover he is now impli-
cated in the claim of Charlemagne to the title of Emperor of the Romans.
Several factors are involved in these changes-the unwillingness of the pope
to support Byzantine iconoclasm, and the Lombard threat and the need for
military protection found now no longer in Byzantine quarters but among
the Franks-but there is still a good deal of dispute over how these changes
are to be interpreted. It is very easy to see the events of the eighth century in
relation to the papacy either as part of Byzantine or Frankish history, with
the papacy passively responding to events. It is also possible, as Tom Noble
has done in his important book, to see the papacy as actively forging its own
destiny by establishing itself as an independent political entity, which can be
called (as some of the popes called it) "the Republic of St Peter" (the title of
Noble's book).8 While acknowledging the fact that the events of the eighth
century marked a change of course that was to prove determinative of the
future, there is also, it seems to me, the danger of interpreting them with too
8Thomas F.X. Noble, The Republic ofSI Ptftr: Tht Birlb ofthe Papal Stalt 680-82;, Philadelphia : Uni-
versity of Pennsylvania Press, 1984. See also, Peter Llewellyn, Romt in the Dark Ages, Londo n: Consta-
ble, 1993 (first published in 1971).
much hindsight, and granting them a finality that would have surprised the
contemporaries of these events.
For the first seventy years of our period- that is, from 680 to 751, or more
precisely from the accession of Agatha in 678 until Zacharias' death in 751-
the popes, with two exceptions, Benedict II and Gregory II, were Greek in
background and speakers of Greek, which has led some scholars to speak of
a "Byzantine captivity" of the papacy. This is quite misleading: most of the
"Greek" popes were southern Italian or Sicilian, where Greek was still the ver-
nacular, and virtually all of them seem to have made their career among the
Roman clergy, so, whatever their background, their experience and sympa-
thies would have been thoroughly Roman. What this predominance of Greek
popes does indicate is twofold: first, it bears witness to the presence in Rome
of probably considerable numbers of clergy and monks from the East, in
flight partly from Islam, and partly from the Byzantine imposition of heresy-
rnonenergisrn and monothelitism in the seventh century, iconoclasm in the
eighth; secondly, it meant that what was going on in Byzantium was still a
matter of concern for Rome, which therefore needed popes fluent in Greek
(as even the Roman Gregory II seems to have been, if his letters to Emperor
Leo III are authentic, albeit only partially). This concern for matters Byzan-
tine went beyond simply being able to understand them; Pope Zacharias
translated Gregory the Great's Dialogues into Greek, in which guise they
became so popular that St Gregory is known in the Orthodox East as 6 ~ui-
),oyoc,, the "writer of the Dialogues." After Zacharias' death, the fall of Byzan-
tine Ravenna and therewith the end of the exarchate meant that Byzantium
must have seemed more remote than ever before.
The change in "nationality" of the popes from the middle of the eighth
century had more positive reasons. With, again, a few exceptions, the popes
of the latter half of the eighth century (and much of the ninth and tenth) were
from the Roman aristocracy, and therefore, by temperament and family con-
nexions, deeply attached to Rome and its traditions. It was under their lead-
ership that the patrimony of St Peter began to look less like a collection of
papal estates from which the papacy drew revenue and more like a sovereign
state, with its own policies and priorities, making its own way between the
Carolingian Empire to the west and the Byzantine Empire to the east. But
this change in "nationality" is minor compared with the continuity in the
background of the popes during this period, as during previous centuries:
80 GREEK EAST AND LATI:-l WEST
namely, the continuity represented by the fact that popes were drawn from
the Roman clergy, and especially those associated with the Lateran chancery.
In the course of the eighth and ninth centuries, the conduct of papal elec-
tions was formalized. The background to this series of attempts to regulate
papal elections is found in two sharply contested papal elections at the end
of the seventh and the middle of the eighth centuries, in both of which the
army was involved, in the latter case promoting to the papal throne a layman,
Constantine. The tension that led to such struggles was doubtless a result of
the enhanced political significance of the pope, now the ruler of the Repub-
lic of St Peter. A synod in 769, after the deposition of Constantine (now
regarded as an antipope), sought to limit the electoral process to the clergy,
reducing the role of the laity to acclamation of the newly elected pope, and
to limit those eligible for election to the titular priests of Rome and the
regional deacons of the Roman Church, that is, those already called "'cardi-
nals" (which term included also the suburbicarian bishops, excluded by this
decree from the papabiles). This is probably to be interpreted as a response to
the enhanced significance of the papal throne, and a furn attempt to preserve
the status quo by restricting the position to those most closely associated with
the Lateran chancery. The weaknesses of the decree were soon revealed in the
election of Leo III as Hadrian's successor, which led to the thwarted nobil-
ity's attempt to depose him by force, something only prevented by Leo's
exploiting the new relationship between pope and Frankish king forged by
Hadrian. In 816, the Pactum Ludovicianum, agreed to by Pope Stephen IV and
Emperor Louis the Pious, modified the decree of 769 by widening the elec-
torate to include omnes Romani, "all the Romans," that is, the nobility, but
the circle of those eligible for election remained the same. The nobility
regained a say in the election of the pope, but could only promote their own
(as they did) by seeing that they were groomed as clergy in the Lateran
chancery. As a means of establishing peace and harmony, the Pactum was a
failure, for contested elections, factional conflict and often violence became
the rule after 816. The Pactum had been drawn up between the pope and the
emperor, building, in some way, on the link between pope and emperor
established by Pope Leo III when he crowned Charlemagne in 800. This
bond was formalized eight years later, in the Constitutio Romana, which reaf-
firmed the stipulations of the Pactum Ludovicianum, adding provisions that
bound the Frankish emperor to ensure that the electoral process was not
interfered with, and required the Romans to swear an oath to the emperor,
which Noble has plausibly argued entailed neither that the Romans became
Frankish subjects, nor, still less, that the pope became a subject of the
emperor, but rather bound the Romans in obedience to their pope, which
state of affairs was to be sanctioned by the emperor. 9 However nuanced, the
Constitutio Romana sought to establish a bond between the Frankish Empire
and the Republic of St Peter, but it was a very different relationship from that
which had held formerly between the pope and the Byzantine emperor. The
Frankish emperor undertook to protect the legitimacy of the electoral
process, but claimed no right, as the Byzantine emperor had done, to con-
firm the election itself. What we see here, in inchoate form, is a way of pro-
tecting the legitimacy and independence of the pope. The contrast between
the relationship between pope and Byzantine emperor and pope and Frank-
ish emperor is manifest in another way. When, in 800, Charlemagne found
himself involved in the accusations against the pope of perjury and adultery,
he was reminded by Alcuin that no earthly power could sit in judgment on
the apostolic see, and he ensured that his actions were guided by this princi-
ple. This is in marked contrast to the attitude towards the papacy adopted by
the Byzantine emperors. Barely a hundred and fifty years earlier, Pope Mar-
tin I had been arrested by a Byzantine envoy, brought to Constantinople for
trial, condemned for sedition and sentenced to death-a sentence commuted
to exile in the Crimea, where he soon died in 655.
It might seem that the new orientation of the Republic of St Peter, ruled
by the pope, would mean that the papal stake in the Byzantine Empire was
no longer of any importance to Rome. But this was far from being the case.
Evidence for this is found in Rome's reaction to the Byzantine emperor Leo
Ill's response to papal unwillingness to endorse iconoclasm. Sometime in the
730s, Leo III struck back at Rome by confiscating the papal patrimonies in
Sicily and Calabria and also, maybe not at the same time, transferring these
provinces, together with the province of Illyricum (that is, more or less, the
area now covered by northern Greece, Bulgaria and former Yugoslavia), from
papal jurisdiction and placing it under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of
Constantinople . The return of both jurisdiction and patrimonies was to
remain an issue between Rome and Constantinople for centuries.
9Noble, Republic ofSt Petu, pp. 308-22.

Iconoclasm and the West

When the Byzantine emperor Leo III introduced iconoclasm in 726, he
expected his decree to be put into effect throughout his realms, including
Italy. Pope Gregory II, however, refused to destroy the sacred images. This
was not the first time the pope had opposed the will of the emperor; a few
years earlier he had refused to pay the new taxes introduced in 722/3, which
the emperor needed to finance his struggle against the Muslim Arabs. Papal
resistance to these two unpopular imperial demands led to a state of affairs
approaching civil war, with allies of the exarch of Ravenna plotting the mur-
der of the pope and others banding together to defend the pope's life at any
cost, while at the same time the Lombards exploited the divisions among the
Byzantine Italians. Despite his disagreement with the emperor, the pope did
all he could to prevent any rebellion against the emperor. But over icono-
clasm the pope stood firm. He wrote to the emperor to dissuade him from
pursuing his policy of iconoclasm, and to the patriarch of Constantinople,
supporting his resistance. 10 A year after Germanos' deposition as patriarch,
Gregory II died and was succeeded by Gregory III. The new pope continued
his predecessor's opposition to iconoclasm, initially seeking to reason with
the emperor through letters, which failed to reach the emperor, first through
the envoy's understandable fear of the emperor' s displeasure, and then
because of the emperor's refusal to allow the envoy to reach Constantinople.
Diplomacy had failed, so the pope had resort to a synodical condemnation
of imperial iconoclasm. A synod, consisting not just of clergy but also of
representatives of the whole Roman people, met in November 731 and con-
demned iconoclasm in uncompromising terms. All attempts to communi-
cate this decision to the imperial court were met with resistance, envoys being
detained or exiled. After relating this, the Liber Pontificalis records that the
exarch of Ravenna, Eutychius, made a gift to the pope o f six twisted onyx
columns, to complement the six original columns. The gift wa.s perhaps to
indicate that iconoclasm did not mean the abandonment of rich decoration.
However, the pope placed these columns before the con.fessio of St Peter as
1
°lhere is much dispute about the authenticity of the letters associated with Gregory II; it seems
likely that at least parts of the letters to the emperor are genuine, tho ugh the letter fiom Gregory II to
Germanos may actually be a letter fro m Germanos to Gregory. See Jean Gouillard, "Aux o rigins de l'i-
conoclasme: le temoignage de Gregoire II," Travaux el Memoires (Centre de recherche d'h istoire et de
civilisation byzantines) 3 (1968), 2.u -307.
supports to silver icons of, on one side, the Saviour and the apostles, and, on
the other, the Virgin and other holy virgins. 11 Thereafter, our source for the
history of the popes in this period, the Liber Pontificalis, has nothing to tell us
about iconoclasm until the time of Hadrian (pope, 772--95); the mention of
the arrival of the papal apocrisiarii in Constantinople, bearing the pope's syn-
odical letter for the patriarch and a further letter for the emperor, during the
usurpation of Artabasdos makes no mention of iconoclasm, though Byzan-
tine sources relate that Artabasdos, during his brief reign, reintroduced icons.
Even in the life of Hadrian, the Liber Pontificalis rates his involvement in the
repudiation of iconoclasm at the Seventh OEcumenical Synod, held in
Nicaea in 787, quite low: one brief chapter (c. 88), 12 wedged between detailed
accounts of the extensive refurbishment and magnificent adornment of the
churches in Rome that took place during his pontificate (cc. 45-87, 89-96),'3
which follow the lengthy account of Charlemagne's defence of the apostolic
see and defeat of the Lombards (cc. 1-44). 14
All this suggests that iconoclasm had rather a different significance for the
pope and the West than for the emperor and the East, a suggestion that is
broadly true. As we have seen, the first formal evidence of a theological
appraisal of religious art in the Byzantine world is to be found in canon 82 of
the Synod in Trull.a, which forbade the depiction of Christ as a lamb, "prefer-
ring grace and truth" by representing Christ in his incarnate human form. We
have noted, too, that neither this canon, any more than the others, gained
acceptance in the West: Pope Sergius l's introduction into the ritual of the
mass of the Agnus Dei perhaps being intended as an implicit repudiation of
this canon, as is, too, the popularity of depicting Christ as the lamb of the
Apocalypse in ninth-century Roman churches (built during the pontificate of
Paschal I, who roundly condemned the reintroduction of iconoclasm under
emperor Leo V), such as S. Prassede and S. Cecilia. The West, it might seem,
did not invest religious images with anything like the theological significance
found in them in the East-whether such theological significance led to their
veneration or to their abolition. The classic defence of religious pictures in
ll I.ibu Pontificalis, ed . Duchesne, 1.417; see D avis' commen ts: Lruts of the Eighth-Century Popes, p.
22 nn.
12
Libu Pontificalis, pp. 511- u .
13
Ibid., pp. 499-511, 512-14.
14
Ibid., pp. 486-99.
the West was that found in St Gregory the Great's sharp response to Serenus
of Marseille's destruction of pictures in churches. Serenus was firmly
rebuked, for "pictures are placed in churches, so that those who are illiterate
may read by seeing on walls what they cannot read in books, " 15 or as he put
it again in a further letter, pictures "are placed there, not to be adored, but
only to instruct the minds of the ignorant." 16 The justification of religious
images as books for the illiterate was, as we have seen, only a small part of the
Byzantine defence of images, which was really about their veneration, not
their educational value. The Western position was much simpler: religious
images were certainly not to be destroyed-that would be sacrilege-but their
value was primarily educative. The West was, therefore, firmly against icono-
clasm, but equally saw the question of religious images as much less con-
tentious than the East did.
Nonetheless the West-or at least the Lateran chancery-was keen to be
well informed about what was going on the East. The evidence for this is a
Greek codex, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris (Codex Parisinus
Graecus m5), which is a copy of the original manuscript compiled in AD 774,/5
in the Lateran Chancery.17 This compilation is a collection of florilegia (that
is, lists of patristic citations) on most of the doctrinal issues of the Eastern
Church about which Rome clearly wanted to be informed. There are florile-
gia concerned with the Christological issues decided at the fourth, fifth and
sixth a:cumenical synods (Chalcedon, Constantinople II and III), and par-
ticularly concerned with the debates of the seventh century, settled at Con-
stantinople III; there is a florilegium concerned with the question of the
Filioque, that is, the affirmation that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father
and the Son, the affirmation being made by the addition of the phrase Fil-
ioque to the (Latin) version of the so-called Niceno-Constantinopolitan
Creed (the expanded confession of the Nicene faith, agreed at Constantino-
ple I in 381); there is a florilegium concerned with iconoclasm; and there are
florilegia concerned with various canonical matters. The very existence of this
dossier is fascinating, as it shows how concerned Rome was to keep au courant
with what was going on in the East at the beginning of Pope Hadrian l's pon-
15 Gregory the Great, Ep. 9.2o8.

16 fbid., U.IO.
170n this, see the indispensable work by Alexander Alexakis, Codtx Parisinus Gratcus m5 and Its
Archetype, Dumbarton Oaks Studies XXXIV, Washington DC, 1996.

tificate. Such developed concern at this date with the Filioque issue is also
interesting, as at this stage Rome itself was not in the least inclined to alter
the text of an cecumenical creed (Hadrian's successor, Leo III, refused pres-
sure from Charlemagne to follow Frankish practice and insert the Filioque
into the creed, and indeed had the creed inscribed in its original form in
Greek and Latin on two silver shields and set up in St Peter's). The iconoclast
florilegium shows how quickly the Lateran Chancery informed itself about
the arguments and the issues. The florilegium, as Alexander Ale:xakis has
recently demonstrated, is based on earlier iconodule florilegia, including
those John Damascene incorporated into his treatises against the iconoclasts.
This florilegium was drawn on by Pope Hadrian when he was invited to par-
ticipate in the Seventh (Ecumenical Synod, called by the Empress Eirene and
her infant son, Constantine VI, to repudiate iconoclasm and restore the ven-
eration of icons.
Hadrian responded to the imperial request by sending, as was the normal
papal custom, two legates, both called Peter, one the archpriest of St Peter's,
the other the abbot of the monastery of St Sabas on the Aventine. They bore
two letters, one for the imperial couple, the other for Patriarch Tarasios. As
well as addressing the matter of iconoclasm, Hadrian also protested against
Tarasios' use of the title "cecumenical patriarch," a protest that went back to
St Gregory the Great, and also his having been raised to the patriarchal throne
from the lay state, as well as demanding the return of the papal patrimonies
confiscated by Leo III and the reversion of the jurisdiction of Sicily, Calabria
and Illyricum to Rome. These matters were not addressed by the synod,
because in the Greek translation read out, they were simply omitted. On the
question of iconoclasm, Hadrian rehearsed his arguments in defence of
icons, which are threefold: first, an appeal to the Incarnation, through which
God has made himself manifest, in which context Hadrian draws a distinc-
tion between the worship we offer to God and the veneration the icons
receive (though without proposing any fixed lexical distinction); secondly, an
appeal to Pope St Gregory's pedagogic argument for religious pictures;
thirdly, an appeal to tradition. 18 Hadrian also provided a florilegium of patris-
tic citations in favour of icons, though the synod seems to have had access
to other florilegia, and indeed insisted on checking any citations against
18$ee Bronwen Neil, "The Western Reaction to the Council of Nicaea II," ]TS N. S. YI (2000):
533-52.
proper codices, to avoid the accusation made against the iconoclast Synod
of Hiereia that citations had been taken out of context. It is clear, however,
that Hadrian was well informed about the Byzantine Orthodox reaction to
iconoclasm, and thoroughly understood it. One small, though maybe signif-
ican t, difference between his defence of icons and that of the Byzantines is
to be found in his reaction to the iconoclast argument, contained in the Def-
inition of the Synod of Hiereia, that icons cannot be holy, because they are
not consecrated, but are simply the work of craftsmen. This accusation was
sidestepped in the refutation of the iconoclast Definition that took place in
the sixth session of the Synod of Nicaea, suggesting (what we would expect
from other evidence) that at this time there was no ceremony for the conse-
cration of an icon. Hadrian, however, meets the iconoclast charge with a sim-
ple denial, appealing to the "practice of our Holy Catholic and Apostolic
Roman Church" whereby, when "sacred images or stories are painted, first
they are anointed with sacred chrism and then venerated by the faithful." 19
That, again, might thrnw some light on the different reactions of East and
West to the iconoclast challenge; for if, as has been sometimes argued, icon-
oclasm was ultimately about the location of the holy and expressed the fear
that in Byzantium the holy was too widely located, and thus too difficult to
control, the fact that the problem of control had already been addressed by
the West and restricted to the priestly hierarchy would clearly give the prob-
lem a different valency.
Papal acceptance of Nicaea II and its defence of images by no means set-
tled the question of the West's response to iconoclasm. Here, as in other mat-
ters, we see that the "West" was far from a simple construct. Over images, as
over the question of the Filioque, the Franks and the papacy found themselves
taking different positions, with the papacy closer to the position of the
Byzantines. How these differences arose is a tangled matter. The Frankish
court received a Latin version of the decrees of Nicaea II in which a central
point was misrepresented: instead of an assertion that icons are not venerated
with the worship owed to God, the Latin version seems to have asserted
exactly the opposite, that icons are indeed venerated with the worship due to
God alone. There is certainly scope for misunderstanding here, especially
when dealing with a translated text, for the distinction that the iconodules
19
leuerefHadrian I to Angilbm, ed. K. Hampe, MGH, Epistularum tom. V, Karolini Aevi 3, Berlin,
1899, PP· 5-57, here P· 34·
The Church in the ~st
had painstakingly drawn between a form of veneration expressing honour

and a form of veneration expressing worship has no natural lexical equiva-
lent. Proskynesis, which in Greek at this time probably carried a primary con-
notation of bowing down, prostration-a physical act-and latreia, the word
used for worship exclusively due to God-a matter of intention-are derived
from roots, which in their Yerbal forms are used as a hendiadys in the Greek
version of the second commandment in the Septuagint (neooxuv-fJcrst<;; . . .
NX,Qeucr-ns;;: "you shall not bow down ... you shall not worship": Exod. 20:5).
Latin equivalents add further confusion, not least because the Latin calque
ofproskynesis, adoratio, was the word that came to be used for latreia. But what-
ever the potential confusion, the distinction explicitly made by the Nicene
synod was simply collapsed into identity by the faulty translation that made
its way to the Frankish court. To the minds of the Carolingian court theolo-
gians, the veneration made to icons was clearly affirmed to be idolatrous,
worshipping the creature instead of the Creator. These doubts, and others,
were contained in a Capitulare adversus synodum sent in 792 to Hadrian by
means of his ambassador Angilbert, to which Hadrian replied in a letter to
Angilbert called the Hadrianum. Hadrian points out the misrepresentation of
the mind of the Nicene synod, occasioned by the faulty Latin translation. By
the time Charlemagne received it, an expanded version of the Capitulare, the
so-called Libri Carolini (or, especially since Ann Freeman's new edition, Opus
Caroli Regis), 20 was under way, which formed the basis of the rejection of the
Nicene synod by the Frankish synod of Frankfurt (794), confirmed at Paris in
825- The conclusive nature of the Hadrian's refutation of the Frankish read-
ing of the Nicene decision may be the reason why the Opus Caroli Regis is
rarely mentioned in Frankish sources and seems to have been more or less
abandoned.
However, even if a misunderstanding lay at the bottom of the Frankish
response to the Nicene reassertion of icons, there is more to the affair than
that. Although Hadrian understood and agreed with the theological argu-
ments of Nicaea II, as we have seen, he was reluctant to give his approval to
the Acts. The reason, as he makes clear in his letter to Charlemagne, was that
the synod had failed to address the matter he had sought to bring before it,
namely, the restoration of the patrimonies of St Peter in Sicily and Calabria,
2 o0n the significance of the d ifferent titles, see Thomas F.X. Noble, "From the Libri Carolini to
the Opus Caroli Regis," j ournal of,t fet!ieval latin 9 (1999): 131-47.
and the reversion to himself of jurisdiction over these provinces and also the
prefecture of Illyricum. From his point of view, the synod had only accom-
plished part of its business. The Opus Caroli Regis also holds it against the
Nicene synod that no Frankish bishops were present, or had even been
invited, so that it was less than representative, and therefore not cecumeni-
cal.21 The repudiation of the Byzantine Synod of Nicaea by the Franks was
an expression of their unwillingness to be thought to be indebted to the
Byzantines for their faith. The misunderstanding of the synod, to the extent
of thinking that it was propagating idolatry, was therefore very convenient.
The state of affairs was also convenient for Hadrian, for it meant that he was
not placed in the invidious position of having to choose between Charle-
magne, to whom he was deeply indebted for ridding him of the Lombard
threat, and the Byzantines, from whom he had achieved a certain political
independence, but from whom he did not want to distance himself entirely.
He was free to agree with the Byzantines on the theological matter, but
protest that his problems had not been addressed, so that Charlemagne
would not think that he had reverted to his Byzantine allegiance, while he
could exercise his role as bishop and teacher of his flock, with respect to
Charlemagne, and thus not appear to the Byzantines to be theologically illit-
erate. It is all so convenient that one wonders if there is not some significance
in the odd fact that, in a very brief notice, the Liber Pontificalis bothers to tell
us that Hadrian ordered a Latin translation of the decrees. Perhaps the mis-
take wa-s deliberate, intended to sow confusion. 22
But the Carolingian reaction to Byzantine veneration of icons has per-
haps deeper roots than a mistranslation, whether the result of deliberation,
incompetence, or political convenience. We can perhaps get a handle on this
by looking briefly at the author of the Opus Caroli Regis, Theodulf.2 3 After
21
Judith Herrin argues that the Frankish claim was more far-reaching, namely that in the new sit-
uation represented by the falling to Islam of three of the ancient patriarchs and the accession to Chris-
tendom of the Frankish Empire, the older notion of an arecumenical" synod, that is, one claiming the
authority of the Pentarchy, was outmoded (see her The Fonnalion ofChristmdom, Oxford: Basil Black-
well, 1987, pp. 435-37). It is an attractive suggestion.
22
The version that Anastasius the Librarian saw in the ninth century and found so bad as to be
virtually unreadable, the reason lie gives for providing his own translation, the only one to survive,
seems too incompetent to have been a product of the Lateran chancery. However, it was presumably
this version that Anastasius saw, and not the ver.;ion Charlemagne received (if indeed they were dif-
ferent), as Neil seems to suggest, art. cit., p . 549.
23
0n Theodulf, see J.M. Wallace-Hadrill, Tbe Frankish Church, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983,
217-2.5, and most recently Thomas FX Noble, "The Vocabulary ofVISion and Worship in the Early
the composition of this work, he became bishop of Orleans and one of

Charlemagne's missi, but his origins lay in Visigothic Spain, whence he had
fled from Moorish persecution in the 780s. Some of his arguments in the
Opus Caroli Regis are like nothing else that we encounter in the iconoclast
controversy. Human works of art are just that-human artefacts-they owe
whatever value they have to the quality of the materials, the skill of the artist,
or maybe their antiquity. That they are images, depictions of something else,
is neither here nor there: an image has no intrinsic meaning. How do you
know, he asks at one point, that a picture of a woman you think to be the
Virgin is not in fact Venus, or that a pretty girl with a baby is not Venus and
Aeneas, rather than the Virgin and the Christ-child?24 There is nothing
intrinsic to the image that determines its meaning; for meaning you need
words-the way it is described, its inscription, if it has any. The only work of
art actually inspired by God was the ark of the covenant, as we learn from
the Old Testament, but the significance of the ark lay in its existence and
function, not in the style of its decoration. With these assertions Theodulf
cut at the root of the developed theory of icons we find in John Damascene,
for whom the notion of image as pointing beyond itself is intrinsic to his
understanding of Christian art (and maybe any art); Theodulf's concentra-
tion on the only work of art required by God in the Bible, the ark of the
covenant in its simple actuality, sweeps away what was for John the main
source of examples of the functioning of images: the ark and its contents.
For John these were clear examples of prefigurations fulfilled in the New
Covenant, especially in the Virgin Mother of God herself, and in this he was
drawing on a long tradition in the Greek Christian world, going back to the
fifth century. There is a sharp contrast between John's taking the ark of the
covenant, and its contents, as a potent example of the types of the Old Tes-
tament fulfilled in the New-the very principle of Christian art, according to
the eighty-second canon of the Trullan synod-and Theodulf's restriction of
religious art to the ark of the covenant, in explicit denial of any general prin-
ciple of the fulfilment of Old Testament types in the New. If we take Theo-
Carolingian Period," in Seeing the Invisible in Late Anliquity and lhe Ear/y MidJ/k Ages, eds. G iselle de Nie,
Karl F. Morrison and Marco Mostert, Tumbout: Brepols, 200;, pp. 213-37.
24 0pttJ Caroli R.tgis conlra Synodum (libri Carolini) 4.16, ed Ann Freeman (with the co llaboration
Paul Meyvaert), Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Concilia 2, Supplementum 1, Hanover: Hahnsche

Buchhandlung, r998, pp. µ8-29.
dulf's principles seriously, we have an appreciation of art that values mate-

rials and craftsmanship, but reduces the significance of a work of art to exhil-
arating adornment or a coded meaning, placed there by the skill of the artist
in the use of his materials: the very qualities praised in Besaleel and Eliab in
Exodus 31. According to Theodulf, it is to the Old Testament that we are to
look for our principles of art.
Appeal to the Old Testament is part of the common heritage of Chris-
tians, but there seems to be a difference here between John's appeal to the
Old Testament as a treasury of typology and symbolism that finds its fulfil-
ment in the New, and Theodulf's more literal appeal to the Old Testament
itself Such a literal appeal to the Old Testament has been alleged as an inspi-
ration for the iconoclast emperors of Byzantium, though the evidence is
rather thinner, save for their appeal to the second commandment.25 Theo-
dulf's principles of art also provide access to the Old Testament and particu-
larly to its ideal of sacral kingship, which one would expect to have been
welcome at the Carolingian court, with Charlemagne as a priest-king on the
analogy of the Old Testament kings, a new David or a new Solomon,
anointed by God.
At the beginning of the ninth century, Theodulf built an oratory for him-
self at Germigny-des-Pres, with its apse mosaic depicting the ark of the
covenant and the cherubim, as the inscription makes clear. As Wallace-
Hadrill remarks:
He seems to have conceived of his oratory as a new Temple of Solomon

set in the midst of Paradise; and this fits in well enough with his own Old
Testament preoccupations and to some extent those of the court as well. 26
Seen in this light, the iconoclasm of the Carolingian court-if we can call it
that, for it did not actually involve the destruction of images, so far as we are
aware-can be seen as clearing a space for direct access to the political ideals
of the Old Testament, very much as has been argued in relation to Byzantine
iconoclasm. This argument is not without its dangers: traditional appeal to
types and figures, as we find in John of Damascus, also provides access to the
2; See John A. McGuckin, "The Theology oflmages and the Legitimation of Power in Eighth Cen-
tury Byzantium," St Vladimir's 7beowgica/Q]iarterfy 37 (1993): 39-58, and with infinite nuance Dagron's
discussion in Emperor and PritJt, pp. 158-91.
26Wallace-Hadrill, op. cit., p. 224.
Old Testament, and there is ample evidence that the Old Testament furnished
ideals of kingship for the Byzantines, quite independently of any concern,
either for or against, iconoclasm. 27 Theodulf's appeal to the Old Testament
has its own peculiar consistency, and perhaps sheds light on the Carolingian
attitude to Byzantine iconoclasm.
27Plenty of examples can be found in the artides collected in New Constantints, ed. Paul Mag-
dalino, Aldershot: Variorum, 1994.

PART II
THE NINTH CENTURY

CHAPTER FOUR
INTRODUCTION
T he ninth century was a period of greatness for both the Latin Church
of the West and the Greek Church of the East. In the case of the West,
this built on what had been achieved in the eighth century: the Carolingian
cultural and religious renaissance of the ninth century was already well under
way at the turn of the century. In the case of the East, the position is much
less clear; Warren Treadgold argues that the rn-o iconoclast emperors, Leo III
and Constantine V, had laid the foundations for the "Byzantine revival" of
the turn of the century, but even he dates this Byzantine revival only from
780.1 The problem, as ever, is one of lack of sources; it is only at the end of
the eighth century and beginning of the ninth that Byzantine history-writing
begins to recover with the BriefHistory composed by Nikephoros (later to be
become patriarch, 806-15), undertaken as a continuation of Theophylact
Simocatta's History that ended in 602, and the Chronicle, ascribed to Theo-
phanes the Confessor. The beginning of the ninth century sees in both East
and West signs of renewal in a number of areas. Monastic reform is one,
where the reforms of Benedict of Aniane in the West and Theodore of
Stoudios in the East lay the foundations for the future development of
monasticism in the Latin West and Byzantine East, respectively. Another is a
developed sense of the significance of the papacy, something of which we
have already outlined in part I, which is paralleled in the East by a similar
sense of hierarchical importance on the part of the patriarchate of Constan-
tinople. For, though the patriarchs had succumbed all too readily to the here-
sies of the seventh and eighth centuries (and would prove equally frail with
the renewal of iconoclasm in the first part of the ninth century), nonetheless
the patriarchate contrived to emerge from this inglorious period with its
standing enhanced. This was partly achieved by the manipulation of hagiog-
1See Warren Treadgold, The Byzantim Revival 78o-842, Stanford CA: Stanford University Press,
1988.
95
raphy (which provided an opportunity for what is now called "spin"),

whereby the Lives of saints of the iconoclast period and the patriarchs
involved drew a veil over patriarchal failings and enhanced their role in lead-
ing the resistance to the iconoclast emperors, but it was also a product of the
growing centralization of the Byzantine Empire on the imperial court, to
which the patriarchal court became a natural adjunct. What has particularly
attracted the attention of scholars has been the cultural renaissance that
occurred in both the Carolingian and the Byzantine Empires in the ninth
century. Both these "renaissances" are marked by the emergence of the use
of a minuscule script in literary manuscripts, and entailed a renewed interest
in both patristic theology and classical antiquity. The use of the minuscule
script is a measure of the increased demand for such manuscripts, as it could
be written more quickly than the majuscule (or uncial) script. Although the
Carolingian renaissance was well under way in the eighth century (in contrast
to the Byzantine renaissance), they seem quite independent. Doubtless both
were made possible by the more stable conditions and growing prosperity of
the ninth century. This growing sense of self-confidence on the part of the
two empires also found expression in Christian mission. Again in the case of
the West, this was but the continuation of the political and ecclesial expan-
sion that marked the Carolingian Empire from the beginning, something of
which we have already encountered in part I. In the case of the East, it was
something new, and was probably seen in terms of recovering-both politi-
cally and religiously-territory that had traditionally been part of the
Roman/Byzantine Empire, rather than expansion beyond the bounds of that
empire. But however the Byzantines thought of it, they eventually found
themselves embarking on something genuinely new (for them, though with
plenty of precedent further to the East), namely the creation of Christianity
not in one of the traditional languages of the Roman Empire (Greek or Latin),
but in a "barbarian" language-the language of the Slavs, a breakthrough that
was to have profound consequences for the complexion of the Christian
world from the end of the first Christian millennium onwards.
Despite the impression given by all these developments of unity, expan-
sion, and growing self-confidence, such is only part of the picture. The ninth
century sees the apogee of the Carolingian Empire, but also-at least accord-
ing to the traditional view-its decline. The Carolingian Empire was subject
to division, and by the end of the century the split has begun to take institu-
Introduction 97
tional form in the formation of the kingdom of France and-in what is now
Germany, Austria and the Low Countries-the emergence of the Holy Roman
Empire. This is partly attributed to dynastic squabbles between the heirs of
Charlemagne, but also to the growing menace of the Vikings, whose destruc-
tive presence first came to the attention of Christendom in the sacking of
the monastery of Lindisfame in 793. The history of the Vikings will become
another thread in the story told here. On the one hand, the Vikings presented
a threat to the established Christian civilization in the West-the Carolingian
Empire and the "English Nation" of Bede's imagination-a threat manifest in
violence that has been variously estimated as either seriously challenging the
towns and monasteries of the Christian West, disrupting many of the signs
of growth and renewal noted above, or as "little more than groups of long-
haired tourists who occasionally roughed up the natives," as Wallace-Hadrill
has parodied this view, who were mainly interested in trade, though as pagans
they failed to respect Christian pieties. In the long run, however, the Vikings
certainly represent a new dynamic force in the West, establishing trading links
and trading empires, and expanding the economic reality of the Christian
world to embrace the Scandinavian countries whence they originated, and
also the emerging principalities in Rus', centred on Kiev, as well as settling
within the traditional bounds of Western Christendom as the "Northmen"
or Normans, and constituting a powerful category for change from the
eleventh century onwards.
The rosy picture ofByzantine renewal in the ninth century is complicated
by the recrudescence of iconoclasm in the first half of the century. To con-
temporary Byzantine eyes, this second period of iconoclasm, and its final
repudiation, was a replay of the iconoclasm of the eighth century; icono-
clasm was introduced in 815 by a session of the home synod in Constan-
tinople declaring the iconoclast Synod of Hiereia of 754 orthodox and
repudiating the Second Synod of Nicaea of 787; iconoclasm was finally repu-
diated by another session of the home synod declaring Nicaea II the Seventh
O:cumenical Synod and condemning Hiereia. The ninth-century iconoclast
controversy was not, however, the same as that of the eighth. For one thing,
the West played a different role, since Nicaea II had not been endorsed by
the Carolingian Synod of Frankfurt of 794, though the synod had been, as
we have seen, endorsed by the pope in its doctrine of icons. The iconoclast
emperors tried to make common cause with the Carolingian emperors over
iconoclasm, though no one in the West was really an iconoclast, even though
the Carolingians were less happy about the veneration of icons. It is perhaps
partly for this reason that the issue in Byzantium second time round was not
so much the existence of icons as their veneration, something that Theodore
of Stoudios saw very clearly. Whether iconoclasm hindered the renewal of
the ninth century, contributed to it, or was an irrelevance is, however, some-
thing disputed. Nevertheless, what is beyond dispute is that the final repudi-
ation of iconoclasm in 843 had a determining effect on the self-image of the
Byzantine Empire. The repudiation of iconoclasm was called the "Triumph
of Orthodoxy," making the use and veneration of icons an emblem of Ortho-
doxy tout court, rather than just another religious issue settled. This was
enhanced by the fact that both sides had conceived the debate over icons in
terms of the fundamentals of the Christian faith, namely the Incarnation, and
indeed much of the debate in the eighth century had drawn on the terminol-
ogy that had emerged in synodal decrees to clarify the doctrine of Christ.
Theodore made further use of this terminology-especially its distinction
between hypostasis and physis (person/hypostasis and nature)-to clarify what
is involved in the veneration of icons. All this placed the issue oficons at the
centre of the Byzantine conception of Orthodoxy, and it was in this form
that Byzantine Orthodoxy was inherited by the Slav nations soon to embrace
Christianity from Byzantium.
It becomes increasingly difficult to give expression to the history of the
Church in any simple narrative form, for there are several narratives-not
just the different narratives of the Greek East and the Latin West determined
by the increasingly separate political realities to which they relate, but even
distinct narratives within these broad categories-narratives that intersect
and crisscross in an often bewildering way. Although we shall not abandon
narrative, increasingly our approach to the history of the Church will be
thematic.
There is, however, one occasion when the different narratives become
entangled in an alarming way, and that is in the 860s, when several narratives
converge to produce a sharp confrontation between Greek East and Latin
West, not by any means the first, but one in which mutual excommunica-
tions are involved, and even charges of heresy, and that on grounds that will
loom increasingly large in later history, namely the doctrinal issues associated
with the addition to the Latin version of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan
Introduction 99
Creed of 381 of the words Filioque, so that the Holy Spirit is declared to pro-
ceed "from the Father and the Son." As our period progresses, estrangement
between East and West becomes increasingly inevitable, and one of our con-
cerns in what follows will be to determine what the grounds were for this
estrangement, which would eventually harden into schism.
CHAPTER FIVE
MONASTIC REFORM IN
EAST AND WEST
S t Benedict of Aniane (c. 750-821) and St Theodore of Stoudios (759-826)

were almost exact contemporaries, and both famous for the monastic
reforms they instituted. These reforms were to cast a long shadow over later
Latin and Byzantine monasticism, respectively, so it is worthwhile to devote
some time to understanding what each reform involved.
St Benedict of Aniane and the West

Benedict of Aniane 1 inherited a concern for monastic reform in the Carolin-
gian Empire , and is important primarily for his involvement in the last
decades of his life in the attempt to reform Carolingian monasticism under-
taken by the emperors Charlemagne and Louis the Pious and carried out
through the issuing of capitularies, enforced by the dispatch of missi. As we
have already seen, the state of monasticism inherited by the Carolingians in
the West was the product of various influences. The earliest form of monas-
ticism in the West was that associated with St Martin of Tours, whose
monastery still survived. A little later, there are monastic foundations associ-
ated with the island of Lerins, off the coast of Provence, near Cannes, which
seems to have been a kind of nursery for bishop-monks such as Hilary and
Caesarius of Arles, Eucherius of Lyon and others. This form of Western
monasticism was unlike the monasticism of the Egyptian Desert in that, far
&om there being any trace of opposition between monasticism and the epis-
copal hierarchy, what was envisaged were monastic communities, led by a
bishop, providing both a clerical community to which the bishop could
1To avoid confusion (St) Benedict of Aniane will be referred to thus and (St) Benedict of Nursia
referred to simply as (St) Benedict in this section.
IOI
I02 GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
belong, as well as personnel to support the worship of the cathedral and the
administrative needs of the diocese; such communities were not unlike the
clerical communities in which Ambrose and Augustine lived in the fo urth
century. Alongside these native Western forms of monasticism, traditions
&om Egypt and Palestine were made known in the West through the works
of St John Cassian, who founded two monasteries near Marseille in about
4r5. Monasticism also established itself in Ireland, probably drawing on
Provenc;:al traditions, but developing a form of monasticism that found
expression for the monks' detachment from society in peregrinatio, "pilgrim-
age," not in the sense of visiting holy places, but in the root sense of what is
involved in being a peregrinus, that is, travelling away from home, and living
in this world the life of a resident alien, "having here no abiding city, but seek-
ing the city that is to come" (Heb. 1p4, and cf 12:8-28). In the course of this
peregrinatio, these Irish monks established monasteries abroad: St Columba
at Iona in Scotland (563), St Aidan at Lindisfame in the north of England (635)
and St Columbanus at Luxeuil in central France (c.590) . These monasteries
became centres from which the Christian gospel was preached, and also made
known the traditions of Irish monasticism. Another model of the monastic
life was the community of scholars, established at Vivarium by Cassiodorus
in sixth-century Italy. With hindsight the most important monastic founda-
tions were the monasteries established at Subiaco and Monte Cassino in
sixth-century Italy by St Benedict ofNursia, for which he provided a rule, the
"Rule of St Benedict."
Later Western monasticism drew on all these traditions. As in Byzantine
monasticism, then and later, each monastic community followed its own pat-
tern of life, drawn up by the founder and, perhaps, later modified by adopt-
ing what was thought to be "best practice" elsewhere. It is evident that
"monasticism" understood in such a variety of ways could fulfil a variety of
goals. Virtually all monasteries provided an environment in which individu-
als could live a life of prayer, with the support of their brothers (or sisters) and
the guidance of those with experience, but this purpose could well be supple-
mented, or even overshadowed, by others. A monastic community estab-
lished around a bishop and his cathedral would be responsible for the
worship of the cathedral, which would serve a wider purpose than the round
of monastic offices; they might also find themselves engaged in administra-
tive or pastoral activity, which could seriously encroach on their monastic
Monastic Reform in East and West 103
function. A community of scholars would have intellectual goals, though

these would not seem at all remote from their religious goals, since the aim
of such monastic culture was an understanding of Scripture through medita-
tion, and thus as much a part of the monk's life as the opus Dei ("work of
God"), as St Benedict called the round of services. But a monastic commu-
nity could have yet further purposes, consequent on the conditions of its
foundation. Monasteries needed funds: to provide the monastic buildings,
and to provide the wherewithal to survive, which latter could come from
land, worked by the monks themselves, or from the proceeds of such lands,
worked by others. The founding of a monastery, and gifts given to a
monastery, whether of land or provisions or even money, were acts akin to
almsgiving and would reap their own spiritual reward. But such gifts were
rarely outright gifts: a monastery might be required to pray for the founder
and his relations, both before their death and, perhaps especially, afterwards,
when their fate rested unequivocally in the hands of God; it might be
required to reserve some or all of the places in the community for members
of the founder's family, or those of his class (Reichenau was proud of having
monks only from the nobility); but particularly, there might well be restric-
tions on who could be abbot, for the abbot of a wealthy community would
be a figure of some power, ranking alongside other local magnates. As such,
the same requirements might be made of abbots as of other magnates: to con-
tribute to the military requirements of the Empire by providing contingents
of armed men, for instance. In fulfilling such a role in society, abbots were in
some respects like their fellow clergy, the bishops, who were figures of impor-
tance in virtue of the communities they ruled and the lands, and therefore
wealth, that they (or strictly their churches) possessed. Those who founded
monasteries, particularly kings and emperors, were likely to make sure that
the powerful figures they were creating in the abbots were people they could
control, and indeed appoint.
It is out of this complex picture that demand for reform emerged: a
demand that we shall trace through most of the period covered by this book.
The motives for reform were various: on the one hand, there was a desire on
the part of monks to be free to pursue the life they had chosen (though,
indeed, many had not "chosen" the monastic life, but had been sent to the
monastery as child oblates: an issue we shall have to confront); on the other
hand, there was a determination that the monastic life should fulfil the roles
that the society in which it was lived required of it. These roles required by
society, and ultimately by the emperor, were not by any means entirely ig-
noble roles that frustrated the intrinsic purpose of the monastic life. For this
was a believing society, and, in particular, a society that believed in the power
of prayer. Reform of monasticism-like, later on, reform of the Western
Church initiated or fostered by the Holy Roman Emperors-was primarily
undertaken because it was thought important for a Christian empire to be
supported by the pure prayers of the Church, and in particular of the monks.
The reforms with which Benedict of Aniane was associated were primarily
inspired by the expectations of the emperor and the empire, and thus took
the form of a pattern of reform set out in capitularies issued by the emperor.
Benedict of Aniane inherited a tradition of monastic reform. An earlier
reformer had been Chrodegang (c.712-66), appointed bishop of Metz in the
740s, who initiated a reform of the canons of Metz cathedral, which in many
ways foreshadowed the reforms of Benedict of Aniane. 2 As has been made
clear, a host of demands were made on early Western monastic communities,
and the reforms associated with Chrodegang and later Benedict of Aniane
were concerned to clarify the goals and purposes of such communities.
Chrodegang's reforms make a clear distinction between communities of
canons, as the clergy serving a cathedral came to be called, and communities
of monks. Early in his time as bishop of Metz, he established a monastery at
nearby Gorze. The charters of the monastery make it clear that the purpose
of this foundation was Chrodegang's own salvation: by his gifts, he hoped to
obtain forgiveness of sins and to merit the joys of heaven. But this was to be
achieved by the monks living a truly monastic life, spelt out as a life of quies,
ordo and tranquiUitas-quietness, order and tranquillity. This life was to be led
in accordance with the rule of"our holy father, St Benedict," and that rule is
interpreted fairly strictly: the monks are to be separate from busy life of the
world, are to work together in common, to let nothing come before the opus
Dei, that is, the round of monastic services; they are to elect their own abbot
(though with the agreement of the local bishop), and furthermore they are to
have no private property (cf. Acts 4:J2). Why the Rule of St Benedict? Part of
the reason must have been the intrinsic value of the Rule as setting out the
nature of the monastic life (on which more later), but part of the reason must
20 n C hrodegang, see most recen tly M.A. Claussen, Tht R.tform oftht Frankish Church: Chrodegt111g
ofMetz and the Regula C anonicorum in the Eighth Cenlll1J, C ambridge University Press, 2004.
Monastic Reform in East and West 105
also have been the way in which Benedict and his Rule had become closely
associated with Rome, not least through the life of Benedict contained in
book 2 of St Gregory the Great's Dialogues, combined with the fact that the
Frankish Church thought of itself as having been founded by Rome, and
therefore looked there for the source and principles of renewal. Furthermore
the translation (as the French saw it) or the theft (the Italian view) of Bene-
dict's relics from Monte Cassino to Fleury in 672/4 brought the cult of St
Benedict into the land of the Franks. Such was the authority of St Benedict's
Rule that Chrodegang made use of it in his Regula canonicorum, drawn up for
the clergy of the cathedral of Metz. This did not at all entail confusion
between the role of monk and canon, for, as Claussen has demonstrated, the
Regula canonicorum set out a very different pattern of life from that set forth
in the charters for Gorze, or in the Rule of St Benedict, though it drew on the
Benedictine Rule for those elements of the life of the canon that overlapped
with that of the monk, notably the central place of liturgical worship and
aspects of the common life that the canons were to live. The quotations and
allusions to the Regula S. Benedicti were there to lend the rule an air of author-
ity. But the purpose and nature of the life of the canon was not to be a monk:
the community of canons is not separate from the world, but deeply impli-
cated in it through pastoral care-preaching and hearing confessions-and
through the liturgy, especially the stational liturgies, in which the bishop and
his clergy went out into the churches in Metz, extending, as it were, the wor-
ship of the cathedral throughout the city, and making the whole society of
Metz an extension of the community surrounding the bishop. 3 Later Car-
olingian reforms further developed this Linking to the local community by
requiring cathedrals to provide education in the liberal arts.
Benedict of Aniane had a secular career before he embraced the monas-
tic life. 4 He was born into the Gothic aristocracy in southern Gaul, and
3Such "stational" liturgies were doubtless mode.lied on the practice of the chwch of Rome, which
itself drew its inspiration &om Jerusalem. For the stational liturgy, see J.F. Baldovin, The Urban Charac-
ter ofChristian Worship: 1be Orilflns, Development, and MeaningofStalional Liturgy, Orientalia Christiana
Analecta :u8, Rome 1987.
4
For Benedict of Aniane and his reform, see C .H. Lawrence, MedievalMonas1icism, 2nd ed., Lon-
don: Longman, 1989, pp. 77-82; Mayke de Jong, "Carolingian Monasticism: The Power of Prayer,"
NCMH II, pp. 622-53, esp. pp. 630-34. The Life of Benedict of Aniane is conveniently available in
translation in T.F.X. Noble and T. Head, eds., SoMim ofChrist: Saints and Saints' L~ s.from Lau Antiq-
uity and the Early Middle Ages, Philaddphia: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995, pp. 213--54.
named Wittiza. His father, the Count of Maguelonne in the March of

Gothia, sent him to the Frankish court to be educated and become a soldier.
He served under Pepin and Charlemagne, until during a campaign in north-
ern Italy he himself was nearly drowned in saving his brother, and vowed to
embrace the ascetic life. This was, in itself, exceptional, in that most monks
in this period entered the monastery as children-as oblates-rather than as
conversi, those who had been converted from life in the world. Initially he was
not at all attracted to the Benedictine Rule, but adopted a severely ascetic
regime, declaring that "the Rule of blessed Benedict was for beginners and
weak persons, [while) he strove to climb up to the precepts of blessed Basil
and the rule of blessed Pachomius" (Life, 2). He pursued this life at Saint-
Seine, near Dijon. After about five and a half years, on the death of the abbot,
he was elected abbot, but feeling incompatibility between his ideals and those
of his fellow monks, left and established a monastery at Aniane in the
Languedoc, on lands belonging to his family. The monastery at Aniane was
strict in its simplicity but as Benedict of Aniane learnt more about creating a
monastic community, he came to value the Rule of St Benedict that he had
earlier despised, and built up his community according to the Rule.
The Rule of St Benedict is a remarkable document. 5 It is comparatively
brief, consisting of a few chapters on the nature of the monastic life, a long
series of chapters about the conduct of the monastic cycle of daily commu-
nal prayer, followed by chapters about a host of practical matters-the correc-
tion of monks, the officers of the monastery, and so on. It lays down
principles and therefore is in fact quite flexible, but it makes clear the princi-
ples of the monastic life. The monastery is to be a community of men who
have given up any private property, committed themselves to the single life,
and bound themselves together to live a life devoted to prayer, expressed pri-
marily in the daily cycle of common prayer, the "work of God," the opus Dei,
over which nothing is to take precedence (Rule, 43). The community is led by
an abbot, elected by the monks, to whom they owe obedience. Obedience is
the first requirement of the monk to be discussed in the Rule (ch. 5), followed
30n the Rule of St Benedict, see Lawrence, Medieval Monastia5111, pp. 19-40; Da,~d Knowles, The
Monastic Order in England, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 1963, pp. 3-15. See also John Meyen-
dorff, Imperial Unity, pp. 88-90. There are countless editions of the Rtgu!a S. Benedicti; I have used The
Rule ofSt Benedict in Latin and Engfuh, trarulated and edited by Abbot Justin McCann, OSB, London:
Burns Oates, 1952.
Monastic Reform in East and West
by silence (ch. 6) and humility (ch. 7). The abbot is to be a loving father to
his community. Though the life prescribed is simple, very little is said about
what ascetic regime the monks are to follow, the real discipline of the life
being found in the common life, and the respect for each other this entails.
Rather the stress lies on the opus Dei, the central purpose of the monastery,
on kctio divina, the private reading of the monks-of the Scriptures and the
works of the Fathers-that was to nourish their spiritual life, and on the opus
manuum, manual work, which meant primarily work in the fields and the gar-
dens, though it could (and later certainly did) include the copying of manu-
scripts in the scriptorium.
It was this rule that Benedict of Aniane eventually adopted, and having
adopted it, he became its champion. Others followed his example in adopt-
ing the Rule of St Benedict, and Benedict of Aniane became in some sense
the head of all monasteries that adopted this reform, though in no formal
sense. Through his links with Charlemagne, and even more through his role
as mentor of the young King Louis the Pious, Benedict of Aniane came to
advise the imperial court on monastic reform, and in the early years of the
ninth century, the monastic reform became imperial policy. When Louis the
Pious became emperor in 814, he founded a monastery for Benedict of Ani-
ane at Incle, close to Aachen, so that he would have him close at hand to help
in instituting the reform. At councils in Aachen in 816 and 817, which the
emperor himself attended and in which he intervened, it was required that all
monasteries in the Empire adopt the Rule of St Benedict, and arrangements
were also drawn up for communities of canons (and canonesses), making a
clear distinction between these two kinds of communities (the principal dif-
ference being the allowing of private property for canons in contrast with
monks' being required to pledge themselves to personal poverty). Adopting
the Rule of St Benedict was one thing; its interpretation was another. There
were various contentious issues. First, the adoption of the Benedictine divine
office conflicted with the policy hitherto pursued of promoting the Roman
divine office throughout the Frankish realms. Next was a conflict over what
the divine office itself consisted of: Benedict's Rule prescribes a compara-
tively spare office, but much, particularly in the way of reciting of the psalms,
had been added to it, and though the Aachen decrees sought to reduce the
burden of the office, the monastic prayer prescribed was still triple the
requirements of the Rule of St Benedict. Monasteries also had schools, osten-
sibly for the education of child oblates, but they often admitted children who
had no intention of embracing the monastic life. This was henceforth forbid-
den. Finally, there was the question of the abbot. fu we have already seen,
the abbot often became a person of some importance, expected to pursue an
aristocratic lifestyle, which required a separate house where he could enter-
tain distinguished guests in suitable splendour. This was quite contrary to the
Rule of St Benedict, which saw the abbot as essentially a father to his monks,
amongst whom he was to live. The Aachen reforms sought to restore Bene-
dict's ideal.
In fact, the Aachen reform was only a partial success: estates needed to be
managed; monastic schools remained attractive; abbots had obligations, not
least to their sovereign; spiritual obligations to founders and benefactors,
reflected in extensions of the monastic office, had still to be met. Further-
more, adoption of the Rule of St Benedict usually meant, not wholesale sub-
stitution for older rules, but rather the supplementation of older rules with
elements from the Benedictine Rule. Nevertheless, the monastic reform pro-
duced a more unified sense of purpose amongst the monasteries, and also a
clearer distinction between the apostolic function of the canonical life and
the contemplative aim of the monastic life. However, the very notion of
reform imposed from outside, by imperial capitularies, undermined Benedict
of Nursia's ideal of a self-governing community of monks, living together a
life of prayer and withdrawal.
St Theodore of Stoudios and the East

St Theodore's life stretches from the later years of the first period of icono-
clasm to the early years of the second period, covering the whole of the
period in between, when the veneration of icons was reintroduced, and there
began a period of renewal that manifested itself in several ways: in monastic
reform, pioneered by Theodore, the beginnings of a cultural revival, and also
the rebirth of political confidence, though this was initially short-lived, end-
ing in the death on the field of battle of the emperor Nikephoros and the
ensuing political crisis that ushered in iconoclasm. Theodore was involved in
many of the issues that faced Byzantine society, and so his life provides a
thread that we can follow through these events. 6
60n Theodore, see Alice Gardner, 7beodlJre ofStudium, London: Edward Arnold, 1905. Study of
Monastic Reform in East and ~st
Theodore was born in 759 to an aristocratic couple, his father serving in

the imperial treasury. This was at the height of iconoclasm under Constantine
V, and though his family was reputedly iconophile, the evidence is not very
strong and it is likely that Theodore's family was iconoclast, or at least acqui-
escent in iconoclasm. That Theodore received a good education is evident
from his writings. When he was 22, in 781, in the first year of Eirene' s regency
for her son, Constantine VI, the whole of Theodore's family, himself
included, embraced the monastic life, receiving the tonsure from his mother's
brother, Plato, who was to be an important influence in Theodore's life. Plato
had been a monk from around the time of Theodore's birth, and shortly after
Theodore's tonsure, he established a monastery at Sakkoudion, a family prop-
erty not far from Constantinople, near Mount Olympos in Bithynia, where
Theodore joined him. In 794, Plato suffered a serious illness, as a result of
which he resigned as igumen, or abbot, and was succeeded by Theodore.
Although Plato recovered and lived for another twenty years, Theodore con-
tinued as abbot. The early years of Theodore's monastic life saw the gradual
move away from iconoclasm to the assertion of the orthodoxy of the venera-
tion of icons at the Seventh CJEcumenical Synod held at Nicaea in 787. 7 It is
very likely that there was also a revival of monasticism in these years, as the
memory of Constantine V's opposition to monasticism faded into the past.
The monastery of Sakkoudion became popular and many novices flocked
there. In 799, Theodore was invited by Eirene, then sole Empress in her own
right, to return to Constantinople and restore the monastery of St John the
Baptist, founded by a certain Stoudios in the mid-fifth century, which was sit-
uated just inside the Theodosian walls of the city, not far from the Golden
Gate. How run-down this monastery was before Theodore arrived with some
of the monks ofSakkoudion (including his uncle Plato) is not clear (a decayed
monastery taken over by a monastic reformer is a hagiographical topos), but it
certainly flourished under Theodore. Already Theodore and his monks had
made their mark on the political scene. In 795, Constantine VI, by now ruling
as emperor, fell in love with Theodote, ironically a cousin of Theodore's, and
the life of Theodore has been vastly facilita ted by the new edition of his letters: Tbeodori Studitae Epis-
tuku, ed. G. Fawuros, 2 vols., C orpus Fontium Historiae Byzantinae XXXlh-z, Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1992. This is utilized in T. Pratsch, Theodoros Stoudites (759-826)-z:wischen Dogma und Pragma,
Berliner Byzantinistische Studien 4, Peter Lang, 1998, and in R. Cholij, Theodore the Stoudite: The Ordtr-
ing ofHolimss, Oxford University Press, 2002.
7 See above, p. 62.
IIO GREE K EAST AND LATIN WEST
decided to repudiate his wife Maria, and marry Theodote. Maria was tonsured
a nun, and entered a monastery, leaving Constantine free to marry. It is
unlikely that this was a free decision, and may have been her way of escaping
from the trumped-up charge of having sought to poison the emperor, the
penalty for which would have been death. The patriarch, Tarasios, refused to
conduct the marriage, but he at least turned a blind eye to the marriage being
blessed by the priest Joseph, steward of Hagia Sophia and abbot of the
monastery of Kathara in Bithynia, and did not refuse communion to the
emperor subsequently. Theodore, an abbot of only one year's standing, broke
off communion with the patriarch, and condemned the adulterous marriage
of the emperor, initiating the "ma:chian" controversy, which was to remain a
bone of contention for years. The imperial court eventually responded by
disbanding the Sakkoudion monastery and exiling its monks, imprisoning
Plato in Constantinople and exiling Theodore, his younger brother Joseph,
and a few other monks to Thessaloniki. This exile, his first, was not to last for
long, just five months, for ~irene was already scheming to depose her son, and
a few weeks after Theodore and his companions arrived in Thessaloniki, she
had her son blinded and deposed and herself seized the imperial throne.
Joseph the steward was also deposed and relations between the monks and the
patriarch restored.
Theodore's stubbornness over the ma:chian controversy, and his conse-
quent exile-a pattern that was to be repeated-is of more than episodic sig-
nificance, for Theodore saw faithfulness to the canons, which had been set
aside by the emperor, as central to the Christian life, and to his conception
of the monastic life. His monastic reform-like all monastic reform-was an
attempt to restore the ancient monastic ideals. He is often regarded as rein-
stituting by his reforms the so-called "Rules" of St Basil the Great, but the
nature of his use of these rules is very difficult to discern. There is no evidence
that there was a "Stoudite Recension" of the rules, in the sense that Theodore
himself made an edition of them; the so-called "Stoudite Recension" is sim-
ply a manuscript of a recension older than the Stoudite reform. The manu-
script itself is somewhat later and in itself does not constitute evidence that
the recension was known to Theodore, let alone used by him. Neither is
Theodore's ascetic language at all similar to that of St Basil. 8 His inspiration
8
See J. Leroy 0 58, ~ influence de saint Basile sur la refonne Stoudite d'apres !es Catecheses,"
lriniium 52 (1979): 491- 5o6.
Monastic Reform in East and West III
was much wider; he looked back to the Fathers of the fourth-century Egypt-
ian Desert, the "golden age" of monasticism, and also to the ascetics of the
Gaza Desert, Barsanouphios and John, and especially to their disciple
Dorotheos, as well as to John of Sinai and his Ladder of Divine Ascent (to
which Theodore is one of the earliest witnesses). To gain access to this asce-
tic literature would have required real effort, for it is generally held that there
was a paucity of books in Constantinople in the decades before the ninth-
century revival. The research Theodore and his monks carried out followed
the example of the study of the Fathers pursued by both sides of the icono-
clast controversy, as they sought to base their positions on the patristic tradi-
tion. At Nicaea II, appeal to the Fathers had been backed up by references,
not to lists of extracts (florilegia), but to the actual codices of their works; in
this use of scholarship the Seventh OEcumenical Synod was only following
the example of the sixth, which Harnack dubbed a "council of palaeographers
and antiquarians," for the care with which it based itself on the authority of
the Fathers. It was this desire on Theodore's part to base his reform on
authentic tradition of the Fathers that made calligraphy and the copying of
manuscripts such an important monastic activity. 9
Before we look at what Theodore's reform amounted to, we need to
sketch in what we know about the monasticism that Theodore inherited. This
we can, indeed, only sketch in, for we are mostly in ignorance. Monasticism
as a distinct phenomenon-as opposed to various forms of organized asceti-
cism that had fulfilled a role in the normal Christian community from the
beginning-emerged in the fourth century in the East, and very rapidly most
of the forms of monasticism the East was to know appeared. There were the
solitaries of the desert, after the model of St Antony the Great; coenobitic
monasteries (i.e., life in monastic communities, "coenobitic" deriving from
koinos bios, "common life") after the pattern of Pachomios or Basil; the form
of monasticism known (then) as the "lavra," in which a group of ascetics lived
mostly solitary lives under the direction of an elder, or spiritual father, and
met at weekends to celebrate the Eucharist and share a common meal, a form
of monasticism that flourished in the fifth-century Palestinian Desert and
thereafter, regarded by John Klimakos (as John of Sinai is generally known,
after his work The Ladder [ofDivine Ascent}, Klimax in Greek) as the ideal form
9See C. Mango, "The Availability of Books in the Byzantine Empire, AD 750- 850," in Byzantine
Books and Booknum: A Dumbarton Oaks Colloquium, Washington DC, 1975, pp . 29-45.
II2 GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
of the monastic life. There was monasticism that separated itself from human
society, either in the desert, or by perching on a pillar (or stylos), or living on
inaccessible mountains or in caves. There was monasticism in cities, carefully
regulated by the canons of episcopal synods, for such monasticism brought
the prestige of the ascetic into close proximity with the authority of the
bishop. All these forms of monasticism flourished in the centuries up to the
rise oflslam in the seventh century. Thereafter monasticism certainly contin-
ued, both in the shrunken territory of the Byzantine Empire and also in the
territories that succumbed to Islam : the Palestinian monasteries survived and
also the Monastery of the Mother of God of the Burning Bush (not dedicated
to St Catherine until the fifteenth century) at Sinai, but what effect the incur-
sion of Islam had on monasticism, as well as the depopulation of the Byzan-
tine Empire and Constantine V's apparent aversion to monasticism, it is
difficult to estimate. Theodore's reform marks a watershed in the availability
of evidence, whatever impact it had on the history of Byzantine monasticism
itself: something vividly illustrated by the recently published five-volume
collection of Byzantine monastic typika (or "foundation documents"), only
two items of which precede the ninth century. 10 The expansion of evidence
for monastic foundations is itself a result of the success of the Stoudite
reforms (of which, more later). It is also likely to be the case (it certainly was
later) that monastic foundations in Byzantium were subject to some of the
constraints mentioned above in relation to Western monasticism-con-
straints due to the expectations of those who supported and founded them,
although we have nothing like the evidence that survives in the West.
Theodore's reform promoted the coenobitic form of monasticism; like St
Basil he had very little time for the solitary life. His ideal was of a commu-
nity of brothers, living, praying and working together under the direction of
an abbot (or igumen). 11 This was an ideal: Theodore did not conceive of
10
See John V. Thomas and Angela Constantinides Hero, eds., Byzantiru Monastic Foundation Doc-
umtnts, 5 vols., Dumbarton Oaks Studies XXXV /r-5, Washington DC, 2000. There are two items on
just si>.1een pages (5:r-66) from the seventh and eighth centuries.
11 The most direct evidence fo r the Stoudite reform is found in Theodore's Teslimo,ry (= Test.) and
the Tj,pikon (the first monastic 1)-pi.J.on to survive), both found in English translation in Thomas-Con-
stantinides, 1.67-II9, but these need to be supplemented by evidence from Theodore's catecheses. See
the introductions in Thomas-Constantinides and the literature cited there. Particularly important are
the articles by Julien Leroy OSB, conveniently epitomized in Theodore Stoudite, Les Grandes Calicheses
(Livre /), Spiritualite Orientale 79, Begrolles en M auges: Abbaye de Bellefontaine, 2002., pp. 3irrr6.
lvfonastic Reform in East and West n3
coenobitic monasticism as subordinate to the ideal of the solitary, or as a

preparation for this higher life (even if only embraced by a select few), nor
did he see the monastic life as simpfy a life devoted to praise of God, as had
been the ideal of the Stoudios monastery from the fifth century onwards
(until Constantine V expelled the monks in 765), the monks being called the
akoimetai-the "sleepless" ones-from the continual, 24-hour round of wor-
ship that they serviced (in relays: it was the worship that was sleepless, not
the monks). In both these ways, Theodore went against generally accepted
ideals of Byzantine monasticism, which continued to exist, if not flourish,
throughout the middle Byzantine period, however influential the Stoudite
ideals became. 12 Most of the features of the monastic life, as Theodore con-
ceived it, flowed from the ideal of the koinobion. Within the monastery there
were to be no social distinctions brought in from the outside world; in par-
ticular, there was to be no distinction between slaves and freemen-slaves, if
they joined the monastery, were to be made free. Manual work was to be an
important part of the monk's life. With this was connected not only the ban-
ning of slaves-there was to be no servant class to whom manual work could
be assigned-but also the banning of female animals, thereby making impos-
sible cattle breeding, which would have taken monks away from manual work
and involved them in commercial activity. Originally-at Sakkoudion-the
manual work was mostly agricultural, but at the reformed Stoudios monastery
much of the manual work must have been artisanal, and certainly included
calligraphy and the copying of manuscripts. The monks were to live in sim-
plicity; their diet was mostly vegetarian (though it included fish), and their
clothing humble, except for priestly liturgical vestments. In this way Theodore
sought to secure monastic poverty, which was "not only a matter of interior
detachment, but had also a strongly marked social character," as Leroy
remarks. 13 It was intended that the monastic community be self-sufficient.
The inner organization of the monastery was the duty of the abbot, who
assigned monks to various offices. Theodore thought of the monastic com-
munity as a body, after the Pauline understanding of the Church, with the
abbot the head, the officers the hands and eyes and the ordinary monks the
12 See Den ise Papachryssanthou, "La vie monastique darn les campagnes Byzantines, du VIII• au
XI• siecle," Byzantion 43 (1973): 158--So.

13Julian Leroy OSB, "La refonne Stoudite," Orienlf/lia Christiana Analecta 153 (1958): 181-214, here
GRE E K EAST AND LATIN WEST
feet. It was also to be largely self-contained: monks were only to leave the
monastic buildings for strictly necessary purposes, and return as soon as they
were accomplished. Women were not allowed in the monastery and any links
with women were firmly discouraged. One distinctive characteristic of Stou-
dite monasticism, deriving from Theodore's stress on an equal brotherhood,
was opposition to the newly emerging distinction of the little habit (or
schema) worn by all professed monks, and the great habit conferred on more
advanced monks, "for the habit like baptism is one, according to the usages
of the Fathers" (Test. 12). Finally, there is the position of the abbot. Although
Theodore appointed his successor (a freed slave, Naukratios), abbots were
generally to be elected by the community and to hold office for life, the
monks rendering him absolute obedience. The abbot was the spiritual leader
of the community and exercised this role quite directly. Each day during the
dawn office (from the fourth ode of the canon onwards), each monk was to
go to the abbot for exagoreusis, in which the monk shared his "thoughts" with
the abbot as his spiritual father. This was not exactly sacramental confession
(though on occasion it could be), but rather a way of spiritual guidance in
which a personal relationship was established between the abbot and his
monks. Three times a week, after the dawn office, the abbot would give his
monks a catechesis, a short lecture or sermon; many of Theodore's survive.
In these ways, the abbot fostered the spiritual development of his monks. In
the case of Theodore himself, it appears that he exercised his role of monas-
tic leadership not just over the monastery of which he was the abbot-at first
the Sakkoudion monastery and then that of Stoudios-but of a group of
monasteries that accepted his reform. Each of these monasteries, however,
would have had its own abbot, and it is quite unclear how Theodore exer-
cised his overall leadership.
The monk's day was divided between common prayer, manual work, spir-
itual reading, and sleep. 14 The "day" began at midnight ("at the end of the
second watch") with the "canon," that is the midnight office followed by the
dawn office (orthros, or matins), during which the exagoreusis of the monks
took place, and after which there was catechesis by the abbot-a pattern found
in Pachornian monasticism. Then there was free time, during which the
monks could go back to sleep (though Theodore discouraged this), until sun-
14
See Julian Leroy O SB, "La vie quotidienne du Mo ine Sto udite," Irinilwn 27 (r954): 21- 50.
Monastic Reform in East and West n5
rise, when three strokes of the simandron, the wooden board that was struck
as a sign for the offices, signalled the time for the first office, prime. After
prime, the monks engaged in manual work, breaking off at the third hour,
terce, after which they ate, except during periods of fast, when the meal was
put off until after none, at the ninth hour. Sext was sung at midday, the sixth
hour, after which there was a siesta. The evening office, vespers or lychnicon,
took place at sunset, after which there was a meal of leftovers &om the main
meal, followed by apodeipnon ("after-supper," or compline) and bed. The
hours of the day (and night) varied according to the season, with twelve hours
between sunrise and sunset-longer in summer, shorter in winter-even
though mechanical clocks had been known since the sixth century: "witness
of a profound fidelity to the order established by God." 15 In establishing this
rhythm of prayer, work and sleep, Theodore rejected the hitherto traditional
practice of the Stoudios monastery with its continual round of prayer, and
replaced it with a rhythm of "common life," the basis of the ascetic regime
of the monks. The liturgical round of worship derived from the practice of
the Palestinian monasteries, though much is unclear about how and when
this took place, and the traditional belief that the liturgical typikon (detailed
pattern of worship) was that of the monastery of Mar Saba in the Kedron Val-
ley in the Judaean Desert has recently been called in question.
Although Theodore explicitly speaks in terms of reviving the "ascetic
rules of the holy Basil the Great" (Test. preface), it is clear that he drew inspi-
ration &om several sources. What he drew from St Basil was primarily his
emphasis on the coenobitic life. As already mentioned above, he drew on the
ascetics of the Gaza Desert (one of the accusations made against Theodore
by his enemies was that his inspiration included notorious monophysite
heretics, such as Isaias, Barsanouphios and Dorotheos, an accusation Theodore
rightly repudiated), 16 and may well have found inspiration for his under-
standing of the abbot from Dorotheos (for Basil envisages no such figure in
his Rules, rather spiritual leadership seems to be dispersed). Theodore's
understanding of the role of the abbot also recalls the Rule of St Benedict;
there are, in fact, other similarities with the Rule, though it is difficult to see
in what way Benedict might have influenced Theodore, save perhaps through
iconodule monks returning from exile in the West.
151.eroy, art. ciL, 29.
16See Theodore, Test. preface (Thomas-Hero, p. 76}; Ep. 34.114- 43 (Fatouros, p. 9Bf.).
n6 GREEK EAST AND LATCN WEST
Theodore and his monks had, virtually from the beginning of the reform,
a reputation for truculence; we have already seen their resistance to emperor
and patriarch over the mcechian controversy. This truculence was to recur over
what Theodore regarded as a revival of the mCX'.chian controversy, when the
officiating priest Joseph was restored by Patriarch Nikephoros under pressure
from his imperial namesake in 806, and most significantly after the revival of
iconoclasm in 815- On all these occasions, Theodore's obstinacy was princi-
pled and bound up with his conception of monasticism, as witnessing to the
purity of the canons handed down from the Fathers. Theodore certainly saw
the monastic order as independent of the political structures of the Empire,
and thus able to exercise a prophetic vocation in relation to it. In another
way, Theodore saw the disbanding of his monasteries and the exiling of his
monks as a means by which they could pursue their monastic vocation in
purity. During each of the latter two exiles (and very likely during the first,
though evidence is lacking), Theodore kept in touch with his monks through
correspondence, and several of his letters are virtual catecheses. The rigours of
exile and imprisonment he saw as an opportunity for monastic asceticism; he
strove in his letters from exile to foster in his monks a sense of the continuing
community to which they belonged, and found inspiration in the martyrs of
the early centuries who had experienced persecution by the Roman emperors,
in relation to whom Leo V seemed all too faithful a successor.
* * *
Benedict of Aniane and Theodore the Stoudite's monastic reforms had much
in common. Both aimed at reviving the ideals of the coenobitic life, the real-
ization of a monastic community in which monks lived, prayed and worked
together as brothers. For Benedict of Aniane, it was the Rule of his namesake
that laid out the principles of this life; in a similar way, Theodore appealed
to the "Rules" of St Basil the Great. In neither case, however, was the model
followed through completely. The pressures of the surrounding society
required the monks to preserve a much heavier burden of prayer than Bene-
dict of Nursia had set down, a burden that encroached on commitment to
the place of manual labour in the monastic life, and altered the function of
that life. In a similar way, the place the abbot of a monastery occupied in soci-
ety made it impossible for him simply to become a father of monks, living
among them, save in the case of small and insignificant communities.
Monastic Reform in East and ~st n7
Theodore's commitment to the Rules of St Basil was, however, of quite a dif-

ferent kind; there is very little literal dependence, and he looked for inspira-
tion much more widely. What he rud learn from St Basil, however, was an
understanding of the coenobitic life as valuable in itself, and not just a prepa-
ration for the "real" life of asceticism, represented by the stylite or hermit.
The nature of Theodore's reform was ilifferent from Benedict of Aniane's:
Benedict reformed a flourishing monasticism that had strayed from the spirit
of the coenobitic life, while it seems to be the case that Theodore was reviv-
ing monasticism that had suffered from the attacks on it by the iconoclast
emperor Constantine V (though his antipathy to monasticism was probably
quite independent of his iconoclasm). Perhaps the most striking difference in
the reforms is the method of their implementation. Benedict of Aniane's
reforms were implemented by capitularies issued by the Carolingian emperor,
while Theodore's reforms, though encouraged at a crucial moment by the
Empress Eirene, were implemented by himself and his fellow monks and
those who joined them. Benedict's reforms thus carried the force of law
throughout the Carolingian realms, while in comparison Theodore's reforms
were a private initiative: indeed the Stourute refonn facilitated what Kazhdan
has called "the creation of an independent monastic organization able to
resist imperial coercion." 17 Monasticism in the Eastern Empire thus became
something of a counterbalance to imperial power-a far cry from the monas-
tic reform in the Western Empire, which was the result of "imperial coer-
cion." It is possible to see here a fundamental contrast between Eastern and
Western Christendom, perhaps related to the contrast Peter Brown saw
between the East's inability, or maybe unwillingness, to control the holy and
the way in the West the power of the holy was quickly harnessed by the epis-
copal and papal hierarchy. It is certainly important to realize that any tenden-
cies towards "ca::saropapism" in the East were often resisted by the power of
the holy, represented in the monastic order.
17
Alexander Kazhdan in ODB, 3, p. 2045.
CHAPTER SIX
ICONOCLASM: SECOND PHASE AND

THE TRIUMPH OF ORTHODOXY
I n 815 iconoclasm was reintroduced as Byzantine imperial policy by

another Leo-the emperor Leo V "the Armenian." It is necessary, however,
to recount something of the events that led up to this, and it is convenient
to do so by continuing the story of St Theodore of Stoudios.
History of Events
In 802, after three years of the Empress Eirene's sole rule, in which she sought
popularity by making tax concessions, especially to the monks, she was
deposed by a court coup, and replaced by Nikephoros, the financial logo-
thete (logothetes tau genikou), who was presumably alarmed at the conse-
quences of Eirene's fiscal policies. There may have been other reasons for the
dethronement of Eirene. The Byzantines were upset at Charlemagne's claim
to be "Emperor of the Romans" in the West, and the proposed marriage
between him and Eirene would have aroused many misgivings. Nikephoros,
however, did not tum out to be much of an improvement. Our view of him
as emperor is distorted by the fact that our principal narrative source-Theo-
phanes' Chronicle-can find nothing good to say about him at all. Theophanes
had little time for Eirene, but seems to have had even less for Nikephoros.
All his policies, even the policy of attempting (largely successfully) to recover
the mainland of what is now Greece from its settlement as the Sldmiiniai by
transporting a Greek population from Anatolia, are presented by Theophanes
in the worst possible light.
In the early years of Nikephoros' reign, Theodore seems to have contin-
ued with implementing his monastic reform at the Stoudios monastery, and
the other monasteries that sought his guidance. Theodore was doubtless
II9
unhappy at the forced deposition of his patron, the Empress Eirene, whom
he held in the highest regard, harbouring no apparent criticism of her treat-
ment of her son. 1 He first crossed the emperor after the death of the patri-
arch, Tarasios. The emperor seems to have written a circular letter to various
notables, seeking advice about the appointment of the new patriarch .
Theodore's reply survives (Ep. 16). He refused to suggest any suitable names
to the emperor, which was the kind of information he was presumably seek-
ing, and instead made two general points. First, he says that the new patriarch
should not be a layman (as Tarasios had been), but someone already a mem-
ber of the Church hierarchy. Secondly, he reminds the emperor that God has
given the Christians "these two gifts, priesthood and kingship," and that
therefore the emperor should not make the appointment himself, but
appoint the one elected in accordance with the canons by the bishops,
abbots, and other ascetics. Nikephoros ignored this advice and appointed to
the patriarchate another Nikephoros, a former civil servant, who had become
a monk and director of the largest orphanage in Constantinople, but was not
ordained. Anticipating trouble from the Stoudites, the emperor had
Theodore and Plato placed under arrest for twenty-four days, while Nike-
phoros was tonsured, ordained through all the orders, and finally enthroned
as patriarch. On their release, Theodore and Plato decided to accept
Nikephoros as patriarch. Furthermore, one of the Stoudite monks, Joseph,
Theodore's brother, was appointed archbishop ofThessaloniki. Such a warm
relationship did not last for long. The emperor was keen to open the case of
the priest Joseph, deposed for his involvement in the second marriage of
Constantine VI some ten years earlier (possibly because Joseph had done the
emperor a favour, perhaps in connexion with an unsuccessful rebellion early
in his reign). An episcopal synod was held (which Theodore attended, though
as a monk he had no vote), which restored to Joseph his priestly faculties.
Theodore responded as before, by withdrawing communion &om the patri-
arch. Initially nothing seems to have been done; maybe the withdrawal of
communion (by ceasing to mention his name in the diptychs) was done dis-
creetly and few noticed. But after a visit to Constantinople, during which
Theodore's brother Joseph studiously avoided concelebrating with the patri-
arch, it could no longer be ignored. Joseph was dismissed from his see and,
1See Ep. 7, "fulsome even by Byzan tine standards" according to P. Henry, cited byCbolij, Thuidore
the Stouditt, p. 43.
Iconoclasm: Second Phase and the Tn'umph of Orthodoxy 121
together with his brother Theodore, his uncle Plato, and another monk, was
imprisoned, while further attempts were made to change their minds. Finally
the rehabilitation of the priest Joseph was confirmed by a synod in 809. The
monks of the Stoudios monastery stood furn with their abbot, and all were
sent into exile. The emperor was probably simply baffled by the stance of the
Stoudite monks, for this time there was no suggestion that Constantine's
marriage was legal. But for Theodore appeal to the "oikonornia of the saints"
was tantamount to betrayal of the gospel. In exile, Theodore again sought to
keep his monks faithful to their monastic vows and to preserve their sense of
community as monks by letters and catecheses. He began to use a cipher to
refer to the various monks, allotting them letters of the alphabet (he took the
last letter, omega), so that if the correspondence were intercepted no one
would be implicated (the three letters outside the twenty-four letter Greek
alphabet-stigma, san and sampi-were used to represent apostates, the patri-
arch and the emperor, respectively).2 The very use of such a device as a cipher
served to enhance the identity of the group of monks, now driven under-
ground. Again, Theodore showed how he could use the opposition of the
imperial court to intensify the monks' sense of identity.
The exile did not last more than a couple of years. For in 8n, Plato fell ill
and was allowed to return with the other monks to Constantinople. In the
same year, Nikephoros embarked on his ill-fated campaign against the Bul-
gars. The seventh century had seen the formation south of the Danube of the
"first Bulgarian Empire," consisting of the Slavs, who had been settled there
for some decades, under the leadership of the Bulgars, a Turkic tribe who had
themselves now crossed the Danube. They were led by a khan, with his court
at Pliska, south of the Danube delta. The emergence of such an organized
political realm was, to begin with, dealt with by the Byzantines by diplomacy:
treaties and the payment of tribute to contain them. The defeat of the Avars
at the hands of Charlemagne in 796 strengthened the hand of the Bulgars,
and significantly increased the threat they posed to Byzantine access to Thes-
saloniki and the Balkan peninsula to the south, just as the Byzantines had
begun to re-establish their presence there. Nikephoros' campaign was initially
successful, and he advanced as far as the capital Pli,ska, which he devastated.
The Bulgars had, however, only withdrawn; they were not defeated. On their
2See Ep. 41.

way back the Byzantine army was ambushed, Nikephoros was killed along
with much of the army, and his son Staurakios seriously wounded. Khan
Krum had Nikephoros' skull inlaid with silver and turned into a drinking
cup.
Nikephoros' wounded son, Staurakios, was acclaimed emperor at Adri-
anople, where he had been taken, but in a few months he was supplanted by
his brother-in-law, Michael I Rhangabe. According to Theophanes', doubt-
less biased, testimony, neither of the brothers-in-law had any competence as
emperors. Michael was more favourably disposed to the Church than his
father-in-law had been, replacing fiscal stringency with lavish gifts; he also re-
established the Stoudite monks, who had returned from exile, in their
monastery. Michael himself was not, however, destined to reign for long: in
June 813, the Byzantine army was routed at Versinikia by the Bulgars, Michael
abdicated and became a monk (dying in 844), and Leo, the strategos of the
Anatolian theme, was invited to assume the imperial throne as Leo V.
Leo V did not reintroduce iconoclasm immediately; he had more press-
ing business as Khan Krum, building on his victory at Versinikia, prepared to
lay siege to Constantinople itself He had not the resources for a successful
siege, but ravaged the area beyond the walls and much of Thrace and took
Adrianople, exiling its population to Macedonia. There was little Leo could
do, other than preserve his life and his throne in Constantinople. The threat
represented by Khan Krum only ended with Krum's sudden death in April
814 from a cerebral hemorrhage. Even so, it was some years before Leo
achieved a position of enough strength to arrange a peace treaty with the Bul-
gars, now led by Khan Omurtag. That was in 816. By then, iconoclasm had
been reintroduced to the Byzantine Empire. The first sign of such a move on
Leo's part occurred at Christmas 813, when he had his young son Symbatios
crowned emperor with the name Constantine. The acclamation to the
"Augusti, Leo and Constantine" will have recalled the similar acclamation
nearly a century earlier. Clearer signs came with Leo's setting up a commis-
sion of iconoclast intellectuals, led by the learned John the Grammarian, to
seek evidence for the illegitimacy of icons. Finally shortly before Christmas
814, Leo, maintaining that the soldiers were objecting to the veneration of
icons, which they blamed for the victories of the Bulgars and the Arabs, pro-
posed to the patriarch Nikephoros that icons that could be touched and
kissed were to be removed, leaving only icons out of reach of veneration.
Iconoclasm: Second Phase and the Triumph if Orthodoxy 123
Nikephoros refused, and when asked by the emperor to justify the veneration
of icons, replied that this was an apostolic tradition handed down by the
Fathers of the Church. Leo then demanded a formal synodical discussion of
the question with the iconoclast commission, Jed by John the Grammarian,
who had discovered patristic texts rejecting the veneration of icons.
Nikephoros again refused, arguing that the question had been settled at the
<:ecumenical synod, held at Nicaea in 787. FinaJly, after the palace guards had
pelted with mud and stones the icon of Christ above the bronze gate (the
Challu) at the main entrance to the palace, the emperor declared his hand by
removing the Chalke icon, on the pretext of preventing its desecration.
Thoroughly alarmed, Nikephoros convened a meeting on Christmas Eve
in the patriarchal palace, attended by the leading iconophile clergy and
monks, including Theodore of Stoudios, at which the iconoclast group under
John was also present. There was a strong show of support for the icons, and
a petition was signed by those present. Leo again hesitated, not least because
of the feast, but in the early months of 815 gradually prepared his ground,
appointing iconoclasts to the patriarchal court, and increasing the pressure
on the patriarch. Nikephoros took to his bed, and the emperor eventually
convened a synod of iconoclast bishops to try Nikephoros and condemn
him, apparently for failing to respond to the iconoclast arguments. At the
beginning of Lent, in March, Nikephoros was forced to abdicate, and went
into exile. The emperor proceeded to appoint his successor, openly preferring
John the Grammarian but, because ofJohn's youth and obscurity, appoint-
ing a lay courtier, Theodotos Kassiteras, a relation of Constantine V's third
wife (John was to be his successor but one as patriarch). Theodotos hastily
passed through the lower clerical orders and was consecrated patriarch on
Easter Day. On Palm Sunday, Theodore had organized a defiant procession
with icons around the Stoudios Monastery. Theodotos' first act as patriarch
was to convene the home synod, which reinstated iconoclasm by declaring
the Synod of Hiereia the Seventh GEcumenicaJ Synod, and annuJling the
synod of 787. Theodore was invited to attend but refused.
Iconoclasm was enforced firmly: all clergy and monks were required to
sign a statement assenting to iconoclasm, though fairly early on this seems to
have been reduced to receiving communion from an iconoclast priest. Bish-
ops who refused to affirm iconoclasm were anathematized, deposed, and in
many cases exiled. Any vocal opposition to iconoclasm was suppressed; the
most vocal seems to have been Theodore and his monks. Theodore himself
was soon arrested-in April 815-and, with one of his monks, Nicholas, impris-
oned in a fort called Metopa in Bithynia. Meanwhile, the Stoudios monastery
was not closed down, but placed under a former monk, Leontios, who had
left the monastery over the mrechian affair, and now embraced iconoclasm.
The monks who supported Theodore were in turn exiled. Theodore spent
about a year in Metopa, before being transferred, with Nicholas, to Bonita in
the Anatolikon theme, where he suffered a good deal, on one occasion receiv-
ing 100 strokes of the lash, after being caught sending letters. The wounds fes-
tered and he nearly died, but he recovered, only to be sent to Smyrna, where
he was kept in a dungeon, fed on bread and water, and endured much ill treat-
ment. He survived there until early 821, when he was freed by the new
emperor, Michael IL
We can glean a good deal about the first few years of this second period
of iconoclasm from the surviving letters of Theodore. Many icons were
destroyed, those who defended them were exiled and ill-treated. But it seems
that the emperor was careful to avoid providing the iconophiles with mar-
tyrs. Although in one of his catecheses 3 Theodore says that more than a hun-
dred monks from the various monasteries had died as confessors, his
language is vague and probably means that many monks died in prison and
exile, doubtless hastened on their way by their rough handling. He mentions
very few names. One he does mention is Thaddaios, and his case is worth
pausing over. Thaddaios was a slave who had become a Stoudite monk. He
had refused to bow before iconoclasm, and for some reason during his
imprisonment was subjected to a whipping. After 130 lashes, he died-proba-
bly not the intended result. Theodore's letter to the monk who was to suc-
ceed him, Naukratios, is a remarkable piece of rhetoric. 4 He evokes his
contradictory feelings-joy and grief, praise and lamentation-finding himself
in a "no-man's-land" between two passions, scarcely knowing what to say.
"The lamb of Christ who was scourged has died for the sake of Christ-Thad-
daios, my little sapling, one most tender to me, the son of obedience, the
crown-root of piety, the namesake of the apostle." Theodore goes on to con-
template with terror and joy the suffering and death of his teknon, his child.
But the joy predominates. And then, from thinking about Thaddaios, he
3Little Ca!Lchesis 36.
4
Ep. 186, and cf. Ep. 204.
lconoclasm: Second Phase and the Triumph ef Orthodoxy 125
turns to address him directly: "I beseech you, Thaddaios, saint of God, inter-
cede for me, your unworthy servant, for I dare not call you 'child'!" And he
goes on to call on his monks to contemplate the "martyr of God, Thaddaios,"
who has been given "for the glory of God and our boast and the sweet rejoic-
ing of the whole Church."
Despite the punishment meted out to Theodore himself, he managed to
produce a prodigious number of letters (of which many seem to have been
preserved), as well as catecheses, during this second period of iconoclasm. As
during the earlier exiles over the ma:chian affair, Theodore used these letters
to preserve among his dispersed monks a sense of identity and community.
Their hardships are to be seen as a means of asceticism, an alternative way of
being a monk-the prison cell a monastic cell. The cipher devised during the
exile of 809-n is used again, and again reinforces the sense of a persecuted,
secret, underground community. Many of his letters address problems faced
by the iconoclasts. He takes a strict line, identifying iconoclasm with apos-
tasy. Obviously one must not sign the declaration in favour of iconoclasm,
but neither may one receive communion fiom an iconoclast priest. Those
who have apostatized in these ways are not to be allowed to receive the sacra-
ments of the Orthodox, even if they repent. Those who repent are to wait
until the end of iconoclasm-to the time when "the clear sky of Orthodoxy"
shines forth-when a synod will be held and then the cases of the repentant
iconoclasts will be dealt with. The only exception concerns repentant icono-
clasts on their deathbed; they may be given the viaticum. 5 What is striking
about the line Theodore sets out so confidently is that it is exactly the line
taken by the Church of the martyrs before the conversion of Constantine.
What Theodore is doing is identifying the iconodules of his day with those
who stood firm, to the point of death, in the age of the martyrs. In this,
Theodore is also follmving the example of St Basil the Great, who in several
of his letters (cf. Ep. 240,242,243) sought to assimilate the suffering of Ortho-
dox congregations at the hands of Arians to the persecutions of the century
before. Here, perhaps more clearly than in his monastic legislation, we can
see the inspiration of the great Cappadocian Father. This sense of a faithful
remnant in Constantinople who constituted the true Church was enhanced
by the fact that Pope Paschal I condemned iconoclasm, as did the patriarchs
5£p. 225.
of the East. In one of his letters, Theodore exclaims, "The martyrs' blood
waters the Church, the choir of the confessors is increased," and continues,
"What are our opponents to say? For they do not have the West, they are
deprived of the East; they are torn from the body of the Church with its five
leaders (for the sacred Nikephoros still lives)." 6
The first phase of persecution ended with the brutal murder of Leo Von
Christmas Day 820. He was succeeded by Michael II the Amarian, who
recalled Theodore and the other Stoudites from exile. Michael, however, had
no intention of abandoning iconoclasm, though he was prepared to tolerate
it outside Constantinople. Theodore and his monks left Constantinople for
Bithynia, where they remained in voluntary exile. During the uprising of
Thomas the Slav, who sought to avenge Leo V, Theodore moved to the
monastery of Tryphon, where he died on n November 826. The struggle was
far from over. Michael died in 829, to be succeeded by Theophilos, under
whom the persecution of the iconoclasts was renewed. By now few of the
iconophile bishops were left, so the persecution turned to focus on the
monks. Among the monks who suffered under Theophilos were three from
Palestine, who had arrived in Constantinople during the reign of Leo V, and
thrown in their lot with the iconophiles; two of them brothers, who had their
faces branded with iconoclast verses-Theodore, who died during Theophi-
los' reign, and the better-known Theophanes, a writer of liturgical poetry,
who become bishop of Nicaea after the Triumph of Orthodoxy-and
Michael, one-time synkellos of the patriarch ofJerusalem, who became Patri-
arch Methodios' synkellos and abbot of the monastery of the Chara. The Life
ofMichael the Synkellos is a valuable, though not unbiased, source for this sec-
ond period oficonoclasm. 7 It emerges from the Life, and is corroborated else-
where, that even twenty years after the introduction of iconoclasm,
iconophile sympathizers, if not open supporters of icons, were to be found
even in Theophilos' court. The nun Euphrosyne who cared for Michael dur-
6Ep. 407.
7 See 1bt Lift ofMichat! tht Sy11kellos, text, translation and commentary by M ary B. Cunningham,
Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations 1, 1991. Also: C laudia Sole, jerusalem- Konstantinopd-Rom:
Dit Vitm dts Michael Synlullos und tkr Briider Thtodoros und Thtophanes Grapwi, Altertums-
wissenschaftliches Kolloquium 4, Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2001. Sole argues that the Life ef
Michael is later than hitheno supposed (before 867), belonging to the end o f the ninth century; she
also questions its histo rical reliability, in particular the linking of M ichael's sto ry with that of the Grap-
toi brothers.
Iconoclasm: Second Phase and the Triumph of Orthodo::ry 127
ing his imprisonment in the Praetorium prison in Constantinople has been

identified with the dowager Empress, Theophilos' stepmother.8 Whether or
not that is so, Theophilos' wife, Theodora, seems to have been a closet
iconophile, and had indeed been accused of possessing icons during her hus-
band's lifetime; after Theophilos' death in 842, as regent for their two-year-
old son, she set about restoring icons and their veneration. Although
iconoclasm still had its supporters, which perhaps explains the apparently
extreme caution with which icons were introduced in public places such as
Hagia Sophia, where the first large mosaic icon-of the Mother of God in the
apse-was only dedicated on Holy Saturday, 867, this proclamation of the
orthodoxy of the veneration of icons was final.
The Issues
Although the reintroduction of iconoclasm was presented as no more than
a reaffirmation of eighth-century iconoclasm-no cecumenical synod was
called, the Synod of Hiereia was simply reaffirmed as cecumenical by a ses-
sion of the home synod-in fact, in several ways, the issues during the second
phase of iconoclasm were different, and the iconophile theology advanced
by the defenders of icons went beyond the arguments of the eighth-century
iconophile theologians, such as St John Darnascene (indeed, it is not clear
that the detail of John's arguments was known to the ninth-century icono-
phile theologians at all). The most obvious difference is that, whereas in the
first phase of iconoclasm it was the very existence of icons that was called in
question-the making of such icons being held to be against the second com-
mandment, with sophisticated Christological arguments advanced by the
iconoclasts maintaining that the making of an icon of Christ was impossible
without falling into heresy-the second phase of iconoclasm turned rather on
the veneration of icons, Leo V's initial demand to the patriarch Nikephoros
being simply that icons be removed from reach, those out of reach being per-
mitted to remain (nevertheless, major apse mosaics at Nicaea and in Hagia
Sophia that were well out of reach were replaced with figures of the cross).
This may possibly be related to the different position of the West during the
second period of iconoclasm. Whereas the first time round, the West had no
8See Cunningham, Lift ofMichael, p. 153 , n. u7, and Treadgold, Byzantine &viva/., p. z8c.
declared position on icons, by the time iconoclasm was reintroduced the Car-
olingian Empire had set out its position on icons at the Synod of Frankfurt
(794), which rejected Nicaea II (though misunderstanding what it had
declared), and while rejecting the destruction of icons, was well aware of the
dangers of venerating them. The "West" was indeed now more complex, for
the papacy accepted the doctrine ofNicaea II, its ambivalence about formally
accepting the synod due to the synod's failure to address the issues of the
papal patrimonies in Italy and papal jurisdiction over Illyricum.
Whereas we can only speculate about the motives of Leo III in introduc-
ing iconoclasm, Leo V's motives seem clearer: the veneration of icons was to
be made the scapegoat for the successive Byzantine defeats at the hands of
the Bulgars and the Arabs. The issues, however, had to be theological, and
we have seen that Leo set up a kind of commission, under John the Gram-
marian, to find convincing evidence. Again, the account of the events and
encounters that led up to the forced abdication of Nikephoros suggest that
the iconoclast line pursued by the commission focused on tradition, claim-
ing that icons were an innovation, citing patristic testimony in support. This
patristic testimony seems to have been that discovered in Constantine V's
reign and presented at the Synod of Hiereia in 764. As mentioned in connex:-
ion with the first phase of iconoclasm,9 devotion to the cross as the symbol
or figure (typos) of the divine economy seems to have been central to the icon-
oclast case. The extent to which both Nikephoros and Theodore focus on the
figure of the cross, together with the fact that apse mosaics of the Virgin and
Christ were replaced by the figure of the cross in the second period of icon-
oclasm, suggests that devotion to the cross was central to the ninth-century
iconoclasts, too.
It was Nikephoros, writing in relatively comfortable exile, and Theodore,
writing from harsh imprisonment and later in voluntary exile at the monas-
tery of Tryphon, who mounted the theological resistance to iconoclasm dur-
ing the second phase. As we have seen, initially the two men found
themselves at loggerheads over what Theodore regarded as a revival of the
mrechian controversy, but their later uneasy reconciliation became more
wholehearted after Nikephoros' firm stand against Leo V: the patriarch whom
Theodore at first regarded as a jumped-up layman became at last "the sacred
9See above, pp. 50-51, fl.

Iconoclasm: Second Phase and the Triumph of Orthodoxy 129
Nikephoros." Judging by their writings against the iconoclasts, they seem to

have been men of very different characters, Nikephoros' writings being
mostly meticulous but turgid analyses of the documents from the iconoclast
side (invaluable, however, for preserving much that is otherwise lost), while
Theodore's writings display the agility of mind of a natural debater.
Nikephoros' writings confirm the impression already gained that the second
phase of iconoclasm looked back to the first stage of iconoclasm for its justi-
fication. Most of his works fight the battles of the eighth century: his three
Antirrhetikoi are directed against Constantine V's Peuseis, 10 there are works
about the texts allegedly cited from Eusebios and Epiphanios, and his only
recently published Refutation and Overthrowing ofthe Definition ofthe Synod of
815 is largely concerned with the eighth-century texts cited by the Synod of
815. 11 He also composed a massive two-part Apol,ogetikos, intended to preface
the Antirrhetikoi. There is little original in the arguments of Nikephoros, and
they have nothirig of the clarity and conciseness of John Damascene. His
principal contribution to the argument is the use of Aristotelian terms, espe-
cially the category of relationship, schesis, that enables him to distinguish
between the icon and what it depicts, and articulate the idea of "relative ven-
eration," schetike proskynesis, offered by way of the icon to the person
depicted. 12 Theodore, however, is a thinker of real power. 13 He presents some
of the central points made by John Damascene, without, however, showing
any awareness of the arguments of his illustrious predecessor, rooting human
making of images, for instance, in God's making human kind in his image
and likeness ("The fact that man is made in the image and likeness of God
shows that the work of iconography is a divine action"), 14 and relating the
making and veneration of images to the fact that human beings are them-
selves twofold beings, body and soul, material and immaterial, arguing that
10Wo rks in PG 100. French translation of the Antirrhetici (PG 100.1.05-533) v.;tb notes by Marie-
Jose Mondzain Baudinet: Nicephore, Discoim contre ks iconoclasts, Paris: Editions Klinclcsieck, 1989.
11 Edited by J.M. Featherstone, Niaphori Patnarchae Constanti11oplitOJ1i &fatatio et Evmio Defi11itio-
nis S]nodalis anni 8If, CCSG 33, 1997.

12 For Nikephoros' theology, see Paul J. Alexander, The Patriarch Nicephoms ofCo11sta111inopk: &ck-
siastiral Polig and Icon Worship in the Byzanline Empire, O xford : C larendon Press, 1958; John Travis, In
Defenu ofthe Fai1h: 'Jbe 7beology ofPatriarch Nikephoros of Conslanlinopk, Brookline MA: Hellenic Col-
lege Press, 1984.
13Works in PG 99. English translation of his An1irrhe1ici. (PG 99-328-4.36) by Catharine P. Roth: St
Theodore the Studite, On the Hot;, Icons, Popular Patristics Series, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1981.
14 Antir. 3-2.5 (PG 99.420A; trans. Roth, p. mr).
declared position on icons, by the time iconoclasm was reintroduced the Car-
olingian Empire had set out its position on icons at the Synod of Frankfurt
(794), which rejected Nicaea II (though misunderstanding what it had
declared), and while rejecting the destruction of icons, was well aware of the
dangers of venerating them. The "West" was indeed now more complex, for
the papacy accepted the doctrine of Nia.ea II, its ambivalence about formally
accepting the synod due to the synod's failure to address the issues of the
papal patrimonies in Italy and papal jurisdiction over Illyricum.
Whereas we can only speculate about the motives of Leo III in introduc-
ing iconoclasm, Leo V's motives seem clearer: the veneration of icons was to
be made the scapegoat for the successive Byzantine defeats at the hands of
the Bulgars and the Arabs. The issues, however, had to be theological, and
we have seen that Leo set up a kind of commission, under John the Gram-
marian, to find convincing evidence. Again, the account of the events and
encounters that led up to the forced abdication of Nikephoros suggest that
the iconoclast line pursued by the commission focused on tradition, claim-
ing that icons were an innovation, citing patristic testimony in support. This
patristic testimony seems to have been that discovered in Constantine V's
reign and presented at the Synod ofHiereia in 764. As mentioned in connex-
ion with the first phase of iconoclasm, 9 devotion to the cross as the symbol
or figure (rypos) of the divine economy seems to have been central to the icon-
oclast case. The extent to which both Nikephoros and Theodore focus on the
figure of the cross, together with the fact that apse mosaics of the Virgin and
Christ were replaced by the figure of the cross in the second period of icon-
oclasm, suggests that devotion to the cross was central to the ninth-century
iconoclasts, too.
It was Nikephoros, writing in relatively comfortable exile, and Theodore,
writing from harsh imprisonment and later in voluntary exile at the monas-
tery ofTryphon, who mounted the theological resistance to iconoclasm dur-
ing the second phase. As we have seen, initially the two men found
themselves at loggerheads over what Theodore regarded as a revival of the
mcechian controversy, but their later uneasy reconciliation became more
wholehearted after Nikephoros' firm stand against Leo V: the patriarch whom
Theodore at first regarded as a jumped-up layman became at last "'the sacred
9
See above, pp. 50- 5r, 57.
IJO GREEK EAST AND LATI N WEST
the faculty of imagination, phantasia, would be rendered useless if it had no

mle in our apprehension of the divine, which it has in the process oflooking
at and understanding images. 15 But the most important contribution of
Theodore to the iconophile armoury is his response to the "Christological"
arguments introduced by Constantine V, viz., that no icon of Christ is pos-
sible, since in depicting the human nature of Christ, it is either separated
from the divine nature-which would entail Nestorianism-or fused with it-
which would entail monophysitism. Theodore's response is to take the argu-
ment more deeply into the realm of Christology, and make use of the
distinction made at Chalcedon between person or bypostasis and nature
(physis). What is depicted in an icon is not a nature in general, but a person
with particular features, so in the icon of Christ it is the person that is
depicted, the person in whom the two natures are united.
If we say that the flesh assumed by the Word has its own hypostasis, we
speak plausibly. Since according to the view of the Church we confess
that the hypostasis of the Word became the common hypostasis of the
two natures, lending the human nature subsistence in it, with the proper-
ties that distinguish it from others of the same species; similarly, we
say that the same hypostasis of the Word is uncircumscribed according to
the nature of the divinity, but circumscribed according to the being
shared with us, having its existence not in a self-subsistent and self-circum-
scribed hypostasis alongside the Word, but in it. For there is no nature
without concrete existence, and it is beheld and circumscribed in it as in
an individual. 16
The West
During the first period of iconoclasm, initially the West was involved in the
person of the pope, required as the bishop in the first see of the Byzantine
Empire to implement the iconoclast policies of the emperor. Gregory II
refused, and his successor, Gregory III, held a synod in Rome that con-
demned this new imperial policy. There followed the sequence of events
15
See Ep. 38oJ54-8o, and c£ the Damascene's similar emphasis on the place ofphantasia: Agaimt
Jhe lamodaslS 1. u.
16
Antir. J.l.21. (PG 99.400CD; trans. (m odified] Roth, p. 86).
iconoclasm: Second Phase and the Tn'umph of Orthodoxy 131
traced in chapter three above, which led to the papacy seeking political sup-
port from the newly emerging Carolingian Empire. By the time of the rein-
troduction of iconoclasm, that process of political realignment was well
advanced. There is no evidence that Leo V expected the pope to implement
iconoclasm, but, on the other hand, the pope was far from unconcerned
about what was happening in New Rome. Paschal I condemned iconoclasm
in an encyclical, which may have been in response to an appeal from
Theodore, who was, in any event, delighted (the letter was apparently
brought from Rome by the future patriarch Methodios, who for his pains was
imprisoned by the emperor). Rome became a refuge for monks fleeing the
iconoclast persecution. However, as already mentioned, the position of the
Carolingian Empire on iconoclasm was less clear; Nicaea II had not been well
received at the Synod of Frankfurt in 794. Michael II sought to undermine
the iconophile position of the pope by establishing links with the court of
Louis the Pious at Aachen. An embassy arrived in 824, and in their discussion
mention was made of St Dionysios the Areopagite. 17 The Carolingians knew
nothing of the writings ascribed to Paul's disciple, but they knew of a Saint
Denys, martyred in Paris, whose relics were preserved at the royal monastery
of St-Denys, north of the city. What were in reality probably three different
men-the convert, the martyr and the author-were identified. In 825, at a
synod in Paris, under the leadership ofHilduin, abbot of St-Denys and Louis'
archchaplain, Michael's moderate iconoclast position was upheld and a cou-
ple of passages from the Corpus Areopagi,ticum cited in support. In 827 the
imperial ambassadors were again back in France, this time bearing a presen-
tation copy of the works of "St Denys." The book was brought to the Abbey
of St Denys, arriving on the vigil of the feast of the saint and performing
eighteen miracles by its presence; it is now in the Bibliotheque Nationale in
Paris, a beautiful manuscript written in majuscule, devoid of decoration (per-
haps thought inappropriate in a gift from one iconoclast to another!), but
also, rather oddly, devoid of the scholia generally present in manuscripts of
Dionysios (perhaps the Byzantines did not imagine that anyone in the West
could read them!). Hilduin, who knew some Greek, translated it imo Latin,
thereby producing the first Latin version of the Areopagite, though it is
17For what follows see my article "St Denys the Areopagite and the Iconoclast Controversy" in
Ysabel de Andia, ed., Dmys !Yl.riopagiu et sa postirili en anent et occident, Collection des Etudes Augus-
tiniennes, Serie Antiquite 151, Paris 1997, pp. 329-39, and Ihe articles cited in n. 28.
largely incomprehensible (Hilduin's translation was to be revised several

times, first by Eriugena in around 862, of which more later). Hilduin also pro-
duced, from various sources, an account of the passion of St Dionysios, con-
vert of Paul, author of the Corpus Areopagiticum, bishop of Athens, apostle to
the French, martyred at Paris. 18 This curious story of encounter between East
and West leads nowhere, for the two empires were to continue on their
increasingly incompatible ways, at least for the rest of the ninth century.
The Triumph of Orthodoxy

Iconoclasm, as imperial policy in Byzantium, came to an end with the death
ofTheophilos in January 842. The widow, regent for their small son, Michael,
set about the restoration of icons. It was more than a year, however, after the
death of Theophilos that iconoclasm was condemned and the veneration of
icons restored, perhaps because Theodora was insistent that her late husband
not be condemned, maintairiing that he had repented on his deathbed, but
maybe primarily to avoid any taint on the line to which her son would suc-
ceed. As with the reintroduction oficonoclasm in 815, the restoration oficons
was the act of the home synod, declaring Nicaea II a genuinely recumenical
synod and annulling both iconoclast synods-those of 754 and 815. All this
was accomplished by the new patriarch, Methodios. He replaced John the
Grammarian, who was deposed, anathematized and exiled. Methodios had
been close to the patriarch ikephoros, who had sent him to Rome as his
ambassador in 815. On his return he had been imprisoned as an iconophile
by Michael II, though later he became an official in the court ofTheophilos.
Iconoclasm was anathematized at a solemn ceremony on the first day of
Lent, rr March 843, preceded by a vigil for the clergy at the church of the
Mother of God at Blachemai and a procession through the city to Hagia
Sophia, where they met the empress, the child emperor and the court, and
where the statement of the synod was read out and its anathemas of the
heretics and acclamations of the orthodox, both departed and living, were
18lbis Passio was taken back to Constantinople, where one of the people to read it was Michael
the Synkellos, who used it as the basis for an encomium of the saint that he delivered on J October,
the feast of St Dionysios accordin g to the Byzantine calendar, sometime before 833- The whole inci-
dent sheds a strange light on Michael's position in Constantinople, where, though apparently in
prison, he had access to the Passio, a diplomatic gift from the West in rerum for the copy of the Cur-
pHs Dionysiacum!
Iconoclasm: Second Phase and the Triumph ofOrthodoxy 133
proclaimed. This ceremony, however, was to be repeated each year on the fust
Sunday of Lent, which became known as the Sunday of Orthodoxy, or of the
Triumph of Orthodoxy. The proclamation of the triumph of Orthodoxy, in
a document known as the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, was preceded by a
canon, a liturgical poem probably composed by Methodios himself. The
Synodikon itself consists of a brief sermon, the proclamation of the ortho-
doxy of the making and veneration of icons in the form of anathematization
of the condemned positions of the iconoclasts, acclamation of the orthodox
Fathers of the Church, anathematization of heretics (more comprehensive
than just the iconoclasts), and acclamation of the emperors and the patriarch.
Those present were to respond by shouting "Anathema!" (against the
heretics), "Many years!" (for the orthodox living), and "Eternal memory!"
(for the orthodox departed). The whole ceremony was not just a proclama-
tion of Orthodoxy but a communal action in which all present became com-
plicit (or made themselves complicit) in the doctrines proclaimed, and
affirmed themselves part of the Orthodox community, from which the
"heretics" were clearly excluded (and named and shamed). From the end of
the fourth century, orthodox doctrine had been a mark of the Byzantine
Empire; this ceremony, repeated yearly, was to enact, as it were, the orthodox
identity of the Byzantine Empire. Of this identity the existence and venera-
tion of icons had become an emblem. Initially, the ceremony took place
yearly in Hagia Sophia, but it quickly spread to other churches and finally to
all churches of the Byzantine rite-which was soon to include the Slav
churches. 19
This ceremonial enactment of Orthodoxy was implemented by practical
political measures. Methodios deposed any bishops who had embraced icon-
oclasm under Leo V, as well as the clergy they had ordained. This was a rig-
orist policy, more rigorist than Tarasios had employed after Nicaea IL But it
left Methodios with the need to replenish his clergy, and here it seems that
he was prepared to appoint faithful iconodules, even if they were not entirely
satisfactory in other respects. It is this, it seems, that incurred the wrath of the
monastic party, though they had probably been disappointed anyway that
the new patriarch had not come from their ranks. The clash between the rig-
orism of the monks and the art of the possible created a tension that was to
19See Gouillard, "Le Synodikon d'Orthodoxie.~

be exploited later on in the century. The Triumph of Orthodoxy may finally

be said to have been established in 867, when the new icon of the Virgin and
C hild in the apse of the Great Church of H agia Sophia was dedicated. By this
time Photios was patriarch, and in his sermon he celebrates the place of the
icon in the Christian economy. It was Holy Saturday when the icon was
unveiled, and Photios weaves together the themes of the victory of life over
death and of the revelation of the mystery of the Incarnation:
What could be more agreeable than this day? What could be more explicit
than this feast to give expression to gladness and joy? This is another shaft
being driven today right through the heart of Death, not as the Saviour is
engulfed by the tomb of mortality for the common resurrection of our
kind, but as the image of the Mother rises up from the very depths of obliv-
ion, and raises along with herself the likenesses of the saints. Christ came
to us in the flesh, and was borne in the arms of His Mother. This is seen
and confirmed and proclaimed in pictures, the teaching made manifest by
means of personal eyewitnesses, and impelling the spectators to unhesitat-
ing assent .. . The Virgin is holding the Creator in her arms as an infant.
Who is there who would not marvel, more from the sight of it than from
the report, at the magnitude of the mystery, and would not rise up to laud
the ineffable condescension that surpasses all words? 20
The Outsiders to Byzantine Orthodoxy

The "Triumph of Orthodoxy" affirmed an identity, and such affirmation of
identity usually envisages "outsiders," those excluded from that identity.
Immediately, the "Triumph of Orthodoxy" was directed against heresy, the
heresy of iconoclasm, which itself was seen as a crowning example of Chris-
tological heresy, in that by denying that Christ could be depicted the icon-
od ules argued that it called in question the reality of the Incarnation.
Christological heresy-from Arianism, via Apollinarianism, Nestorianism,
Eutychianism, to monenergism and monothelitism-had been the archetypal
20 Photios, Sermon X\III.5 ( On the image ofthe Virgin); ed. B. Laourdas, Photiou Homiliai, Helknika 12,
Thessaloniki, 1959, p. 170 (trans. from The Homilies ofPhotius Patriarch ofConstantinople, English transla-
tion, introduction and commentary by Cyril Mango, Dumbanon Oaks Stuclies Ill, Cambridge MA:
Harvard UniYmity Press, I958, pp. 293--94).
Iconoclasm: Second Phase and the Triumph of Orthodoxy 135
heresy of Byzantine Christianity, and the concern of the succession of "cecu-

menical" synods, in contrast to the West, where a different circle of "here-
sies," such as Pelagianism and predestinarianism, seems to have been more
pressing. There were other heresies, for instance, Manichaeism-often seen
primarily as a Christological heresy because of its docetic view of Christ-and
Origenism and Messalianism, the latter often regarded as in some way
Manichaean. These last two heresies-Messalianism condemned at Ephesos
(431) and Origenism at Constantinople II (553)-were particularly prevalent in
monastic circles. What was meant by "Origenism" is the subject of a good
deal of dispute; often enough it seemed simply to be a blanket term for too
great an interest in the pagan wisdom of the Greeks, especially Plato-a wis-
dom referred to as the "outer wisdom" (ri E~w aoq,[o:, ,o: 0ue6:0ev). The Synod
in Trullo, however, managed to get through its 102 canons without directly
involving itself in heresy at all, save insofar as it is implicit in the decisions of
the recumenical synods, which were affirmed by the synod.
By the ninth century, however, the "Paulician" heresy has become a con-
cern in the Byzantine world, and in the next century we begin to hear about
the heresy of the "Bogomils."2 1 A word, necessarily brief, needs to be said
about these heresies. Both of them are dubbed by Byzantine heresiologists as
Manichaean and Messalian, but it is nearly certain that there is no genetic
link between the Byzantine heresies and these older heresies. Both Paulician-
ism and Bogomilism are characterized by their rejection of the hierarchy and
sacraments of the Byzantine Church. It is likely that this is the heart of these
movements of protest: they were protests against the wealth and worldliness
of the Church that spilled over into a "spiritual" rejection of all that this
entailed. So the centre of their faith was Jesus Christ, understood as a spiri-
tual being, who had come into the world, but who had not actually shared
our humanity. This rejection of (or interpretation of) the Incarnation entailed
rejection of any honour given to the Virgin Mary as his mother; it also meant
that the sacraments were interpreted spiritually. Christ, who said, "I am the
living water," was the sacrament of baptism, and his institution of the
Eucharist referred to his teaching. Again, Christ himself was the living cross,
2 1For the Paulicians and the Bogo mils, see the collection of translated texts, with valuable intro-
duction, by Janet and Bernard Hamilton, Christian Dttafal Heresies in the Byzantine World c.650-c.I405,
Manchester U nivenity Press, r998. See also Steven Runciman, The Medieval Manichtt: A Study of the
Christian D ualist Heresy, Cambridge U n iversity Press, 1947.
136 GREEK EAST ANO LATIN WEST
so they rejected veneration of the cross, as well as veneration of the relics and
icons of the saints. All this was clearly compatible with a dualistic view of the
world, that saw matter as evil and not the creation of God, but how far they
drew this conclusion is disputed. 22 Our earliest account of the Paulicians is
by Peter of Sicily, who identifies the Paulicians with Manichees. He wrote in
the mid-ninth century, and was presumably one of the circle of Sicilians who
attained prominence in the post-iconoclast Church, the most famous of
whom was Methodios, the new patriarch. From Peter we learn, if we discount
his evident speculation, that the Paulicians traced their origins to Constan-
tine of Mananalis, who lived in the mid-seventh century in Armenia. He was
the first of the didaskal.oi, the "teachers" who were regarded as apostles of
Christ. With the advent of iconoclasm in the eighth century, the Paulicians
gained a certain respectability in the Byzantine world and benefited from the
support of Constantine V, who resettled many of them in Thrace after his
invasion of Armenia in 7.51. They served to repopulate Thrace after the plague
of 748 and to defend it against the Bulgars. Their position of favour survived
the revival of the icons in 787, but in 8n, Nikephoros persuaded the emperor,
Michael I, to declare the Paulicians heretics punishable by death (against
which stalwart defenders of the Orthodox tradition such as Theodore of
Stoudios protested on the grounds that faith cannot be secured by coercion).
The revival of iconoclasm under Leo V did not restore the Paulicians' for-
tune; they were to face several decades of persecution. Many Paulicians fled
the Empire and returned to Tefrike in Armenia, which itself fell to the Byzan-
tines in 878. Thereafter Paulicians survived, both within and outside the
Empire, but we are poorly informed about them.
The Bogomils emerge in the tenth century in Bulgaria, and they may owe
their origins to Paulicians who had fled Byzantine persecution and settled in
Bulgaria. 23 They were named after a priest called Bogomil (Slav for Theophi-
los), whose gospel seems to have been one of simplicity in contrast with the
corruption and worldliness of the clergy, the object of his criticism. The
Bogornils seem to have been dualists, believing that God had two sons: the
elder son being Christ and the younger the devil, who fashioned the mate-
22See Claudia Ludwig, "The Paulicians and Ninth-century Byzantine Thought" in Byzanti11m in
the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive? ed. Leslie Brubaker, Aldershot: AsbgateNariorum, 1996, pp. 23-35.
23 On the Bogomils, see Dmitri Obolensky, 7bt Bogomils: A Study in Balkan Neo-MMichaeism,
Cambridge University Press, 1948.

Iconoclasm: Second Phase and the Tn·umph <ifOrthodoxy r.37
rial cosmos. They pursued an ascetic life, rejecting sexual intercourse, wine
and meat. They were devoted to prayer, using the Lord's Prayer apparently
exclusively. Their devotion to prayer is doubtless the reason why they were
dubbed "Messalians" or "Euchites" by the Byzantines, for these terms desig-
nating heretical groups mean "those who pray." Though the Byzantine
sources are naturally hostile, they also give the impression that the Bogomils
were ascetics of great simplicity, who dressed like monks and could easily be
mistaken for monks. Indeed, the Byzantines claimed that the Bogomils were
prepared to conform to Orthodox practices, take part in Orthodox worship,
and receive Orthodox sacraments, and thus infiltrate the Church. Bogomils
were greatly feared in the Byzantine world, and also spread throughout the
Balkans, but their apogee lies in the twelfth century and therefore is beyond
the scope of this volume. The Bogomils were the inspiration and origin of
the Western medieval cathars.
Paulicians and Bogomils both seem heretical movements whose raison
d'etre was that they protested against the establishment of Orthodoxy; they
are archetypal "outsiders." They were feared, and both groups faced the death
penalty if they maintained their beliefs, though the imposition of the death
penalty for heresy was rejected by many prominent Orthodox. A very differ-
ent group of outsiders was the Jews. Although heresies and other religions
were proscribed-sacrifices were forbidden, and ultimately resort was had to
persecution-the position of the Jews was special; they were recognized as
belonging to a permitted religion and allowed to practise their religion and
to continue worshipping in their synagogues. Officially persecution was for-
bidden, and indeed official attitudes were more severe towards Christian
heresy than Judaism. This status was, however, ambivalent: it was intended
to preserve (until the second coming of Christ) the Jews as a standing witness
to the truth of the gospel they had rejected; to this end they were to continue
in a diminished state, forbidden to have Christian slaves, to proselytize, work
for the government, teach in public institutions, or serve in the army; nor
were they allowed to build new synagogues, or even (in practice) to make
major repairs to existing ones. Jewish communities were found throughout
the Byzantine Empire, and Jews regularly immigrated from neighbouring
Muslim and Western Christian lands. The ban on Jews living in Jerusalem,
imposed by the emperor Hadrian after the Jewish revolt of AD 1.32, was still
held to be in force in the seventh century, on the eve of the Arab Conquest
of the Holy Land. The Jews were, however, encouraged by the emperor Julian
the Apostate to rebuild the Temple in 362, and their rejoicing at the fall of
Jerusalem to the Persians in 614 was deeply resented by Christians. Although
persecution was forbidden, the emperors Heraldeios, Leo III, Basil I, and
Romanos I Lekapenos all ordered the forced baptism ofJews. Such persecu-
tion was officially opposed by the Christian Church and condemned by lead-
ing theologians, such as Maxim us the Confessor (580-662), though individual
voluntary conversions were welcomed, and indeed encouraged. In the Holy
Land, the Jewish community, established mainly in Galilee, had been ruled
by a group of scholars headed by a nasi, called in Greek the "patriarch of the
Jews," a position that lasted to the fifth century. In the Diaspora,Jewish com-
munities tended to live apart, usually near the market and running water, led
by rabbis appointed with the consent of the government, enjoying autonomy
in religious and social affairs. These communities raised their own taxes, and
provided various social services: education, care of the sick, burial, et cetera.
Part of the communal tax went to the government, though whether there was
a special Jewish poll tax is disputed. Jews became prominent as merchants,
craftsmen, and particularly as physicians. Much valuable light is shed on the
Jewish communities of Byzantium, especially in Constantinople-though a
little outside the period of this volume-in the account of a journey from
Spain along the Mediterranean coast to Byzantium in the rr6os by Benjamin
of Tudela, who characteristically observed that "the Greeks hate the Jews,
good or bad alike, and subject them to great oppression, and beat them in
the streets, and in every way treat them with rigour. Yet the Jews are rich and
good, kindly and charitable, and bear their lot with cheerfulness. " 24
24 Qioted from Jewish Travdlm in the Middle Ages: 19 Firsthand Accounts, edited with introduction
by Elkan Nathan Adler, New York: Dover Publications lnc., 1987, p. ,µf.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RENAISSANCE OF LEARNING:
EAST AND WEST
A nother "synchronism" in Greek East and Latin West was the renais-
sance of the ninth century: in the East "le premier humanisme byzan-
tin," as Lemerle has called it, 1 and what the Carolingians in the West referred
to as renovatio. The acme of both renaissances was roughly contemporary: the
middle of the ninth century. The Carolingian reno-vatio was, however, a move-
ment with deep roots, as we have seen. 2 The Byzantine cultural revival only
begins to emerge in the last two decades of the eighth century, but it contin-
ues well into the tenth century, and indeed experiences a revival in the
eleventh century, continuing into the period of the Komnene emperors in
the twelfth; we shall encounter it again in the later sections of this book.
Because the Western revival gets under way earlier, it seems more logical to
begin there.
The Carolingian Renovatio

We have already seen a good deal of the Carolingian renovatio: the court cul-
ture of Aachen under Charlemagne has already been sketched in; we have
seen something of its results in following the Carolingian reaction to the
proclamation of the orthodoxy of the veneration of icons at the Nicaea II, a
reaction manifest in the Opus Caroli regis and the Synod of Frankfurt; we have
also seen how the Carolingian renovatio manifested itself in the monastic
reforms led by Benedict of Aniane. It remains to draw all this together, and
look at the implications of this renovatio in the ninth century.
1See Paul Lemerle, Le premier humanisme byzantin, Bibliotheque Byzantine, Etudes 6, Paris: Presses
Universitaires de France, 1971.

2
See above, pp. 73-?4, 95-96.
139
As we have already seen, the Carolingian renovatio was an attempt to

recover the Latin foundations of Western culture. Many of its aims were prac-
tical : revision of law and government required competence in Latin, and the
establishment (or reinforcement) of Cathedral schools sought to achieve this.
The reform and purification of the liturgy was also seen as a practical meas-
ure, ensuring that God was worshipped in a fitting manner; so too was the
reform of the monastic order. All of this reform was centralized on the Car-
olingian court and put into effect by the issuing and enforcement of capitu-
laries. At the heart of all this was a community of scholars, both providing
the milieu in which the principles of the reform could be worked out and
developing for its own sake the Latin culture that lay at the heart of the pro-
gramme. This manifested itself in fonnal ways-in the writing of histories,
lives both of saints and of the emperors and their kin, and in sermons and
theological treatises-but also in less formal ways-in letters (though many of
these are quite formal) and in poetry, both secular and religious. Many of the
poems these scholars wrote to and for one another, displaying their mastery
of Latin verse, and celebrating the bonds such shared learning created, have
survived. An example is this short poem (in Helen Waddell's translation):
When the moon's splendour shines in naked heaven

Stand thou and gaze beneath the open sky.
See how that radiance from her lamp is riven
And in one splendour foldeth gloriously
Two that have loved, and now divided far,
Bound by love's bond, in heart together are.
What though thy lover's eyes in vain desire thee,

Seek for love's face, and find that face denied?
Let that light be between us for a token;
Take this poor verse that love and faith inscribe.
Love, art thou true? and fast love's chain about thee?
Then for all time, 0 love, gi,•e thee joy!3
3 Helen Waddell, A-fediteval Latin Lynes, 5th edition, London: Constable, r94 , p. u7. For a more
austere translation, see Peter Godman, Poetry efthe Carolingian Renaissance, London: Duckworth, 1985,
p. 2J.7. Helen Waddell popularized such medieval Latin ver.;e in her 71,e Wandering Scholars, London:
Constable, r9z7, and the companion volume, Mediawl Latin Lyrics (first published 1929), which is sup-
plemen ted by the later posthumous collection Mort Latin Lyrics, ed. Dame Felicitas Corrigan, Lon-
don: Victor Gollancz, 1976.
Renaissance ofLearning: East and West
The reform was also manifest in non-literary ways: coins, in their inscrip-
tions conveying a sense of regal majesty and divine protection, a massive
building programme of chUiches and palaces, and a host of other art works-
books, ornaments, illustrations and bindings incorporating scenes carved in
ivory, as well as sculpture, metalwork and textiles. 4 A characteristic of major
Carolingian churches was a double-ended design, the west end being supple-
mented by "Westworks," or monumental fa~ades, often incorporating tow-
ers. The apsidaJ ends of these churches often enclosed crypts which provided
housing for the relics required by the growing relic cult.
Although the Carolingian reform was centrally directed, it would be a
mistake to suppose that the central plan was everywhere put into effect. As
John Contreni has put it,
Any account of the Carolingian renaissance that omitted its detours, con-
tradictions, and idiosyncrasies would make it seem too schematic. Carolin-
gian rulers and prelates could provide an impetus, but they could not
control intellectual activity and debate no matter how much they desired
standardization and unanimity. The immediate effect of the official
involvement in learning and culture was to stimulate activity on a broad
front. Over distances of time and space, however, the original impetus was
transformed by individual talent, local differences, and changing circum-
stances. 5
One way in which the impetus of the Carolingian renewal led to diversity
was in the way in which renewed theological study led to theological contro-
versy, of which there had been very little in the West since the "Three Chap-
ters" controversy of the late sixth century, sparked off by Pope Vigilius'
endorsement, under pressure from the emperor Justinian, of the condemna-
tion of the "Three Chapters," that is, the writings of Theodoret of Kyrrhos
and lbas of Edessa against Cyril of Alexandria, and the person of Theodore
of Mopsuestia, the supposed mentor of Nestorius, at the Fifth racumenical
Synod of 553.6 We have seen something of such theological controversy in
Theodulf's reaction to the decisions ofNicaea II about icons. This was a con-
4
See Laurence Nees, "Art and Architecture," in NCMH 11, pp. 809-44.
5
John J. Concreni, "The Carolingian Renaissance," in Renaissances before the Renaissance, Stanford
CA: Stanford University Press, 1984, pp. 59-74, here p. 6-,f.
6See Meyendorff, Imperial Unity, pp. 235-45.
troversy that divided the West, Pope and Imperial Court taking different
sides, but in the Carolingian Empire itself, Theodulf seemed to encounter no
controversy. Nonetheless, papal rejection of the Opus Caroli regis seems to
have ensured that it had no real impact on posterity. Another controversy
dividing the West and involving the East was the flaring up of the Filioque
controversy at the beginning of the ninth century. The Carolingians inher-
ited much from the Visigoths of Spain: the use of anointing, for example, in
the making of a king, but also the form of the Niceno-Constantinopolitan
Creed used in the liturgy. At the Synod of Toledo in 589, the article on the
Holy Spirit in the creed was supplemented by the addition of "and the Son"
(Filioque) to read: "And in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of Life, who
proceeds from the Father and the Son ... " It was this supplemented form of
the creed that the Carolingians inherited from the Visigoths. In 808 or 809,
some Frankish monks in the Holy Land were accused of heresy by the Byzan-
tine monks for using a creed containing the Filioque, and appealed to Pope
Leo III, saying that this was the form of the creed they had heard at the Frank-
ish court. Pope Leo referred the matter to the Franks, who sent a delegation
to Rome to discuss the matter. On the theological matter, they were in agree-
ment; the Holy Spirit does indeed proceed from the Father and the Son. But
on the question of the creed, Rome, which used the original form of the creed
(and was to do so until the beginning of the next millennium), refused to
sanction the addition to the creed. To emphasize the point, Leo III had two
silver shields inscribed, one in Greek, one in Latin, with the original text of
the creed (i.e., without the Filioque), and set up before the tomb of St Peter.
The pope and the Franks agreed to differ over this point. 7 Both these are evi-
dence, not so much for diversity within strictly Frankish theology, as Frank-
ish divergence from papal theology, and also from Byzantine theology. Both
Thomas Noble and Ann Freeman, the editor of the Opus Caroli regis, have
commented on the "intensely, polemically anti-Byzantine tone of the
work," 8 a tone also found in Frankish defences of the Filioque.9
7Recently Claudia So le has argued that the early ninth-century Filioque controversy had nothing
to do with Jerusalem but was a purely 'X·estem dispute: see eadem, }erusalem-Konstantinopel- Rom:,
pp. 163-w2.
8Thomas F.X. Noble, "Review Article: From the libri Carolini to the Opus Caroli RLgis," p. 138, refer-
ring to Freeman's introduction (Opus Caroli regis, pp. 3, 5).
9See Ricliard H augh, Photius and the Carolingians, Belmont MA: Nordland Publishing Company,
1975-
Another controversy occurred on the edge of Carolingian territory, and

can again be seen as an attempt by the Carolingian court theologians to
establish their own authenticity, only this time, instead of criticizing the
Byzantine tradition from an inherited Hispanic perspective, the Carolingian
theologians saw themselves as defending the Eastern synodal tradition
against a perverse, parochial tradition hailing from Spain. The controversy
was over the so-called adoptionism of some Hispanic theologians, principally
Elipandus, archbishop of Toledo, and Felix of Urgel. The controversy was
presented by Alcuin as a resurgence of some kind of Nestorianism, accord-
ing to which Christ's divinity and humanity were separate and in the Incar-
nation the Word of God adopted a human nature. It has recentl)' been argued
by John Cavadini that what we encounter in the controversy is not a simple
replay of ancient disputes but rather the clash between native Hispanic tradi-
tion, which can be traced back to the great Hispanic theologians of the sixth
century, especially St Leander of Seville, one-time friend of St Gregory the
Great, and the rediscovered patristic tradition of the great recumenical syn-
ods, perhaps rather self-consciously championed by Alcuin. The native His-
panic tradition, common both to the "adoptionists," Elipandus and Felix,
and their Hispanic opponent, Beatus of Liebana, was less concerned with the
union of divinity and humanity in the person of Christ than with how Chris-
tians participate in Christ's humanity and through that humanity gain salva-
tion. Christology and ecclesiology are held together; between them there is
what Cavadini has called a "virtual equivalence." 10 What appears as "adop-
tionism" is really a concern for our adoption as children of God; Christ's
humanity is pivotal, for it is in solidarity with that human nature that humans
receive adoption. For Alcuin, however, the language of adoption in the case
of Christ entailed too loose a link with the Godhead; he insisted on the lan-
guage of assumption of humanity by the Word. When the affair was referred
to Rome, Pope Hadrian had no difficulty in endorsing the theology of the
Carolingians, which this time sought to defend the tradition of the recumeni-
cal synods.
In confronting adoptionism, Alcuin and Paulinus of Aquileia empha-
sized the intimate union between divinity and humanity in Christ. With
an allusion to a passage from Cassian about doubting Thomas' confession,
10John C. C avadini, The Last Chmwlogy of the West: Adoptionism in Spain tmd Gaul 785-820,
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993, p. 52.

1 44 GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
Alcuin says, "God is the Jesus whom I touched, God whose limbs I felt ... I
touched the body of my Lord, I felt flesh and bones, I put my fingers in the
wound, and concerning Christ my Lord whom I touched, I shouted, 'My
Lord and my God!' " 11 This concern that we find salvation in the flesh of
Christ because it is the flesh of God finds expression in depictions of the
Crucifixion in the Carolingian era, as Celia Chazelle has shown. 12 It is, she
argues, a constant concern behind the various theological controversies that
exercised the Carolingian theologians. This is true, in different ways, of the
two further theological controversies of the Western ninth century: predesti-
nation and the question of the eucharistic presence.
Predestination was an issue that became pressing in the later theology of
Augustine of Hippo. 13 Augustine himself addressed the objections it pro-
voked in his late treatises and the controversy continued after his death. For
Augustine the question of predestination emerged from his understanding of
human salvation through grace. If we are saved at all, we are saved through
God's unmerited grace; nothing we do can contribute to salvation; our good
works are the result of salvation; they are in no way its basis. The saved are
therefore the elect, those whom God has chosen. If so, then what about those
whom God has not chosen? Are they heading for damnation, whatever they
do? Have they even, perhaps, been created far damnation? And in the case
of the elect: does it mean that, whatever they do, they will be saved? Augus-
tine explored all these questions unflinchingly. There is indeed nothing we
can do to be saved. The apparently random element in human fate (one child
dying on the way to baptism, another delaying yet receiving baptism before
death) only shows that election (which entails baptism, though baptism is no
certain sign of election) rests on grounds unfathomable to human reason. If
Augustine shrank from affirming unambiguously that God actually created
the reprobate for damnation, emphasizing rather the mercy of God in snatch-
ing the elect from the damnation they deserve as a result of the fall, and thus
11 Alcuin, Adversus Feliam 2.19 (PL ror.14-4AB), referring to John Cassian, De lncamatwm Christi con-
/Ta Nestorium 3.15; quoted in Celia Chazelle, The Crucified God in the Carolingian Era: Theolo!J•and Art of
Christ's Passion, Cambridge University Press, 2001, p. 58£
12Celia Chazelle, The Crucifad God in the Carolingian Era: Throwgy and Art efChrist's Passion, Cam-
bridge University Press, zoor.

13The literature on Augustine's doctrine of predestination-as on virtually every other aspect of
his theology-is vast. For a concise introduction, see Gerald Bonner, Augustine efHippo: Life and Con-
/Toversies, London: SCM Press, 1963, pp. 352-93, esp. pp. 380-89.
Renaissance efLeaming: East and West 1 45
avoided speaking of a double predestination (one predestination to grace, the

other to perdition), his language too often trembles on the threshold of such
an idea. The extent to which controversy about predestination is an Augus-
tinian legacy is manifest in the fact that it seems largely a Western contro-
versy. The Christian East has always been much less preoccupied by
predestination. Not that it plays down God' s guiding providence: the Byzan-
tines were fascinated by the problems posed by God's infallible foreknowl-
edge; from virtually every century between the seventh and the fourteenth
centuries there survives at least one treatise devoted to "the predestined terms
oflife," i.e., the question as to whether the hour of everyone's death is pre-
determined. But this is a philosophical problem. So far as salvation is con-
cerned, it is a matter of God's mercy and grace and human free acceptance,
a mystery in which neither side yields before, or overwhelms, the other.
The initial controversy was resolved at the Synod of Orange (529), where
the Augustinian position was stated in Augustinian terms, affirming original
sin and the need for grace even for the beginning of faith, without, however,
any clear affirmation of predestination to damnation as a corollary. 14 It was
the Carolingian revival ofleaming, with its renewed access to the writings of
the Latin Fathers, not least Augustine, that provoked the resurgence of the
controversy in the ninth century. The protagonist was Gottschalk (c.804-
c.869). Son of a Saxon count, child oblate of the abbey of Fulda, and educated
at Reichenau in the early decades of the ninth century, he was pre-eminently
a beneficiary of the ideals of the Carolingian renovatio. In his teaching on
predestination, he was uncompromising, advocating double predestination
and affirming that it was not God's will that all be saved (cf. 1 Tim. 2:4).
Gottschalk was condemned in 848 at a synod in Mainz, under its archbishop
Hrabanus Maurus, and again the next year at Q!iierzy, at a synod over which
Hincmar, archbishop of Reims, presided. Hincmar wrote against Gottschalk
and sought the assistance of other scholars, among them Eriugena. But
Gottschalk himself found supporters in Pruden ti us of Troyes, Ratrarnnus of
Corbie and Lupus of Ferrieres, though none of them fully supported his
views. Several further synods condemned Gottschalk, and one seemed to
support him (Valence, 855). A synod at Tusey (or Douzy) in 860 more or less
reaffirmed the position of the Synod of Orange, and the controversy faded
14 See Meyendorff, Imperial Unif>•, pp. 130-39 .

away, at least overtly, but even after Gottschalk's death the issues he raised
continued to be discussed.
It has been argued (by Celia Chazelle) 15 that one way of articulating the
differences between Gottschalk and his opponents, especially Hincmar, is to
focus on their different interpretations ofJohn 3:14-16: "And as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of man be lifted up, that
all who believe in him may have eternal life. For God loved the world in such
a way that he gave his only begotten Son, so that all who believe in him may
not perish but have eternal life." To Gottschalk's mind, because of God's
omnipotence and immutability, which underlie the doctrine of predestina-
tion, the grace that flows from the suffering of the crucified Christ is fully
redemptive; the idea that anyone who receives it is not saved is unthinkable.
So those for whom Christ died are those who have been given the grace to
"believe in him." But this means that Christ did not die for all, only for those
predestined to believe and be saved. For Hincmar, on the contrary, what we
see on the cross is the saving passion that saves those who look upon the cru-
cified Lord with faith. Those who do not look but tum away, "surely do no
harm to the light, but will condemn themselves to the shadows." 16 But to
look to the Lord with faith is to seek Christ in the sacraments: to be baptized,
to receive the sacrament of the Eucharist, to strive to live lives worthy of
Christ, and if one fails, to seek restoration through penance and forgiveness.
A further controversy among the Carolingian theologians concerned the
Eucharist itself, and the nature of Christ's presence in the consecrated ele-
ments. An illuminating way of approaching this controversy is by way of the
shift the late Henri Cardinal de Lubac explored in the signification of the
term corpus mysticum in the Western Middle Ages. 17 De Lubac noted a three-
fold designation of the term corpus Christi, "body of Christ": it may refer to
Christ's historical body, born of the Virgin, lifted up on the cross; it may refer
to the eucharistic body of Christ, present in the sacrament; it may refer, too,
to the Church as the "body of Christ." De Lubac argues that in the patristic
period the "caesura" between these three designations came between the his-
torical meaning and the other two; the Eucharist and the ecclesial body
15
See Chazelle, Crucified God, pp. 165-208, esp. pp. 176-?8 (Gottschalk), pp. 192--95 (Hincmar).
16
Q_yoted in Chazelle, op. cit., p. 193.
17
See Henri de Lubac, Corpus Myslictim: L'Eui:haristit ti l'eglist au moym age, Paris: Aubier, 2nd
re,,ised edition, 1949.
Renaissance ofLeaming: East and West 1 47
belonging together, the eucharistic body referring to and to some extent

effecting the body of Christ, which is the Church; both these two latter mean-
ings were guaranteed by the historical body of Christ, on which they depend.
The term corpus mysticum refers to the eucharistic body, the "body" presented
in the mystery of the Eucharist; it is "mystical" because it is the hidden real-
ity of the Eucharist, referring back to the historical body, and manifesting the
Church as the body of Christ. Another point de Lubac makes is relevant here.
He maintains that "a mystery, in the ancient sense of the word, is an action
rather than a thing," 18 and that this sense is lost in the Latin word sacramen-
tum, which is a sign rather than an action revealing a hidden reality. The Car-
olingian controversy is, he suggests, the first evidence of the unravelling of
this patristic concept of the body of Christ. Ultimately what happens is that
the "caesura" moves from being between the historical meaning and the
other two to separating the historical and eucharistic meaning from the eccle-
sial: the ecclesial body becomes corpus mysticum, the "hidden body," and the
eucharistic body becomes corpus verum, the "true" body of Christ, identical
with the historical body. Tbis also ties in with the implications of a doctrine
of predestination. Predestination tends to call into question the ecclesial
authenticity of the actual Christian community, for only the elect may form
the body of Christ, and their identity is unknown. The real Church is there-
fore a "hidden" body, corpus mysticum. These implications, however, lie well
in the future and underlie the terms of the Reformation debate. What we find
in the Carolingian debate is no more than the beginnings of this unravelling.
The controversy itself is complex, with problems about the dating of the
various treatises, so that the traditional idea of a dispute between the two
monks of Corbie, Paschasius and Ratramnus, has largely been abandoned.
Even if their treatises were contemporary, Paschasius and Ratrarnr1us do not
seem to envisage each other, and it is likely that Ratramnus' treatise is much
later than the 830s, when Paschasius' On theBody and Blood efChrist was prob-
ably written. It is Paschasius who insists on the identity of the eucharistic
body of Christ with his historical body, and in this he is followed by Hinc-
mar. For both of them, the reality of Christ's presence in the Eucharist is fun-
damental, for it is Christ, present in the Eucharist, who offers grace to those
who partake of the Eucharist, and his presence is guaranteed by the divine
18
Lubac, op. cit. , p. 6o.
omnipotence that can override the normal processes of nature. For Hincmar,
too, the reality of Christ's presence undergirds the authority of the priestly hier-
archy, whose members can alone bring about Christ's eucharistic presence. 19
This emphasis on the reality of Christ's presence seems to eliminate the ideas
of signification and symbolism that are present in older views of the Eucharist,
so that we find Eriugena warning against the idea that "the visible Eucharist sig-
nifies nothing else but itself." 20 Eriugena's treatise on the Eucharist is lost, but
he found himself supporting Gottschalk and Ratrarnnus, though his central
emphasis on the identity of the eucharistic sacrifice with the heavenly sacrifice
of Christ marks a distinction between his position and that of Gottschalk and
Ratrarnnus. These theologians, too, emphasize that Christ is truly present in
the Eucharist, but this identity does not mean that Christ's historical body is
there, or that the eucharistic sacrifice is a repeat of Christ's once-for-all sacrifice
on the cross; Christ does not suffer again in the Eucharist.
These controversies continued in the next century,2 1 and take a decisive
turn in the eleventh century with the condemnation of Berengar of Tours.
That condemnation suggests that despite the continued controversy, the
position of Paschasius and Hincmar was to be determinative of the future
position of the West. That it already has some ascendancy in the Carolingian
period is brought out by the concluding chapter of Chazelle's book, already
referred to, which explores three Carolingian images of the Crucifixion-in
the Utrecht Psalter, the Drogo Sacramentary, and the ivory cover of the Peri-
copes of Henry II-in which the blood £lowing &om the side of the crucified
Christ is caught in a eucharistic chalice, as a way of asserting the identity
between the historical and eucharistic blood of Christ, as Paschasius and
Hincmar rnaintained. 22
It is worth, briefly, drawing some comparison between the development
of eucharistic doctrine in East and West, for the iconoclast controversy in the
East had also, as we have already seen, raised the issue of the nature of the
eucharistic presence. In a way that recalls some of the emphases of both
the Western positions, the iconoclasts had affirmed in the eighth century that
19As C hazelle argues : op. cit., p. u,µ.

20 Eriugena, Exposilion ofthe CekJtial Hitrard,y 13 (CCCM 31, 17), q uoted in Gary Macy, The Theokr
gieJ ofthe Eucharist in the Ear{y Scholastic Ptriod, O xford: Clarendon Press, r984, p. 23-
21See Macy, The Theologies ofthe EuchariJt, p. 31.
22
See Chazelle, op. cit., pp. 239--99.
the true image or typos of Christ is not to be found in pictures (icons) but in
the Eucharist, emphasizing that the eucharistic presence was only effected by
a priestly blessing (absent from the icon). The orthodox response was to
affirm that Christ was not present in the Eucharist as an image, but in truth.
For all the emphasis placed on icons as mediating the presence of Christ and
the saints, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist was more immediate, and
no mere image. Controversy about the eucharistic sacrifice was not to occur
until the twelfth century, but already, not least in the eucharistic prayers,
ideas about the nature of the eucharistic sacrifice were already developed,
though along lines rather different from those put forward by Paschasius and
Hincmar: not unlike Eriugena, Byzantine understanding of the eucharistic
sacrifice focused not on its relation to the cross of Christ directly, but rather
to the heavenly offering of Christ, which found its historical realization in
the sacrifice on the cross. 23 It would probably be unwise to push these con-
trasts too far, but the Byzantine East seems to have preserved the ancient
sense of the mystery as an action, and perhaps in consequence was not drawn
into the dilemma Paschasius seemed to envisage, according to which the
eucharistic body was either identical with the historical body or quite other.
Eriugena has already been mentioned as participating in the theological
controversies of the Carolingians, while in some respects standing apart from
them. A brief digression would seem in place here, given his unique position
as embracing the increasingly divergent traditions of Greek East and Latin
West. 24 Eriugena, "son of Erin (i.e., Ireland)," the Vugilian name he gave him-
self (on the model of Graiugena, "of Greek birth," applied to Aeneas), or John
Scottus, ''John the Irishman," was a native of Ireland, apparently educated
there, and drawn to the Carolingian court by its fame as a centre oflearning.
He arrived in the late 840s at the court of Charles the Bald, already with some
command of Greek. It is this, in particular, that marked him out from his con-
temporaries, for although he was as deeply learned as any in the traditions of
23 See Bishop Kallistos (Ware) ofDiokleia, "St Nicholas Cabasilas on the Eucharistic Sacrifice," in
Le Feu sur la terre: Me1anger ojferts au Pere Boris Bobrinslwy pour son 8' anniversaire, eds. Archimandrite Job
Getcha and Michel Stavrou, Analecta Sergiana 3, Paris: Presses Saint-Serge, 2005, pp. Lp--53, esp. p. LlJf.
and pp. 150-52.
24 There is a large bibliography on Eriugena. In English, see John J. O'Meara, Eriugma, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1988; Deirdre Carabine, John Srouus Eriugma, New York: Oxford University Press,
2000; Bernard McGinn and Willemien Otten, eds., Eriugena: fust and ~st, University of Notre Dame
Press, 1994.
the West, and in particular soaked in Augustine's works, he could read the
Greek Fathers, and not only read them, but translated some of their works
into Latin. His translations reveal the limitations of his Greek, not least his
misunderstanding the Greek conjunction ouxouv, which he took as a nega-
tive rather than meaning "therefore" -a source of endless confusion-but their
extent indicates that he pressed on, and clearly delighted in what he read
there. He was attracted to the most difficult, the most philosophical of the
Greek Fathers. He translated Dionysios the Areopagite (or revised Hilduin's
barely comprehensible translation, even though irI some respects Hilduin's
Greek was better than Eriugena's), St Maximos the Confessor (his Ambigua
ad loannem and his Quaestiones ad Thalassium-the most intellectually
demanding ofMaximos' works) and St Gregory of Nyssa's On the Creation of
Human Kind (which he called On the Image; he was also capable, like most
Westerners, of confusing the two Cappadocian Gregories: of Nyssa and of
Nazianzus). These translations occupied him in the early 86os, during which
period he was also writing his own most extended work, On the Division of
Nature, or, in the Greek title he gave it, Periphyseon ("on natures"). In the late
86os (during which he revised his translation of Dionysios), he wrote a com-
mentary on Dionysios' On the Celestial Hierarchy, and finally a homily on the
prologue of St John's Gospel and a commentary on that Gospel, of which
only sections of commentary on the first six chapters survive, suggesting that
he died before he was able to complete it.
It is impossible here to give even a sketch of his theology, but a few
remarks may indicate something of its flavour. The Latin title of his main
treatise, which takes the form of a dialogue between a master (nutritor) and
his disciple (alumnus), On the Division ofNature, already evokes a theme im-
portant in Gregory of Nyssa and Maximos the Confessor, both of whom are
interested in seeing everything that is as constituted by a series of divisions.
1n his forty-first Ambiguum (one of those translated by Eriugena), Maximos
sees a series of divisions: between uncreated and created, within the created
between that perceived by the intellect and that perceived by the senses, in
the sensible world between heaven and earth, in earth between paradise and
the inhabited world (the oikoumene), and within the oikoumene between male
and female.25 Eriugena's adaptation of this Maximian theme reveals some-
25See Maximos, Ambig1111m 4-1 (PG 91.1.30~-1.316A). Translation in my Maximus tht Confessor, Lon-
don: Routledge, 1996, pp. 156-62.
Renaissance ofLearning: East and \,\Jest
thing of the way he re-reads his Byzantine sources. In "all that is and is not,"
as he puts it, there is a fourfold division: 26 there is that which creates and is
not created, namely God; there is that which creates and is created, namely
the primordial causes (the Platonic forms); there is that which does not
create, but is created, namely the material world; finally there is that which
neither creates nor is created, which Eriugena finally reveals as God, consid-
ered as the end of all things. 27 The divisions, then, trace a movement out
from God into the material created order and then back again into God. The
Neoplatonic cycle of procession and return underlies his conception of
nature. What moves through the sequence of these divisions is God himself,
for creation is conceived of by Eriugena as theophany-manifestation of the
divine-and when we speak of creation out of nothing, even the "nothing"
out of which all comes is God himself;28 God moves "from Himself in Him-
self towards Himsel£" 29 If one side of creation is theophany (the side pre-
sented towards us, as it were), then the other side is deification (or theosis;
Eriugena often uses the Greek word). Because creation is theophany, it is
often seen in parallel with Scripture, which also reveals God, and following
St Maximos, Eriugena is fond of seeing the Transfiguration of Christ as exem-
plifying what is involved in our understanding of God, that is our theology:
the transfigured robes of Christ are Nature and Scripture, and the light that
we behold as we understand them is lux hominum, the light of men Qohn r:4),
which is the Word incarnate as a human being. But the Word's incarnation
as a human being is not arbitrary (as if he might have become an angel or an
animal); the Word is incarnate as a human being, because humankind is the
26 Periphyseon, 1.4-41B-4-42B. J.P. Sheldon-Williams' edition of Periphyseon, with an English transla-
tion, is being continued by Edouard A. Jeauneau; so far books 1-4 have been published: lohannis
Scotti Eriugenae Periphyseon (De Divisione Naturae), Scriptores Latini Hibemiae 7, 9, ll, 13, Dublin: The
Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, 1968-95. In the same series, there is an edition of Eriugena's
Cannina by Michael W. Herren, Scriptores Latini Hibemiae u, 1993- Sheldon-Williams' translation of
all five books of Periphyseo11 has been completed and published separately by John O'Meara: Eriugena,
Periphyseon (Division of Nature), Montreal: Editions Bellarrnin/Washington DC: Dumbarton Oaks,
1987.
27The reader is likely to be as puzzled as the disciple about this identification 0 ° this last division
(that which neither creates nor is created) with God. He asks for an explanation, and the master insists
on a discussion of the other three divisions first, which occupies most of Periphyseo11. The founh divi-
sion is never explicitly discussed, but the work leads to the return of the human soul to God, as the
End of all, beyond creation and being created. For further elucidation, see the works cited in the pre-
vious footnote.
28 C( Periphyseon 1.45~.
29[bid., 453A.
152 GREE K EAST AND LATIN WEST
microcosm, the cosmos in miniature, uniting in himself the spiritual and

material realms, so that "in man alone is it understood in what every creature
is united ... For man consists of body and soul. Taking body from this world
and soul from the other world, he makes unum omatum, one beautiful thing,"
as Eriugena puts it, struggling to represent in Latin the play on words present
in the Greek kosmos, meaning both the world and an ornament, something
beautiful (from which our word "cosmetic" comes).30 It is in human kind that
creation finds its destiny: to be drawn back into God through a process of
deification. The Word's incarnation as a human being leads to his drawing all
human kind back into the Godhead: "He descends alone, but he ascends in
the company of many. From human beings he makes gods, he who himself
from God made man."3 1 These last quotations come from his homily on the
prologue to St John's Gospel. It is significant that Eriugena takes as his exem-
plar of the spiritual life one of the witnesses of the Transfiguration, the Apos-
tle and Evangelist John, rather than following the older Greek tradition,
found notably in Gregory of Nyssa, that assigned this role to Moses. 32
This medley of themes, commonplace in Greek Fathers such as Maximos
and G regory of Nyssa, but uncommon in Latin theology, is typical of Eriu-
gena. In his thought we seem to detect a breath of air blowing from Byzan-
tium-for the last time for many centuries.
The Ninth-century Byzantine Renaissance

The Byzantine renaissance, contemporary with the Carolingian renovatio,
came into being only with the resurgence of the orthodox veneration of icons
in the last two decades of the eighth century. 33 It would, however, be a mis-
take to think that this renaissance owed nothing to iconoclasm, and was in
some way its antithesis. The renewal it represents must have built on the
revived prosperity and rediscovered sense of identity that had been secured
by the long and militarily successful reigns of the first two iconoclast emper-
30 Homily on the Prologue ofjohn 19 (2.9,µ3). Edi tion by Jeauneau: SC 151, 1969; English translation in
O'Meara, Friugma, pp. 158-76.

3 lfuid., P· 2.1 (295C).
32As n oted by Deirdre Carabine in her j ohn ScottuJ Eriugma, p. 2.0.
33 For the nin th-century renaissance, see N .G. Wilson, Scholars of Byzantium, London: Duckworth,
1983, pp. 61-135; Walter Treadgold, "The M acedo nian Renaissance," in idem, Rmaissances before the
& naissance, pp. 75- 98.
Renaissance ofLearning: East and West 153
ors. Even the intellectual renewal is likely to have owed something to the
scholarly return to the sources that marked both sides of the iconoclast con-
troversy, the iconoclasts themselves as well as their iconophile opponents.
Nikephoros, in his Brief History, tells us that education in the Byzantine
Empire was in a state of decay by the beginning of the eighth century: 34 a
result of the inroads made by emergent Islam, both in territorial terms and
in terms of Byzantium's self-confidence. But the intellectual revival at the
end of the century cannot have grown out of nothing. It is interesting to note
that Greek culture had been better preserved under Islam than in the Byzan-
tine Empire itself: John of Damascus is a striking example of the survival of
Hellenism under Islam, and he is not an isolated example. 35 There were,
however, scholars, trained in letters, around at the end of the century, young
men like Theodore of Stoudios, and older men such as Tarasios, Eirene's
choice as patriarch, but where they acquired their learning we cannot say. It
was, however, such as these who provided the seeds of the revival to come.
Leo the Deacon, whom we shall encounter later, ascribed his knowledge of
Greek prosody to Tarasios; for Theodore, as we have already seen, the intel-
lectual revival was bound up with his monastic reform, for it provided the
resources needed to gain access to the ascetics who inspired him, and the
Stoudite monasteries seem to have played an important part in the revival
itself-the earliest example of the use of the cursive minuscule script for a lit-
erary text, in the so-called Uspensky Gospels, comes from Stoudite circles,
though that does not mean that the use of the minuscule script was itself a
Stoudite innovation.
The evidence for the beginnings of the renaissance can readily be set out.
To the lull between the first and second periods of iconoclasm belongs the
revival of both forms of history writing characteristic of Byzantium, as well
as a revival of hagiography. Already before the century was out, Nikephoros,
the future patriarch, had written his Brief History, which he conceived as a
continuation of the classicizing History of Theophylact Simocatta, which
ended in 602 with the death of the emperor Maurice. 36 While Nikephoros
34
Nikephoros, Short Historyµ (ed. Mango, p. uo).
35See C . Mango, "Greek Culture in Palestine after the Arab Conquest: in Scritture, Libri e Testi nelk
Arce Provinciali di Bisanzio, Atti de! Seminario di Erice (18-20 setternbre r~). eds. G . Cavallo, G. de
Gregorio and M. Maniaci, Spoleto: Centro Italiano di Stud.i sull' Alto Medjoevo, [1989), pp. 149-60.
36 For the date of composition, see Mango's introduction to his edition of the Short History,
pp. 8-u.
was writing, George, a synkellos (private secretary) to the patriarch Tarasios,

must already have been at work on his vast Chronography. This was a univer-
sal history, beginning at the creation-taking up again the other Byzantine tra-
dition of chronography, the annalistic chronicle-the first part (up to
Diocletian's accession) being published under his own name, while the mate-
rial he had gathered for the later period was edited and supplemented by
Theophanes, the abbot ofMegas Agros on the mountain of Sigriane, to take
the story up to 813. 37 George died shortly after 8rn, and Theophanes lived
until 817 or 818, dying a confessor under iconoclasm. The revival of histori-
ography suggests a renewed confidence in telling the story of the Byzantine
Empire; Nikephoros' Bn"ejHistory is an attempt at writing in a classical genre,
though the classical style after which he aspires was beyond his grasp. The
composition of such works also suggests an available readership, though it is
likely that neither of these works had much circulation before 843 .38
The iconophile interlude also saw a revival of hagiography. The only cer-
tainly extant example is the Life of St Stephen the Younger, who died in 765.
His biographer was Stephen the Deacon, one of the clergy of the Great
Church; the Life was written about 809. Stephen is called "the Younger'' in
comparison with St Stephen the Protomartyr (Acts 7): like the first Stephen
who was stoned, Stephen the Younger is killed by being beaten and dragged
through the streets; as he dies, he is on his knees, looking up to heaven. 39 As
we have seen above, 40 although St Stephen was certainly an iconophile, the
reasons for his martyrdom are more complex. Furthermore, Auzepy's careful
analysis of the Life makes clear that glorification of the martyr was but one of
Stephen the Deacon's motives; he was just as much concerned to glorify the
patriarchate of Constantinople and the decisions ofNicaea II. Minor changes
in chronology and subtle emphasis serve to make Germanos and the icono-
clast patriarch, Constantine II (754-67), antithetical: the good patriarch,
defender of the faith, opposed to the bad patriarch, the traitor to his faith.
37These have now been published in Engli sh translations: 7bt Chronography of George Synlullos,
translated with introduction and notes by William Adler and Paul Tuffin, Otlord Univeisity Press,
2002; The Chronick ef Theophmzes Co11feisor, translated with introduction and commentary by Cyril
Mango and Roger Scott with the assistance of Geoffrey Greatrex, Oxford: Clarendon Piess, 1997.
38See Mango, Short History, p. u.
39 Life ofSt Stephen the Miunger 68~ (ed. Marie-France Auzepy, La Vie d'Eli.enm k Jmne par Etimne
le Diacre, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Monographs .3, Aldershot: Variorum, 1990, p. 69); c£
Acts T54~o.
40See above, p. 59 ·
Renaissance efLeaming: East and West 1 55
The emphasis on Nicaea serves to assimilate Tarasios, the patriarch of the

synod, to Germanos and make these patriarchs central figures in the struggle
for the icons-in contrast to the monks who, under Theodore, were claiming,
and were to continue to claim, the role as guardians of orthodoxy.41 All this
makes sense, for Stephen the Deacon belonged to the patriarchal court, and
his Life efSt Stephen the Younger is an early attempt to retell the story of icon-
oclasm in such a way as to heighten the importance of the CIEcumenical Patri-
archate. This rewriting of history continued after the final collapse of
iconoclasm and the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843. The Lives of the patriarchs
Nikephoros and Tarasios by Ignatios the Deacon,42 who had had a chequered
career-supporting iconoclasm for a time and becoming metropolitan of
Nicaea, and then recanting and after 843 reverting to his former rank as a dea-
con, though now at the Great Church-are examples of this attempt to high-
light the role of the orthodox patriarchs and counterbalance the Stoudite
emphasis on the monks. The LifeefStloannikios, although written by a monk,
and not by a member of the patriarchal court, as were the two deacons,
Stephen and Ignatios, also attempts to tilt the balance against the Stoudites,
highlighting Ioannikios' support for Patriarch Methodios, under whom the
veneration of icons was restored in 843.43
The monks of the Stoudios do not seem to have been quite so quick off
the mark. The earliest Life of St Theodore of Stoudios dates from at least forty
years after the death of the saint, though the funerary orations of his mother,
Theoktiste, and especially his uncle Plato make a start in presenting the years
of iconoclasm &om the point of view of the iconophile monks.44 It is really
in Theodore's letters that we find the account of the monks' resistance to
iconoclasm (presented very much with the overtones of a "Resistance" in the
modern sense, as we have seen); these letters were carefully preserved by the
Stoudite monks, especially book II of the collection which contained the let-
ters &om his exile during the second period of iconoclasm. Indeed, it seems
41 See Marie-France Auzepy, L'Hagiographie et l'lco11oclasme byza11ti11: Le cas dt la Vie d'Etienne le
Jeune, Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman M onographs 5, Aldershot : Ashgate, 1999.

42 Life of Nikephoros, in English translatio n, in Byzantine Defenders of Byzantium, ed. Alice-Mary
Talbot, Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation 2, Washington DC: Dumbarto n O aks, 1991!, pp. 25- 143;
of Tarasios, edited with translation and commentary by Stephanos Efthym iad is, Birmingham Byzan-
tine and Ottoman M o nographs 4, Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.
43
Life of St loannikios, in English translatio n, in Byzantine Defmdm ofByzantium, pp. 243-351.
44
O ration on his mother: PG 99.884A-9orB; on Plato: PG 99.804A- 49A.
that book II itself, containing 3rn letters, survives intact, bound together with
a selection of other letters in a manuscript now in Paris (Codex Parisinus
Coislinianus 269), the hand being that of Nicholas the Stoudite, the scribe of
the Uspensky Gospels.4 5
The renewal oficonoclasm did not really halt the intellectual renaissance.
The political confusion and uncertainty that followed the death of the
emperor Nikephoros and marked the early years of Leo V presumably had
some dampening effect, but Leo's setting up an iconoclast commission under
John the Grammarian and the response from the iconophile theologians,
especially the deposed patriarch Nikephoros and Theodore himself, is evi-
dence for continuing intellectual activity. The monastery of the Stoudios was
also a centre for the composition of liturgical poetry. It was among its monks
that the kontakion-the verse sermon, the finest examples of which were com-
posed by Romanos the Melodist in the reign of Justinian the Great-found
its last exponents. The liturgical tradition of the capital was enhanced by the
links Theodore established with the monks of Palestine. These links were
strengthened, if not created, by the arrival in Constantinople in 813 of four
monks from Palestine: Michael the Synkellos, two brothers, Theophanes and
Theodore, all of whom we have already met, together with another monk
called Job. With the renewal of iconoclasm, they threw in their lot with the
iconophiles and suffered with them. Michael the Synkellos himself was a
man of great learning, his writings (mostly still unedited and consequently
with their authorship unconfirmed) consisting largely of encomia, the one
certainly authentic text being his encomium on Dionysios the Areopagite
already mentioned above in connexion with the embassies between the court
of Louis the Pious and the Byzantine court. 46 One consequence o f the influ-
ence of Palestine on Theodore's reform was the introduction of the canon, a
meditative series of verses, originally designed to be sung with the biblical
canticles at orthros. Canons began to be composed in Constantinople.
Theodore himself contributed to this genre, together with his brother Joseph
ofThessaloniki, Theophanes Graptos, and a woman poet, Kassia or Kassiane,
described by Trypanis as "the one distinguished poetess of Byzantium."47 It
45See G. Fatouros, Theodori Studitae Epistulat, p. 45.
46See above, pp. 131-32. For Michael's writings, see C unningham, Life ofSt Michael the Synkdlos,
pp. 36-38.
47C.A. Trypanis, Greek Poetry.from Homer to Seferis, London: Faber & Faber, 1981, p. 435. O n Kassiane,
see most recently Niki Tsironi, Kassiani iymnodos (in Greek), Athens: Ekdoseis tou Phoinika, 2002.
Renaissance ofLearning: East and West 1 57
is related of her that at the bridal show arranged for the future emperor
Theophilos, her sharp response to his question as he offered her the golden
apple led him to reject her and choose Theodora to be his wife instead. Kas-
sia later became a nun, and may be the iconophile zealot rebuked by
Theodore in one of his letters. 48 Her verse is mostly liturgical, but includes a
series of sharply expressed "opinions" (gnoma1). One of her most famous
pieces ofliturgical verse is a troparion on the woman who anointed Jesus' feet
(Luke 7:36-50), sung at the aposticha for Lauds on Great and Holy Wednes-
day (in practice, nowadays, on Tuesday evening).
Lord, the woman who had fallen into many sins, perceiving your divinity,
took up the role of myrrh-bearer, and with lamentation brings sweet myrrh
to you before your burial. "Alas!," she says, "for night is for me a frenzy of
lust, a dark and moonless love of sin. Accept the fountains of my tears,
you who from the clouds draw out the water of the sea; bow yourself down
to the groanings of my heart, you who bowed the heavens by your ineffa-
ble self-emptying. I shall kiss your immaculate feet, and wipe them again
with the locks of my hair, those feet whose sound Eve heard at dusk in Par-
adise, and hid herself in fear. Who can search out the multitude of my sins
and the depths of your judgements, my Saviour, saviour of souls? Do not
despise me, your servant, for you have mercy without measure."49
The iconoclasts themselves participated in this revival of verse, using clas-

sical metres for the verse with which they popularized their views (verses we
know mostly from their refutation by Theodore). They also had iambic verses
tattooed on the foreheads of the brothers Theophanes and Theodore, hence-
forth known as the Graptoi, the "branded." The chief intellectual among the
iconoclasts was John the Grammarian, who as a young man had headed Leo
V's iconoclast commission.50 He went on to have a glittering career under the
iconoclast emperors, becoming tutor to the future emperor Theophilos, who
in 835 promoted him to the patriarchal throne. Little survives ofJohn's learn-
ing other than a few fragments of iconoclast theology, but he seems to have
had a not altogether savoury reputation for scientific knowledge. A more
important figure in the continuation of the renaissance under Theophilos
48
Theod o re, Ep. 539.
4
9Translation by Archimandrite Ephrem Lash: http:/ / www.anastasis.org.uk/ HWWed-M.htm.
50
For John the Grammarian, see Lemerle, Premier humanisme byzantin, pp. 135-47.
was Leo the Philosopher, or the Mathematician, John's cousin. 51 He seems

to have been an autodidact, who acquired encyclopaedic learning, not least
in the subjects of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy and music, and taught pri-
vately. When his fame reached the caliphal court in Baghdad through one of
his pupils whom the Arabs had taken prisoner, the caliph tried to get him to
come to Baghdad and teach there. Theophilos refused to let him go, and
instead appointed him to teach in Constantinople, and later in 840 ap-
pointed him archbishop ofThessaloniki. Among his inventions was a form
of optical telegraph, enabling rapid communication between Constantinople
and the frontier with the caliphate. He has also been credited, probably
wrongly, with the mechanical birds and beasts that adorned the imperial
court. A sermon Leo preached as archbishop survives, a strange rigmarole of
Pythagorean number theory, followed by an account of a miracle in which a
young deaf-mute Jewess is healed in baptism after the Mother of God and St
Demetrios-recognized from their icons-appeared to her in a dream. The
combination oflearned speculation and popular piety is probably not at all
strange, but the prominence of icons in a sermon by a supposed iconoclast
bishop is! With the death of Theophilos and the demise of iconoclasm, Leo
lost his archiepiscopal see and returned to Constantinople, where he taught
philosophy at the Magnaura school founded by Bardas, the empress
Theodora's brother. Legends survive about Leo, attributing to him powers of
prediction and an ability to interpret the stars. It is not surprising that he was
attacked by one of his disciples as a pagan and an apostate. His later years are
shrouded in darkness; he is thought to have died sometime after 869.
Leo seems to have been able to thrive under both iconoclast and
iconophile emperors. In that, he was unusual, even though the revival of
learning in the ninth century seems to have prospered under both iconoclast
and iconophile. After 843, the renaissance continued. Bardas, as we have seen,
established the Magnaura school in the imperial palace. It was small, only
four or five teachers, though studies there were advanced: philosophy and the
sciences. But it is difficult to be sure what it amounted to; the most famo us
scholars seem not to have been connected with it. This goes, in particular, for
the most famous scholar of the ninth century, Photios. 52 His learning, which
51 For Leo the Mathematician, see Lemerle, Premier humamsme byzantin, pp. 148""76.
52For Photios, see Lemerle, Premier humanismt byz.antin, pp. 177-204; Wilson, ScholarsofByzanlium,
pp. 89-n9.
Renaissance ofLearning: East and West 1 59
was immense, was privately acquired. If he taught in the period before he

became patriarch (in 858), it was not at the Magnaura. As patriarch he stepped
onto the world stage with a vengeance. Although probably patriarch against
his will, he assumed patriarchal powers with some enthusiasm. His appoint-
ment after the deposition oflgnatios was the subject of an appeal to Rome,
and he met the assured papal authority of Nicholas I with an equally assured
patriarchal authority, responding to Nicholas' decree of deposition with an
anathematism for heresy. Relations with Nicholas were entangled with the
struggle about who was to receive the Bulgarian Khan, Boris, and his people
into the Christian faith . Later chapters will attempt to unravel the tangled
threads, but our concern in this chapter is with Photios the scholar, the lead-
ing light of the ninth-century renaissance.
Whereas with John and Leo we were dealing with reputations, the evi-
dence for which is largely lost, with Pbotios we have both the reputation and
its evidence. The single great monument to the extent of his learning is the
Myriobiblion or Bibliotheca-the "Myriad of Books" or the "Library." 53 This is
a collection of what have been called "book reviews," sometimes including
extensive citation of the books in question, some 280 in total. Photios says
that it was written in a hurry, before he set out on an embassy to the Arabs;
the work bears many signs of haste. There is no structure; secular and reli-
gious books intermingle; Photios discusses more religious books than secu-
lar ones, but tends to give greater attention to the secular works, with the
result that the sections dealing with religious books amount to a little less
than half the whole. Nor is it clear what the principle of selection was: are
these all the books Photios could lay his hands on? Or do they represent what
interested him? Photios certainly knew more than he included, as is clear
from his other works, and a good deal may be gleaned from the Myriobiblion
about writers whose books are not included, e.g. Plato. Poetical works consti-
tute a striking omission. Photios' other works include a Lexicon-which is itself
evidence that enough people were reading ancient literature to need such an
aid-his sermons, and his letters and "Amphilochia," 54 these last being discus-
sions of problems in Scripture and the Fathers, allegedly put to him by a cer-
53 Ediced by Rene Henry, Photius, Bibliothel{ue, 9 vols. with index by Jacques Schamp, Paris: Societe
d'edition ,Les Belles Lettres," 1959-91.

54 Edited by B. Laourdas and LG. Westerink, Photius, Epist11/autAmphilochia, 6 vols. in 7, Leipzig:
Teubner, 1983-88.
160 GREEK EAST A ND LATI N WEST
tain Amphilochios, metropolitan ofKyzikos; they represent a gerue of theo-

logical reflection first used extensively by St Maximos the Confessor.
Photios' learning was enormous; it was "humanist"-literature, history,
and theology, not science or mathematics. It is o f particular interest to pres-
ent-day scholars, because roughly half of what he reviews in the Myriobiblion
is now lost. The fact that this work has mostly attracted the attention of clas-
sical scholars may create the impression that Photios' interests are largely sec-
ular, but Photios would probably not have understood our distinction
between religious and secular, even though it is foreshadowed in the distinc-
tion the Byzantines made between the "inner wisdom" and the "outer wis-
dom" -the wisdom of faith and the wisdom of the philosophers. Photios was
interested in both. So far as the outer wisdom is concerned, Photios seems to
have been most attracted to the writing we call "Hellenistic," not at all a mod-
em taste. So far as the inner wisdom is concerned, Photios serves to remind
us that the impression often given, that after iconoclasm the Byzantines lost
heart in theological speculation and devoted their attention to ascetic and
mystical theology, that is, to a predominantly monastic theology, is mislead-
ing. As the AmphikJchia demonstrate, Photios is interested in matters of scrip-
tural interpretation, both sorting out puzzling passages, and entering into the
deeper meaning of the Scriptures, as well as matters theological and philo-
sophical. The problem of divine providence and human free will exercises
him, though there is nothing to suggest anything like the stark dilemmas
exposed by Gottschalk among the Franks. He is at ease in the technical ter-
minology the early Greek theologians had evolved to clarify questions of
Trinitarian theology and Christological doctrine. The theological tradition
appears as a vast accumulation of learning and reflection, which Photios
patiently explores and humbly seeks to understand. The genre of the "diffi-
culty," ambiguum or aporia, is natural to him, as it was to many Byzantines
before and since. He is not interested in creating theological systems, nor
does he have any commanding central insight (as was the case with St Max-
imos). The Filioque, to which he addresses himself in the letter to the Three
Patriarchs, 55 warning them of Rome's innovation in this matter, and in his
apparently late Mystagogia, 56 is something he only addresses once again-in a
55 Photios, .Ep. 2 .
56 PG ro2.z80- 400(there is no critical edition of this text). Translations by Joseph P. Farrell, The
Mystagog,' ofthe Holy Spirit, Brookline MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1985, and by the Holy Trans-
Renaissance q/Leaming: East and West 161
letter to the metropolitan of Aquileia; 57 it is not at all an obsession with him,

even though the grounds for his opposition to the Filioque are clearly there
in his expositions of Trinitarian doctrine. What we find in Photios is a fun-
damentally lay theology. It is not that he is not interested in the mysteries of
the spiritual life-when he touches on it, he does so with respect-but he has
an intellectual interest in reflecting on the Scriptures and the theological tra-
dition. We should, as Runcirnan once remarked, remind ourselves that
[t]hroughout the history of the Eastern Empire there was a large lay pop-
ulation that was as well educated as the clergy. The professors, the govern-
ment servants, and even the soldiers were usually as cultured as the priests.
Many of them were highly trained in theology, and almost all of them felt
themselves perfectly competent to take part in theological discussions. No
one in Byzantium thought that theology was the exclusive concern of the
clergy. 58
When he became a bishop and patriarch, Photios did not leave that lay
world behind, and his theological reflection, especially in the Amphilochia, is
a monument to that.59 Photios is not alone in this world of lay theology in
the ninth century. John the Grammarian could probably be ranked alongside
him, but another example is Leo Choirosphaktes. Leo was born in the mid-
century, and was a high-ranking court official and diplomat; he was related
to Zoe Karbonopsina, the fourth wife of the emperor Leo VI. He was
involved in intrigue against Leo VI and was eventually tonsured and confined
in the Stoudios monastery, where he died. Apart from letters, most of his
extant writings are verse: epigrams, possibly an ekphrasis on the hot springs
at Pythia in Bithynia, and religious verse including a kontakion.60 Of partic-
ular interest is his recently published Chiliostichos Theof_ogia, "Theology in a
Thousand Lines." 61 It is strictly theologia in the Greek sense, as distinct from
figuration Mo nastery (with some add itional material): On tht Mystagogy oftht Holy Spirit, Studio n Pub-
lishers, 1983.
57Pho tios, Ep. 291.
58
Ste-ven Runciman, The Eastern Sd,ism, O xford : Clarendon Press, 19;5, p. 7.
59Fo r furth er discussion of Photios' theology, see my "Photios as Theologian" in Byzantine Sryle,
&ligion and Ci-uilization: In Honour ofSir Steven Runciman, ed. Elizabeth Jeffi-eys, C ambridge University
Press, 2006, pp. 206-23.
60Trypanis, Gretk Poetry, pp. 462, 481.
61
Edited with a German translation, introduction, and derailed commentary by Ioann is Vassis,
Supplem e nta Byzantina 6, Berlin: Walter de Gruyrer, 2002.
oikonomia, i.e., about the nature of God, not about the Incarnation or God's
activity in the world. Its Neoplatonic inspiration is evident: the poem begins
with the nature of the O ne, and then after a section of polemic against pagan
and heretical concepts of God presents an ascent to God the Creator through
the creatures, and ends by considering God's Trinitarian nature. Leo mani-
fests his learning, drawing especially on Gregory of Nazianzus and Dionys-
ios the Areopagite, as well as on John Damascene. It is an elegant piece of
intellectual philosophical theology, very much in the vein of Synesios of
Cyrene, of whose work, however, Leo seems unaware. It was attacked by
Arethras, bishop of Caes area (c.850-c.940), as the work of a "Hellene" -par for
the course for a treatment of the inner wisdom, using the resources of the
outer wisdom.
The ninth-century renaissance is one of the more remarkable synchronisms

of the history of the Church in this period. Both the Carolingian reno-vatio
and the Byzantine ninth-century renaissance are marked by the same techni-
cal innovation-the use of a cursive minuscule for literary manuscripts, mak-
ing for ease of reading and speed of production-but in most other respects
there is contrast. The Carolingian renaissance was led from the centre of the
new Carolingian Empire, the Carolingian court, and with the dissolution of
that empire in the course of the ninth century the renaissance itself seems to
fade away, or at least go into abeyance. The Byzantine renaissance seems
independent of any central direction, although the imperial court was a
source of patronage for institutions, principally the shadowy Magnaura uni-
versity, and a haven, and a career, for individuals-Photios, Leo, the "Apostle
to the Slavs" Constantine (better known by his monastic name, Cyril), and
doubtless others. There are other contrasts: the Western theology was almost
entirely clerical, whereas the broader base of education in Byzantium meant
that a lay interest in theology continued. Furthermore, the Byzantine renais-
sance continues from the point to which we have traced it, well into the tenth
century and beyond, justifying the title often given it of the "Macedonian
Renaissance."
Renaissance ofLearning: East and \~ st
Palestine and the Beginnings of Arab Christianity

Evidence of intellectual renewal in the ninth century is not confined to Greek
East and Latin West, for this century was also a period in which Christianity
in Palestine began to respond to the new situation the Christians found
themselves in under Islam. As we have already seen, Christianity in Palestine
had stoutly supported the orthodoxy of the Byzantine church synods, and in
the first century after the Arab conquest the monastic communities of
Jerusalem and the Palestinian Desert had once more proved themselves as
bastions of Chalcedonian orthodoxy. Most notable amongst these monks
was John, originally &om Damascus, whose theological reuvre we have dis-
cussed above. John wrote in Greek, and his liturgical compositions enriched
the Greek liturgy. Not only did he write in Greek, he also seems to have
thought of himself as a Byzantine, despite the fact that he most likely never
set foot on territory ruled by the Byzantine emperor. This sense of being
"Byzantines in exile," as it were, did not last. The Umayyad dynasty, which
John D amascene had served in his secular career, gradually introduced Ara-
bic as the language of administration. The Abbasid dynasty, which succeeded
it in 750 and built the new capital of Baghdad at the confluence of the Tigris
and Euphrates rivers, was a thoroughly Arabic Empire. In the first century of
the Ab basid Empire, Christians came more and more to speak Arabic, and
in that century we find the beginnings of Christian theology written in Ara-
bic.62 Again it is the Palestinian monasteries that take the lead. The theolog-
ical and liturgical tradition that John Damascene represented found its
posterity in the Byzantine Empire, their works and their compositions taken
there by refugee monks and others, particularly, perhaps, Michael the Synkel-
los and his companions, whom we have already encountered.
The first Arab Christian theologian we know much about is Theodore
Abu Qmah. The twelfth-century Jacobite chronicler, Michael the Syrian,
tells us of Theodore (using the diminutive ''Theodorikos")
62 See Sidney Griffith, "The Monks of Palestine and the Growth o f Ch ristian Literature in Arabic, ff
lbe Muslim World78 (1988), 1-28 (= Sidney Griffith, Arabic Christianity in tht Monasteries ofNintlxmtury
Pakstim, § Il l), "From Aramaic to Arabic: The Languages of the M on asteries o f Palestine in the Byzan-
tine and Early Islamic Periods,9 DOP 51 (1997), o-_µ (= Sidney Griffith, The Beginnings of Christian
lbeology in Arabic, § X), and other works by Griffith, the acknowledged doym of early Christian Arabic
studies.
who for a short time had been bishop ofHarran and had been deposed by
their patriarch Theodoret because of charges against him and betook him-
self about the countries perverting the conscience of Chalcedonian and
Orthodox persons. He propagated the heresy ofMaximus and even added
to the impiety of that man ... and because he was a sophist and entered
into disputes by his argument.s against the pagans (i.e., hanpl, the Mus-
lims), as he knew the Saracen language, he aroused the admiration of the
simple people. 63
Michael is a hostile witness, but what he tells us is interesting. He associ-

ates Theodore with the doctrine of St Maximos the Confessor, and lays stress
on his ability to argue and defend Orthodox Christianity against the Mus-
lims. It seems that Theodore was bishop of Harran in Mesopotamia at the
end of the eighth century and again around 830, and in the early years of the
ninth century had travelled to Alexandria and Armenia, where he had sought
to propagate the orthodoxy of the Byzantine synods in countries that
rejected the Chalcedonian tradition. Many works of his survive in Arabic,
and Theodore himself tells us that he wrote some treatises in Syriac, his native
tongue, none of which, however, survives. 64 Treatises in Greek also survive,
but it has been argued that these are translations. 65 Theodore seems to have
been a monk of the monastery of Mar Saba, and he has been associated with
John of Damascus himself. It is, however, unlikely that there was any per-
sonal contact, even if the Darnascene was a monk of Mar Saba, but the intel-
lectual connexion is undeniable. Theodore carried John's work of defining
and defending the orthodoxy of the Byzantine synodal tradition from the
Greek context in which John had operated into the new Arabic context. Like
John he defended Orthodox Christianity against Jacobites, but he also
argued with the Muslims, continuing the work John had already begun.
Indeed the Disputation between a Chn.stian and a Saracen, often listed under
John's works, is very likely a Greek translation of a work by Theodore (the
63 Qpoted in Theodore Abu Qprrah, A Treatise on the 'antralion efthe Holy !cons, translated with
introduction and notes by Sidney Griffith, Eastern Christian Texts in Translation 1, Louvain: Peeters,
1997, p. -,f.
64 For a good se!ection in translation, see TheadoreAbu_Q]i"ah, trans. with an introduction by John
C. Lamoreaux, Library of the Christian East 1, Provo UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2005-
65See Sidney Griffith, "Stephen ofRamla and the Christian Kerygma in Arabic in Ninth-century
Palestine," ]EH 36 (:985): 23-45, esp. 32-37 (= Griffith, Arabic Christianity§ VII).
Greek work is described as being not by John, but apo phones- "from the
voice" ofJohn, which probably meant that it represented John's oral teach-
ing). The contrast between John's authentic discussion ofislam-chapter rno
of his On Heresies-and this work is instructive. 66 John's chapter on Islam sets
out the teaching oflslam with a running criticism, conforming to the genre
of Byzantine heresiology. The Dispute consists of a collection of points at
issue between Christians and Muslims, and indeed points at dispute between
Muslims themselves, notably over the problem of reconciling human free
will with divine omnipotence. It is, as Sidney Griffith has frequently pointed
out, an example of kaliim, the name given to theological controversy in Mus-
lim theology. 67 In writing in Arabic, and therefore thinking in Arabic,
Theodore found himself engaging in a style of theology characteristic of his
Muslim contemporaries. The same contrast can be found if we compare
Theodore's treatise on the veneration of the icons with John's three treatises
against the iconoclasts : Theodore moves through a series of disputed points,
rather than composing a rhetorical treatise, as the Damascene had done. 68
The Arabic theology of Theodore Abu Qmah marks the beginning of a
period of Arabic theology that lasted from the ninth century to the period of
the Crusades, when Greek monks once again came to establish themselves in
the monasteries of the Holy Land. In that period, the use of Greek declined
rapidly, apart from liturgical use, and was replaced by Arabic. The ninth cen-
tury was the time of the transition; little was composed in Greek in that cen-
tury in Palestine other than a few works of hagiography. The use of Greek did
not, however, end with a whimper. For it was in the ninth century that two
monks of the monastery of Mar Saba, Patrikios and Abramios, translated into
Greek some of the ascetic works of Isaac, a monk and one-time bishop of
Nineveh-"Saint Isaac the Syrian." 69 These extraordinary works of ascetic
theology-by a "Nestorian" bishop-were destined, through this translation,
to become among the most valued collections of ascetic wisdom in the world
66See "Free Will in Christian Kalam: The Doctrine ofTheodore Abii Qurah," Parole de /'Orient 14
(1987): 79-107 (= Griffith, Arabic Christiani()•§ VI), and my St John Dama.scene, p. 8,f.
67See M. Abdel Haleem, "Early Ka/am'" in History ofIslamic PhillJsophy, eds. Seyyed Hossein asr
and OLi,.-e Leaman, London: Routledge, 19~, pp. 71-88.
68See Griffith, ed., Hofy Icons, pp. 23-26, and Louth,Joh11 Damasam, pp. 220-22.
69See Sebastian Brock, "Syriac into Greek at Mar Saba: The Translation of St Isaac the Syrian," in
The Sabaite Heritage i11 the Orthodox Church from the Fifih Century to the Present, ed. Joseph Patrich, Orien-
talia Lovaniensia Analecta 98, Leuven: Peeters, 200r, pp. 201-8.
of Byzantine orthodoxy and beyond. It is oddly appropriate that one of the

last evidences of Hellenism in Palestine in the first millennium should pre-
serve a precious treasure of Syriac spirituality for the Greek East.
CHAPTER EIGHT
POPE, PATRIARCH AND

CHRISTIAN MISSION
0 ne of the signs of the renewed strength of both Eastern and Western

Christendom in the ninth century was missionary expansion: for the
Byzantines mostly into areas of the Empire that had been settled for some
centuries by the Slavs, and for the West northwards among the Wends and
the Scandinavians (though neither of these missions bore much fruit imme-
diately), and eastwards into the lands settled by the Slavs. These missions
brought East and West into conflict, especially in Bulgaria. This conflict was
primarily political, for the adoption of Christianity would bring with it polit-
ical alliance-with the Frankish Empire to the West, or with the Byzantine
Empire to the East. Other conflicts also emerged: between the promotion in
the West of an essentially Latin Christianity and civilization in contrast to the
East, which allowed (not, maybe, with much enthusiasm to begin with) the
spread of Byzantine Christianity in the vernacular, that is, the creation of a
Slav Christianity for the Slavs. The creation of Slav Christianity was to have
profound consequences for the future of European Christendom. The con-
flict between Eastern and Western Christendom also brought the pope and
the recumenical patriarch to blows, with the first clear emergence of a doctri-
nal rift between Greek East and Latin West-over the question of the proces-
sion of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity. This conflict between pope and
patriarch was also the result of the way in which offices of pope and patriarch
had evolved during the period of estrangement represented by the iconoclast
controversy.
We have already seen something of what was involved in this develop-
ment. In Rome, it meant that the pope came to be elected from among the
inner core of the Roman clergy: the seven deacons and the titular priests, the
"cardinal" clergy, the word "cardinal" used as an adjective (not yet as a noun)
r68 GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
designating the "hinge" (Latin cardo) about which the Church of Rome
turned, all closely associated with the Lateran chancery. This state of affairs,
as we have seen above, was-in accordance with the Constitutio Romana-to be
protected and guaranteed by the Frankish emperor. 1 All that was needed was
a pope with vision and confidence to turn his guaranteed independence into
the basis of claims for the role the pope could be expected to play in the uni-
versal-or catholic-Church. Such a pope was found in Nicholas I, a Roman
aristocrat who had been a powerful figure in the chancery under the three
preceding popes, and the trusted counsellor of his immediate predecessor,
Benedict III. He was strong enough to surround himself with powerful offi-
cials, notably Anastasius, who had been antipope to Benedict III, but under
Nicholas returned to Rome and eventually became papal librarian. Anasta-
sius knew Greek, and translated into Latin many Greek documents that sup-
ported the vision that both Nicholas and Anastasius had of the leading
position of the papacy in the Church. These documents included a dossier
connected with the suffering St Maximos the Confessor had endured for the
sake of Orthodoxy, for Maximos had found his strongest support in Pope
Martin, who like Maximos suffered at the hands of the Byzantine emperor
for his opposition to the Christological compromises fostered by the
emperor.2 There was nothing much new about the claims Nicholas made for
the papacy: he saw the pope as above the judgment of anyone else, however
exalted, and affirmed that "these privileges given to this holy Church by
Christ, not given by synods, but only celebrated and venerated by them, con-
strain and compel us 'to have solicitude for all the churches' of God." 3 But
he asserted these claims imperiously; the annalist of St Bertin preserves a doc-
ument which speaks of"the lord Nicholas, who is called pope and who num-
bers himself as an apostle among the apostles, and who is making himself
emperor of the whole world." 4 So Nicholas clipped the wings of the arch-
bishop ofRavenna,John, who had acted as if his see were autonomous from
Rome. He insisted, too, on his right to hear appeals from clergy over the
heads of their metropolitans, and thus clashed with Hincmar, archbishop of
1Seeabove, pp. 80-81.

2Forthe dossier see Pauline Allen and Bronwen Neil, eds., Maximus tht Confessor and His Compan-
ions: Docummts.from Exik, Oxford University Press, 2002.
3Nicholas, L ttltr lo Michatl !he Emptror, conveniently excerpted in Denzinger-Schonmetzer,
Enchiridion Symbolorum, Definitionum tl Dtclarationum, ed. 36 (Rome: Herder, 1976), §§ 638, 640.
4
Annals ofSt-Bertin, a. 864 (trans. Janet L Nelson, Manchester University Press, 1991, p. rr3).
Pope, Patriarch and Christian Mission
Reims, who resented the implication that in his archiepiscopal dignity he was
little more than a suffragan of the pope. In support of his claims, Nicholas
appealed to the False Decretals, which had emerged in the mid-ninth century,
setting out extensive rights of appeal to the papacy, over the head of dioce-
san and metropolitan bishops, which included too the somewhat earlier
Donation of Constantine, according to which Constantine on his conversion
had recognized the pre-eminent position of the papacy. These were forgeries,
but their rapid acceptance indicates how closely they reflected the realities of
the exercise of papal power under Nicholas and his successors.
The patriarchate of Constantinople had also emerged in the ninth cen-
tury as a powerful institution, focused on the patriarchal court, that worked
closely with the imperial court. We have already seen how the ambiguous role
the patriarchate had played during the succession of heresies imposed by the
emperor on the Church in the seventh and eighth centuries and into the
ninth century had been retold to shed a much more favourable light on the
position of the patriarchate, and especially those patriarchs-Germanos, Tara-
sios and Nikephoros-who could be cast in the role of protectors of Ortho-
doxy. Much of this rewriting of history, through the production of
hagiography, was undertaken in the patriarchal court, whose central role in
the Byzantine Empire was enhanced by the fact that the other three Eastern
patriarchates now were in Muslim territory, while the papacy was gradually
coming adrift from Byzantium, leaving Constantinople the only patriarchal
see of practical importance for the Empire. The scholars of the patriarchal
court also set about finding a surer foundation for Constantinople's author-
ity. The authority of all the other patriarchates, not least Rome, was apostolic:
they claimed apostolic foundation. One way in which Constantinople could
claim such apostolic authority was by presenting itself as the successor of
Ephesos, the former metropolitan of Asia Minor over which Constantinople
now ruled; for Ephesos could lay claim to the Apostle John. There emerges,
however, a claim to direct foundation by the Apostle Andrew, the "First-
called," who had brought Peter to the Lord, and was therefore Peter's "elder
brother" in the faith. It was maintained that on Andrew's missionary journeys
(Eusebios claims that he preached in Scythia) he had visited the old city of
Byzantium and ordained its first bishop, Stachys. The legend goes back to the
sixth century, and seems to have had only a shadowy existence. Significantly,
at the beginning of the ninth century a Constantinopolitan monk, Epiphan-
GREEK EAST AN D LATIN WEST
ios, revived the legend, but it never received much credence; it was not even
appealed to by Photios in his conflict with Rome. 5 As important as this
rewriting of history-and more important than the claims to apostolic foun-
dation-was the actual acquisition of power by the patriarchate from the
accession ofTarasios onwards. Under the iconoclast emperors, and especially
Constantine V, the patriarchate had not only been supine, but actually
humiliated and subject to contempt by the emperor. With Tarasios this
process was reversed. Beginning with the election itself, in which, though he
was clearly the empress's candidate, care was taken to make sure that he had
been canonically elected, continuing through the Seventh CJEcumenical
Synod-the first to be presided over by a patriarch, rather than an emperor-
the patriarch made it clear that ecclesiastical authority was a matter for the
patriarch. This policy was continued by Nikephoros and Methodios, as
Afinogenov has demonstrated, with Methodios finally claiming (whatever
the influence of legends about Constantinople's foundation) to exercise
apostolic authority as patriarch.6 This patriarchal power was not in any way
seen to be derived from the emperor; on the contrary, the imperial power was
only properly exercised if the emperor paid heed to the patriarch, a message
Photios incorporated in the luxury illuminated manuscript of St Gregory the
Theologian's homilies that he had made as a gift for the emperor Basil I on
his return to the patriarchal throne in 877. 7
With whatever basis for their claims to authority, the sees of Rome and
Constantinople encounter each other in the ninth century with a renewed
sense of their own power, but, at least to begin with, the qualifications
claimed for the exercise of this power are not the same. Although both sees
established their power bases on a court, these courts were very different. The
papal court was a clerical court, while the patriarchal court was close to the
imperial court, and there was much interchange between the two. The process
that led up to the Constitutio Romana ensured that the pope came from a cler-
ical elite; the closeness of the patriarchal to the imperial court meant that the
patriarch would olten be drawn from the emperors' entourage-notably in the
5For the legend of St Andrew, see F. Dvornilc, 7be Idea efApostoliciJy in Byzantium and the ugend ef
tlu Apostk Andrew, Dumbanon O aks Studies 4, Camb ridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1958.
6See Dinitry E. Afmogenov, "KwVCJTcxvnvour.:ol..!~ sn[axoTiov [xet: The Rise of Patriarchal Power
in Byzantium from icaenum II to Epanagoga: Erytheia 15 (1994): 45-65; 17 (19~: 43-'71·

7A:, Leslie Brubaker has demonstrated : see her Vision and Meaning in Ninth-cmtury Byzantium:
Image ai Exegesis in the Homilies efGregory ofNazim1zus, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
case of some of the heroes of the retold tale of the patriarchate: Tarasios and
Nikephoros, both from the imperial administration, as was Photios, who
found himself embroiled with the papacy.
Photios we have already met, as the most learned man of his age, who in
858, probably against his own will, found himself called to the patriarchal
throne after the deposition of lgnatios, Methodios' successor. Ignatios was
deposed because of his loyalty to Theodora, who since 842 had been regent
for her son, Michael HI. In 856, the sixteen-year-old Michael sought the
throne for himself, though the power behind the throne was his uncle Bar-
das. lgnatios' refusal to tonsure the deposed Theodora in 858 led to his dis-
missal and the appointment of Photios. Ignatios' deposition without a formal
ecclesiastical trial meant that Photios' election was uncanonical, and eventu-
ally Pope Nicholas I, as pope (or senior patriarch), sought to involve himself
in determining the legitimacy of the succession. Papal legates were dispatched
to Constantinople with instructions to investigate, but finding Photios well
ensconced, they acquiesced in the confirmation of his election at a synod in
861. On their return to Rome, they discovered that this was not at all what
Nicholas had in tended, and in 863 at a synod in Rome the pope deposed Pho-
tios and reappointed Ignatios as the rightful patriarch. Four years later, Pho-
tios was to respond on his own part, excommunicating the pope on grounds
of heresy-over the question of the double procession of the Holy Spirit. 8 The
charge of heresy was due to other events connected with the Christian mis-
sions in Bulgaria. To this matter of missionary expansion we must now turn.
Byzantine Missions among the Slavs

The Slavs first crossed the Danube and began to settle in the territory of the
Roman or Byzantine Empire in the sixth century. 9 By the eighth century,
they were well settled throughout the Balkan peninsula-even in Mani in the
south of the Peloponnese-in areas the Byzantines referred to as Sklaviniai.
Over the Sklaviniai the Byzantines had no real control. In the course of the
8Marking the beginning of what the West calls the "Photian schism," which in the past has been
the subject of much misunderstanding, cleared up long ago in Francis Dvomik's important book The
Photian Schism: History and legend, Cambridge University Press, 1948.
9There is a huge bibliography, but see especially A.P. \1asto, Tiu Entry ofthe Slavs into Cbristmdam,
Cambridge University Press, 1970; Dimitri Obolensky, 7be Byzantine Commonwealth: Eastern Europe
500-1453, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971.
ninth century, the Byzantines began to reassert their political power over
these areas. This began under emperor Nikephoros, and central to his policy
was the forcible resettlement of the Sklaviniai by Greeks fi-om other parts of
the Empire, mostly Asia Minor, and the establishment of new themes-the
administrative areas into which the Empire was now divided, under the gov-
ernment of a military commander, strategos. He also appointed bishops and
monks to the areas, with the task of bringing Christianity to these areas that
had lapsed into paganism: the paganism of the Slav settlers. Theophanes
presents this policy as one of sheer cruelty, but resettlement had already been
a means of Byzantine policy, and it was doubtless an effective way of reab-
sorbing alienated territory into the Christian Empire of Byzantiurn. 10 The
policy was continued under the first Macedonian emperor, Basil I, and
Photios during his second patriarchate. By the tenth century, much of the
southern part of the Balkan peninsula (present-day Greece) had been re-
Christianized and re-Hellenized. At this stage Christianization and Hellen-
ization went together; the Slav settlers were induced to adopt the language
and religion of their rulers and fellow-settlers.
The rest of the story of Byzantine missions among the Slavs is rather dif-.
ferent. According to the accounts we have, which border on the legendary
and rarely allow of corroboration by other sources, the story begins with two
brothers from Thessaloniki, Constantine and Methodios. 11 They were born
in the early decades of the ninth century in Thessaloniki, a Byzantine island
in a sea of Slavs. It was there that the brothers first encountered the Slavs and
doubtless there that they acquired their first knowledge of the language. They
both received further education in Constantinople and both moved into
court circles: Methodios as a courtier, diplomat and governor, Constantine
as a scholar and teacher, known as "the Philosopher," one of Photios' bright-
est pupils. In the 850s both brothers took part in a diplomatic mission to
the Khazars, who occupied the territory to the west of the Caspian Sea. On
their way back they passed through Cherson (modern Crimea), where they
allegedly discovered the relics of St Clement of Rome. Sometime during the
10See P. Charanis, "Nicephorus I-Saviour of Greece from the Slavs," Byzantina-M,tabyzantina 1
(1946): 75*[
11 For Cyril/Constantine and Methodios, see, as well as Vlasto and Obolensky cited above, p. 171,
Francis Dvornik, Byzantine Missions among tht Slavs: SS. Constantine-Cyril and Mtthodius, New
Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1970, and Anthony-Emil N. Tachiaos, Cyril and Mtthodi11s of
Thtssalonica: Tht Aa:u/Juration ofthe Slavs, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 2001.
Pope, Patriarch and Chn.stian Mission 1 73
850s, Methodios became a monk and abbot of one of the monasteries on

Mount Olympos in Bithynia. At this monastery in the early 86os, the broth-
ers devised an alphabet for the Slavonic language, and began to translate parts
of the Gospels and the service books into Slavonic. There is general agree-
ment that the alphabet devised by Constantine was not the "Cyrillic" alpha-
bet (called after Constantine's monastic name, adopted on his deathbed in
Rome in 867), but the so-called Glagolitic alphabet, which seems to have been
specially devised for the Slavonic tongue.
The invention of a Slavonic alphabet and the beginning of the translation
of texts needed for Christian worship in Slavonic seems to have been provi-
dential, for in 862 Rastislav, the king of Moravia, sent to the emperor Michael
III, requesting missionaries to teach Christianity in the Slav tongue. In re-
sponse to this request, Constantine and Methodios were sent to Moravia, to
begin to establish a Slav form of Christianity. Rasti.slav's request was at least
in part politically inspired. West of him was the East Frankish Empire, whose
missionaries were pushing eastwards into Moravia, bringing Latin Christian-
ity and with it political suzerainty to the East Frankish emperor, at this ti.me
Louis the German, grandson of Charlemagne. East of him were the Carpa-
thian Mountains and beyond them Bulgaria, already on the threshold of
accepting Christianity, in its Latin or Byzantine form, and beyond that, the
Byzantine Empire itself. Missionaries from Byzantium, preaching the gospel
and celebrating the liturgy in Slavonic, would give Rastislav alliance with a dis-
tant but powerful neighbour, and enable him to retain his independence in
relation to the East Franks. Why Rastislav sought Slav-speaking missionaries
from Byzantium, and why indeed he thought the Byzantine emperor might
be able to provide them, is unknown. Michael III was, however, able to accede
to his request, and the brothers Constantine and Methodios, together with
various disciples, set off for Moravia. There they began to establish Byzantine
Christianity in the Slav tongue. This met with resistance from the Frankish
missionaries, who saw them as interlopers, but as long as the brothers had the
protection of Rasti.slav, they were able to pursue their mission.
In 867, the brothers and their disciples made their way to Rome, in order
to have some of their company ordained to continue the work in Moravia.
It is not at all clear why they went to Rome; Constantinople would have been
more natural, though it would have been a long journey. Maybe they were
making for Venice, then a kind of Byzantine protectorate. Perhaps they were
responding to an invitation &om the pope, who had heard of their mission
in Moravia; Pope Nicholas I would certainly have been very interested in the
missionary activities of the brothers in Moravia, had he heard of it. Whatever
the reason, the brothers made their way to Venice, and then on to Rome. As
they approached Rome, they were met by a group of Roman citizens carry-
ing lighted candles, headed by the pope, by now Hadrian Ir, for Nicholas had
just died. They received this welcome, not because of their personal distinc-
tion or the renown of their mission in Moravia, but because they were bear-
ing with them the relics of St Clement of Rome, counted as the third or
fourth pope, which they had discovered in Cherson. These relics of an early
pope were joyfully received in Rome. The group of missionaries celebrated
the liturgy in their Slavonic version in Rome. Some of the disciples were
ordained to the priesthood and Methodios himself was consecrated arch-
bishop of Pannonia. While in Rome, Constantine fell ill and died, before his
death being tonsured as a monk and taking the name Cyril, by which he is
now universally known. On his deathbed Cyril made his brother promise to
continue the work they had begun in Moravia.
In 869, as archbishop and papal legate, Methodios returned with his dis-
ciples, not this time to Moravia, but to Pannonia, where King Kotsel had
sought a bishop. They were to continue their mission of creating a Slav Chris-
tianity and were expressly approved for this work by the pope. Very soon they
ran into difficulties. Frankish missionaries intrigued against Methodios and
his companions, and contested their right to celebrate in Slavonic. Cyril and
Methodios had already encountered opposition to their use of Slavonic. The
brothers called those who attacked their use of Slavonic "trilinguists," that is,
those who maintain that there are only three sacred Christian languages,
Hebrew, Greek and Latin, the three languages used in the inscription on the
Lord's cross. This has given rise to the widely accepted view that there were
those (mostly in the West) who maintained that the Christian liturgy could
only be celebrated in these three languages, and that Cyril and Methodios
were attacked for rejecting this idea. 12 The evidence cited is, however, very
unclear. 13 The idea in the West that there are three sacred languages seems to
12 0 n trilinguism, see Vlasto, The Entry of the Slavs, pp. 44-46; O bolensky, Byzantine Common-
wealth, pp. i43, 4 5; Tachiaos, Cyril and Mtthodius, pp. 83-84; J ulia M.H. Smith, Europe after Rome. A
New Cultural History 5exr1000, Oxfo rd University Press, 2005, pp. 33- 40.
13 For the rest of this paragraph, see Francis J. Thomson, "SS. Cyril and Me1hodius and a Mythi-
ILLU S T R ATI O NS
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to Psalm _n~ of the Utrecht Psalter, which dates from AD 820-35.

1. _Illustration_
Library of Ri1ksuruvers1te1t, Utrecht (MS 32, fol. 67 recto). (Photo credit: University
Library ofRijksuniversiteit)
2. Madonna and child. Mosaic from the apse, shortly after 834 CE. Hagia Sophia,
Istanbul, Turkey. (Photo Credit: En"ch Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
3- Christ and saints, apse mosaic, AD 817-24. S. Prassede, Rome, Italy.
(Photo Credit: Scala/ Art Resource, NY)
4. Lamb of God (Mystic Lamb). Ceiling mosaics. Early Christian.

S. Vitale, Ravenna, Italy. (Photo Credit: Sctda/Art Resource, NY)
~ " c11a,(1kf4'•,4r.111ru1111,1,.~1Jl11N~ ltcA-tlllAJf'/\llf',t. , a5'KO
p1t.norM~. iinf11t-,ormA1<01)fl<I . ,i,TrtiKo u'ny,".;" ,co/0\rW

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'<f'""'" C/IA'60if HirnaITOM<O • IIKO'f"1- rnJJ. nr uf'i (IIJ-INl.,t.
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.Jl.lNJafl<bi . IUTfMCl~tl rrrt_A An~'6 ~E~€ rir.J:, li,'Ja(MU\ (/Ill
Jrtlft · h\f<0</\1,1.ILIAIIIAIHJ\ti .,,.~Ii' .lfi'1, f. cs;o11 1451,~l(O M ·J,;,-.
5. Messengers of the Moravian prince Rostislav ask Emperor Michael III to send
missionaries speaking a Slav language; he sends to Saloniki for Constantin and
Method. From the Radziwill Chronicle, an early history of Russia. Page IJ
6u miniatures, late 15th century. Academy of Science, St. Petersburg, Russia.
(Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
6. Interior view of
Palatine Chapel with the
octagon. Carolingian.
Before 800 CE. Cathedral
(Palatine Chapel), Aachen,
Germany. (Photo Credit:
Vanni/ Art Resource, NY)
7. Christ Pantocrator.
Romanesque fresco, early
uth c. Chapelle des
Moines, Berze-la-Ville,
France. (Photo Credit:
Giraudon/A rt Resource, NY)
8. Abbey of Cluny. Early Cloister Church. (Photo Credit: Art Resource, NY)
9. Ivory Plaque Representing the Coronation of Emperor Otto II and
the Byzantine Princess Theophano. Ottonian, 982-983 CE. Germany.
Ivory book cover, 18.5 x 10.6 cm. Inv. Cl.392. Musee national du
Mayen Age-Thermes de Cluny, Paris, France. {Photo Credit: Reunion
des Musics Na1io11aux/Art Resource, NY)
ro. Chalice (Chalcedony cup in gilt silver mount). Byzantine, nth century.
S. Marco, Venice, Italy. (Photo Credit: Giraudon/Art Resource, NY)
II. Emperor Otto receives the homage of the nations. Gospels of Emperor Otto
(II or III), also called "Registrurn Gregorii." Ottonian art, roth. Musee Conde,
Chantilly, France. (Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
12. A parchment cover of a document called a chrysobull because its gold seal, in
which Emperor Andronicus II granted favours to the Metropolitan ofMonevasia
in the Peloponnese. Byzantine, early 14th CE. Byzantine Museum, Athens, Greece.
(Photo Credit: Werner Forman/Art Resource, NY)
13. The "Theotokos Hodegetria" (Virgin and Child). Ivory statuette. Byzantine,
nth-12th c. H: 32-5 cm. Inv.: 702-1884. Victoria and Albert Museum, London,
Great Britain. (Photo Credit: Victoria & Albert Museum, London/Art Resource, NY)
14. Mother of God in concha. Overall view. Mosaic. See also 15-03-03/35.
Byzantine, nth CE. Monastery Church, Hosios Loukas, Greece. (Photo Credit:
Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY}
15- The Church of the Great Pigeon-House, or Church of Nicephore Phocas
(10th CE Byzantine emperor) in Cavusin. The entry is situated at a height of six
meters . A large section of the narthex is ruined, and frescoes from the 10th CE
exposed. Cappadocia, Turkey. (Photo Credit: Gilles Mermet/Art Resource, NY)
16a-b. The Crucifixion and
The Calling of the Apostles.
2nd half of 10th century CE.
Elephant ivory. Made in
Constantinople. 21 x 13.8 cm.
MRR354. Louvre, Paris,
France. (Photo Credit: Reunion
des Musees Nationaux/Art
Resource, NY)
17. Scylitzes chronicle. Cod.gr.S-3,fol.10.v. Michael I Rhangabe proclaims Leo V
the Armenian as co-emperor. Both step onto the shield which was raised aloft and
saluted by trumpeters & high officials. The ceremony of raising the shield dates
from the Roman Empire. Byzantine, rrth cen. history of events of 9-nth century.
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid, Spain. (Photo Credit: Werner Forman/Art Reso1trce, NY)
18. Crown of Byzantine Emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (r. 104-2-1055).
Gold enamel, precious stones. nth c. Hungarian National Museum, Budapest,
Hungary. (Photo Credit: Erich Lessing/Art Resource, NY)
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be largely an argument for the legitimacy of Latin, a language in which none

of the Christian scriptures was originally written. It rarely seems to have any-
thing to do with three liturgical languages. Where the idea of three liturgical
languages does emerge in the West, it has nothing to do with restricting the
language of the liturgy to the three languages used on the inscription on the
cross (there is, anyway, no tradition of the liturgy being celebrated in
Hebrew), but rather to do with the fact that the Latin liturgy itself uses all
three languages: alleluia and amen being Hebrew, and ~rie eleison being
Greek, and the Trisagion ("Holy God, Holy Strong, Holy Immortal, have
mercy on us") being also used in Greek in the Good Friday liturgy (the vari-
ous Latin liturgies of this period probably used even more Greek than this).
Eighth- and ninth-century Carolingian capitularies requiring the use of Latin
as a liturgical language make no reference to any notion of"trilinguism"; they
are really part of an attempt to secure liturgical uniformity throughout the
Carolingian realms, and to underline claims that the Carolingian Empire was
a continuation of the Roman Empire. This was probably the basis for the
Frankish objections to the use of Slavonic by Methodios and his followers.
It is not unlikely that what was at stake in the disputes, first heard of in Venice
in 867 and doubtless continuing in Rome, and maybe behind the Frankish
objections in the 870s, was not a question of languages, sacred or not, but
alphabets. Cyril himself seems to have feared objections to the creation of a
new alphabet even in Constantinople. Despite the existence of the Georgian
and Armenian alphabets, probably little known anyway (though certainly
known in learned Constantinopolitan circles), the idea that alphabets are tra-
ditional, not something of human devising, may well lie behind the objec-
tions to the Glagolitic alphabet, and even to the eventual success of Cyrillic
(based on the Greek alphabet) as the Orthodox Slav alphabet.
As well as objecting to the use of Slavonic, the Franks also argued that
Methodios had no right, even as a papal legate, to function in Pannonia,
which was, they claimed, a missionary area under the archbishop of Salzburg.
Fairly soon, Methodios was arrested, tried and imprisoned. When eventually
he was released, he made his way to Moravia, where he functioned no longer
as a missionary bishop, but as archbishop of Moravia.
cal Western Heresy: Trilinguism; A Contribution to the Study of Patristic and Medieval Theories of
Sacred Language," Analecta Boll.indiana uo (1992): 67-u2, with extensive bibliography.
The king of Moravia was now Svatopluk, who had extended his realms
into Bohemia and south Poland. From 874 until his death in 885, there took
place a real consolidation of the Slav Church in Moravia, with possible mis-
sions into Bohemia and even south Poland. During this period, much-
maybe the whole-of the Bible, many of the liturgical offices, and a collection
of canon law were translated into Slavonic. But there was constant harass-
ment from the Franks, and Methodios' support from the papacy, though
never actually withdrawn, became more and more lukewarm. After Method-
ios' death in 885, Svatopluk withdrew his support for the Slav mission; the
leaders now, Gorazd, Clement and others, were required to give up the
Slavonic liturgy in accordance with the injunction of the new pope, Stephen
V (VI). 14 They refused, and were imprisoned, then expelled, some to be sold
as slaves to Jews, ending up in the slave market at Venice. There some of them,
including Naum, were bought by a Byzantine official and restored to free-
dom. The story of Naum and Clement, who made for Bulgaria, and others
of Cyril and Methodios' disciples, we shall pick up later.
Western Missions to the Slavs and Others

Missionary activity, as we have seen, was a constant accompaniment of Car-
olingian expansion. The eighth century was an important period, with the
missionary activity especially of Boniface and Willibrord. This activity con-
tinued into the ninth century, and extended into new areas-notably north-
ern Saxony and Scandinavia. Missionary activity in these areas was, however,
not to bear fruit until the tenth century; it will therefore be discussed in the
next section. Part of the reason for this was the Scandinavians' own activity
in the ninth century: the period of the most dramatic Viking expansion. As
we have already seen, the Viking expansion in the ninth century, though
largely concerned with establishing trading routes, was experienced by the
14The enumeration of popes bearing the name Stephen (apart from Stephen l) is confused by the
fact that a Pope Stephen reigned in 752 for a few days, to be succeeded by another Stephen, who
reigned for five years. The first of these Stephens, because he was never consecrated, was never listed
as Stephen II in the Book oftht Pontiffs or any other medieval source. In the sixteenth century, however,
when election was deemed sufficient for succession to the papacy, th.is unconsecrated pope was listed
as Stephen II, -,..~th the result that all succeeding Stephens have two numbers: the traditional one and
one a digit higher dating from the new listing. Not surprising!)', there have been no Pope Stephens
since this confusion was introduced.
Pope, Patriarch and Christian Mission 177
Christian West as aggressive and destructive. The monasteries seem to have

been an especial target of the Vikings, probably not because the pagan
Vikings were intend on assaulting Christians as such, but because many
monasteries were repositories of wealth: both their own and treasures that
had been left with them for safekeeping, in the conviction that, as sacred
places, their sanctuary would be respected. The Vikings, being pagan, showed
no such respect; for them, raiding a monastery was the early medieval equiv-
alent of a bank robbery. 15 The chroniclers of this period were monks, so it is
not surprising that the overall impression of the Vikings created by the chron-
icles is of destructive, pagan violence. Christian expansion into pagan terri-
tory was not exactly gentle; had the eighth-century Saxons had their
chroniclers, they would doubtless have left us a picture of Christian aggres-
sion: murderous, and destructive of native Saxon pieties. 16
Nevertheless, the Vikings were destructive. The wealthier monasteries had
most to fear, and over the decades many of them moved from exposed posi-
tions to more secluded locations: the monks ofLindisfame moved from their
island monastery, taking with them the relics of St Cuthbert, southwards to
Chester-le-Street in what is now County Durham, and then further south
into Yorkshire, before returning north, just before the turn of the millen-
nium, and eventually settling in Durham. The monks ofNoirmoutiers in the
mouth of the Loire moved inland by stages, arriving finally at Toumus in Bur-
gundy, where ironically they fell prey to the Magyars. The monks of Iona
made their way to Kells in Ireland. Diocesan structures were disrupted: sees
remained without a bishop for decades; some vanished entirely. The conver-
sion of the Vtlcings to Christianity-a mixture of assimilation to the Christian
populations they came to rule, in northern Britain and Normandy, for
instance-and missionary activity in their homelands was not to come until
the tenth century and later. The beginnings of such missions, however, are
found in the ninth century.
Expansion to the north of the Carolingian Empire-to the Wends, the
Scandinavians and the Slavs-was limited in scope in the ninth century and
dependent on favourable political conditions, as well as being hampered by
the serious difficulties Charlemagne had encountered in Christianizing the
15As Richard Fletcher has colourfully put it: see his 1bt Convmion ef Europe: From Paganism to
Christianity 371-1386 AD, London: HarperCollins, 1997, p. 370.
16
See above, p. 73.
Saxons. The central figure seems to be St Anskar, but this is probably simply
because we have his Life, written by his successor as bishop of Hamburg-Bre-
men in the late ninth century.17 Anskar was born about 800, and became a
monk of Corbie. There he very likely read the missionary Lives of Martin,
Cuthbert and Boniface. When he was transferred to Corbie's daughter-house,
Carvey, in Saxony, on its foundation in 822, the memory of these lives doubt-
less inspired him to continue their work. In 826, Anskar went to Denmark as
a missionary, and was able to continue there for a time after the fal l of his
patron, King Harald Klak. Shortly afterwards, he was invited further north to
the people called the Sueones, in what is now Sweden in the neighbourhood
of Stockholm. His missionary work was recognized when he was consecrated
first archbishop of Hamburg and appointed papal legate to all Swedes,
Danes, Slavs and other northern people by Pope Gregory N in about 832.
After ten years' work building on this foundation, Anskar suffered a setback
when Hamburg was sacked by the Danes in 845. A few years later the see of
Hamburg was united with Bremen. Anskar again began cautiously to con-
tinue his mission among the Danes and the Swedes; in 864 Pope Nicholas I
confirmed the union of Hamburg and Bremen, and approved the mission-
ary endeavour emanating from there. The following year Anskar died, and
very soon there was little evidence of any fruit of his work in Scandinavia.
Anskar's posthumous fame as "Apostle of the North" is rather a bid for his
patronage of the later Christianization of the Scandinavians than a reflection
of the success of his mission.
The other main front of Carolingian missionary expansion was to the
East-into Moravia, Bohemia, Pannonia. We hear something of this from the
Lives of Cyril and Methodios, where the Frankish missionaries appear as hin-
drances or worse to the Slav mission. From the side of the Franks, this expan-
sion was the natural result of the activity of missionaries emanating from
bishoprics such as Salzburg and Passau, and from the imperial court in
Regensburg. By the ninth century this missionary activity was well estab-
lished, and we have a detailed picture of the progress of this mission in the
Conversion of the Bavarians and the Carantanians, written by one of the
Salzburg clergy in 870. 18 This account tells us much about the activity of the
17 For Anskar's (or Arugar's) life, see Fletcher, Conversion, pp. 225-27, and Vlasto, 7bt Entry ofthe
Sl.av1, p. 14-J·
18 For the Conversw, see Fletcher, Conversion, pp. 344- 49, and Vi as to, The Entry ofthe Slavs, pp. 68-69.
Pope, Patriarch and Christian Mission 1 79
church of Salzburg under its archbishop, Virgil (a Latinization of the Irish Fer-
gil), in the eighth century, and the continuing opportunities in the ninth cen-
tury, on which Methodius and his disciples were poaching. It tells a story of
conversion of various princes-Cheitmar, duke of the Carantanians, Pribina,
a Slav prince of a region adjoining Moravia, and Pribina's son, Kotsel-and
the help provided by the Salzburg clergy. We can supplement this picture of
the conversion of the mainly Slav tribes of Central Europe by other frag-
ments of information, for instance the conversion of Mojmir, prince of
Bohemia, in 822 and the mass baptism of his followers in 831. In 845 fourteen
Bohemian dukes are said to have arrived in Regensburg seeking Christian
instruction. The picture is patchy, but clearly there was Frankish missionary
activity among the Slavs of Central Europe in the ninth century, building on
what had been done in the century before, and providing a foundation for
the events of the tenth century.
Khan Boris and the Conversion of Bulgaria

We have already seen that Frankish and Byzantine missionaries found them-
selves in conflict in Moravia. During the 86os, a similar conflict took place in
Bulgaria, which involved both pope and ~cumenical patriarch, with the
result that we are much better informed than we would otherwise have been.
The events of the 86os and later are important not only as a flashpoint in rela-
tions between Greek East and Latin West, but also for shedding light on the
nature of the decision Khan Boris was faced with as he contemplated the
Christianization of his country, a decision that was to face many other rulers
in the next century, as well as for providing the first example of establishing
an enduring form of Slav Christianity, an example that was to be followed. 19
The Bulgars were a Turkish tribe who had lived a semi-nomadic life in the
steppes around the sea of Azov from the fifth to the seventh centuries, an
area the Greeks called "Great Bulgaria." Under pressure &om the Khazars,
they migrated and reached the lower Danube about 700. Not able to prevent
them, the Byzantine government allowed them to settle south of the Danube
in Dobruja in about 679 under their leader Asparuch. This area had already
been settled by Slavs from the sixth century, and the presence of the Bulgars
19For Bulgaria and the conversion of Boris, see Vlasto, The Entry ef the Slavs, pp. 155-87, and
Obolensky, Byzantine Commorr.maltb, pp. 83--96.

180 GREEK EAST A D LATIN WEST
provided a warrior aristocracy under whose rule the Slavs came to live. The
next two centuries saw the gradual Slavization of the Bulgars, who eventu-
ally, though only slowly, lost their language and became Slav speakers. There
also developed some form of a state increasingly open to influence from the
culture of the Byzantine Greeks. This state also posed a threat to the Byzan-
tines, as it threatened the European hinterland of Constantinople. It seems
that in the eighth century a few of the Bulgarian rulers-Tervel, who sup-
ported the exiled Justinian II and married his daughter, and Telerig-
embraced Christianity, but this had no implications for the Bulgarian state
as a whole. By the beginning of the ninth century, the Bulgarians were begin-
ning to pose a real threat to Byzantium, which began to take military meas-
ures, as a result of which, as we have seen, the emperor Nikephoros I lost his
life in humiliating circumstances. The Bulgarian leader who worsted Nike-
phoros was Khan Krum, who had probably taken the title Khan (or Khagan)
as a claim to the Avar power that had recently been destroyed by Charle-
magne. Under Krum and his immediate successors, Bulgaria became a force
Byzantium had to reckon with. Even though the BuJgars more and more
adopted Byzantine ways, and the Greek language was used in the administra-
tion, Christianity seemed to them the religion of the Greeks, adoption of
which would render them socially and politically subject to the Byzantines.
This was the problem that faced Boris, who became khan in 852: ruling a
country in which an increasing number of his subjects, Greek and Slav, were
Christians, how could he bring Bulgaria itself into the Christian fold without
losing his power and independence?
Boris was poised between Byzantine Christianity to the east and Latin
Christianity-of both pope and Frankish emperor-to the west; he decided to
investigate both possibilities, and perhaps even to play off the one against the
other, as he sought the best deal he could get. Initially, in 862, he approached
the Frankish emperor, Louis the German, maybe thinking that, as the Franks
were a more distant neighbour, it would be easier for him to regain some
independence. Michael III, not prepared to tolerate the extension of Carolin-
gian influence to the very borders of Byzantium, responded by moving an
army to the Bulgarian border and the fleet to the mouth of the Danube. Boris
immediately capitulated, and in 864 or 865, taking the name Michael after the
emperor who became his godfather, was baptized by a Byzantine bishop, as
were a number of his leading subjects.
Pope, Patriarch and Christian Mission 181
Boris' baptism provoked a widespread revolt, fomented by the Bulgar

warrior aristocracy, aimed at the overthrow of Boris and the restoration of
paganism. It very nearly succeeded, but with the help of his loyal supporters
Boris managed to suppress the rebellion. Punishment for the ringleaders was
harsh: fifty-two of them, together with their families, were executed. Boris
came to regret his severity, and seems to have blamed the Greek clergy.
Nonetheless, the elimination of support for paganism among the boyars
enabled the Christian mission to establish itself. Photios sent a long letter to
Boris, welcoming him into the Christian fold, giving a lengthy and historical
account of the faith of the seven ~cumenical synods, and setting out the
duties of a Christian ruler with rhetorical flourish, though confining himself
to general moral exhortation. 20 Boris now found himself in a difficult posi-
tion. His baptism and the opening ofBulgaria to officially sanctioned Byzan-
tine missionaries meant that Bulgarian independence was seriously threatened.
If Bulgaria became a diocese, or group of dioceses, under the patriarch of
Constantinople, his political independence of the Byzantine emperor would
soon be compromised; indeed Byzantine sources assumed that Boris' bap-
tism entailed subordination to the Byzantine emperor, and Pope Nicholas I
seems to have assumed this, too, with evident disapproval. What Boris
wanted was his own Church, with its own patriarch, but there was no likeli-
hood that the Byzantines would modify the principle of the Pentarchy for
him. So he turned to the pope, Nicholas I, to see if he could do better under
the papacy. He sent to Pope Nicholas a long letter with 106 questions, to
which he sought a response. The letter no longer survives, but Pope Nicholas'
reply does. From Nicholas' reply, we can glean something of what was on
Boris' mind as he contemplated the consequences of embracing Christianity.
It also gives some insight into how the differences between Latin and Greek
Christianity appeared to a neophyte such as Boris.21
What is immediately striking is that Boris raised no theological issues; he
is much more interested in practical issues, rather than matters of belief. This
should not perhaps surprise us ; matters of behaviour-both moral and what
one might call ritual and even etiquette-are important in most religions,
both as shaping a way oflife, and also enshrining a shared set of symbols. The
20Ep. 1 (ed. Laourdas-Westerink, I, pp. 1-39); English translation in Despina Stratoudalci White and
Joseph R. Berrigan, Jr., 77u Patriarch and the Prince, Brookline MA: Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1982.
21 See Obolensky's analysis of this letter in Byzantine Commomoealth, pp. 87--92.
question of negotiating the transition from one pattern of behavimu to

another would have been uppermost in Boris' mind; this was the most tan-
gible way in which Bulgarian society would experience change.
Boris started off with various questions of ritual practice: the forbidding of
baths on Wednesdays and Fridays (days of fasting), taking off belts-very much
part of warrior attire-to receive communion, the forbidding oflaity to con-
duct public prayers for rain, or to bless a meal with the sign of the cross, the
insistence on standing with arms crossed over one's breast in church. None of
these, as Boris probably presumed, would be expected by the pope. Then there
were questions about the patriarchs: how many are there, and where does
Constantinople stand among them? Nicholas accepts the Pentarchy, the idea
that there are only five patriarchs, but disputes that Constantinople stood in
second place after him, or even that it had any right to a patriarchate, not being
of apostolic foundation. What lay behind these questions is not difficult to
see: Boris wanted to see if there would be any room for his own patriarchate,
and also how he stood in relation to Constantinople. Nicholas' reply reassured
him that Constantinople's claim to hegemony throughout the Byzantine
realm was unfounded, but did not address Boris' real concern for his own
patriarchate. Nicholas offered him an archbishop.
There were further questions about matters of ritual, to which the papal
response was more nuanced: days of fasting; time of breakfast on non-fasting
days; whether sexual intercourse is permitted during Lent; and whether com-
munion could be received on each day during Lent; questions of diet;
whether women should cover their heads in church; the question of working
on Sundays and feast days. On many of these questions Latin and Greek
Christians were beginning to take different lines, though both regarded the
questions as important. Another group of questions concerned how to rec-
oncile the warrior values with the values of Christianity. What about military
campaigns during Lent, or the fitting of prayer into the life of a soldier? Or
more generally the conflict between the Christian stress on love and humil-
ity with the qualities required of a ruler, and especially a ruler brought up to
a warrior code. How far does forgiveness extend? Can torture be used? Can
criminals seek asylum in churches? How severely may one punish breaches
of military discipline? Or to put it more generally: how is criminal law,
needed for the running of society, compatible with a Christian ethics oflove?
Nicholas replied in general terms, and advised tempering justice with mercy.
The Byzantines would have doubtless taken the same line, but Boris had put
his finger on a point where there was no easy resolution. An extension of the
same question concerned how to negotiate the transition from paganism to
Christianity; how much force could one use? The pope recommended per-
suasion rather than force; any Byzantine churchman would have said the
same, but in the heat of the moment-as with the Byzantine clergy who urged
Boris to eliminate his pagan rebels-many Christians resorted to force. There
were also questions about what we would call international law and how
could a Christian nation deal with a pagan one. Nicholas recognized the
necessity for Realpolitik; Boris would have found the same realism among the
Byzantines.
A final set of questions concerned pagan practices to which the Bulgari-
ans were attached: the use of a horse's tail as a banner, the seeking of auguries
and casting of spells before battle, taking oaths on a sword. None of these
would Nicholas countenance, nor resort to magic. Neither was polygamy
acceptable, nor prayer for departed pagan ancestors-however deep-rooted
the cult of ancestors might be in Bulgarian society.
Nicholas' replies are full of a gentle, but clear wisdom. Boris' questions,
reflected in Nicholas' responses, show the nature of his concerns: what is
meant by a Christian society, and can it survive in a world where matters were
ultimately settled by force of arms? And, just as important, could Bulgaria
become Christian and retain its political independence? The first question
had perhaps been disguised by the ease with which Christians came to accept
the equivalence of "Roman" and "Christian" after the conversion of Con-
stantine, but it had already troubled Charlemagne and his advisers, and was
to remain a continuing problem as more Slav principalities embraced Chris-
tianity in the tenth century. The second question, too, raised a question to
which the practical answers amounted to a compromise between aspirations
after independence and the ideal of a united, or even single, Christendom.
Boris appears to have felt that Rome offered the better deal. Bishops were
sent from Rome, and the Byzantine clergy were expelled. The Byzantine
response was vigorous. Photios addressed a long letter to the Eastern patri-
archs, complaining about the activity of Roman missionaries in Bu1garia.22
This is really the first time that the differences that were leading Eastern and
22Ep. 2 (ed. Laourdas-Westerink, pp. 39-53).

Western Christendom to drift apart had been articulated, and the first time
that the question of the addition to the creed of the Filioque had been raised
as evidence that the rift was now a matter of dogma. The letter requires some
attention.
Photios' letter begins by complaining about "men from darkness" who
have been corrupting the pure faith of the Bulgarians. He first of all cites var-
ious practices they have introduced, contrary to the customs of the Byzan-
tines: fasting on Saturdays, eating cheese and milk during the first week of
Lent, dissolving the marriage of priests, and denying the use of chrism by
priests. These differences of practice between East and West were all destined
to be long-running issues. Byzantines kept to the ancient practice of fasting
on Wednesdays and Fridays, while in Rome (and Alexandria) the Wednesday
fast had been dropped and Friday and Saturday together had become a pen-
itential preparation for Sunday. East and West had adopted different ways of
calculating the forty days of Lent, with the result that for the East Lent began
on Clean Monday, the seventh Monday before Easter (so that the forty days
ofLent end on the Friday before Palm Sunday, and Holy Week-Lazarus Sat-
urday to Great Saturday-is treated as a separate celebration of the last days
of Christ's life), while the West began on Ash Wednesday, the seventh
Wednesday before Easter (forty days, not counting Sundays, before Easter);
the Monday and Tuesday of the seventh week before Easter were therefore
days of fasting for the East, but the final days before Lent for the West, when
cheese and milk were still allowed. The theory, though not yet the practice,
of the Western Church required a celibate clergy; while the Eastern Church
expected pastoral clergy to be married. Chrismation was, both in East and
West, the final part of the sacrament of initiation. Both East and West pre-
served its episcopal character: the East by reserving the consecration of
chrism to bishops (indeed, to patriarchs), the West by separating the final part
of the sacrament of initiation-confirmation or chrisrnation-off from bap-
tism and reserving it for bishops, usually on a separate, and generally much
later, occasion. To Photios' eyes, priests in the West were thus unable to cel-
ebrate the whole rite of baptism. These were small differences (save for the
question of married priests), but evidence of the different customs that had
developed independently of each other in the two halves of Christendom.
"Even a small neglect of traditions may lead to complete contempt for
dogma,"' Photios commented, echoing St Basil the Great's observation at the
beginning of his treatise On the Ho[; Spirit that "nothing is negligible for those
who want to make their way into knowledge." 23 Photios then goes on to
adduce something not negligible at all: the addition of the Filioque to the
creed.24 We have already seen how this came about in the West, and also
noticed that, still in the ninth century, Rome had not yielded to Carolingian
pressure to add the Filioque to the creed. It is a little puzzling, then, that Pho-
tios ascribes this "impiety" to "those bishops from darkness" (who might well
be called s n:imwrnt, he says, playing on the Greek words for bishop,
ETitaxo1wt, and darkness, ax6wc;), who can only be the two bishops Nicholas
sent from Rome, Paul of Populonia and Formosus of Porto. It is more likely
that it was Frankish missionaries who introduced the Filioque into Bulgaria,
though Nicholas' envoys may well have acquiesced. Photios' objections to
the Filioque, however, would not have missed their target, for his objections
are not simply to the addition to the creed-a matter he passes over quite
quickly-but to the doctrine itself, which Rome endorsed as much as any in
the West. Photios gives a series of reasons why the doctrine of the double pro-
cession of the Spirit from the Father and the Son is unacceptable. First of all,
it introduces two causes (ouo ~h ta) into the Godhead, dissolving the divine
monarchy into "ditheism" and rendering the theology of the Christians noth-
ing more than the mythology of the Greeks. Then follow a series of argu-
ments about how the doctrine of the Filioque damages the notion of
procession. If the procession from the Father is perfect, what is the point of
procession as well from the Son? It is superfluous and useless. If the Spirit
proceeds from the Son "just as from the Father," why then is not the Spirit
begotten from the Son "just as from the Father"? Furthermore, if begetting
and procession are properties (1016,YJTcc;) distinguishing the persons of the
Trinity, then the Spirit will differ from the Father more than the Son does (by
two properties, not just one), and therefore be less than the Son, which
implies Macedonianism. Other similar arguments are adduced. The argu-
ments are important in themselves, and also reveal something of the differ-
ent approaches to the doctrine of the Trinity found in East and West. What
23Basil the Great, On the Ho!J Spirit 1.2..

240n the question of the Filioque, see, most recently, Peter Gemeinhardt, Die Filioque-Kontroverse
zwischen Ost- und Westkircht im Fn,hmittela!Jer, Arbeiten zur Kirchengeschichte 8 2 , Berlin : Walter de
Gruyter, 2002. H.B. Swete, On the H istory ofthe Doctrine ofthe Procession ofthe Holy Spin't: from the Apos-
tolic Age to the Death ofCharkmagne, Cambridge: Deighton, Bell & Co., 1876, is still worth consulting.
is also striking, however, is the confidence with which Photios adduces his
arguments, which suggests that though this is the first occasion on which
these arguments had been adduced publicly, it was a matter that had long
been considered: a conclusion confirmed, too, by the florilegium on the Fil-
ioque drawn up in Rome in the 770s, to which reference has been made
above. 25
Photios followed up this letter with a session of a synod in Constantino-
ple in 867, presided over by the emperor, at which Nicholas was deposed and
excommunicated, and the Filioque and other Latin usages condemned. This
was mainly a riposte to Nicholas' deposition of Photios at the Roman synod
of 863, but the condemnation of the Roman errors demonstrates that the mat-
ter of Bulgaria also impinged on the synod. Events were, however, just about
to take a fresh course. Later that year, Michael III was assassinated and suc-
ceeded by Basil I, his murderer. As a usurper to the imperial throne, Basil
needed all the support he could find, and quickly compelled Photios to resign
and reinstated Ignatios, thereby removing at least one of Rome's grievances
with the Byzantine emperor. This did not, however, lead to any change in
Byzantine policy towards Bulgaria. On the contrary, the situation in Bulgaria
was now experiencing a swing in Byzantium's favour. Boris was impatient at
Rome's refusal to allow him to appoint an archbishop for Bulgaria. Byzan-
tium, in its turn, was using its diplomatic wiles (and bribes, so Anastasius the
Librarian alleged) to bring Boris and Bulgaria back into the Byzantine fold.
In 870, a full synod of the Church was called at Constantinople, prima-
rily to judge the rival claims of Photios and lgnatios, which it settled in Igna-
tios' favour. At its last session, Bulgarian delegates brought to the synod an
urgent question: to which Church, they disingenuously asked, should Bul-
garia belong? The Roman legates argued that as a part of former Illyricum it
should come under the jurisdiction of Rome; the Eastern bishops that it had
formerly been part of the Byzantine Empire, and should therefore come
under Constantinople. The synod being largely Byzantine decided in favour
of Byzantium and Boris accepted it. The Latin clergy were expelled from Bul-
garia, and the Byzantine clergy returned, under the authority of an arch-
bishop, appointed by Patriarch Ignatios. The archbishop of Bulgaria was
granted an honour outranking archbishops who were autocephalous (i.e.,
Pope, Patriarch and Chnstian Mission
elected by their own clergy), but remained merely autonomous, with his con-
secration, and probably nomination, reserved to Constantinople.
Patriarch Ignatios died in 877, and was succeeded by Photios. This time
Rome made no objection and at a synod held in Constantinople in 879-80,
attended by papal legates, Photios' accession to the patriarchal throne was
confirmed, and the long-repeated papal claims to jurisdiction over
"Illyricum" were conceded. This latter, however, remained a dead letter, for
Boris continued to look to Byzantium for ecclesiastical guidance. Photios
eventually resigned in 886, on the accession of the emperor Leo VI, "the
Wise," and probably in retirement wrote his extended discussion of the Fil-
ioque issue, the Mystagogia ofthe Holy Spirit. He died sometime after 893.
The 870s saw the conversion of Bulgaria continue apace. At this stage,
Christianization seems to have entailed Hellenization, building on the Greek
culture already widespread in Bulgaria both at official (administrative) levels
and more generally. Meanwhile, Boris presumably heard of Methodios' mis-
sion in Moravia with its use of Slavonic in the liturgy and for preaching.
When, after the death of Methodios in 885, his disciples were expelled from
Moravia, they were greeted with enthusiasm by Boris, and they set about
introducing Slavonic scriptures and liturgical texts in Bulgaria. Of the tradi-
tional "Seven Teachers" of the Slavs, the founders of Slav Christianity-Cyril,
Methodios, Gorazd, Clement, Naum, Laurence (or Sava) and Angelar-the
last four now pursued their mission in Bulgaria (Cyril and Methodios were
dead, the fate of Gorazd is unclear; he may have continued a Slav mission
somewhere in Central Europe). The most influential of these were Clement,
who had left Moravia for Bulgaria,26 and Naum, who had been sold into slav-
ery, redeemed in Venice and had arrived in Bulgaria via Constantinople.
Clement was sent to Macedonia, probably his homeland, and in 893 was con-
secrated bishop, the first Slav bishop of Bulgaria. He died in 916 at Ohrid, at
his monastery of St Panteleimon, where he had retired, and which had ear-
lier been the centre of his missionary and teaching activity. He seems to have
continued to use the Glagolitic alphabet devised by his mentor, Cyril. Naum
had earlier remained at the capital Pliska, but with Clement's consecration as
bishop took over his teaching activity centred on Ohrid, founding monaster-
26 0n Clement, see Dimitri Obolensky, Six Byzantine Portraits, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1988,
pp. 8-.JJ.
ies and himself becoming a monk in 900 and dying in 910. His relics were
translated to a monastery dedicated to him at the south end of Lake Ohrid.
In 889, Boris felt that his work of bringing the Bulgarians to Christianity
was sufficiently well established for him to retire and embrace the monastic
life at a monastery he had founded at Preslav. His successor, Vladimir, yielded
to the pressure of the boyars who still opposed the Greek influence, and
entered into an alliance with King Arnulf ofBavaria. This had inevitable con-
sequences for the Greek hierarchy in Bulgaria; Archbishop Stephen was
imprisoned and there was persecution of the Christians. Boris determined to
leave his monastic seclusion in 893 to secure the Christian heritage that was
under threat from his son's actions. Vladimir was deposed, and replaced with
his younger brother, Symeon. Symeon had been educated in Constantino-
ple, and thoroughly Hellenized; he had become a monk, perhaps with the
intention of becoming a future archbishop or even patriarch of Bulgaria.
Boris returned to his monastery, and Symeon as tsar continued his father's
work. The capital of Bulgaria now became Preslav, in place of Pliska with its
pagan associations. At Preslav, under Symeon, the promulgation of Slavonic
Christianity became a priority, to undermine any further resistance to Hellen-
ization. At the eastern end of Bulgaria, first at Pliska under Naum, and later
at Preslav, eventually under Constantine "the Priest," who became bishop of
Preslav by 906 at the latest, a new alphabet was devised for Slavonic-the
alphabet now called "Cyrillic" after Cyril-Constantine, who had invented the
Glagolitic alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet was based on the Greek alphabet,
and certainly much easier to learn to use by the administrators and clergy of
Pliska and later Preslav, who were already competent in Greek. Indeed, it
might be closer to the truth to say that Cyrillic was not a new alphabet at all-
unlike Glagolitic-but simply the Greek alphabet, supplemented for conso-
nants representing sounds not used in Greek by Hebrew letters (e.g., llI and
m from ~, and U from ~), which would meet the objection to the devising
of a new alphabet that Cyril had feared and encountered. The use of
Glagolitic continued in Macedonia, the site of Clement and Naum's teach-
ing, and in Central Europe for some centuries, but it was Cyrillic that was to
become the alphabet of the Orthodox Slavs.
Under Tsar Symeon, Bulgaria became a country embracing Byzantine
Christianity in the Slav tongue. It seems that the Bulgarians had their own
ideas as to what "Byzantine Christianity" meant. What survives of the exten-
sive building programme Boris had begun at Pliska and Symeon continued at
Preslav suggests that they modelled their buildings on an older style from the
time ofJustinian I-round churches like San Vitale at Ravenna and SS. Sergios
and Bacchos in Constantinople-instead of the post-iconoclast style then cur-
rent in the capital. This may have been because the building work was carried
out not by artisans brought in from Constantinople, but by native Bulgarians,
who copied what remained in Bulgaria from the sixth century; but it may also
be that they wished to emulate the buildings of one of the greatest of the
Byzantine emperors. 27 But in other respects the Christian culture was Byzan-
tine, that is, Constantinopolitan; in particular, the Divine Liturgy and the
liturgical offices took the form found in the capital. Clement had composed
liturgical and hagiographical works in Slavonic, and in Preslav under Symeon
this continued and was supplemented by secular texts, especially historical
works. Malalas' Chronicle was translated in Slavonic, and there appeared
Symeon's lzbomik (Encyclopaedia), a collection oflearned extracts of theolog-
ical, historical and other texts, providing a basic Christian culture. 28
Photios and the Armenians

In the early 86os, as Pope icholas was pondering his next moves in the affair
of Photios' elevation to the patriarchate, the military fortunes of the Byzan-
tine Empire were turning. The Byzantine army was beginning to achieve
some success against the Arabs, who had been making incursions into Asia
Minor for two centuries. In 863, Petronas, the brother of Bardas Caesar,
crushed an Arab army under Umar, the emir ofMelitene. Renewed control
of Asia Minor brought the effective frontiers of the Byzantine Empire once
again close to Armenia; indeed parts of Armenia now found themselves
incorporated into the Empire. This proximity to Armenia had implications
for the Byzantine Church, for the Armenians had never accepted the Synod
of Chalcedon. In 451 political conditions had prevented any Armenian bish-
ops from being present at the synod, and when, later on, they came to learn
of the decisions of the bishops at Chalcedon, they rejected them and formed
part of the non-Chalcedonian party, called by the Orthodox "monophysite."
n As suggested by Richaid Krautheimer, Early Christi1111 and Byzantine Architecture, H aI-

mondsworth: Penguin Books, 1965, pp. 226-27.
28 For a discussion of this =ly Slavonic literature, see Vlasto, The Entry efthe Slavs, pp. 175-78.
Furthermore, as we have seen, several of the canons of the Synod in Trulw

condemn various Armenian practices, most of them liturgical. Closer links
between the Church of the Empire and the Church of the Armenians would
need to achieve some agreement on these issues. One of the longest of Pho-
tios' letters is a letter addressed to Afot, the prince of Armenia, on the sub-
ject of theopaschism, the central issue at stake between Chalcedonian and
non-Chalcedonian. 29 Theopaschism found liturgical expression in the word-
ing of the Trisagi,on, a brief hymn that had become popular in Eastern litur-
gies since the fifth century: "Holy God, Holy Strong, Holy Immortal, have
mercy on us." The non-Chalcedonians understood the Trisagi,on to be
addressed to the Son and were fond of adding "who was crucified for us" to
the exclamation "Holy God, Holy Strong, Holy Immortal," while the Chal-
cedonians took the Trisagi,on to be addressed to the Trinity, and thus rejected
the addition as heretical, implying that God suffered in his own being. The
addition had been condemned at the Synod in Trullo. Photios' long and care-
ful letter confined itself to a detailed exposition of Christology, and made no
mention of the matter of the Trisagi,on. All that was required of the Armeni-
ans was acceptance of Chalcedon. This letter was, however, part of a much
more extensive exchange that took place in the 86os, culminating in a synod
at Sirakawan, which was followed up in the 88os, during Photios' second
patriarchate. Most of the evidence for all this is preserved in Armenian, for
the whole exchange was of great importance for the Armenians-greater,
probably, than it had been for the Byzantines. 30
What is striking about the exchanges is their irenic nature. Photios takes
the line, as had John Damascene in the previous century, that "mono-
physitism" is not necessarily a heresy, but most often simply a confusion.31
The "rnonophysites" hold the same faith as the Orthodox, but reject the Def-
inition of Chalcedon. Orthodox such as John Damascene, and later Photios,
argued that the "monophysites" rejected Chalcedon because they misunder-
stood it. John went on to argue that to say of Christ that he was "one nature
out of two" was potentially very confusing, and could lead to all sorts of prob-
29Ep. i.84 (ed. Laourdas-Westerink, Ill, pp. 1-97).

30All this section is based on the recent book by Igor Dorfinann-Lazarev, Amiiniem et Byzantins
al'ipoque de Photius: Deux rk'bats thiologiques apres le triomphe rk l'orthodoxie, Corpus Scriptorum Chris-
tianorurn Orientalium 609, Subsidia II7, Louvain: Peeters, 2004.
31
See Louth, StJohn Da.mascme, pp. 157-<>6.
lems, notably tritheism, for to identify the terms nature and person (physis
and hypostasis) made it difficult to articulate belief in God's being three and
also one. In his dealings with the Armenians, Photios reached back to the first
three synods, accepted by both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian, and
in particular the Formula of Reunion, agreed on between Cyril of Alexandria
and John of Antioch in 433. This spoke of Christ in a "union of two natmes,"
Christ being "consubstantial with the Father in his divinity" and "consub-
stantial with us in his humanity," and affirmed the legitimacy of the title
Theotokos of the Virgin Mary. This, Photios argued, was what the Synod of
Chalcedon had affirmed in its Definition. On the Armenian side, especially
as found in a statement by one Vahan, who Dorfmann-Lazarev argues was an
Armenian bishop, there is a similar irenic intention. Vahan presents the
"royal way'' of Orthodoxy as a middle way between the extreme mono-
physitism ofJulian of Halicamassos, on the one side, and the "Paulicians," a
sectarian group, present both in Armenia and in the Empire, who rejected the
hierarchy and sacraments of the Church, and were accused, perhaps not
justly, of dualism. 32 Such a "royal way" was one both Armenian and Byzan-
tine could pursue together. Vahan also retreats from the rigidity of Christo-
logical terminology that tended to characterize the monophysites, and is
willing to use a variety of terms, including those adopted by Chalcedon («per-
son" and "hypostasis"). In the canons of the Synod of Sirakawan, concern is
expressed, not so much about whether Chalcedon and the later synods are
affirmed or denied, but about the sincerity of any such affirmation or denial:
presumably directed against opportunist conversions, especially amongst
those who, having been Armenian, once again found themselves with the
Empire. That, however, was a sign of stalemate.
It is not difficult to see that Photios' desire, ultimately frustrated, to
achieve reconciliation with the Armenians was motivated in part by his dif-
ficulties with Rome. Rome's very involvement in the question of his election
laid bare a claim that Rome was superior to Constantinople-not of equal
rank, as the Synod of Chalcedon had asserted. To portray himself as gener-
ously concerned with the reconciliation of Christendom would fit well with
his vision of the Patriach of Constantinople as exercising a worldwide role:
as precisely the (Ecumenical Patriarch.
32
See above, pp. 135-36.
There were further exchanges during the 88os, when Photios had resumed
the patriarchate. These, too, were marked by a spirit of friendship, and a
desire to set the question of dogmatic unity in the context of mutual love and
respect. This in itself is worthy of record.
CHAPTER NINE
CHANGING PATTERNS OF WORSHIP
P erhaps the most important question one would like the church historian
to answer is what was it like to be a Christian at any particular period in
the past? How did Christians pray and worship and how did they experience
changes in their patterns of worship? Alas, for this period of history these
questions are impossible to answer, save for a few groups of people, and those
groups-the court, the bishops, the monks-constitute various minorities; for
the majority we are largely in the dark, and can only make generalizations
based on guesswork. The basis on which we make these guesses mostly con-
sists of extant Liturgical evidence, supplemented by what can be deduced
from surviving monuments and archaeological investigation, to which can be
added hints and guesses from letters that have been preserved, and especially
from the Lives of the saints. But always we seem to see more clearly the higher
we ascend-socially or culturally-with most people left shrouded in darkness.
One tends to carry in one's mind a picture of the Christian life, based on
one's own experience, which has, over the last decades, been increasingly
informed by movements of liturgical reform (especially among Western
Christians), inspired by ideas of scholarly reconstruction of the practice of
the early Church. The Church is seen as essentially a eucharistic community:
those who gather together with the bishop (or his representative) to proclaim
the Resurrection and to be united in communion in the Lord's Body and
Blood. How far our experience reflects that of the early Christians may be
doubted-there is nothing in our experience corresponding to the way the
penitential system encroached on the gathered community-but already in
the fourth century, with the assimilation of the community of the church to
that of the city, there were changes. Frequent communion declined, or rather
became confined to the clergy, who came to constitute an elite. The growth
of monasticism added a further element, confusing the question of Christian
identity. Our sources move further and further from what could still be
19.3
regarded as ordinary experience-most of the bishops, even the famous

among them like Augustine or the Cappadocian Fathers, were bishops of
fairly ordinary congregations-and concentrate on the experience of the
"saints," no longer an appellation for all the baptized, but a much more lim-
ited group, representing an ideal unattainable by ordinary people. The
"saints" not only dominate the evidence, they also come to overshadow the
nature of Christian worship, no longer focused almost exclusively on the cel-
ebration of the Paschal mystery, but concerned with tapping the resources of
power represented by the relics of the saints, and, especially in the East, their
pictures or icons. By the end of the seventh century, there has accumulated
a host of traditions associated with Christian worship, while much of the orig-
inal framework of normal Christian practice has changed. Some of these
changes are associated with the rapid "decline of the city," for the city had
formed the original social unit that defined the experience of Christians. The
"local" Christian community originally meant the Christians of a city, gath-
ered together under their bishop. To begin with, as we have seen, the decline
of the city only enhanced the place of the local Christian community, led by
the bishop, for the bishop came to occupy a central role in whatever com-
munity survived. But neither in the West nor in the East was this position sta-
ble (though there is much dispute about the rate of decay). Bishops retained
their link with the cities of the late antique world in their titles-bishop of
Ephesos, bishop ofTours, and so forth-but the "local" community changed
its character. By the eighth century, the community of the bishop's see was
likely to be dominated by those directly connected with the bishop in one
way or another. Society was becoming increasingly rural, and most Christians
would have no real connexion with the city. In the West, this led to the devel-
opment of what are called Eigenkirchen, churches that belonged to the local
magnate or landowner. It was built first of all to serve the magnate's needs,
but also served the needs of his labourers; the magnate appointed the priest,
and bishops had to struggle to assert their authority. The nature of the
bishop's authority changed: no longer a father to his gathered congregation,
he became a remote and more or less exalted figure. The situation cannot
have been very much different in the Byzantine Empire, though there was
clearly a problem in getting bishops to stay with their communities, subject
as they were, outside the cities of Constantinople and Thessaloniki, to the
constant threat of raiding-from the Arabs in Asia Minor, and Slavs and
Changing Patterns of Worship 1 95
others in the Balkans. To this needs to be added the growth of monastic com-
munities, often of private foundation, which would provide an alternative
focus for Christian devotion, independent of whatever parish structure sur-
vived. It is, indeed, not clear that much parish structure did survive, even in
the few cities: a parish church was called in Greek the katholikon (the church
for all), and what evidence we have suggests that such katholika were rare.
All of this must have had an impact on the practice of Christian worship,
and perhaps the most obvious effect was that there was very likely no general
picture: there would be many local variants. The Carolingian reforms in the
West sought to impose some kind of uniformity, but, as we have seen, the
principles of reform were interpreted in a variety of ways, both in cathedral
churches and in monasteries; the variety at still more remote levels must have
been considerable.
Sunday worship from the time of the peace of the Church in the fourth
century seems to have started with a procession led by the bishop, the serv-
ice in the church beginning with the entrance of the bishop. This entrance is
still preserved in the "little entrance" of the Byzantine liturgy, though it is no
longer at the beginning of the service, but for St Maximos the Confessor, in
the seventh century, the Divine Liturgy still began with the entrance of the
bishop. For such a service the basilica- in the form of a long hall, with the
main entrance in the west end-formed the ideal setting. The changing shape
of the church building, particularly in the East with the growing popularity
of trefoil or quatrefoil churches, or churches in the shape of a quincunx, was
much more suited to a service for which people gathered in the church, rather
than entering it in procession. Furthermore the provision of a sanctuary
flanked by areas that could be cut off from the main church proved ideal
when the service of preparing the eucharistic elements took place in the
church, rather than outside it. These newer style churches were suited for serv-
ices with processions inside the church (as in current Orthodox practice),
rather than processions to the church building. 1
1For more detail about the changing fo rms of church architecture in the Byzantine wo rld, see
Richard Krautheimer, Early Christian and ByzantimArchitecture, Harmondswonh: Penguin Books, 1965.
Thomas F. Mathews, Tbt Early Churches efConstantinople: Archittcture and Liturgy, University Park and
London: The Pennsylvania State U niversity Press, 1971, is good on the relationship between architec·
ture and liturgy, and his discussion has wider impl ications than simply the churches in Constantinople.
He has a lively discussion of the place of the procession in early Byzantine worship in his Tbe Clmh ef
Gods: A Reinterpretation efEarly Christian Art, Princeton University Press, 1993, pp. 150-76.
Nevertheless, processions, at least in cities, were still an important part of

Christian worship. In Rome, Constantinople, and other smaller cities such as
Metz, there were-either every Sunday or on some Sundays-stational litur-
gies, in which the bishop with his clergy processed through the city to the
church in which the Sunday liturgy was to be celebrated. These stational litur-
gies preserved something of the nature of the earlier liturgies. There were also
processions when relics, or icons, were carried on display. The absence of
"parish churches" and the prevalence in larger cities of processions makes one
wonder if for many peoples their liturgical experience did not take the form
of joining in processions-either by following them or watching them go past.
Processions with relics point to another reason for changes in patterns of
worship, namely the growing importance of the veneration of saints. Already
by the end of the fourth century, the cycle associated with the celebration of
the Resurrection, based on the lunar calendar-Easter with its fifty days lead-
ing up to Pentecost, and preceded by the forty-day Lenten fast (differently
calculated in East and West), plus the weekly commemoration on Sunday-
had been supplemented by a cycle of commemorations of the saints, cele-
brated on the anniversary of their deaths (or heavenly birthdays), determined
by dates in the solar year, plus various other "fixed feasts" like Christmas,
commemorating events in the life of the Lord. Some of these saints' days
were local; others were saints' days celebrated more universally. We have not
much idea how these more "universal" saints' days spread from church to
church, but it was certainly very unevenly, as the absence of Eastern saints in
the Western calendar (more marked before the Vatican II reforms), and of
Western saints in the Eastern calendars (still) makes clear. However, the local
saints were generally the more important, as the local saints were the patrons
of and intercessors for the place where they had lived their earthly life, or
where their earthly remains had finally come to rest. The translation of saints'
relics became an important factor in the spread of their cult, though the dis-
memberment of the saint's body was sometimes resisted (e.g., in Rome,
where movable relics took the form of pieces of cloth that had been placed
close to the relics, or intincted with oil from the light shining before the
shrine). Rome, the site of the martyrdom of so many early Christians, not
least the Apostles Peter and Paul, had a vast collection of relics. Important
cities-especially Constantinople, with a slender Christian past-sought to
acquire relics, and built shrines to house them. Pilgrimage to the resting places
Changing Patterns of Worship 197
of saints' relics came to supplement pilgrimage to the Holy Land, a long-

standing form of Christian devotion that had received imperial encourage-
ment from the time of Constantine. This affected the form of Christian
churches. The circular church-and the trefoil and quatrefoil-had originally
been intended for the repose of relics, and in the West many churches were
rebuilt as the cult of the saints developed so that the relics rested behind the
principal altar, with-a passage along which pilgrims could pass as they went
to venerate the relics. The Seventh Cfficumenical Synod of Nicaea in 787
required that all consecrated churches should contain saints' relics (canon 7),
enforcing what was already widespread practice in both East and West.2
The greatest of the saints, indeed, "more honourable than the cherubim
and incomparably more glorious than the seraphim," was the blessed Virgin,
the 8w1:6xo~, the Mother of God. 3 Just as her Son was celebrated by feast
days commemorating the events of his earthly life, so she came to have sim-
ilar feast days. Several of these feast days were established by imperial author-
ity: the feast of the Dorrnition of the Virgin on 15 August was decreed by the
emperor Maurice (582-602), and the feast of the placing of the veil or
maphorion of the Vugin (for there were no relics of the Mother of God) in the
imperial chapel at Blachernai on 2July was established by the eighth century,
though the legend about the placing of the maphorion (though not the girdle
or cincture) in the imperial chapel goes back to the fifth century. 4 This cycle
of feasts developed first of all in the Eastern part of the Empire, and spread
only gradually to the West: a process in which England seems to have played
a major role. 5 Indeed, devotion to the Mother of God seems to have devel-
2The bibliography on pilgrimage and relics is vast, and mostly specialized, and is much more
abundant for tbe West, though lessons learnt tbere can often be applied to the East. On tbe origins of
pilgrimage to the Holy Land, see E.D. Hunt, Hofy I.And Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire AD y2-460,
Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982. For a general, and fascinating, introduction to pilgrimage, see Simon
Coleman and Jobn Elsner, Pilgrimage: Past and Present in the World Religions, London: British Museum
Press, 1995. For tbe meaning of relics for tbe medieval mind, see Benedicta Ward, Miracks and the
Medieval Mind, Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1982, who speaks evocatively of the "vast thaumaturgy of tbe
dead."
3For the development of the cult of the Virgin Mary in the East, see, most recently, Maria Vassi-
laki, ed., Mother ofGod, and Maria Vassilaki, ed., Images ofthe Mother of God: Perceptions ofthe Theotokos
in Byzantium, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.
4See Cyril Mango, "Constantinople as Theotokoupolis," in Vassilaki, ed., Mother of God, pp. 17-25
and the literature cited there.

5See Mary Clayton, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Angw-Saxon England, Cambridge University
Press, 1990, pp. 25-51.

oped very unevenly. While there are a few precious fragments of evidence of
early devotion in the East, it was only after the Synod of Ephesos in 431
affirmed her title as Theotolws, "Mother of God," that it developed apace,
while in the West it is not until the ninth cenrury that there is much sign of
devotion to the Virgin. 6 In Constantinople, the Mother of God came to be
regarded as the protector of the city. The salvation of the city on several occa-
sions was attributed to her intervention; later on processions of her icon,
accompanied by the singing of the Akathist Hymn, became a feature of the
life of the city. The troparion invoking the Mother of God as invincible com-
mander (Tn CYn:sgp..ix~ E,e0'.Tl'JY0), later added to the Akathist, is a prayer
by the city for her protection.
In these ways, Christian worship throughout Christendom articulated a
sense that the worshippers on earth were joining in their worship of God with
all the saints who had lived on earth before them. As well as joining their wor-
ship with the angelic hosts, they also joined with saints who had once lived
on earth, on the very earth on which they themselves were standing. This
sense more and more affected the interior space of the church building. Walls
were painted with depictions of the saints, as well as with biblical scenes, and
other representations of the saints-including statues, in niches rather than
freestanding, in Western churches.
The Triumph of Orthodoxy in the Byzantine Empire meant that there was
an officially enunciated theory about the significance of icons-they were no
mere illustrations, but windows on to heaven, mediating between the earthly
worshippers and the saints in glory: venerating the icon meant venerating the
saint, and through the icon the saint could manifest his presence and power.
From the mid-ninth century onwards there emerge various patterns of icon-
decoration in churches, which eventually become fairly standard. The church
building itself had long been regarded as a miniature cosmos, with the dome
representing the dome of heaven: this fundamental perception was filled out
with iconic representations. From the central dome there gazed down the fig-
ure of Christ the Pantocrator; in the apse over the altar there was placed an
icon of the Mother of God. Ranks of angels, prophets, patriarchs, apostles,
and Fathers of the Church filled the lower spaces. Instead of biblical
sequences, depictions of even ts from the lives of the Mother of God and the
6 Aswell as Clayton, The Cult ofthe Vi,;gin Mary, see Jaroslav Pelikan, The Growth ofMedieval Theol-
ogy (600-1300), University of Chicago Press, 1978, pp. 69-74.
Changing Patterns ef Worship 199
Lord formed liturgical sequences, recalling the liturgical sequence of celebra-

tion within the church, rather than simply illustrating the sacred events of the
Bible. It took centuries for the pattern of depiction to find its final form, but
its beginnings are to be found in the ninth century, after the repudiation of
iconoclasm. The rejection of iconoclasm also had an influence on manu-
script illumination; recent studies have pointed out how illuminated manu-
scripts of the post-iconoclast period often draw a parallel between the biblical
and patristic texts they accompany and the importance of the icon, of those
who defended the icons, and also align the iconoclasts with those who tried
to destroy the original image of God, that is Christ, by vilifying and ulti-
mately crucifying him. 7
There remains to say something about the changes in liturgical worship
in Eastern and Western Christendom in this period. The basic structure of
Christian worship-both the eucharistic liturgy, and the daily liturgical round
of services or hours-is common to both East and West. But already in the
ninth century, the shape of the liturgy is beginning to take different forms
owing to their independent development. Here is not the place to enter into
detail; for that recourse needs to be had to histories of the liturgy. 8 The dom-
inant influence on the Byzantine liturgy was, naturally, Constantinople,
while in the West the dominant influence was Rome. Both East and West
were subject to influence from Jerusalem, where the liturgy was celebrated at
the sacred sites. The influence of the Jerusalem rite was greater in the East
than in the West, not least because Greek was the liturgical language of the
Church ofJerusalem.
ln the West the influence of the Roman liturgy occurred in several bursts
and interacted with the ancient traditions of the church in Gaul (the "Galli-
can" liturgy). The liturgical traditions in Rome were conservative and austere;
the Scriptures, and especially the Psalms, were the fundamental resource for
the liturgical texts, and the use of liturgical poetry was limited. The prayers
used at the sacramental liturgies (including the Eucharist) were contained in
7 See especially Kathleen Corrigan, Visllill PokmiCJ in the Ninth-century Byzantine Psalters, Cambridge
University Press, 1992, and Leslie Brubaker, Vision and MtaJ1ing in Ninth-cmtruy Byzantium: Image as Exe-
gesis in the Homifo <if Gregory efNazianzus, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
8For the Byzantine liturgy, there are useful introductions to its development in Hugh Wybrew,
The Orthodox Liturgy, London: SPCK, 1989, and Robert F. Taft SJ, The Byzantint Rite: A Shor/ History,
Collegeville MN : The Liturgical Press, 1992. For the liturgy in the West a brief account can be found
in Theodore Klauser, A Short History eflhe Wtstm1 Lit1trgy, md ed., Oxford University Press, r979.
200 GREEK EAST AND LAT I N WEST
books called sacramentaries, which are ascribed to various popes: Leo, Gela-
sius and Gregory the Great. Some of these sacramentaries contained the
prayers of the pope's liturgy, the pontifical liturgy, such as the Gregorian
Sacramentary; others contained the prayers used by the priests of Rome, such
as the Gelasian. The Gelasian Sacramentary had been long known outside
Rome, presumably making its influence through visiting priests, who took
back home the traditions of Rome. Part of the Carolingian reform involved
the reform of the liturgy, and expressed a desire to conform to the patterns
of the Roman Church. Copies of the Gregorian Sacramentary were acquired,
but only covered some of the services required, so in practice it was supple-
mented by traditional Gallican customs and the influence, already present in
Frankia, of the Gelasian Sacramentary. Eventually, towards the end of the
tenth century, the pattern of services that developed in the Carolingian West
made their way back to Rome, thereby introducing to Rome Gallican prac-
tices. The Gallican rite was much less austere than the Roman, and incorpo-
rated a good deal more liturgical poetry, as well as, especially for Great and
Holy Week, traditions from Jerusalem. What has just been indicated in very
sketchy form can be filled out through more detailed liturgical studies.
Another element of liturgical worship, besides text, is the melody. Here the
situation is much less clear, though it seems that the tradition of "Gregorian
chant" that developed in the Middle Ages and was rediscovered in modern
times is part of the Gallican tradition that eventually made its way to Rome.
The original Roman chant is probably beyond recovery, but the fact that it
was "Greek" popes like Leo II (a Sicilian) and Sergius I (another Sicilian of
Antiochene stock) who were closely associated with the choir school at the
Lateran leads one to think that this original Roman chant may have had a
good deal in common with the singing of the Christian East. Certainly,
reconstructions from the earliest Roman liturgical chants by Marcel Peres and
his group Organum sound not at all strange to an ear accustomed to mod-
em Byzantine chant (however different that may be from what was sung in
the first millennium).9
The liturgy in the East developed subject to two influences: the liturgy of
the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom and the monastic liturgy. This was
9See the CD of Marcel Peres and the Ensemble Organum with the Greek psaltis, Lycourgos
Angelopoulos, Chants de l'Eglise de Rome des Vil' ti Vll/< siedts (pmode byzantine}, Harmonia Mundi
HMC 90ur8.
Changing Patterns of Worship 201
probably a gradual process, with the "Cathedral" liturgy continuing along-

side the monastic liturgy for several centuries, only finally succumbing with
the physical destruction of Constantinople and its traditions in the sack of
the city by the crusaders in 1204. The ninth century was a decisive moment
for liturgical development. Partly this was a result of the final triumph over
iconoclasm, leading to serious attention being payed to the use of icons in
Byzantine worship, as outlined previously. Partly, too, it was due to the influ-
ence on the monastic liturgy in Constantinople of the monastic traditions of
Jerusalem and the Palestinian Desert. Much here still remains unclear, but the
creativity of the Palestinian monks, especially in liturgical poetry, made a pro-
found impact on the monastic liturgy in Constantinople, and ultimately on
the Cathedral liturgy too. The most striking example of this was the creation
of the canon, the sets of verses, or troparia, composed to be sung with the
nine biblical canticles (or odes) of the dawn office of orthros. These biblical
canticles-eight from the Old Testament, beginning with Moses' song of vic-
tory after crossing the Red Sea, and including others such the song of Anna,
the mother of Samuel, of various prophets such as Avvakum (Habaccuc), Isa-
ias and Jonas, and ending with the prayer and song of the Three Holy Chil-
dren from the book of Daniel, and two (counted as one) from the New, the
Song of Zacharias, the Baptist's father, and the Song of the Mother of God-
had for long formed a central part of monastic orthros. The canon, which first
emerges at the tum of the seventh/eighth century, provided a series of med-
itative verses to be sung with these canticles. All the early composers of
canons were associated with Jerusalem-St Andrew of Crete, St John Dama-
scene and St Kosmas of Miiuma-and the tradition was continued in the
ninth century in Constantinople by such as St Theodore the Stoudite and St
Joseph the Hymnographer.
The Divine Liturgy of the Eucharist has always had something of a dra-
matic character: the central action repeats the action of the Lord in the Upper
Room when he took bread, broke it and gave it to his disciples; the central
action recalls the whole paschal mystery-the cross, the tomb, the resurrec-
tion on the third day, the ascension into heaven, the Lord's sitting at the right
hand of the Father, and his coming again at the last day. As early as the fifth
century, Theodore of Mopsuestia saw the individual acts of the eucharistic
liturgy as symbolic of events in the life of Christ: the offertory procession
with the bread and wine symbolizing Christ's being led to his passion; the
placing of the elements on the holy table representing the placing of Christ's
body in the tomb; the consecration symbolizing the rising of Christ from the
dead. 10 Similar patterns are found in later writers: Maximos the Confessor,
in his Mystagogia, has an interpretation of the liturgical acts whereby the
entrance of the bishop and his passage into the sanctuary at the beginning of
the liturgy represent the incarnation of Christ and his ascension into heaven
and session at the Father's right hand, so that the whole liturgy is seen as tak-
ing place on the threshold of the Second Coming. 11 This strongly eschato-
logical understanding of the liturgy is incorporated in the explanation of the
liturgy that was to become immensely influential throughout the Byzantine
world, the so-called Ecclesiastical History and Mystical Contemplation (probably
best translated as: "what happens in church and its inner meaning"), ascribed
to various Fathers in the manuscripts but probably in its basic form by Ger-
manos I, patriarch of Constantinople. 12 In this brief work, which was supple-
mented with extracts from Maximos' Mystagogia, the church building and its
furnishings, the vestments of the ministers, and the liturgical acts of the
Eucharist are all given a symbolic meaning. It fills out the idea that informed
the understanding of the church building, especially after the end of icono-
clasm, as a miniature version of the cosmos, a microcosm, "an earthly heaven
in which the God beyond the heavens dwells and walks about,~ links this to
the mystery of Christ's death and resurrection, for the church building also
"represents the crucifixion, death and resurrection of Christ," and the eucha-
ristic liturgy that takes place within it, as with Maximos' interpretation, antic-
ipates the Second Coming. This strong eschatological emphasis prevented
the elaborate symbolic interpretation from reducing the liturgy to a specta-
cle that the congregation merely observes and interprets.
The ninth century also sees the first influential attempt to introduce this
way of understanding the eucharistic liturgy into the West by Amalar of Metz
(c. 780-850) in his On the Offices ofthe Church. The mass becomes an allegory of
the life of Christ, beginning with the preparation for Christ in the Old Testa-
ment. The introit symbolizes the prophets; the Kjyrie the prophets at the com-
ing of Christ; the Gloria in excelsis the choir of angels proclaiming to the
lOCf. Theodore ofMopsuestia, Homily 15-25-9 (ed. Tonneau, pp. 503- 0).
11 Maximos the Confessor, Mystagogia 8 (ed. Sotiropolis, p. 192; trans. Berthold, p. 198).
12Cf. the oanslation with introduction by Paul Meyendorff: St Gerrnanus of Constantinople, On
the Divine Lit11rgy, Popular Patristics Series, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1984.
Changi,ng Patterns of Worship 203
shepherds the birth of Christ; the collect the twelve-year old Christ teaching
in the Temple, and so on. The prayer Nobis quoque peccatoribus in the canon
of the mass symbolizes Christ's prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, and the
rest of the canon his lying in the tomb, the placing of the fragment of con-
secrated bread in the consecrated wine, the return of the soul to God in
love.13 This kind of interpretation of the mass was to hold sway in the West
for more than a thousand years. Though doubtless inspired by the older
Byzantine tradition of symbolic interpretation, it breathes a different spirit.
This sketchy and partial account, it is hoped, gives some account of the
way in which Christian worship was experienced in the ninth century, the
changes that were taking place, and the growing distinctiveness of Eastern
and Western rites, though these differences were not such as to prevent
mutual influences and borrowings.
BSee J.A. Jungmann, .Missarum ScUemnia, Vienna: Herder Verlag, 21949, p. ll4.
PART III
THE TENTH CENTURY

CHAPTER TEN
INTRODUCTI O N
"The tenth century has a bad name; but good things came out of it. In
the text-books it disputes with the seventh century the bad eminence,
the nadir of the human intellect" : thus Helen Waddell began her chapter on
the tenth century in The Wandering Scholars. 1 Dame Felicitas Corrigan added
the testimony of Baroni us: "a century of iron, lead and darkness."2 There is
much to support such a view, especially in the West. It was a dismal century
for the popes, who mostly reigned briefly and ignobly: twenty-six (including
antipopes) between Benedict IV (900-903) and Sylvester II (999-1003), of
whom eight were probably murdered, and one who managed to die in his
bed Gohn XIn did so in the company of a married woman. It is also to this
century (or close to it) that the legendary Pope Joan is assigned, and even
though this is probably no more than a legend, it may well, as Kelly
remarked, reflect the "recollection that in the tenth century the papacy had
been dominated by unscrupulous women like Theodora the Elder, Marozia,
and the younger Theodora'';3 the claim that Marozia had been the lover of
one pope (Sergius III), by whom she had borne another Oohn XI), is proba-
bly true. However, even the papacy had its redeeming features-for instance,
its interest in and support for the monastic reform of Cluny-and in other
respects the tenth century scarcely deserves its '1Jad name." The West saw the
rise of the Ottonian dynasty in what are now Germany and Austria and the
creation of the Holy Roman Empire. In the Byzantine East, the tenth cen-
tury is a period of regained confidence and remarkable expansion under the
Macedonian dynasty; by the time of Basil II's death in 1025, the Byzantines
had incorporated Bulgaria and much of Armenia into the Empire and
advanced beyond the Taurus Mountains, restoring Antioch to imperial con-
1Waddell, Wandering Scho/an, p. 64.

2 Helen Waddell, Sangs ofthe Wandmng Scholars, ed. Dame Felicitas Corrigan, London: The Folio
Society, 1982, p. 198.
3).N.D. KeUy, Tht Oiford Dictionary ofPopes, Oxford University Press, 1986, p. 330.
207
trol. This expanded empire was not to last for long, but nevertheless it gave
the Byzantines a glimpse of its one-time glory. Furthermore, both East and
West witnessed movements of monastic reform and renewal, which were to
lay the foundations for centuries to come.
From the perspective of high culture (especially literary culture), proba-
bly the aspect that most interested Helen Waddell, the tenth century contin-
ued the intellectual and artistic renaissance of the ninth century. The art and
architecture of the "Macedonian Renaissance" has left many evidences of
excellence and was an inspiration for the West; as under the Carolingians in
the ninth century, so under the Ottonians in the tenth. The marriage between
Otto II and Theophano, niece of the Byzantine emperor, John Tzimiskes,
brought Byzantine standards of court culture to the Ottonian court, evidence
of which survives in fine ivories and illuminated manuscripts. The intellec-
tual activity of tenth-century Byzantium mostly took place under the long
notional reign of Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos, the son of Leo VI "the
Wise." The lengthy period ofleisure imposed on Constantine by the usurpa-
tion of imperial rule by Romanos I Lekapenos facilitated the production of
a series of works that give unparalleled insight into the functioning of the
Byzantine court. On Ceremonies gives a detailed account of a host of cere-
monies associated with the court; On Administering the Empire deals with the
peoples living beyond the frontiers of the Empire, presenting the Byzantine
Empire as the inhabited world (the oikoumene), ruled by the emperor, whose
guidance is sought by the various other peoples who live beyond the fron-
tiers of his rule; On the Themes discusses the organization of the Empire into
themes, the administrative units replacing the traditional arrangement of the
Empire into provinces introduced &om the seventh century onwards. All
these works are essentially compilations, drawing on material preserved in the
archives of the Byzantine administration. Other works inspired by Constan-
tine Porphyrogennetos survive in fragmentary form; these include the
remains of a massive encyclopaedia, drawing together excerpts from a whole
range of earlier literature to provide a comprehensive moral and political edu-
cation, and another collection of excerpts concerned with agriculture, called
the Geoponika. He also encouraged the writing of history, with the intention
of glorifying the Macedonian dynasty at the expense of the immediately pre-
ceding emperors; evidence of this enterprise survives in the imperial histories
ascribed to Genesios, and the collection of histories conventionally called
Introduction
"Theophanes Continuatus." To this period of intellectual activity there

belongs too the lexicon called the Souda, and the vast anthology of Greek
poetry, the Palatine Anthology.
What is striking about all this literary activity is that it is primarily a matter
of compilation; it is the reaping of a heritage, rather than the continuance of a
creative tradition. The Byzantine worldview, as expressed in its ceremonial,
reflected that. The idea that the Byzantine Empire of the tenth century-how-
ever much territory it had recovered-was identical with the oilwumene, the
inhabited world, was far less of a reality than it had ever been. The emerging
kingdom of France and the inchoate Holy Roman Empire to the west, and even
more the Abbasid Empire to the east, were scarcely barbarian peoples, who
might one day resolve the anomaly of their position by the embrace of Chris-
tianity and the acceptance of the overlordship of the Byzantine emperor. What
was no longer even plausible as an account of reality could, however, still be
celebrated by art and ceremonial, and the Byzantine court provided a context
for such a celebration. Liudprand of Cremona's account of his first audience
with the emperor Constantine Porphyrogennetos is well known:
Before the emperor's seat stood a tree, made of bronze gilded over, whose
branches were filled with birds, also made of gilded bronze, which uttered
different cries, each according to its varying species. The throne itself was
so marvellously fashioned that at one moment it seemed a low structure,
and at another it rose high into the air. It was of immense size and was
guarded by lions, made either of bronze or of wood covered over with
gold, who beat the ground with their tails and gave a dreadful roar with
open mouth and quivering tongue. Leaning upon the shoulders of two
eunuchs I was brought into the emperor's presence. At my approach the
lions began to roar and the birds to cry out, each according to its kind; but
I was neither terrified nor surprised, for I had previously made enquiry
about all these things from people who were well acquainted with them.
So after I had three times made obeisance to the emperor Vl>ith my face
upon the ground, I lifted my head, and behold! the man whom just before
I had seen sitting on a moderately elevated seat had now changed his rai-
ment and was sitting on the level of the ceiling ...4
4
Liudprand of Cremona, Antapodosis 6.5 (trans. F.A. Wright in 1be Wurks efLi11dprand ofCremona,
London: George Routledge, 1930, pp. 207- 8).
Such a display was presumably intended to convey to impressionable barbarian

envoys a sense of the magnificence of the world ruler of Byzantium; what was
scarcely true any longer in reality could be projected with the contrivance of cer-
emonial. This attempt to make up in ceremonial what was no longer political
reality may also be seen in the chrysobull, the imperial document confirming
treaties and granting privileges, written in purple ink and bearing the emperor's
golden seal, for the chrysobull emerges no earlier than the tenth century.
It would appear, however, that the Byzantines did not entirely believe their
own mythology. Although the ceremonies prescribed envisage embassies as a
one-way affair-coming to the emperor, not issuing from him-the reality was
very different. Embassies certainly issued &om the Byzantine court, intelli-
gence was often very good, and whatever they called it, the Byzantines often
bought peace by paying tribute. Byzantine diplomacy was a highly sophisti-
cated operation.5 Nor was the Islamic Empire of the Abbasids ignored. There
are a couple of passages from letters by Nicholas Mystikos (Patriarch of Con-
stantinople: 901-7, 9u-25) often quoted in this context:
[T]here are two lordships, that of the Saracens and that of the Romans,
which stand above all lordship of earth, and shine out like the two mighty
beacons in the firmament. They ought, for this reason alone, to be in con-
tact and brotherhood and not, because we differ in our lives and habits
and religion, remain alien in all ways to each other .. .
For your Wisdom is well aware that that greatest among the archpriests
of God, the renowned Photius, my Father in the Holy Spirit, was united to
the Father of your Nobility in such a bond of affection that none even
among those of your own religion and race had shown himself so much
your friend: because, being a man of God, and mighty in the lore of God
and man, he knew that, although the barrier of religion stood between us,
yet a strong intelligence, wit and character, a love of humanity, and all other
good qualities which adorn and dignify man's nature, arouse in the breasts
of good men an affection for those in whom the loved qualities are found. 6
5See Dimitri Obolensky, "The Principles and Methods ofByzantine Diplomacy" in idem, Byzan-
tium and the Slavs, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1994, pp. 1-22; and Byzantine Diplnmaq, eds. Jonathan Shep-
ard and Simon Franklin, Aldershot: Variorum, 1992.
6 Nicholas Mystikos, Epp. 1 (to the Emir of Crete, though in reality probably to the Caliph al-Muq-
tadir), 2 (to the Emir of Crete) in Nicholas I PaJriarch ofComta11tirwp!t: Letters, ed. and trans. R.J.H. Jenk-
ins and LG. Westerink, Dumbarton Oaks Texts 2, 1973, pp. 3, 13- 15.
Introduction 2II
These remarks bear witness to Byzantine acknowledgment of the political and

cultural significance of the Abbasid Empire, Nicholas citing his predecessor
Photios, who had been an envoy to the Abbasid court, as one who valued the
learning and culture of the Arabs. Such an attitude made possible openness to
the cultural achievements of the Arabs, and evidence for this is found in the
artistic culture of the Macedonians: in the use or imitation of Kufic script, and
in ceramics, textiles and ivory-work (a splendid example being the enamelled
red glass bowl now in the treasury of San Marco, Venice).7
The tenth century, then, was a high point in Byzantine culture and its
influence-and its openness to the East. It was also a period of expansion,
both strictly territorial and through its cultural and religious influence. The
most striking instance of the latter was the conversion of the prince of Kiev,
Vladimir, in 988, and the beginnings of Russian Christianity. Indeed, the
tenth century was a period in which in both West and East the conversion of
Europe seemed to become a serious possibility. It sometimes seems as if the
approach of the end of the first Christian millennium gave added impetus to
the spread of the Christian gospel. In the year AD 999 or 1000-a significant
date either way-the Icelandic Althing adopted Christianity under the influ-
ence ofNonvay, though it was some time before Iceland or any other part of
Scandinavia could be said to be Christian, while Lithuania, an empire stretch-
ing at its greatest extent from the Baltic to the Black Sea, remained pagan
until 1387, playing off Latin West against Greek East.
The century began mth Leo VI "the Wise" on the Byzantine throne. He
had just married a third time, and his third wife, Eudokia, was soon to die, in
the summer of 901. The Byzantine attitude to marriage was not encouraging.
It was recognized that marriage was a legitimate state, and most people mar-
ried. A second marriage, after the death of one's spouse, was permitted,
though not at all encouraged, being regarded as a concession to the weakness
of the flesh. A third marriage was strongly discouraged, and those who
entered upon it subject to a penance of between two and four years (i.e.,
excluded from Holy Communion for that period). Any further marriage was
regarded as not a marriage at all, as being, in the words of St Basil the Great,
"bestial and utterly foreign to human nature."8 Leo, thrice-married, was with-
out a male heir. He soon took a mistress, Zoe Karbonopsina ("black-eyed
7
See Gervase Mathew, Byzantine Aesthetics, Lo ndo n: John Murray, 1963, p. u8 and plate 18.
8St Basil the Great, canon 80; see also canons 4 and 50 (ed. Joannou, JI, pp. 1mf. , 139, 154).
Zoe"). She became pregnant, and bore him a son, Constantine VIL Leo made
sure that the birth took place in the imperial bedchamber, called the ''Por-
phyra," the "purple chamber" from the colour of the marble that decorated
it, so that Constantine would be "born in the purple"-"porphyrogennetos."
Having acquired a son, Leo proceeded to marry the child's mother, and per-
formed the crowning himself, as the patriarch, Nicholas, was not prepared to
countenance the marriage. Nicholas was forced to resign, and was succeeded
by Euthyrnios, who had equally been opposed to a fourth marriage, but was
prepared to swallow his principles. In order to legitimize his marriage, Leo
sought a dispensation from the pope. The attitude to marriage in the West
was different from that in Byzantium, partly because the Church had not yet
succeeded in imposing its will on lay society-the Church was still flexing its
muscles over the question-but mainly because the West approached mar-
riage from a different perspective. So long as there was no living spouse, in
the eyes of the Latin Church one was in a position to marry. Leo was in such
a position, and Pope Sergius III readily recognized Leo's marriage to Zoe Kar-
bonopsina. After Leo's death, Nicholas was restored to the patriarchal throne,
and in a long letter to Pope Anastasius III he gave an account of the
"Tetragamy affair," excommunicating the pope for his support for Leo. 9
Leo's son Constantine VII was crowned as co-emperor in 908. On Leo's
death, his brother Alexander reigned briefly, during which period Nicholas
Mystikos was reinstated as patriarch, and after Alexander's death a regency
council, consisting of Nicholas and Zoe, was set up to govern during Con-
stantine VII's minority. The regency lasted until 920, when Romanos
Lekapenos, a former droungarios (admiral) of the fleet, secured his daughter
Helen's marriage to Constantine and had himself declared basileiopator, and
as such reigned as emperor until 944, when he was deposed by his sons; these
in tum were quickly deposed by Constantine Porphyrogennetos, who
reigned from 945 until his death in 959. Constantine VII was succeeded by
his son, Romanos II, who died prematurely in 963. Romanos' two-year-old
son, Basil II, had been crowned emperor in 960, but the throne was seized by
a successful general, the Domestikos of the Schools, Nikephoros Phokas, who
soon married Romanos II's widow, Theophano. In a few years, dissatisfied by
marriage to the ascetic general (who had earlier expressed his wish to become
9
Nicholas Mystikos, Ep. µ (ed. Jenkins-Westerink, pp. 156-66).
Introduction 213
a monk), Theophano plotted with another general.John Tzimiskes, the death

of her husband in 969. On his accession to the imperial throne, John
Tzimiskes was persuaded by the patriarch, Polyeuktos, to banish Theophano;
he subsequently married her sister-in-law, Nikephoros' sister, Theodora, the
aunt of the legitimate emperors, Basil II and Constantine VIII. On John
Tzimiskes' death in 976, Basil II and Constantine VIII became emperors,
though for the first nine years Basil Lekapenos, the bastard son of Romanos
Lekapenos, by now occupying the important position in the court of
parakoimomenos, exercised power; so, from 985 until his death in rn25, Basil II
was the effective ruler.
That brief account of the succession of emperors reveals two important
facts about the imperial office in the tenth century. First of all, the power of
the dynastic ideal. Roman (and Byzantine) emperors acceded to the throne
by proclamation by the army, election by the senate, and acclamation by the
people; there was also (though this was less important, at least until the thir-
teenth century) coronation by the Patriarch of Constantinople. This princi-
ple of election held through to the end of the Byzantine Empire in the
fifteenth century; there was no right to succession, and even usurpation, if
accepted by the people, could be justified. As Bury put it, paraphrasing
Mommsen, the government of Byzantium was "an autocracy tempered by
the legal right of revolution." 10 Emperors, however, naturally wished to
secure a succession, preferably for their kin, and normally arranged this by
making their successors co-emperors during their lifetime. By the tenth cen-
tury, with the Macedonian dynasty, the idea of dynasty had taken hold. Chil-
dren born to a reigning emperor were "porphyrogennetoi," born in the
purple, which is also explained as meaning born in the "porphyra," the impe-
rial wedding chamber; the term "porphyrogennetos" carried with it ideas of
hereditary legitimacy. The strength of such an idea can be seen in the way in
which the military usurpers-Romanos Lekapenos, Nikephoros Phokas and
John Tzimiskes-all claimed to be· ruling on behalf of the Macedonian
dynasty. The second fact revealed emerges from these usurpers' all being gen-
erals (or admirals). The introduction of the theme system, with the Empire
divided up into themes governed by strategoi, generals (or droungarioi, admi-
rals), led to the emergence of powerful families, with large landholdings in
1
°}.B. Bury, The Constitution ofthe Later Roman Empire., Cambridge University Press, 19m, p. 9.
the themes that they governed. These landowning families were concerned
to increase their wealth and property, and this they achieved at the expense
of the poorer landowners. As they acquired wealth and power they came to
represent power bases from which they could challenge the emperor himsel£
Romanos Lekapenos, and at the end of the century Basil II, brought in leg-
islation to clip the growing power of the new landowning families. By con-
trast, Nikephoros Phokas legislated on behalf of the landowning magnate
class to which he belonged. So far as the history of the Church is concerned,
this is the background to the problems faced by the monasteries in the tenth
century, for the monasteries found themselves, as landowners, caught up in
this struggle. Monastic lands needed to be properly managed, and ways of
handling this problem could work both for and against the true interests of
the monasteries. The problems that arose were eventually faced directly in
the monastic reform of the eleventh century, but they inform several of the
monastic foundations that we shall discuss later in this section.
The tenth century also saw the rise and decline of the first Christian Bul-
garian Empire. 11 After quelling the pagan revolt under his son Vladimir in
893, Boris finally retreated to his monastery, leaving his son Symeon as tsar.
Symeon had been educated in Constantinople, and there was no doubt
about his commitment to Greek Christian culture. Under his rule, as we have
seen, the process of the Christianization of Bulgaria proceeded apace.
Symeon's commitment to Christian culture was such, however, that his goal
came to be that of supplanting the Byzantine emperor. War with the Empire
became the normal state of affairs, and the advantage was generally with the
Bulgarians; the Bulgarian frontier was pushed southwards and was soon only
about fifteen miles north of Thessaloniki. He began to threaten the imperial
city itse1£ The questionable legitimacy of Constantine Porphyrogennetos
added strength to Syrneon's claim, and in 913 a compromise was brokered by
Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos, whereby Syrneon's daughter would be married
to the young emperor. This was vetoed by the Empress Zoe. The negotiations
of 913 secured for Symeon the title of "Emperor and Autocrat of the Bulgar-
ians," acknowledged in a coronation service performed by Nicholas Mystikos
himself. \Vith the accession of Romanos Lekapenos in 920, Symeon's hopes
11 For the history of Bulgaria, see Steven Runciman, A History oflhe First Bulgarian Empire, Lon-
don : G. Bell & Sons Ltd, 1930, and Robert Browning, Byzantium and Bnlgaria, London: Temple Smith,
1975.
Introduction 215
began to decline. He continued to campaign against the Empire, and twice

came to the gates of Constantinople. The status of the Bulgarian Church was
involved in his imperial aspirations: as emperor, his Church needed a patri-
arch, and sometime in the 920s Symeon claimed this title for his archbishop.
After Symeon's sudden death in 927, the Bulgarian patriarchate was recog-
nized by Constantinople as part of the general settlement on the accession
of Peter, still a minor, as basikus, or tsar, of the Bulgarians. Peter was given the
hand of Maria Lekapena, Romanos' granddaughter, in marriage and was rec-
ognized as the "son" of the Byzantine emperor. He reigned until 969, and did
not challenge the Byzantine emperor, content with his subordinate, though
exalted, position within the Byzantine hierarchy, until right at the end of his
life (and possibly precipitating his death), when Peter entered into alliance
with the Hungarians.
In the West, the tenth century saw the continuing fragmentation of the
one-time Carolingian Empire, with the emergence of powerful nobles who
ruled their own territories as virtually sovereign lords. Out of this situation
there emerged in the course of the tenth century two successful attempts to
establish some overall sovereign rule: in East Frankia the "Holy Roman
Empire" governed by an emperor, elected by the nobility and crowned by
the pope, who sought in various ways to establish an "imperial" authority to
which the nobility were to be subject. In West Frankia, there emerged the
French king, who again had to establish his authority over his nobles, some
of whom exercised political power greater than anything the king himself
could summon. The situation is almost the inverse of that in the Byzantine
Empire, though the emergence there of what amounted to a military aristoc-
racy meant that there was some convergence in the situations in East and
West. The position of the Church in the West was affected by these circum-
stances. Landowners, from the nobility down, founded churches for their
own and their people's use, and as founders claimed a certain control over
these churches, which are thus known as proprietary churches, or Eigenkirchen.
The emperor, or the crown (in France or England), could also use the Church
to shore up his authority. The establishment of sees and the appointment of
bishops could be a way of marking out imperial authority; so scholars some-
times talk of the imperial Church, the Reichskirche. The same process of using
religious foundations as a way of establishing a political presence could also
apply to monasteries: the establishment and endowment of a monastery
216 GREEK BAST AND LATIN WEST
could be a way of establishing one's presence, in some ways more effectively

than retaining and consolidating land, since monastic lands were not subject
to the claims of inheritance. This way of looking at religious foundations is
crude and oversimplified, since churches, cathedrals and monasteries had
their own religious rights and functions, and were not simply tools in the
hands of secular lords, nor was the secular nobility devoid of religious moti-
vation in establishing ecclesiastical foundations, but even though crude and
oversimplified, it still reflects something real in the experience of the tenth-
century Church.
The progress of Christian mission, already mentioned, is bound up with
the emergence of the kingdoms of central Europe-Poland, Bohemia, Hun-
gary-and the establishment there of principles of Christian kingship. As ear-
lier in Spain, Gaul and England, it was Christian bishops and preachers,
drawing on the picture of kingship provided in the Old Testament, who artic-
ulated these principles, which in their realization also drew on profound con-
victions about the power of sanctity. The emergence of the kingdoms in
Central Europe, on the edge of the Holy Roman Empire, are part of Otto
Ill's vision of a renewed Christian Roman Empire, ruled by Emperor and
Pope together, incorporating subordinate kingdoms. We shall return to this
in the final chapter of this section.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MO NASTI C RENEWAL
"I n every medieval century in Europe monastic life was renewed, and
renewal might indeed be said to have been a characteristic of medieval
monasticism": so Joachim Wollasch writes at the beginning of a chapter in
the third volume of the New Cambridge Medieval History. 1 Wollasch's chapter
simply concerns monasticism in the West, but the same could be said of
monasticism in the East. Such renewal may be less apparent in the East; the
notion of religious orders never evolved, so that there is no succession of
names such as we are familiar with in the medieval West-Benedictine, Clu-
niac, Carthusian, Cistercian, Franciscan, Dominican, and eventually Jesuit
and Oratorian, and still newer orders-but monastic renewal was a reality
nonetheless. The reasons for renewal were often similar, too: on the one
hand, internally, decline in fervour, laxness, failure to live up to the monas-
tic ideals, factors which are rarely completely absent; and on the other hand,
externally, arising from the society from which the monks had hoped to dis-
tance themselves-the demands of founders, wanting some return for their
investment, concern about the proper use of monastic wealth and especially
monastic land (concern that could be thoroughly well intentioned), and the
demands of those who turned to the monasteries for religious reasons. These
external concerns could lead to interference with the running of the
monastery-involvement in the appointment of the superior, for instance, or
the demand that family members be accommodated in the monastery regard-
less of vocation, or that the monastery make provision (as "charity") for the
sick and aged, or for the education of the young. Also religious exercises
could be required that drew monks away from their primary vocation-for
instance, a disproportionate burden of intercession for the founder's family
and especially for the departed. The internal causes of reform could involve
1Joachim Wollasch, "Monasticism: The First Wave of Reform," in NCMHIIl, p. 163.
217
218 GREEK EAST AND LATIN W E ST
consideration of the different patterns of monasticism-eremitical, coeno-

bitic, or lavriote;2 or different demands on the individual monk-the regi-
mentation involved in the coenobitic life over against the :individual freedom
provided by what is called the "idiorrhythrnic" life (each "doing his own
thing"). Monastic renewal in different places was concerned with a varying
mix of internal and external causes depending on circumstances.
Patterns of monastic renewal in the tenth century in East and West are
divergent; in the West the restoration and promotion of coenobitic monasti-
cism remained the ideal and tenth-century reform movements looked back
to Benedict of Aniane and the Aachen decrees. In the East, what we mostly
see in the tenth century is a renewal, not of city monasticism, as with the
Stoudite reforms, which concentrated on the coenobitic life, but renewal of
monastic life in more remote areas-in mountains and islands-which
favoured what Rosemary Morris has called "hybrid monasticism,"3 which
combined coenobitic monasticism with the opportunity for some to devote
themselves to a life of solitary contemplation-the "hesychast" or eremitic
life. The principles of the Stoudite reform were not, however, irrelevant even
to the establishment of patterns of "hybrid monasticism."
Both in East and West, however, monastic renewal can be seen as a
response to external political conditions. In the West, monastic reform was a
response to the gradual recovery from the disruption introduced in Western
Europe by the raids of the Vikings, and others such as Saracen and Magyar
raiders, which affected monastic communities disproportionately, as well as
from the political instability caused by the fragmentation of the Carolingian
Empire, for this disruption and instability had wiped out many of the
achievements of the Carolingian monastic reform. In the East, monastic
renewal is also a response to growing political stability, though this is a
longer-term recovery, already underway in the ninth century. The differences
in monastic renewal in the tenth century between East and West also corre-
spond to the different scope of the ninth-century reforms in East and West.
2These three fo nns of the monastic life-the solitary o r "eremitical" life, the common life in com·
munity or the "coenobitic" life, and the "lavriote" life, or life in a lavra, that is, a group of hermits liv-
ing in a loose associatio n- goes back to the fourth-century Egyptian desert, and their distinction
remains significant for Byzantine monasticism (or Orthodox monasticism more generally).
3A term o riginally coined by D. Papachryssanthrou , and popularized by Rosemary Morris: see her
article "The O rigins of Athos," in Mount Athas and Byzantine Monasticism, eds. Anthony Bryer and
Mary Cunningham, Aldershot: Variorum, 1996, pp. 37-46, esp. p. 41, n. 26.
Monastic Renewal 219
Whereas in the West, monastic reform was an empire-wide endeavour, pro-

moted by imperial capitularies, in the East, imperial regulation of monasti-
cism was much more limited-amounting to little more than traditional
attempts to keep monks in their monasteries and discourage wandering
monks (cf. the canons of the Trullan synod and Nicaea II)-consequently,
monastic reform seems to have been a matter of individual initiative, and was
thus a much more localized and informal phenomenon; later renewal was
also piecemeal. However, in both East and West traditional accounts of
monastic renewal have been unduly affected by later reputation. In the West,
the phenomenon of Cluny overshadows all else-reflecting the immense spir-
itual prestige enjoyed by Cluny and its dependencies in the eleventh century
and later; 4 while in the East, accounts of Byzantine monasticism in the tenth
century are dominated by the establishment in that century of the monastic
communities on Mount Athas, which later came to assume-and continue to
exercise-an unparalleled role in the Orthodox world. There is no denying the
importance of Cluny and the monasteries of the Holy Mountain, but they
are only part of the story.
The West
Monastic reform in the West meant return to the observance of the Rule of
St Benedict. In the tenth century, this meant observance of the Rule of St
Benedict as interpreted by Benedict of Aniane in the ninth century. As we
have seen, this involved a much greater commitment to liturgical prayer than
envisaged in the Rule, at the expense of manual work: the monk became
more and more exclusively one who prayed. In 909, when Berno persuaded
William, Duke of Aquitaine, to part with valuable forested land north of
Macon in Burgundy, ideal for hunting, by reminding him of the day of judg-
ment when the "prayers of the monks" would be more welcome than the
"baying of hounds," no one would have guessed that this foundation at
Cluny was to develop within little more than a century into a vast monastic
empire, and a beacon of spiritual renewal. At the time Bemo was abbot of
Baume, which he had earlier restored to observance of the Benedictine rule
in accordance with the decrees of Aachen. As he set about establishing
4The impression given by the chapter "The Age o f C luny" in Lawren ce, Mulit:Val Monastici.sm,
86-no, though actually reading the chapter dispels that impression.

another centre of Benedictine observance, he remained abbot of Baume and

of various other abbeys. Among the young men who joined him at Baume
as a novice was a young nobleman, Odo. He had first embraced the monas-
tic life as a canon at St Martin's in Tours; Odo's devotion to St Martin
throughout his life is underlined in John of Salerno's life of the saint, who
presents him as a "true servant of Martin." 5 There he sought a more rigorous
life than the other canons, and having read the Rule of St Benedict began to
adopt some of its requirements. After some time, he and a friend tried to find
a community living in accordance with the Benedictine rule, and this they
found at Baume, under Bemo. Odo, a man of some learning, was straight-
way appointed master of the monastic school and soon became novice mas-
ter. On Bemo's death in 926, he succeeded him as abbot of Cluny.
Though not unique in this, Bemo had persuaded William of Aquitaine
to make the abbey of Cluny independent, that is, free from external interfer-
ence. Neither William nor his successors were to have any hand in the
appointment of the abbot. To secure this, Cluny was placed under the imme-
diate protection of the Apostles Peter and Paul, exercised through the apos-
tolic see of Rome. In return, the abbey paid a tribute of ro solidi every five
years to maintain lights burning before the shrine of St Peter in Rome.
Immune from interference, the monks of Cluny were to elect their abbot as
prescribed by the Rule of St Benedict. This was one of the requirements of
the Rule that had not been secured by Benedict of Aniane in the Aachen
decrees. What Cluny and a number of other monasteries of the period thus
sought to achieve was something of the independence Benedict had regarded
as essential for a monastery. In fact, many of the abbots of Cluny were not
appointed by a free election of the monks, but rather designated by the
abbot, whose choice was confirmed by the monks. This was the case with
Odo, who was not even at Cluny before his election as abbot. As we shall see,
the abbot of Cluny came to assume a pivotal role in the development ofClu-
niac monasticism; this was enhanced by the fact that in the two centuries
from its foundation, during which Cluny achieved its ascendancy, it had four
abbots, who ruled for lengthy periods and were spiritual leaders of genius:
Odo (926-44), Mayeul (965-94), Odilo (994-1048) and Hugh (1049-no9).
5
For the Life ofSt Odo ofCluny, see Dom Gerard Sitwell's translation in St OdoofCluny, trans. and
ed. Dom Gerard Sitwell OSB, London: Sheed & Ward, 1958, which contains John of Salerno's Life of
St Odo and St Odo's Life ofSt Gerald ofAuril/ac.
It was during the abbacy of Odo, that many of the characteristic features
of Cluniac monasticism were formed. So far as the life of the monk was con-
cerned, this was characterized by an emphasis on perpetual recollection. For
much of the day, silence was strictly imposed; a system of manual signals was
developed to avoid the need for verbal communication about everyday mat-
ters. At great feasts the rule of silence was extended, and for the octaves of
Christmas and Easter there was strict silence day and night. "This short
silence, they said, signified the eternal silence. "6 To illustrate the strictness
with which silence was observed the Life ofSt Odo tells of one of the monks,
Godfred, who, while looking after the horses, allowed a horse to be stolen
rather than break his silence.7 As well as preserving silence, the monks were
expected to recite the psalms as they went about their daily business. Again,
a story illustrates this, telling of a band of robbers calling off an ambush of
Odo and his monks, when struck by their continual psalm-singing: "I never
remember to have seen such men . .. Let us leave them." 8 Odo himself exem-
plified such recollection: habitually he walked about with "his head bowed
and his eyes fixed on the ground," so that he was nicknamedfossarius, the
"digger." 9
The heart of the monk's life was the performance of the monastic serv-
ices, the opus Dei. Cluny laid emphasis on the careful performance of these
offices: the monk's personal asceticism was to enable him to engage in the
praise and worship of God worthily, as a foretaste of the heavenly worship of
God in which he hoped finally to participate. Cluny acquired a reputation as
a place where the monastic life could be lived properly-in accordance with
the Benedictine rule. In 931 Cluny procured from Pope John XI the right to
receive from other monasteries monies already professed who wanted to
adopt the stricter observance of Cluny; as well as to reform any other
monastery confided to the abbot for that purpose. It was on the basis of these
privileges that Cluny began to develop. It became a centre of reformed
monasticism, attracting monks from other monasteries, and began to
develop a network of monasteries under the ultimate authority of the abbot
of Cluny. There emerged a novel monastic pattern, according to which
6Liftif Odo, 1.32 (trans. Sirwell, p. 33).

7Jbid., 2.IO (p. 53).
8Ibid., 2.19 (p. 62).
9Ibid., 2.9 (p. 52).
monks throughout the monasteries associated with Cluny were regarded as

monks of Cluny, whatever monastery they resided in. When they were to
make their final profession, monks would go to Cluny and make their vows
before the abbot there, and when thereafter they visited Cluny, they would
take their place in choir as monks of Cluny. Old-established monasteries were
entrusted to the abbot of Cluny to reform, the most famous being the abbey
of Fleury on the river Loire, which claimed to possess the body of St Bene-
dict himself, translated &om Monte Cassino after it had been sacked by the
Lombards in the seventh century. Fleury had itself suffered from the Viking
invasions and its monks dispersed; on their return the monks found it diffi-
cult to settle back into the discipline of the Rule. The devout Count Elisiard
acquired the monastery &om the king-for it was a royal foundation-and
invited Odo to come and reform it round about the year 930. The monks
resisted, and appealed to their royal privileges. According to Odo's biogra-
pher, it was only a vision of St Benedict, leaving the monastery until he
brought "&om Aquitaine a man after his own heart," namely Odo, that
finally persuaded the monks to accept Odo as abbot and submit to his
reform. 10 Other monasteries were founded from the beginning as dependen-
cies of Cluny.
Odo's reputation as a reformer led to other invitations to initiate reform.
He was summoned to Rome by Alberic, the Roman senator and head of the
family of Theophylact, to reform the monasteries there. Although Odo's
efforts in Rome may have had no lasting effect, the very invitation is signifi-
cant. Monks were also sent to Cluny from other monasteries to learn its ways
and take them back to their own communities. The reputation of Cluny also
led to others than monks wishing to be associated with Cluny and share in its
spiritual benefits. The tenth century was full of foreboding about the immi-
nent end of the world, doubtless heightened by the approaching end of the
first Christian millennium. The belief was widespread that the only certain
hope of salvation lay in embracing an authentic form of the monastic life. For
those who could not adopt this life, the next best hope lay in finding a close
association with it. The notion emerged of a confraternity: those who, in
return for supporting the monastery, became co-brothers of the monks. This
could be achieved by making grants ofland or wealth to the monastery, or by
lDfuid., 3.8 (p. 79f.).

enrolling a young member of the family in the monastic school as a nutritus,

one "nourished" by the monastery. Either way, someone associated with the
monastery would benefit from the prayers of the monastery, and could receive
the privilege of being buried in the monastic ground. Those who joined the
confraternity of the monastery were included in the "Book of Life," the Liber
Vitae, that lay on the monastic altar, so that the names contained therein
would be commemorated every time mass was celebrated. As the services
became more and more elaborate, and the singing an art into which a monk
needed lengthy initiation, the training provided for the nutriti became indis-
pensable. The monks came to be divided into cantores ("singers") and conversi
("converts" to the monastic life). This latter term had originally designated
those monks, the adult "converts," who had entered the monastery as the
result of a mature decision, in contrast to the nutriti or oblati (those "offered"
to the monastery) who had grown up in the monastic school. Given the
lengthy training needed to become a cantor, the cantores came to be drawn
mostly from the nutriti, so that the term conversi came to designate those
monks who did not sing, but took part in the monastic worship as servers,
cross-bearers, thurifers, and so on. Gradually the term conversi came to be
equated with illiterati or idiotae and to denote something like lay brothe1s. 11
The highly trained cantores needed for the elaborate liturgical worship that
had developed at Cluny doubtless also promoted further elaboration. One
elaboration, closely connected with the provision for the confraternity, was
the development of the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (All
Souls' Day) on November 2, the day following the Feast of All Saints; Abbot
Odilo made this a universal Cluniac observance in 998. The splendour of the
worship at Cluny became legendary, and required a more and more splendid
setting. The abbey church at Cluny underwent a number of reconstructions,
ending with the vast abbey church begun at the end of the eleventh century
under Abbot Hugh and finally completed in II30, which attracted the elo-
quent scorn of St Bernard of Clairvaux. The purpose of all this grandeur-the
splendour of the setting and the dignity of the worship-was to glorify God
in a fitting manner, but it also conveyed a sense ofliturgical efficacy, and fur-
ther attracted people to the confraternity of the monastery. Cluny grew in
endowments, and also in recruits.
11 See Noreen Hunt, Chary under St Hugh, ro4g-1109, London : Edward Arnold, 1967, p. 90 .
The independence from lay interference Cluny had sought from the
beginning to secure through its special relationship with the apostolic see was
extended in the course of time. In 998 the abbot Odilo secured from Pope
Gregory V a privilege that forbade any bishop to celebrate mass or ordain
within the abbey without the abbot's permission, and in 1024 he secured
complete exemption from the diocesan authority of Macon. These exemp-
tions, secured primarily for Cluny itself, also applied, or came to apply, to
any of the monks of Cluny, wherever they resided. The abbot of Cluny
became master of a vast monastic domain owning no ecclesiastical superior
save the pope himself. In the eleventh century, attempts were made to for-
malize this abbatial monarchy by investing the abbacy of every monastery of
the Cluniac confederation in the abbot of Cluny himself, the day-to-day
leadership of each monastery being provided by a prior appointed by the
abbot. With the new foundations, this had long been the case. But many of
the older-established monasteries granted to Cluny had retained the govern-
ment of an abbot and resisted the reduction of their leader to the status of a
prior; some of these older monasteries such as Vezelay and Moissac were suc-
cessful in retaining their abbots.
The monasteries of the Cluniac reform were initially located mainly in
France, though the customs of Cluny were adopted elsewhere without the
monasteries' accepting the formal authority of the abbot of Cluny. Later on,
particularly under the abbacy of Hugh (1049-rro9), Cluniac foundations
spread further afield-to other areas of France, to Spain and Portugal, north-
ern Italy, Switzerland, Germany, the Low Countries and England. 12 But inso-
far as the principles of the Cluniac reform were simply implementation of
the Rule of St Benedict as understood by Benedict of Aniane, it is a mistake
to assimilate other tenth-century monastic reform to Cluny. Monastic reform
on similar principles was introduced elsewhere independently of Cluny.
The abbey of Gorze, originally established by Chrodegang of Metz but
long since fallen into a state of decline, also became a centre for reform, ini-
tially in Lorraine and later throughout southern Germany. 13 This differed
from the Cluniac reform in that it was instigated by diocesan authorities with
the support of German princes, rather than seeking refuge from such exter-
nal authorities. It also differed in its liturgical practice, with a different lee-
12See Hunt, Cluny undu St Hugh, pp. I24-JI.
13For the Gorzer reform, see Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, pp. 103-4.
tionary from Cluny and its own liturgical ceremonies, notably the Easter play
of the Sepulchre, in which the search for the risen Christ was enacted in a
solemn ceremony at the night office. This ceremony, unknown at Cluny, also
made its way to England, where in the tenth century with royal support, Dun-
stan, archbishop of Canterbury from 960 until his death in 988, Ethelwold
and Oswald carried out a reform of monasticism in England. Earlier Dun-
stan, as abbot of Glastonbury, had introduced Benedictine principles to that
monastery, and under his leadership the collegiate churches, or minsters, that
were a featu're of Anglo-Saxon England were reformed, married clergy being
replaced by communities of monks, following the Benedictine customs as set
out in a code of monastic practice, known as the Regularis Concordia. In this
case, too, monastic reform did not involve independence from diocesan and
royal authority, but was very much a royal initiative. The inspiration of the
English monastic reform may have been partly indigenous (though it seems
that monasticism had more or less collapsed in England by the beginning of
the tenth century), but certainly found inspiration from the Cluniac
monastery of Fleury and the recently reformed monastery of Ghent, where
Dunstan had sought refuge during his exile in the 950s. However, it had its
own distinctive features. Because of the climate, a fire was allowed in a spe-
cial room during winter, and monks could work in shelters rather than in the
cloister during cold weather. The pealing of bells was to be prolonged on
great feast days, which could be related to other provisions that envisage a
much closer link between the monastery and the surrounding society than
was normal in continental Europe: processions were not confined to the
monastic enclosure but went through the streets to a local town church, and
it is assumed that the people took part in the principal mass on Sundays and
feasts. There was also a stress on daily communion, perhaps, as Dom David
Knowles suggested, inspired by the advice of the Venerable Bede. 14
The tenth-century monastic reform was partly the process of recovery
from the destruction wrought by the Vikings; partly it was inspired by the
approach of the end of the first Christian millennium, which many hoped or
feared would herald the second corning of Christ. Everywhere monastic
reform irI the West meant a return to Benedictine ideals, though these ideals
were not precisely those of St Benedict, and laid considerable stress on the
14 0n the English reform, see David Knowles, The Monastic Order in Engl.and, Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 2nd ed., 1963, pp. 31- 56, and more briefly Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism, pp. 104-8.
function of the monasteries as organs of intercession for the Christian world.

Though this emphasis upset the balance St Benedict had envisaged between
prayer, work and rest, the reform still sought to make monasteries a place
where individual monks could pursue lives of asceticism, and this, we have
seen, was central to the ideal of Cluniac monasticism, however great the
investment in prolonged and splendid ritual.
Cluny, we have emphasized following the consensus of modem scholar-
ship, was not wholly exceptional, nor was it an example of reform to which
all aspired. The pattern of Western monastic reform was the common under-
standing of the Benedictine ideal. However, Cluny' s pursuit of independence
and mutual dependence-independence of secular power and even of dioce-
san authority, and the m utual dependence implied in the confederation of
monasteries under the abbot of Cluny and the notion that all monks, wher-
ever they were, were monks of Cluny-set a pattern for the future. Indepen-
dence of secular authority was to be one of the principles of the Church
reform movement-the Hildebrandine or Papal Reform Movement-that was
to emerge in the eleventh century and in the twelfth lead to the Investiture
controversy, while independence of diocesan authority and the notion that
the monks of Clu.ny constituted a community under the abbot that tran-
scended the communities of the local monastic houses were the ingredients
of the later notion of a monastic or religious "order." Modern scholarship has
tended to play down the importance of Cluniac monasticism for the papal
reform movement. This is doubtless correct; certainly the links that there are
seem less institutional than a matter of personal charisma, and ambiguous at
that (e.g., Abbot Hugh of Cluny's involvement with Pope Gregory VII and
the Gennan king Henry IV at Canossa). But one thing the papal reform
movement needed was a sense of the Church as a single entity, transcending
regional and national divisions, and it is possible that this was something
Cluniac monasticism gave a glimpse of as a practical reality, rather than as an
intangible ideal. The Cluniac empire was a ramshackle affair, full of contra-
dictions, but it was a community that transcended locality in a tangible way.
The monasteries followed the same customs and practices, monks could be
moved &om one monastery to another, all acknowledged the authority of the
abbot of Cluny: all this established a set of links that gave at least a glimpse
of a community where ideas that had a common purpose and that tran-
scended local interests circulated. It was this that made it possible to conceive
of papal authority as something more than a theoretical claim to represent

the whole Church, exercised as little more than an ultimate court of appeal,
which was all Rome had been able to claim-and even then not always effec-
tively-during the first Christian millennium.
The East
Monasticism in the East was a more complex phenomenon than that in the
West; indeed it had long been so. While it is true that all three basic forms of
monasticism-the eremitical life of the solitary, the community life of coeno-
bitic monasticism, and in between the lavriote ideal that combined the life
of the hermit with the support of a community-were to be found in both
East and West, it seems to be true that coenobitic monasticism tended to pre-
vail in the West, at least until the eleventh century, whereas in the East, all
three forms were found, and indeed the eremitical ideal could take on the
apparently extreme form of the stylite, or pillar saint, whose solitude was to
be found on a small platform at the top of a pillar, or styws. The stylite ideal
began in the fifth and sixth centuries with the two Symeons and Daniel and
continued throughout the Byzantine centuries, though with time the term
"stylite" came to apply not just to the monk who pursued his ascetic life on
the top of a pillar, but to any monk who pursued the solitary life in an inac-
cessible place, for instance in a cave high up in a mountain (though such
saints are often given the correct term: "speliote," cave-dweller). The stylite,
positioned on his pillar between heaven and earth, not only distanced him-
self from the everyday world of sin and corruption, but seemed to be closer
to heaven, not only physically, but spiritually. In choosing to live his life in
the air, the stylite was also seeking out the demons in their own territory, for
St Athanasius tells us that "the devil, having fallen from heaven, wanders
around in the lower atmosphere, exercising authority there over his fellow
demons," this being for Athanasius one of the reasons why the Lord died in
the air on the cross. 15 The stylite on his pillar was, then, seeking out the
demons to do combat with them through his prayer and struggling against
demonic temptation-as Christ had done on the cross, and as St Antony the
Great had done, moving from the village to the graveyard, and thence deeper
and deeper into the desert, where again Christ had done combat with Satan.
15 See Athanasius, On lhe lncamalion 25.
228 GRE EK EAST AND LATIN WEST
Along with the desert and the lower atmosphere, the mountain was also a
place, removed from civilization, where the demons made their home. It was
a harsh and pitiless place where no human could live, but only demons and
angels-or monks, whose life was called "angelic" and who sought "hand-to-
hand" combat with the demons.
Mountains were then a natural place for monks to seek out, and moun-
tains feature prominently in Byzantine monasticism, just as they do in other
forms of monastic spirituality, for instance in Buddhism in China,Japan and
in the Himalayas. Genesios in his account of the procession of the monks at
the Triumph of Orthodoxy in 843 mentions monks from Mounts Olympos,
Ida, Kyminas and Athas: a list, it has been pointed out, that is not just an
"ideal list," as it fails to include other monastic mountains, such as Mount
Auxentios and Mount Latros. 16 Most of these mountains were in Asia Minor:
Mount Auxentios close to Constantinople, Mounts Kyminas and Olympos
deeper into Bithynia, Mount Ida further south, and Mount Latros one of a
group of mountains still further south between Ephesos and Strobilos.
Mount Athos is at the end of the northernmost peninsula that reaches out
from the Chalkidiki into the Aegean, east ofThessaloniki.
Some of these mountains- and others-played a role in the development
of Byzantine monasticism in the tenth century.17 This was no new phenom-
enon. Mount Auxentios is known as a monastic site even during the period
of iconoclasm: the martyr St Stephen the Younger made his monastic home
there, and the monastery St Theodore the Stoudite left to restore the
Stoudios in Constantinople-the monastery of Sakkoudion-was situated on
Mount Olympos. Methodios was an abbot of a monastery on Mount Olym-
pos in the ninth century, before he embarked with his brother on his mission
to the Slavs of Moravia. The monasteries on Mount Olympos that we know
of in the tenth century (and we know relatively little) seem to have been sit-
uated further up the mountain than the Sakkoudion monastery, and for that
reason are likely to have been much smaller affairs- most likely lavriote
houses, with perhaps some of their members living permanently as hermits.
We hear of a Georgian hermit, Hilarion, building a church on Mount Olym-
16Genesios 58. Referred to by Rosem ary Morris: "The Origins of Athas," here p. 38, n. 9 with dis-
cussion.
17
For Byzantine monasticism in the tenth and eleventh cen turies, see Rosemaiy Morris, Monks
and laymen in Byzantium 843-m8, C ambridge University Press, 1995.
pos, that by the tenth century had become a largely Georgian monastic
house, probably the "Lavra of Krania," and of two further houses, the monas-
teries of 55. Cosmas and Damian and of "the Caves" (Spelaion), also proba-
bly largely Georgian. There is evidence of similar lavriote houses on Mount
Latros, and it was on Mount Kyminas (about which we know nothing until
the tenth century, despite its appearing in Genesios' list) that Michael
Malemos, the uncle of the later emperor, Nikephoros Phokas, became a
monk and lived a hermit life, later founding a monastery there dedicated to
the Mother of God. 18
Most of this evidence comes from saints' Lives, from which it is possible
to put together a picture- sketchy but suggestive-of tenth-century monastic
life in Byzantium. The other main sources are monastic documents them-
selves-especially the "typika," both the foundation typika, containing the
founder's requirements for his monastery (and often an account of how he
came to found it), and the liturgical typika, setting out the liturgical life of
the monastery (like a Western customary)-and the results of archaeological
investigations. It is comparatively rare to have all three: for some monaster-
ies, like the Evergetis monastery in or near Constantinople, we are well in-
formed about its liturgical life and spirituality, but ignorant of its situation;
for other monasteries, we have rich archaeological remains, but little or no
literary evidence to help us interpret them (e.g., the monasteries of Cappado-
cia or the monastery of St Luke of Steiris, both of which are discussed below).
What we are able to do is sketch in the historical conditions in which the
monastic developments of the tenth century took place. As in the West,
monastic development took advantage of the growing political stability of
the period. While in the West the monastic revival of the tenth century rep-
resented a recovery from the raids of the Vikings and the political instability
of the breakup of the Carolingian Empire, in the East monastic revival fol-
lowed the stability achieved by the strengthening of the frontiers against the
Arab raids, the quelling of the Bulgarian attacks on the Empire at the begin-
ning of the tenth century, and the recovery of several of the Greek islands in
the tenth century, most notably Crete in 961. This process of recovery against
the threat of the Arabs had begun under the iconoclast emperors, greatly
assisted by the transfer of the capital of the Arab Empire to Baghdad under
18 For most of the information cited in this paragraph, see Morris, Monlu and U91mm, pp. 35-40.
the Abbasids in 750, and continued throughout the ninth and tenth cen-
turies. Bulgarian incursions into the Empire had died down in the latter part
of the ninth century, only to revive again at the end of the century, leading
to a full-scale invasion of the Empire under Tsar Symeon, which came to an
end with his death in 927.
Let us first look at the so-called Cave monasteries of Cappadocia, which
we know about from archaeological investigation of the extensive remains.
Cappadocia had been one of the centres of fourth-century monasticism; it
was here that various monastic experiments took place led by various mem-
bers of the family of St Basil the Great, and it was for these, and for the
monastery he established in Caesarea, where he was bishop, as well as for
other hermits and ascetics who consulted him, that Basil wrote his so-called
Rules. 19 After the Arab conquests of the eastern provinces in the seventh cen-
tury, Cappadocia became border territory subject to annual raiding by Arabs.
Political stability began to be recovered in the n inth century when the Byzan-
tine armies pushed eastwards into Armenia. The presence of the Paulician
sect also hindered the Byzantine presence. The capture of Tefiike in 872 and
the gradual surrender of the Paulicians made it possible to push the frontier
still further east. Cappadocia became secure Byzantine territory, ruled by the
members of the military aristocracy that emerged in the tenth century as strat-
egoi of the themes and kleisourai (frontier provinces). It is in this place and
period that the epic poem Digenes Akritas is set, telling of
. . . the Frontiersman of Double Descent,

the delightful blossoming branch of the Cappadocians,
the crown of bravery, the summit of daring,
the joyous and fairest ornament of all young men. 20
It is to this period that the cave monasteries of Cappadocia belong. 21 The

soft volcanic rock was easily worked, and parts of Cappadocia became honey-
combed with caves that served as cells for ascetics. There is evidence that the
19 For the m ost recent translation, and discussion, of these "Rules" (better called the Asketikon),
see Anna M. Silvas, TheAslutikon efSt Basil the Great, Oxford University Press, 2005-
20Digtnis Akn.tm, 7.1-4, in Digenis A kritm: The Grotlaferrata and Escorial Versions, ed . and trans. Eliz-
abeth Jeffreys, C ambridge Medieval Classics 7, C ambridge U niversity Press, 1998, p. 203.
21 Fo r all that follows, see Lyn Ra dley, Co:ve Monasteries ofByzantim Cappadocia, Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1985. See also Spiro Kostof, C= ef God: Cappadocia and Its Churches, New York: Oxford
University Press, 1972 (paperback ed., 1989).
area was settled both by solitary hermits and by small communities of monks,
some of these communities being entrusted with providing memorials for the
founders and their families, others serving as custodians of sacred sites. The
patrons of the monasteries-evident from inscriptions and portraits-are
mostly unknown, and presumably represent local figures not belonging to
the aristocracy. An exception is a portrait of the tenth-century emperor
Nikephoros Phokas, in a cave church commissioned by members of his fam-
ily, the Phokades. The cave monasteries witness to a level of patronage and
religious activity not significant enough to make any impression on the writ-
ten records: small families seeking prayers for their members and endowing
small monasteries to achieve this; sacred sites of only local importance that
were the goal of largely local pilgrimage. The remains suggest that there were
large numbers of scattered hermits, and that they were first on the scene, the
coenobitic communities being established later. This suggests a different pat-
tern from what we know elsewhere in Byzantium, where hermits were
dependent on coenobitic or lavriote communities, from which they had, as
it were, "graduated."
We have another glimpse of tenth-century monasticism in St Luke of
Steiris. In this case, there survive both a Life of the saint, and also the
monastery-the monastery of Hosios Loukas-founded by the saint a few
years before his death. The buildings that survive date from the eleventh cen-
tury, though the emperor Romanos II in the tenth century made the decision
to build the katholikon over the crypt chapel where St Luke's remains lie
beneath the main altar. The katholikon contains one of the most magnificent
series of Byzantine mosaics, while the crypt chapel is decorated by frescoes
that were cleaned in the 1960s, and are the subject of a major study by Car-
olyn Connor. 22 The Life 23 tells us that Luke's family originally came from the
island of Aegina. They had left because of the constant raiding by the Arabs,
and settled north of the Gulf of Corinth, where Luke's father, Stephen, was
born. Even there they suffered from Arab raids, and the resentment of the
local inhabitants, and were forced to move on elsewhere on the north coast
of the Gulf of Corinth. Stephen married and he and his wife had seven chil-
ZZCarolyn L. Connor, Art and Miracles in Mtdieval Byzantium, Princeton University Press, 1991.
23 1be Lift and Miracles ofSaint Luke ofSteiris, text, translation and commentary by Carolyn L. Con-
nor and W. Robert Connor, The Archbishop lakovos Library of Ecclesiastical and Historical Sources
18, Brookline MA: Hellenic College Press, 1994.
dren, the third of which was Luke. Luke is portrayed as an ascetic from his
youth. As he grew up he tended the family's sheep, but was also devoted to
the poor and often returned home naked, having given away his clothes.
After the death of his father, he devoted himself even more to prayer and the
Scriptures, and was secretly seen by his mother levitating during his nightly
prayers. After various adventures, at the age of fourteen he became a monk
on Mount Ioannitza, near the birthplace of his father. After seven years there,
he left with the other monks for the Peloponnese to escape the attacks of the
Bulgarians. He is depicted as a gentle ascetic, marked by his kindness for ani-
mals, and his gift of clairvoyance, which enabled him to see into the hearts
of others, and also into the future (he predicted the attack of the Bulgarians).
In the north of the Peloponnese he pursued his ascetic vocation, seeking out
a stylite at Patras, and eventually spending ten years with another stylite at
Zemena, and then lived as a hermit at an oratory dedicated to St Prokopios.
After a short time there, Tsar Symeon died (in 927) and the Bulgarian raids
in Hellas ceased. Luke left the Peloponnese, crossed the Corinthian Gulf and
eventually settled again on Mount Ioannitza, where he spent thirteen years.
To this period belongs an account of his meeting with a bishop (or arch-
bishop) of Corinth. Luke hears that he is passing by, and goes to meet him.
The bishop is impressed by him, and visits his monastery. There he offers him
gold, which Luke refuses rather awkwardly. The bishop is offended, but even-
tually Luke accepts some of the money. Then Luke asks how he and his dis-
ciples can partake of the divine and awesome mysteries, and the bishop
replied by instructing him in a way of receiving from the consecrated and
reserved eucharistic bread: it seems very clear that the bread is reserved in one
kind; the wine that is to be received is unconsecrated (Life 41-4-2). Eventually,
Luke's popularity became such that he could find no tranquillity and he left
Mount Ioannitza for a small village called Kalamion. He spent three years
there, but as the Turks began to overrun Hellas, he left Kalamion and settled
on a small island called Ampelos. After three years there, he moved to Steiris
in the foothills of Mount Helikon, where he spent the last seven years of his
life. There he found a place "'temperate in climate, pleasant, free from all dis-
turbance and isolated from men, ... supplied with very pure water, sufficient
both for the demands of thirst and for the irrigation of vegetables and plants"
(Life 54). He cleared the spring and planted a garden, building his cell at some
distance from this where he would not be disturbed.
During his lifetime, St Luke gained renown as a man of spiritual wisdom

and power. He was known for his powers of healing, and for his gifts of
prophecy, his most famous prediction being made during the reign of
Romanos I Lekapenos: the liberation of Crete, and attributing the liberation
not to the reigning Romanos, but to "another one" (Life 60). Crete was liber-
ated in 961, eight years after Luke's death, during the reign of Romanos IL
After his death, his tomb became a place of healing, and the final chapters of
the Life (chapters 68-85) tell of fifteen miracles that took place at St Luke's
intercession after his death. 24
Luke's life gives us a vivid picture of tenth-century asceticism. He made
his own way, though seeking advice from other ascetics. H is movements were
very much affected by the troubled times in which he lived, as he avoided the
raids of the Bulgarians and then of the Turks. He eventually established his
own monastery, which seems to have been a very simple affair. Only after his
death did the monastery receive major patronage from the emperor, perhaps
not Romanos himself, though it looks as if he intended to endow the
monastery and provide grander buildings, but maybe from Romanos' son,
Basil II, and in his memory. What we learn from the Life and the buildings
that remain is that the Monastery of Hosios Loukas became a centre of pil-
grimage, and a place of healing. The monastic community there, as well as
providing a place for the pursuit of the ascetic life, became too the custodian
of the shrine. It may well, also, have contained the mortal remains of
Romanos II and his wife, with the monks providing services for their souls,
as well as for themselves and others associated with the monastery. This later
patronage seems rather at odds with Luke's own attitude to the proffered
donation from the archbishop of Corinth, from whom, as we have seen, it
was only with great reluctance that he accepted any money at all. In this Luke
seems to echo the attitude of another tenth-century ascetic,John ofRila, who
in his Testament makes the point that "gold and silver are great enemies of the
monk and bite those who have them like a snake," 25 and goes on to recall
how he refused the offer of financial support from Tsar Peter.26 For John, the
ascetic vocation is a vocation to poverty: "for the hermit wealth consists not
in silver and gold, but in perfect poverty, in the denial of his personal will,
24
See the table in Connor, Art and Mirades, p. 94.
2 5 Testammt 6, in Thom35-Hero, Foundation Docummls I, p . 130.
2 6 Testament 7.
2 34 GREEK EAST AND LATJN WEST
and in lofty humbleness."27 John, born in about 876-880, had become a

monk at the monastery of St Dimiter and then lived as a hermit for many
years in a hollow oak. At last the oak blew down and he retreated to a cave
high in the mountains of Rila. Nearby he founded a monastery, which was
to become the greatest monastery in medieval Bulgaria. Despite his explicit
command in the Testament, the monastery became very wealthy, and received
rich endowments from the Bulgarian rulers. This was inevitable, for as monas-
teries attracted recruits and increased in size, they needed resources to pro-
vide for their upkeep. The ideals of such as Luke and John could only be
preserved so long as monasteries remained small scale.
The problem of monastic possessions was an enduring one. It was
inevitable, as holy ascetics attracted disciples; their monasteries grew and
needed providing for. There were plenty of people ready to make over land
and wealth to monasteries, in return for prayers and sometimes more tangi-
ble benefits such as monasteries providing a place of retirement for members
of the family, and reception of novices for members of the family for whom
no financial provision could be made. The problem of church-and monas-
tic-lands was one common to Western and Eastern Christendom. In the
Byzantine Empire there was the added complication that the Empire had pre-
served the tax-structures of the Roman Empire, and depended on tax receipts
for the running of the Empire. Church and monastic lands-in other words,
lands that "belonged" to God, or the Mother of God or one of the saints-
found it easier to obtain exceptions from the burden of taxation, and when
it came to the purchase ofland were often in a position of power. In the strug-
gle that characterized the tenth century between the "powerful" (the dynatoz)
and the "poor" (the penetes), the monasteries-whatever the personal poverty
of the monks-often found themselves on the side of the powerful. Monas-
tic lands needed to be looked after; this could lead to compromise for the
ascetic life of the monks, forcing some of the monks to engage in commerce
and other worldly affairs that they had renounced by their profession. There
were various ways of dealing with these problems, one of the best known of
which was the institution of charistike, whereby the lands of a monastery were
granted to a layman, who looked after them on the monastery's behalf for a
limited period (usually of a generation or two). Efficient management of
27 Tt:stamml 6.
Monastic Renewal. 2 35
monastic lands could obviously benefit monasteries, but it could also lead to
alienation of some of the wealth of the monasteries, and provide an avenue
for lay influence in the running of the monastery.
The development of monasteries on the Holy Mountain of Athas in the
tenth century is very much bound up with these problems. We first hear of
monks on Mount Athas when they are mentioned by Genesios in the pro-
cession of monks celebrating the Triumph of Orthodoxy in Constantinople
in 843. 28 Even if we believe Genesios, it tells us very little, and for the next
century or so, other information is likewise scanty. Because of its nature-a
peninsula reaching out from the Chalkidiki into the Aegean-it was a natural
place for hermits. One of the earliest names associated with the Holy Moun-
tain, St Euthymios "the Younger" (to contrast him with the monastic founder
of fifth-century Palestine) moved to Athas in about 859, after many years liv-
ing as a hermit on Mount Olympos, "because he had heard of its tranquil-
lity." After three years living alone, he found that other monks had come to
live near him, so that there naturally developed a lavra. One of his disciples,
John Kolobos, arrived on the Holy Mountain as an experienced ascetic and
later established a monastery on the northern part of the peninsula, near
Hierissos. Other ascetics began to arrive on the Holy Mountain, and lived
there either as ascetics or in small communities. A sigillion of Basil I issued in
883 already distinguishes between Athonites living as hermits and those "who
have pitched their frugal tents there." A peninsula is an imprecise geograph-
ical entity, but the boundary of the Athonite peninsula was soon to be
defined. This happened as a result of a long-running dispute between the
inhabitants ofHierissos and the monastery ofKolobos on the one hand and
the Athonites themselves on the other. The dispute was over grazing lands
and the control of klasma lands, that is, lands abandoned for thirty years sub-
sequently sold at low prices by the central government. The disputed terri-
tory was in the narrow neck of the peninsula on the northern coast of which
is situated Hierissos and the monastery of Kolobos. Gradually a boundary
was defined by a series of imperial decisions that established the Athonite
peninsula as a kind of spiritual estate with a detailed boundary or periorismos.
The final decision was reached in 943. By then, there was already further evi-
dence of imperial interest in the Mount Athos: sometime between 922 and
28 Fo r the early history of Athos see the article already mentioned by Rosemary Morris, "The Ori-
gins of Athos."
944 Romanos Lekapenos began to send to Athas (as well as some of the holy
mountains of Asia Minor) rogai (yearly cash payments) of one nomisma per
monk. During the same period the monks of Athos were becoming more
organized, with a council of abbots that met from time to time, with an
appointed leader, the Protos.
The arrival of Athanasios the Athonite on the Holy Mountain and the
establishment of the Great Lavra (originally called the "new Lavra") in 963- 64
marked a turning point in the history of the Holy Mountain. Born in Trebi-
zond about 925-30, Athanasios, whose baptismal name was Abraamios, stud-
ied in Constantinople, where he eventually became a professor. 29 He was
attracted to the monastic life by Michael Maleinos and joined his monastery
on Mount Kyminas in Bithynia, where he stayed for five years, finally as a
hermit. He then in about 957 made his way to Athos, attracted by its solitude,
and lived there at first anonymously as a hermit. He was sought out by Leo,
Male1nos' nephew and brother of Nikephoros, later emperor, but managed
to spend a year of solitude during 960 at the southeastern tip of the Athonite
peninsula. It was there that a year or two later he began to build a lavra for
five hermits with funds provided by Nikephoros Phokas, then a successful
general who had in 961 taken Chandax (modern Herakleion) on the island of
Crete, as result of which the Byzantines regained the island from the Arabs.
Athanasios clearly thought that Nikephoros intended to join him there as a
monk, but in 963 Nikephoros was acclaimed emperor. The events of these
years are confused, and here is not the place to sort them out, but Nikephoros'
accession to the imperial throne had profound implications for Mount
Athas. The lavra Athanasios was in the process of building became an impe-
rial foundation, and from then on the link that already existed between the
emperor and Athas seems to have changed. Hitherto the emperor's concern
seems to have been for all the Athonite monks; from now on there were to
be imperially favoured houses, the first of which was Athanasios' Great
Lavra. 30 Athanasios' own attitude to monasticism seems to have changed,
too. His own background and training was in a lavra, and as a hermit, but the
2 9There are two lives of Athanasios, edited by J. Naret, CCSG 9 {1982), as well as the summary of
his life contained in the Athonite Typikon (= § 13 in Thomas-Hero, Monastic Foundation Documents,
which contains a brief account of Athanasios' life in the introduction to the Athonite Rule[§ n]: I,
pp. 205-ro).
3-0See Morris, "The Origins of Athas," p. 45.
Monastic Renewal 2 37
way of life envisaged for the Great Lavra in the Rule and the Typikon was
coenobitic, as the use of the Stoudite Rule as a model makes clear, though
this dependence is oddly disguised by citing directly the patristic sources that
lie behind Theodore's Rule. What this change involved is not entirely clear.
The Great Lavra very quickly attracted recruits: at first intended for 80 monks,
this was soon increased to 120 and then, within fifteen years of its founda-
tion, to 150. 31 This popularity extended to other monastic houses: according
to the earliest of his biographers, by the time of Athanasios' death there were
more than 3,000 monks on the Holy Mountain. Such an influx of ascetics
would have made it well nigh impossible for most of them to live as hermits.
Despite his use of the Stoudite rule, Athanasios' "conversion" to coenobitic
monasticism was not complete: the rule provides for a limited number of her-
mits, or "kelliot monks, that is to say hesychasts." Out of a total community
of 120, later 150, monks, five are to be allowed to live an erernitical life. Such
hermits are to live in cells outside the main buildings of the Lavra, though
not too far away; they are to remain under the authority of the abbot, and
are allowed one disciple to act as a servant; their material needs are to be pro-
vided by the monastery, "so that they may be free from all care concerning
bodily matters and entirely undisturbed. "32 From the small minority of her-
mits envisaged, it is clear that most monks were not to aspire to this solitary
life. The decision about embracing the solitary life was a matter for the abbot:
in the Tra.gos, or «billy goat" (so called from the source of the parchment on
which it is written), a set of regulations issued by the emperor John Tzirniskes
in 971-72, this regulation is extended to all the monasteries on the Holy
Mountain. Athonite hermits are to be approved specialists in the life of
prayer, not the highly individual-often quite eccentric-holy men, who con-
tinued to flourish elsewhere in the Byzantine world. What Athanasios envis-
aged was not, however, at all unparalleled: it is much the same as the
combination of coenobitic and erernitical monasticism provided in the orig-
inal "Great Lavra" in the Kidron Valley in the Judaean Desert, with a central
coenobion from which, if judged suitable after years of training in the life of
prayer, hermits went to live in the caves close to the central monastery (the
original Great Lavra-the Monastery of St Sabas- was still in existence in
31See Bishop Kallistos (Ware), KSt Athanasios the Athonite: Traditionalist or Innovator?" in Mount
A thos and Byzantine Monasticism, pp. 3-16, here p. 3.
32 Ibid., p. 12.
Athanasios' time, and indeed still exists, though now simply as a coenobitic
community). 33
At the heart of coenobitic monasticism, as we have seen, is the ideal of a
group of men (or women) living together as a brotherhood, devoted to the
life of prayer, under the rule and guidance of an abbot chosen by the com-
munity. But coenobitic monasteries of any size required some wealth and
property in order to provide for themselves. If they found this from wealthy
patrons, they ran the risk of losing their independence, especially if the
source of patronage was the emperor. Athanasios' Great Lavra set the pattern
for the independent and self-governing monastery that was to d ominate the
monastic scene in Byzantium from the late eleventh century to the fall of the
Empire in the fifteenth century. Athanasios achieved this by extracting from
the new emperor, Nikephoros Phokas, a series of concessions that ensured
that the monastery would retain its independence without losing the advan-
tages of generous financial support from the emperor. These concessions were
enshrined in a chrysobull of 964, now lost, though portions of it are quoted
in the Athonite Typikon and the Athonite Testament. The key concession was
that the monastic community was granted the right to appoint its own supe-
rior, and indeed that the superior must be appointed from among its own
members. Initially, Athanasios reserved for himself the right to appoint his
own successor; thereafter the community is to make the decision. As one of
the fragments q uoted from the imperial chrysobull puts it:
(W]e want nobody else at all to be appointed as superior of this Lavra

except him whom the monks of the Lavra and the kellia subject to it, hav-
ing gathered together and after careful examination, shall look upon as dis-
tinguished in virtue and capable of exercising this office, and they shall
establish him as superior. Under no circumstances at all do we permit a
person from a different lavra or monastery to become superior of this one.
Even after our death we do not want anyone to be allowed to grant this
Lavra to any secular or ecclesiastical person or even to a monk or to make
it subject to another monastery. It is our will and command, rather, that it
remain free and self-governing.34
33 See Patrich, The Sabai1e Heritagt.

34Athonite Typikon r2 (Monastic Foztndation Docztmenls I, p. 254; also quoted at pp. 195-96).
Monastic Renewal 2 39
The combination of independence and financial support enabled the

monks of the Great Lavra to devote themselves to the monastic life without
having to resort to extensive economic activity in order to support them-
selves-with all the compromises that would bring to their ideal of detach-
ment (apotage)-or settle for fairly straitened circumstances, or surrender some
of their control over their own life. Athanasios found that he had to compro-
mise-he appointed two administrators (epitropoz) to look after the
monastery's interests-but he had greater flexibility than he would otherwise
have had. Its status as an imperial monastery also meant that the Lavra
escaped the legislation of emperors such as Nikephoros Phokas and Basil II,
concerned about the resources that were being swallowed up by monasteries
throughout the Empire. Nikephoros tried to stem the flow of charitable
donation of land to monasteries, advising would-be benefactors to sell their
land and support the poor directly. He made an exception for lavras and
monastic cells, the ascetic purpose of which was more evident. But the Great
Lavra escaped too, even though it was rapidly becoming the kind of founda-
tion that the emperor was keen to discourage. The Great Lavra, too, escaped
Basil II's enthusiasm of the use of charistike in the case of larger foundations,
such as the Great Lavra had become, by virtue of its being under imperial
oversight (pronoia). 35
The picture of monastic life in tenth-century Byzantium is, then, one of
great variety. The recovery of peaceful conditions throughout the Empire
made possible a wide variety of monastic experiments at many different sites.
We have evidence for all kinds of monastic life, though the increased popu-
larity of the Holy Mountain of Athas in the latter half of the century led to
a growing concentration on the coenobitic life and, with that, to the influ-
ence of the principles of the Stoudite reform in the very different conditions
of the Holy Mountain. We also find the same struggle for independence that
we have seen in the West. Coenobitic monasteries, especially, needed a guar-
anteed income to provide security, and that often came at a cost. The solu-
tion pioneered by Athanasios of Athas focused on the same principle as the
Cluniac reform-freedom of the monastery to elect its own superior-though,
as in the West, the principle was often put into practice in an odd way.
Although the East had a parallel to seeking immunity from interference
35 See M onastic Folindation Docummts l, pp. 200-203, and Morris, 1Vfonks and Laymen, pp. 145- 266.
through papal protection in the institution of the stauropegjon-the act oflay-

ing a cross (stauros) on the site of the monastery and processing round its
boundaries, thereby affirming its dependence on the patriarchate36-which
secured freedom &om interference by lay or ecclesiastical officials, freedom
from ecclesiastical taxes, and recognition of the independence of the
monastery, there is little evidence of this device being used to secure inde-
pendence, at least as early as the tenth century. Athanasios sought the far
more effective protection from the emperor, and managed to secure this on
his own terms.
36See Morris, Monks and Laymen, p. 15.3-

CHAPTER TWELVE
CHRI STIAN MI SSIO N
T he tenth century saw the continuation of Christian missionary activity

into new areas. For the West this meant the conversion of the small
kingdoms that lay between the East Frankish Empire and the Byzantine
Empire, principally Bohemia, Poland and Hungary-in which the Byzantines
played a role too-and of Scandinavia, the region from which the Vikings had
issued with such disastrous effects for the then Christian Europe. For the
East, the tenth century is marked as the century in which Russia embraced
Christianity, with profound implications for the whole future of Eastern
Orthodox Christendom, but it is also the century in which traditionally
Christian lands such as the Greek islands, especially Crete, were recovered
from the Muslims and once again found themselves in need of hearing the
gospel. There were lands, too, that had been settled by the Slavs, notably in
the Peloponnese, where the Christian presence was frail. The Life of St Nikon
the "Metanoeite, " i.e., "Repent!" sheds some light on how the need for preach-
ing the gospel in these regions was fulfilled. The sources for our knowledge
of all this are almost invariably hagiographical, and often much later than the
events themselves, so that it is often difficult to make out what really hap-
pened. There is also no overarching narrative, such as Bede's for the conver-
sion of England, or Boniface's letters for the conversion of Germany, which
means that the evidence, such as it is, is fragmentary, making it difficult to
tell any general story. 1
Scandinavia
The archetypal event in the conversion of Scandinavia is, as already men-
tioned, the decision in 1000 by the Althing of Iceland to embrace Christian-
ity. The story as we have it suggests that this was due to pressure from the
1For the whole of this chapter, see Fletcher, Conversion ofEurope, pp. 369----450.
Norwegian King OlafTryggvason, who was holding some Icelanders hostage

while the matter was being decided, and had sent two converted Icelanders to
Iceland with the message that he would like them to convert to Christianity.
This followed an unsuccessful mission by an apparently tactless bishop Thang-
brand in the 990s. The story, as Richard Fletcher remarks, "is too good to be
true."2 But it does seem likely that some such formal decision was made in
moo, only, as Orri Vesteinsson points out, the account (by Ari Thorgilsson
written in about n22-33) seems less about the salvation than the political unity
of Iceland. The actual Christianization of Iceland lay in the future-as did the
conversion of Norway-even though a political decision had been made in the
year moo. That perhaps gives us one clue as to the story of conversion, and it
is something we have seen already in the case of Bulgaria: the embrace of
Christianity offered entry into a comity of nations for leaders attempting to
create political entities that transcended the clan or the tribe.
Sometimes Christianity was sought out for these reasons: Rastislav
requested missionaries from Byzantium; Boris investigated what was on offer
from Rome and Constantinople; about 845 fourteen Bohemian duces turned
up in Regensburg seeking Christian instruction. But often there is no such
obvious point of contact. This seems the case with the Scandinavians: there
are, of course, from the ninth century onwards examples of missionary
endeavours in Scandinavia-Anskar's forays in Denmark and among the
Sueones, the English monk Sigfrid's mission c. moo when King Olav Skotko-
nung was baptized, other English missions in Norway, and Thangbrand's
mission to Iceland-but none of these seem to have had any lasting success.
What we should instead be looking for is less evident ways in which Chris-
tianity became known and accepted-the kind of efforts that were the bedrock
on which the better known missionaries built, only here these "better known"
missionaries seem equally unknown.
The Scandinavians had had long exposure to Christianity, for the Vikings
as they raided and traded did so largely amongst those who had embraced
Christianity. Trading led to settlement, and the Vikings who settled-in north-
ern and central England, in Ireland, in Normandy-eventually came to
embrace the Christianity of those among whom they settled. But the Vikings
who settled maintained links with the Scandinavia from which they had
2Fletcher, Co1tversion ofEurope, p. 397. Orri Vesteinsson in his The Christianizatwr. efla/and: Priests,
Power, and Social Change 1000-1300, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 17-18, is less completely sceptical.
Christian Mission 2 43
come, and along these links knowledge of Christianity, and even some Chris-
tian practices, may well have passed, and as political unions emerged in Scan-
dinavia, Christian instruction and Christian initiation could probably be
sought quite informally. And for that reason the names involved have been
largely forgotten. In the case of Iceland, with which we began, it is only half
a century after the ""conversion" of 1000 that an Icelander, isleifr, went to Bre-
men to seek consecration as bishop for Iceland. He was the son of a chieftain,
and bad received a Christian education at a monastery in Saxony. What lay
behind this is wrapped in mystery. It also appears that soon after the "con-
version" churches were built-probably for funerals and occasional services-
before there was any established hierarchy or even many priests. This, too,
suggests that Christian practices were not altogether unfamiliar. Vesteinsson
suggests that it may have been the case that "the job of missionaries will have
more been to organize and bring practices into line, overseeing that things
were done correctly, rather than trying to see to it that they were done at all."3
To talk of the Christianization of Norway, Denmark and Sweden is also
to risk an anachronistic conception of what was happening. The "Denmark"
that emerged as a Christian nation-some time after the tum of the millen-
nium-was rather different from modern Denmark. Medieval Denmark
included the eastern islands of the modern country together with what is now
southwestern Sweden-the coastal strip from Goteborg to Malmo-with its
cathedral in Lund. Medieval Norway meant the coasts on either side of the
Oslo Fjord, and medieval Sweden, the area around Uppsala. There was much
territory that belonged to nothing that could be called a kingdom, and often
more than one person who could claim the title of king. The emergence of
these nations is interwoven with the establishment of Christianity, but it is a
story of which we can now only catch glimpses.
Eastern Europe: Bohemia, Poland, Hungary

BOHEMIA
Our account of Christian mission in the ninth century told of the beginnings
of the spread of Christianity in these lands. 4 Missionaries from East Frankia
3Vesteinsson, Christianization ofla/and, p. 25.
4For Bohemia and Poland, see Vias to, The Entry of1he Slavs into Christmdom, pp. 86-142, and Jerzy
Strzelczyk, "Bohemia and Poland: Two Examples of Successful Slavonic State-FonnationD in NCHM
lll, pp. 514-35.
sought to establish Christianity in these lands in the wake, or sometimes in

the vanguard, of the spreading political influence of the kings ofEast Frankia,
or later in the tenth century the emperors of what came to call itself the Holy
Roman Empire. Bohemia had long looked towards East Frankia for Chris-
tianity; we have just mentioned the Bohemian duces who sought Christian
instruction in about 845. The first king to receive baptism was Borivoj,
according to one legend, at the hand of Methodios; if so, it must have been
before 885. Another legend tells of Boiivoj sitting like a slave on the floor of
the hall with his men while the Christian Svatopluk, Rastislav' s nephew and
successor as ruler of Moravia, dined in a civilized manner at table surrounded
by his court. Boiivoj decided to be baptized straightaway with thirty of his
followers. The story illustrates another aspect of the motive for embracing
Christianity mentioned a few pages back: namely, the fact that Christianity
admitted one to the society of princes and rulers, who had increasingly
become Christians. Borivoj returned to Prague with a Christian priest, Kaich,
as chaplain. Whether he was Latin or Slav we do not know, but Borivoj's
church was dedicated to St Clement, which perhaps suggests Slav influence.
It is not unlikely that after Methodios' death in 885 and the breaking-up of
the Slav mission some of clergy made their way to Bohemia with their
Slavonic liturgy and books. The fact that some early place names incorporate
early Czech forms of the names Clement and Demetrios supports the suppo-
sition that there was some early influence of Byzantine Christianity in
Bohemia.
Other sources, which tell of St Wenceslas (Vaclav) and the beginnings of
Christianity in Bohemia, make his uncle Spytignev the first royal convert. 5
Whether or not Boiivoj became a Christian, with Spytignev we seem to be
on firmer ground. The Annals of Fulda report how in 895 Spytignev and
another chieftain were received in Regensburg by Amulf of Bavaria and pro-
fessed their allegiance. 6 It seems likely that by then Bohemia was recognized
as a partly Christian country with links to East Frankia. Spytignev's nephew,
Wenceslas, was born about 907, and was about twelve when his father, Prince
5 There is a useful (though rather quain t) translation of various sources connected with the begin-
nings of Christianity in Bo hemia in Tbe Origins ofChristianity in Bohemia: Souras and Commentary, by
M arvin Kanto r, Evanston IL: No rthwestern University Press, 1990. Spytignev's baptism is rdated in
the Second Church Slavonic Lift ofSt Wencalas 2 (ibid., 71).
6Annals ofFulda, a. 895 (trans. T. Reuter, M anchester University Press, 1992, p. 131).
Vratislav, died. It seems that the regency was disputed between his grand-
mother Ljudmila and his mother Dragomira, and Ljudmila was assassinated
in 920 or 921. What lay behind this is quite obscure. Was there a pagan reac-
tion, as the Christian sources allege? Was there tension between Slav-leaning
and Frankish-leaning parties at the court? Was it simply a struggle for power
during the regency? We have no basis for deciding. In 924 Wenceslas came
of age, banished his mother and brought his grandmother's relics, now
regarded as the relics of a martyr, back to Prague. Five years later he was him-
self assassinated. The Life lays the blame squarely on his brother Boleslav's
shoulders, but it seems unclear what his motive can have been. He was him-
self a Christian, so the charge of leading a pagan reaction is unlikely. He is
portrayed as worldly and ambitious, whereas the sources we have portray
Wenceslas as a pious and gentle man who refused to condemn anyone to
death, and got rid of prisons and gallows. But these sources are hagiographi-
cal, and all this fits too easily into such conventions, though it does echo
something that seems to have been in the back of the Bulgarian khan Boris'
mind, when he contemplated conversion to Christianity: how compatible
with effective rule were the non-violent principles of Christianity, and the
personal ideals oflove, gentleness and forgiveness that it inculcated? Perhaps,
as Vlasto has put it, "Wenceslas tried to create a Christian society at too fast
a pace and in too uncompromising a spirit." 7
Whatever the circumstances of Wenceslas' death, his afterlife is clearer.
His death was soon accounted martyrdom, and he became a national saint.
Boleslav, his brother and probably murderer, actively promoted this process.
Scarcely more than two years after his death, Boleslav had his brother's relics,
which had already begun to work miracles, brought back to Prague and
placed in the church of St Vitus that had been built by Wenceslas. Wenceslas
became not just the patron saint of Bohemia, he became effectively its heav-
enly ruler, and the guarantor of the dynasty to which he belonged. As such
St Wenceslas was the main device on royal seals. This phenomenon, of a
saintly king martyred, but claimed as the protector of his successors who
had often been complicit in his death, is not at all unparalleled in the early
Middle Ages. 8 England seems to have begun the tradition with the cults of
7Vlasto, Emry ofthe Slavs, p. 96.

8See Gabor Klaniczay, "From Sacral Kingship to Self-Representation: Hungarian and European
Royal Saints," in idem, Tbe Uses ofSupernatural Power, Princeton University Press, 1990, pp. 79-94.
SS Oswald and Edmund, and later (though he was not martyred) St Edward
the Confessor. The cult of St Olaf in Norway is another example. Very close
to the example of St Wenceslas is the case of St Magnus the Martyr of the
Orkneys, depicted in the Lives as living a quasi-monastic life, and like
Wenceslas, displaying a gentleness that hardly benefited an early medieval
king. So, too, with the Russian "passion-bearers" (strastoterptsz), Boris and
Gleb: in the Tale ef Boris and Gleb Boris actually recalls the martyrdom of
Wenceslas before his murder.9 In all these cases, the martyrdom of a saintly
king provides his dynasty with heavenly protection. Whatever the roots of
this-and they could include attempts to provide a Christian substitute for
the claim of kings to divine lineage, or to invest kingship with sacral qualities
on the lines of Hellenistic kingship, or of the anointed kings of the Old Tes-
tament-it is clearly part of a strategy to strengthen the dynasties of the newly
Christianized nations, or it might be better to say, these new nations that had
found their sense of nationhood in Christianity. Many of these new dynas-
ties adopted a ceremony of anointing, and even without the ceremony
appealed to the notion of the king as "God's anointed," familiar from the Old
Testament and repeatedly mentioned by Christian bishops and preachers as
they sought to instil Christian principles in these newly Christian rulers.
Relics of saints and even a sacred diadem were also part of such a strategy.
That this explanation is on the right lines is supported by contrasting the sit-
uation with that of the Byzantine emperor, who provided a picture of kingly
rule, basileia, to which these newer dynasties also looked for inspiration. For
it was rare for Byzantine emperors to make it as saints: Constantine was an
exception, and Dagron has argued that the cult of Constantine deflects atten-
tion from his imperial state and sees him as the thirteenth apostle, on the
analogy of St Paul, called to the faith and the conversion of the Empire by a
vision. 10 Considering why bids for sanctity on the part of emperors were so
universally unsuccessful (empresses were more successful: e.g., Theodora,
wife ofTheophilos, and Theophano, wife of Leo VI, both came to be vener-
ated as saints), Dagron comments:
9See the translation in The Hagiography ef Kitva.n Rus', translated with an introduction by Paul
Hollingswonh, Harvard Library ofUkrainian Literature 2, C ambridge MA: Harvard University Press,
1992, p. 103.
10
See Gilbert Dagron, Emperor and Prust: The lmperial Offia in Byumti11m, Cambridge University
Press, 2003, pp. u7-57 ("Constantine the Great: Imperial Sainthood").
Chn"stian Mission 2 47
We see here one of the chief differences between East and West. A Byzan-
tine emperor, once invested with absolute power, had nothing more to
prove or disprove in relation to worthiness for office; he took his place in
a vast divine plan and played a role which had been laid down for him
from time immemorial. The Roman Empire, of which he was the tempo-
rary guardian, was part of an eschatological schema which gave it a mean-
ing and an end .. .11
Under the heavenly patronage of St Wenceslas, the Christianization of

Bohemia made progress. Boleslav was obliged to accept the overlordship of
Henry, like his brother. The Bohemian dynasty was tolerated by the German
king, though he would intervene in Bohemia's internal affairs, even the suc-
cession, if German interests were at stake. Bohemia was a kind of satellite of
the Frankish Empire. There are few details about the progress of Christianity
in Bohemia for the middle decades of the tenth century. Gradually counts
submitted to Prague. During the reign ofBoleslav II (?967-99) virtually all of
Bohemia came under the rule of Prague, Christianity was adopted, and
churches and monasteries were established. Durirtg this period, Latin and
Slav seem to have co-existed peacefully in the Bohemian Church, though the
fact that similar texts often differ considerably in content suggests that the
centres for the cultivation of the two languages were often distinct. A bish-
opric of Prague was set up in 967, perhaps Boleslav's last achievement. It was
subject to the archbishopric of Mainz and its investiture reserved for the Ger-
man emperor. The first bishop was Thietmar, a Saxon most likely from the
Abbey of Carvey, a monastery in close touch with the Slav world (St Vitus,
the saint to whom Wenceslas' church in Prague was dedicated, was the patron
saint of Saxony, and Wenceslas' church, dedicated only after his death,
received a relic of the saint from Saxony). The second bishop was a
Bohemian, Vojtech, who took the name Adalbert, and was consecrated by the
archbishop of Mainz in 983. Adalbert was more an ascetic than a bishop, and
had been impressed by the ideals of Cluny. After six difficult years, he left for
Rome and there became a monk. He returned to Prague briefly and founded
a monastery near Prague in 992. Thereafter relations with Boleslav worsened
and he left for Rome. In about 995 he visited Hungary, where he baptized
Geza and his son Stephen. In his final years he went to Poland, and from
11
D agron, Emperor and Priest, p. 156.
there he went to convert the Prussians, a Baltic people who were a threat to
the Poles on their eastern frontier, where he met a martyr's death. Bolesfaw
of Poland had his relics brought back to Gniezno, which became the centre
of his cult.
Despite the links with the Latin Church in Germany, Slav was still at least
tolerated in the Czech Church, and remained so throughout the tenth cen-
tury. This happy state of affairs could not last, and in the course of the
eleventh century the Slav tradition was gradually forced out; by the end of
the century the Church in Bohemia was a Latin Church.
POLAND
The origins of Polish Christianity-indeed, the ongms of Poland-are

shrouded in mystery. The conversion of Poland is conventionally dated to
966, when Mieszko accepted Christian baptism. Two years earlier he had mar-
ried Dobrava, the daughter of the Bohemian ruler, Boleslav I; she had arrived
in Poland with priests and Christian books. A year later a son was born. Only
a year after that was Mieszko baptized. Why the delay, we do not know, but
his intention to become a Christian must have been formed with his mar-
riage to Dobrava. The first stone buildings, with a royal chapel, in Gniezno
belong to this time. Both buildings and wife suggest that Mieszko looked to
Bohemia for his Christianity. Mieszko's decision cannot have come out of
the blue. He may have heard about the approach of Olga of Kiev to Otto I
in 959, and Adalbert's unsuccessful mission of 961; the fact that his neigh-
bours to the East were likely to become Christians must have influenced him.
To the west was the Frankish Empire, whose embrace he may well have
wished to avoid. Accepting Christianity from Bohemia may have seemed to
offer him a place among the civilized nations, without his losing his inde-
pendence. In fact, Poland remained far more independent of the Frankish
Empire than Bohemia. Not, however, without a struggle. The first problem
Mieszko faced concerned the first bishopric to be established in Poland, at
Poznan. Otto I wanted any new bishopric among the Slavs to be subordinate
to the new archbishopric of Magdeburg, to which plan Pope John XII had
assented. The newly elected Pope John XIII, however, treated Poland as a mis-
sionary area, directly under his own jurisdiction, and the first bishop of Poz-
nan, Jordan, was most likely a missionary bishop, directly subject to Rome.
The status of the next bishop, Unger, is less clear. In fact, in the last two
decades of the tenth century, after the great Wendish 12 revolt of 983, Magde-
burg had little scope for establishing control over Poland. In 992, Mieszko
made the so-called "Donation of Poland" to the Holy See, which effectively
blocked any German pretensions to control of the Polish Church. The
dependence on Rome implied by this must not be exaggerated, and it may
have given Mieszko the freedom to negotiate &iendly relationships with the
German Empire that he doubtless felt the need of after the Wendish revolt,
for that must have aroused the fear of similar pagan uprisings in Poland.
In the year woo, an archbishop was established at the old capital,
Gniezno, under Mieszko's successor, Boleslaw, known as Chrobry (the
"Brave"), and Bolesfaw himself received some not certainly determined title.
All this formed part of the Ottonian emperor Otto Ill's short-lived attempt
to re-establish the ancient ideal (still preserved in Byzantium, though more a
fiction than a reality) of a single empire coextensive with the universal
Church, ruled by emperor and pope. Such an empire would consist of king-
doms subject to the emperor, and the establishment of an archbishopric in
Gniezno was part of the realization of a Polish kingdom within the renewed
empire, as happened with the establishment of an archbishopric at Esztergom
and the granting of kingly dignity to Stephen of Hungary a year later.
Gniezno was, of course, the site of the shrine of St Adalbert, one-time bishop
of Prague, friend of Otto III, whose ideals he had shared. It was Adalbert's
half-brother, Gaudentius, who became the first archbishop of Gniezno, in
the context of a pilgrimage to the shrine of St Adalbert, led by Otto III,
Robert the papal legate and other notables, who were received by Bolesfaw,
keeper of the shrine. It seems that Boleslaw was not actually given the title
king; some sources suggest that he received an even greater title-Caesar, in
the Byzantine manner, i.e. successor to Otto III. Perhaps he was given the
title patricius: a title conferred by Rome. Whatever happened, Boleslaw
became head of his own Church, with the authority to appoint bishops.
Poland became Sdavinia, a Christian state equal to other Christian states,
along with Roma, Gallia and Germania: the four states that are represented
as women doing homage to Otto III in a Gospel book made for him about
the year 1000.
12
The Wends were a stubbornly pagan peoples occupying land south of the Baltic S ea who in 983
staged a devastating rebellion against their Christian neigh bours, during which H amburg was sacked.
This dream, at least in the practical form Otto had sought to give it,
died with Otto himself in 1002. He was succeeded by Henry IV ofBavaria as
Emperor Henry II, not by Boleslaw. During Henry II's reign, Boleslaw's
ambitions were frustrated; it was not until after Henry's death that he
received the royal crown, in rn25 . With his death, Polish power declined rap-
idly. Poland lost territory that had been gained by Boleslaw, and was itself
invaded; civil war broke out in Poland. In 1039 Gniezno was sacked by the
Bohemians, its cathedral destroyed and its treasures seized, including the
relics of St Adalbert. We also hear of pagan revolts: it is likely that some of
these involved religious unrest-clergy, for instance, were murdered- but
likely too that other political and economic factors were involved. By the
time Kazimierz acceded to the throne in rn39, the Church needed complete
reorganization. Cracow became his new capital, and its bishop, Aaron of
Cologne, given the personal rank of archbishop. A new cathedral was built
in the then-fashionable style popular in the Rhineland. Foreign monks and
bishops were invited into Poland, as Kazimierz sought to restore Christian
institutions and Christian practice; many of these came from the Rhineland,
and also from Lorraine. By the time of Kazimierz' death in 1058, he had estab-
lished control over what could then be regarded as Poland-Mazovia to the
east, Silesia to the west, and Pomerania to the north-but the Christianization
of these areas did not go very deep, and it would be some centuries before
Poland could be regarded as Christian.
HUNGARY
We first hear of the Hungarians, 13 or Magyars, as they called themselves, in

Western sources in 862, though the Byzantines may have encountered them
earlier. Like most nomadic people, they were livestock breeders, with a highly
developed military organization, led by chieftains and devoted to warfare. In
the mid-ninth century they were the latest of such warlike people to enter the
Great European Plain from the east. Their skill with arrows shot from horse-
back and their capacity for covering long distances swiftly on horseback,
together with their disciplined tactics, made them an enemy greatly feared by
the Christians on whom they preyed. The Christian sources present them as
marauding hordes of pagan barbarians, but it seems that already by the end
of the ninth century they were building circular systems of defensive works
13
For Hungary, see, roo, Komel Bakay, "Hungary," in NCMHTTI , pp. 538-µ .
Christian Mission 251
and settling. In the fust half of the tenth century there are many records of
their raids against the Carinthians, Moravians, Bavarians, and down into
Italy, and it is clear that they were often acting in alliance with Western
nations who paid them tribute. In the 920s, their raids pressed deep into the
Frankish Empire, and in the 930s, in alliance with the Pechenegs, they
advanced south through Thrace to Constantinople. It was not until 955 that
the Magyars experienced a devastating defeat near Augsburg at the River
Lech, and Duke Henry of Bavaria had their leaders hanged. After that, the
Magyars ceased from major raids, though there was some smaller-scale aggres-
sion against the Bavarians and the Byzantines until late in the century.
Christianity seems to have reached the Magyars first from the Byzantines.
In the 920s a priest called Gabriel was sent on a mission to them, but we know
nothing as to its fate. In 948 a chieftain called Bulcsu barka was baptized in
Constantinople, his godfather being Constantine Porphyrogennetos. He
soon apostatized, however; he was one of the leaders hanged at Regensburg
after the Magyar defeat at the River Lech. Another chieftain, Gyula, was bap-
tized at Constantinople in 95.3, and he returned to Hungary with a monk
Hierotheos, who had been consecrated bishop ofTourkia by Patriarch Theo-
phylact of Constantinople. Byzantine influence was felt mainly in the east-
ern part of the country-to the east of the River Tisza. In Pannonia and the
valley of the Danube, German missionaries were active, most important
among them a former monk of Reichenau, Wolfgang, who was consecrated
bishop of Regensburg in 97.3 at the insistence of Pilgrim, bishop of Passau
from 971 to 991. A letter from Pilgrim to Rome seeking to advance the claims
of Passau over those of Salzburg in Hungary claims the inspiration of Bede
for the missionary drive in Hungary.
As the Magyars settled in the Pannonian plain, their leaders turned
towards Christianity. Geza was baptized in 995, taking the Christian name of
Stephen. Although Geza seems to have regarded the Christian God as
another one he could afford to add to his pantheon-replying to a bishop
who objected, he remarked that "he was a rich man and well able to afford
sacrifices to all his gods"-he seems to have introduced Christianity among
his people with some violence. Geza's wife was also reported to have played
a role in the conversion: Adalbert was said to have dealt more with her than
her husband, because "she held the whole kingdom in her hands." She was
reported to be not only beautiful, but a hard drinker and good rider, who had
252. GRE EK EAST AND LATCN WEST
killed a man with her bare hands. Her name was Slav-Beleknegini (Sarolt in
later legends), "white lady"-though the Polish sources say that Geza married
the sister of Mieszko I, Adelaide. Either way, it is possible that Beleknegini
was already a Christian when she married Geza, and thus promoted Chris-
tianity among the Magyars. Geza's son, Vajk, who may have been baptized
by Adalbert of Prague, also took Stephen as his baptismal name. He married
Gisela, daughter of the Bavarian Duke Henry II. Well educated, Stephen
acceded to the throne on the death of his father in 997. ln1001 Stephen, like
Bolesfaw of Poland, became part of Otto Ill's vision of a renewed Christian
Empire. Stephen received the title of king, and a royal crown, &om the
emperor and the pope; the crown is identical with the present Holy Crown
of Hungary-according to Bakay, it was "most probably commissioned by the
pope himself [Sylvester II]. Its symbolism, material size, jewels and enamel
icons, as well as its mystic power, make it a truly remarkable piece of
regalia." 14 He commended himself and his people to the patronage of St
Peter, and Hungary was granted an archbishopric with dependent bishoprics.
The site of the archbishopric was eventually settled in Esztergom. Christian-
ization proceeded apace under King Stephen, who was later canonized. He
issued law-codes that defined the position of the Church in Hungarian soci-
ety and the practice of religion: Sundays were to be observed and the fasts
kept. A strict justice was imposed, with severe penalties; Stephen had none
of the qualms of Wenceslas. The country was divided into ten dioceses, and
was to be provided with a network of parishes. A Benedictine convent was
founded on the Hill of St Martin, and other monasteries were established
throughout his realm. The king himself appointed bishops and abbots. After
the defeat of the Bulgarians at the hand of the Byzantine emperor, Basil II,
Stephen transferred his royal see &om Esztergom to Szekesfehervir (Alba
Regia), and opened the pilgrimage route to the Holy Land. Whatever the true
situation, the rest of Europe was amazed at the transformation of Hungary
into a Christian country. As the chronicler Ralph Glaber put it: "The people
of the Hungarians, who previously were accustomed cruelly to prey upon
their neighbours, now freely give of their own for the sake of Christ. They
who formerly pillaged the Christians . . . now welcome them like brothers
and sisters." 15
1
4NCMHnI, p. 548.
1;Glaber, Historiat r.5-22; quoted by Fletcher, UJTIVersion ofEm-opt, p. 433.
Russia
The Byzantines first felt the impact of the Rus' (or the <Pw~, as they called
them) in 860, when the Rus' attacked the environs of Constantinople and
briefly-and unsuccessfully-laid siege to it. 16 Two of Photios' sermons tell of
the attack. He says
a fierce and savage tribe fearlessly poured round the city, ravaging the sub-
urbs, destroying everything, ruining everything, fields, houses, herds,
beasts of burden, women, children, old men, youths, thrusting their sword
through everything, taking pity on nothing, sparing nothing .. . Like a
locust in a cornfield, like mildew in a vineyard, or rather like a whirlwind,
or a typhoon, or a torrent, or I know not what to say, it fell upon our land
and has annihilated whole generations of inhabitants.17
Who were these Rus'? The name seems to refer to Scandinavians- Vikings,
or Varangians-who had travelled east from the Baltic and settled among the
Slav tribes in an area stretching from the Gulf of Finland and Karelia in the
north to the Carpathians in the southwest. From there, via the Dnepr, they
sought to establish a trade route leading from the Baltic to the Black Sea, and
thence to Byzantium. Settling among the Slav tribes whom they ruled, and
marrying their women, they soon-like the Bulgarians in Bulgaria, or the Nor-
mans in Normandy-lost their own language. Initially they settled in the
north, in and around Novgorod, but the same expedition that was repulsed
&om Constantinople in 860 also seems to have seized Kiev for the Rus'.
Within twenty years, Kiev had become the capital of the Rus'. What drew the
Rus' from Novgorod to Kiev was the lure of Constantinople: from Kiev the
crucial last stage of the trade-route down the Dnepr to Cherson, a Byzantine
settlement, and thence to the ~een of Cities, Constantinople, could be
secured. In his On Administering the Empire, Constantine Porphyrogennetos
has a chapter in which he gives a dramatic account of how the Rus' with their
mono:xyla, dug-out canoes, conveyed their goods from the north to Cherson,
16
Tuere are many accounts of the conversion of the Russians: most recently, John Fennell, A His-
tory efthe Rmsian Church /JJ L448, London: Longman, r995, pp. 20-44, and Simon Franklin and Jonathan
Shepard, The Emergence efRus: 750-1200, London: Longman, 1996, pp. 139-180. See also: Obolensky,
Byzantine Commomoealth, pp. r8o-201, Vlasto, Entry ofthe Slavs, pp. 236-95, and N.K. Chadwick, The
Brginnings ofRussian History: An Enquiry into Sources, Cambridge University Press, 1946.
17Photios, Homily 3-2 (trans. Cyril Mango, p . 88().
traversing the rapids by wading through the shallow water, half carrying, half
floating their mono:xyla, then as the river broadened out erecting masts and
sails and using them as ships.18
Christianity-and other religions: Judaism from Khazaria and Islam from
the Abbasid Empire-must have first travelled with merchants along these
trade routes. The first person known by name to adopt Christianity was Olga,
who took the Christian name of Helen. That in itself points to the Byzantine
origin of her faith. When and where she was baptized is disputed, for the
sources themselves seem contradictory. She certainly visited Constantiriople
in 957-we have a detailed account of her reception in Constantine Porphy-
rogennetos' De ceremoniis, which makes no mention of her baptism-and
other sources (the Greek historian Zonaras, the Russian Primary Chronicle)
assert that she was baptized in Constantinople (or Tsargrad, as the Russian
chronicle calls it). It seems that she was either already baptized when she vis-
ited Constantinople, presumably irI Kiev, or was baptized there. Whatever
the case, her visit to Constantinople had other purposes: in her entourage
there were many merchants, so seeking Byzantine help in protecting the trade
route may have been part of her purpose. Also, it seems clear that her con-
version was a personal act. She was unable to persuade her son, Svyatoslav,
to follow her; he is reputed to have remarked, "my followers would laugh at
me" -presumably again Christianity seemed a ridiculous option for a warrior
prince. Nevertheless, Olga did make attempts to spread Christianity in Rus-
sia. Apart from building a church, the first church of the Holy Wisdom irI
Kiev, she also sought missionaries from the German King Otto I, which sug-
gests some disappointment with the Byzantines-what, we do not know. Otto
sent a Benedictine monk Adalbert irI 961, but his mission was short and
unsuccessful, perhaps because it coiricided with the beginning of the reign of
Svyatoslav, Olga's recalcitrant son. Svyatoslav's reign (c.962-72) saw a series
of military campaigns: against Khazaria, the capital of which, Itil, was over-
thrown by Svyatoslav's generals, bririging to an end the Khazar Empire, and
against Bulgaria, where in the event it was the Byzantines who were to bene-
fit. Svyatoslav lost his life in 972, ambushed by the Pechenegs, a warrior tribe
that had settled between the Don and the lower Danube. The Byzantines
held them in cautious respect (Constantine Porphyrogennetos devotes the
18
Constancine Porphyrogenntos, D e Adminislranda lmperio 9 (ed. Moravcsik, trans. Jenkins,
pp. 56-63).
first seven chapters of On Administering the Empire to the Pechenegs and the
advantages of having their support); it was probably at the behest of the
Byzantines that Svyatoslav was killed.
Svyatoslav's eldest son Yaropolk succeeded him. Brought up under the
influence of his grandmother Olga, with a Christian wife, he had Christian
sympathies and may even have been baptized. He quickly sought to estab-
lish himself in Kiev, and Oleg, his brother, soon cLed in a clash between the
two brothers. VlacLmir, his half-brother, fled to Scandinavia, and, having
acquired a group of warriors, made his way back to Russia. He quickly estab-
lished himself in Novgorod, and from there advanced on Kiev. By cunning
and treachery, Vladimir finally had his brother killed, the actual death taking
place in the stone hall at Kiev to which he had invited his brother for nego-
tiations. VlacLrnir faced a difficult situation in Kiev, and seems to have put
his faith in extravagant devotion to the pagan gods, the chief of which was
Perun, identified with Thor, the Scandinavian god of war. These devotions
seem to have included human sacrifice, or at least the martyrdom of two
Christian Varangians, father and son, "from the Greeks" -who had presum-
ably been converted in the Byzantine Empire. There is some evidence to sug-
gest that already in Kiev and other towns he had conquered, there were
Christians who were unlikely to welcome this imposition of the lightly cLs-
guised Scandinavian gods. There was also the question of what company
Vladimir wanted to keep as a prince. As we have seen by the 970s Christian-
ity was making progress among the neighbouring princedoms: Miezko of
Poland and Geza of Hungary had recently converted to Christianity, and in
Scandinavia kings were embracing Christianity: Harald Bluetooth, king of
the Danes, in around 960. If this was the company Vladimir wished to keep,
then he must embrace Christianity, or at least some monotheistic religion.
According to the Primary Chronicle, spokesmen from the Byzantine, Western
Christian, Muslim and Jewish Khazar faiths tried to win over Vladimir.
Although this looks unlikely, there is independent evidence from Marzawi,
a late eleventh-century Persian writer, that a "king" of the Rus' cLd ask for a
teacher to instruct his people in Islam; Marzawi goes on to state that the Rus-
sians were converted to Islam, but his story may reflect a memory of
Vladimir's enquiries as to the tenets of the different monotheistic faiths .19
19See Franklin-Shepard, Emergenu, p. r6o.

The Muslim, the Western Christian and the Jew explained their faith briefly,
and were dismissed as briefly by Vladimir: hearing that Muslims are for-
bidden wine, for instance, he remarked, "Drinking is the joy of the Rus'. We
cannot exist without that pleasrne!"20 The Greek explained his faith at con-
siderable length, and Vladimir seemed moved, but his response was: "I shall
wait a little longer. "21 Then, on the advice of his boyars, he sent envoys to
witness the Volga Bulgars (who were Muslims), the Germans and the Byzan-
tines at prayer. The envoys found Muslim worship repellent and the worship
of Western Christians unimpressive ("we beheld no glory there"), but they
were overwhelmed by the worship of the Greeks in Hagia Sophia:
[T]he Greeks led us to the edifices where they worship their God, and we
knew not whether we were in heaven or on earth. For on earth there is no
such splendour or such beauty, and we are at a loss how to describe it. We
only know that God dwells there among men, and their service is fairer
than the ceremonies of the nations. For we cannot forget that beauty. 22
The account in the Pn"mary Chronicle is not unbiased, but its account of the
solemn beauty of Byzantine worship records something that touched the
Russian soul. As Dimitri Obolensky put it:
[T]he kernel of the story is sound enough; it illustrates the powerful

impact which the splendours of Constantinople had on the minds and
imagination of the Russian people, arid expresses in a poetic form what it
was that so impressed and moved them in Byzantine Christianity: that
ancient liturgy, which kept the Russian envoys in St Sophia spellbound
with wonder, which so inspired the eleventh century chronicler that he
attributed his country's conversion to its beauty, and which still remains
Russia's most vital and lasting inheritance from Byzantium.23
The envoys reported back, and Vladimir sought the advice of his boyars, who
remirided him that if the Greek faith were evil, his grandmother Olga, "who
was wiser than all other men," would not have embraced it.
20Riissian Primary Chronicle, a. 986 (in 1bt RM.ssian Primary Chronick: 1bt Laurentian Text, trans. and
ed. S.H. Cross and 0.P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Cambridge MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America,
1953, p. 97; slightly modified).
21 Ibid. (p. no).
22
Ibid., a. 987 {p. rn).
23 Obolensl'Y, Byzantine Commonwealth, p. 194.
Christian M ission 2 57
The Primary Chronicle now moves to Vladimir's siege of the Byzantine set-
tlement of Cherson in the following year. Having captured Cherson, Vladimir
held the Byzantines to ransom, threatening to advance on Constantinople,
if he were not given the hand of Anna, the emperor Basil II's sister, in mar-
riage. The Byzantines would only agree ifVladimir consented to be baptized.
He agreed, was baptized in Cherson, married Anna, and with her returned to
Kiev. Cherson was returned to the Byzantine emperor as a wedding gift.
Much scholarly ink has been spilt over the interpretation of this passage.
There are two main versions of the events. Both tum on the assistance
Vladimir gave to Basil II in 988 to help overthrow the rebellion of the Byzan-
tine general Bardas Phokas. ln response to Basil II's appeal and in accordance
with the treaty of 971 between Svyatoslav and the Byzantine Empire, Vladimir
sent 6 ,000 Varangians, whose support enabled Basil to quell the rebellion.
Vladimir was thus in a position to demand an exceptional reward for his sup-
port, and he sought the hand of Anna. Only a few decades before, Constan-
tine Porphyrogennetos, the grandfather of Basil II, had underlined what
purported to be a tradition going back to Constantine the Great forbidding
any marriage between a member of the imperial family and a "barbarian,"
making an exception only in the case of the Franks.24 Not only that, Anna was
a "purple-born" princess, a porphyrogennetos. Vladimir's demand was excep-
tional indeed. Baptism was required, and Vladimir willingly accepted it. How-
ever, having sent his 6 ,000 Varangians to Constantinople (some of whom were
to remain behind and become the Varangian Guard, the emperor's personal
bodyguard), Vladimir found himself waiting for the arrival of Anna, and he
began to suspect he had been double-crossed. So he took Cherson, and issued
his ultimatum to Basil IL The "revisionist" view, proposed by the Polish his-
torian Andrzej Poppe in 1976, starts fiom the same premise of Vladimir's val-
ued support for Basil II against Bardas Phokas.25 However, Poppe argued that
Vladimir attacked Cherson in fulfilment of his agreement with Basil II, sup-
posing that Cherson had sided with the rebels. Vladimir may well have already
been baptized in Kiev (to which the Primary Chronicle lends some support).
Whatever interpretation one adopts, it remains that Vladimir seized on a
24
Dt A dministrando Imperio 13 (pp. 70-77).
25Andnej Poppe, "'The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus'. Byzan tine-Russian Relations
between 986-989," Dumbarton Oaks Papas 30 (1976): 197-244 (= idem, The Rise ofChristitJ11 Russia, Lon-
don: Varioru.m Reprints, 1982, § 11).
moment of strength over against the Byzantine Empire to secure an imperial

bride and introduce the Christian faith to Kiev.
Vladimir returned to Kiev with a bishop and priests. Paganism was as dra-
matically overthrown as it had earlier been celebrated. The statue of Perun
was tied to a horse's tail and dragged down to the Dnepr, being beaten the
while by twelve men with rods. Once in the Dnepr, it was made sure that it
passed beyond the rapids before being allowed to come to rest on a sand-
bank. The river is also alleged to have been the scene of a mass baptism, but
the chronicle is clear that the people came to the river at Vladimir's com-
mand-"Vladimir sent heralds throughout the whole city to proclaim that if
any inhabitants, rich or poor, did not betake themselves to the river, they
would risk the Prince's displeasure"-though it also speaks of their "joy." 26
Doubtless Vladimir used rough persuasion to bring about the conversion of
his people, but beyond that we can say little. Indeed much is unclear about
the first fifty years of Russian Christianity. It looks as if the first metropolitan
was Theophylact, translated from the metropolitan see of Sebaste.27 Even
though there seems no reason to suppose that Christianity came to Russia
from anywhere else than Constantinople, it also seems beyond question that
the Kievan Church was Slavonic from the beginning, using the Cyrillo-
Methodian liturgical and biblical texts, though Greek may well have been
used by some of the clergy. Priests using these Slavonic texts may have been
at work in Kiev and other towns before Vladimir's conversion. Vladimir set
about building churches, though not in abundance, the earliest being the
Tithe Church (Desyatinnaya Tserkov) in Kiev. 28 He set about providing for the
training of clergy. Vladimir also addressed himself to the evangelization of
the rest of his realm. His numerous sons were sent to important to\\ns,
accompanied by priests. By tradition he established seven sees: Novgorod,
Belgorod near Kiev, where Vladimir built a church dedicated to the Transfig-
uration, Chemigov on the River Desna, Turov on the River Pripet, Vladimir
in Volhynia, Rostov and Polotsk. Of these, however, only the first twu can be
ascribed to Vladimir. 29 Though there are vague references to the founding of
monasteries from the tenth century onwards, the earliest of which we have
26 Primary Cbroniclt, a. 988 (Cross, p . n6).

27 So, fairly categorically, Fennell, History, pp. 40-42; but see Vlasto, Entry, pp. 277-78.
28This title itself poses problems, as tithing was a Western, not a Byzantine, custom.
29
See Vlasto, Entry, p. z63 .
any reliable information are from the mid-eleventh century, of these the most
important being the Monastery of the Caves in Kiev, traditionally founded
m1051.
Nikon the "Metanoeite": Preaching the Gospel within the

Byzantine Empire
In the course of the tenth century, parts of the Byzantine Empire that had
been lost to Islam were reincorporated into the Empire. Byzantine armies
pushed eastwards to the Taurus mountains and beyond, and several of the
islands that had been taken by the Arab fleet were reconquered, notably
Crete in 961 and Cyprus in 965. These areas had been Muslim for three hun-
dred years or so, over which time Christianity had been progressively weak-
ened and some, even many, may have converted to Islam. Even those who
remained Christian would have lost some contact with the living tradition,
church buildings would have fallen into decay and monasteries largely aban-
doned. Some light is shed on the process of the recovery of Christianity in
these regions by saints' Lives such as the Life ofSt Luke the lounger, which we
have already briefly looked at, and especially the Life of St Nikon the "Meta-
noeite. "It is, however, a rather dim and refracted light, for the purpose of these
Lives is not to satisfy our curiosity about the conditions in which the saints
lived, or even their missionary strategy and the difficulties they faced; rather
the purpose of these Lives is to glorify the saint, and the ways of achieving
this are often quite formulaic. In his introduction to his translation of the Life
ofSt Nikon, Denis Sullivan points out several striking verbal parallels between
that Life and the Life of St Luke the lounger (and there are others that he does
not remark on: both saints are depicted as children as despising playing and
toys, in very similar words: cf. Nikon 2 and Luke 3): the life of a saint, like his
icon, was expected to have certain common features, and the very words used
to describe them often pass from one saint's Life to another. 30
Despite these qualifications (which are heavy qualifications), something
can be gleaned from these Lives. Nikon is, at any rate, unusual in being pre-
sented as a missionary monk: it is his constant preaching, rather than his
30
See Tbt Lift of Saint Ni/um, text, translation and commentary b}' Denis F. Sullivan, The Arch-
bishop lakovos Library of Ecclesiastical and Historical Sources 14, Brookline MA: Hellenic College
Press, 19&7, pp. 7-18.
constant prayer, that is emphasized in the Life (though prayer and preaching
are, in a way, assimilated). Nikon was born in the eastern part of the Empire,
in Pontes, close to the Armeniakon theme. While still a child he was filled
with a longing for the ascetic Life, and soon became a wandering ascetic. After
many days wandering he came to the monastery of Chryse Petra ("Golden
Stone"), on a mountain on the borders of Pontos and Paphlagonia. The biog-
rapher dwells on the name of the monastery, so called, he says, "either
because of the harshness of the place and its lack of water and as if it were
gilded from the violence of the sunshine, or"-the explanation he prefers-
"because it rendered souls trained in it truly golden and God-like" (Life 4).
There he is greeted by the abbot, and is tonsured straightaway. He lived there
for twelve years, pursuing a life of such ascetic strictness that his brother
monks feared for his life, and on occasions tried to persuade him to mitigate
his regimen. After twelve years his earthly father discovered where Nikon was
and came looking for him. Both his elder and Nikon himself were afraid that
the father would take him away from his ascetic life, and it is revealed to the
elder that Nikon is to leave the monastery and adopt the life of a wandering
preacher of repentance: he is to "pursue an apostolic service and, having
passed through many cities and countries, preach to all people repentance
and through this forgiveness of sins." He is to be, Like the Apostle Paul, a "ves-
sel of election" (Life rr). So Nikon set out from his monastery as a wandering
preacher. His elder sent him out with these words:
Go then with the Gospel, taking no knapsack, no money in your belt, but
you will have clothing of hair extending all down to the middle of your
ankles ... Your food should be plain and such as is at hand, filling your
need with bread alone and water. And above all you should carefully guard
and be firm in your self-control; for this, my son, is the consecration of
the soul and of the body and this is the cause of closeness to God ... But
I wish you to flee both unsuitable relationships and fellowship with
worldly men and the hearths of the rich and famous; to withdraw yourself
from the company of society and to be sociable and easy of access to poor
men and strangers; always to approach spiritual brothers and fathers and
those trained in the fear of God; to make your resting place, moreover, in
divine churches and holy shrines. Everywhere you will cry loudly: "Repent
for the kingdom of God is coming; learn to do good; tum to the Lord,
Christian Mission
seek Him from your soul, in order that you may win eternal rewards." For
this will be your message of repentance, my son, and it will be your name
both while you live and after death. (Life u).
Nikon left the monastery amid scenes of sorrow and lamentation, and
went about Asia Minor preaching his gospel of repentance. His cry of repent!
becomes a kind of prayer, which he uses against brigands and demons: Meta-
noeite!became "a kind of charm against the demons and by the power of the
word caused them to be astonished and afraid" (Life 17). His preaching in Asia
Minor lasted for three years. He "brought numberless people to the harbour
of salvation through repentance and change for the better"; the Life, however,
lays more stress on his way oflife as a form of ascetic discipline. He then felt
called to go to Crete, where he arrived in 961, just after Nikephoros Phokas
had regained the island &om the Muslims. There his preaching of repentance
met with opposition from the Cretans. They are described as being, not
exactly Muslims, but Christians whose faith and practice had been corrupted
"by time and long fellowship with the Saracens" (Life 20). Nikon decided to
change his missionary tactics, and instead of simply calling the people to
repentance, he sought out those who had some "knowledge of and accept-
ance of the good," and talked to them gently, fired them with his own virtue
and through his powers of insight brought them gradually to repentance, so
that "their passion quickly abated and their furious anger came to a stand-
still." So the saint, "if not through the power of his word, but through that
of virtue, was a wise fisherman and skilled in hunting souls of men." As the
Cretans turned to the Christian faith, Nikon "built many churches over the
island and created priests and deacons and church-guardians and other offi-
cials" (Life 21). For five years he lived among them.
Nikon then left and went to Epidauros, and then on to Athens and
Euboea. After preaching there, he set off for Thebes and Corinth, and made
his way down into the Peloponnese. The narrative begins to change its char-
acter, as much stress is laid on his ascetic life, dwelling in caves and so forth,
and his working of miracles. The Peloponnese is depicted as a place of brig-
ands and demons, and Nikon's presence there is construed as a perpetual
struggle against them. Again his preaching of repentance is assimilated to a
characteristic of early asceticism-struggle against the demons. Just as much
as in Crete, Nikon is bringing the gospel of repentance to those for whom it
seems to be a novelty. At one point there is mention of Melingoi, pagan

Slavs, who are depicted as brigands, delighting in bloodshed (Life 62). They
were one of two groups of Sklavenoi, Slavs, we know to have settled in the
Peloponnese, the remoteness of which is likely to have hindered the re-Chris-
tianization of the southern Balkan peninsula in the ninth century. But in the
Life the stress is rather on the apparent greater density of demonic activity. At
another point in the Life, Nikon saves Sparta from an epidemic of plague by
insisting that the Jewish population be expelled (Life 33). It is likely that Jews
were found in the cities of the Peloponnese, as in other parts of the Byzan-
tine Empire, but this chapter is perhaps no more than an anti-Judaic topos;
there is no indication that Nikon sought to engage with the Jews (nor indeed
with the Melingoi, who are thwarted rather than converted). After living and
preaching in the Peloponnese for about thirty years, Nikon died and was
buried there. After his death he remained a source of miracles; more than a
third of the Life is devoted to recording these posthumous wonders.
The Life of St Nikon gives a glimpse of the need for inner mission in the
Byzantine Empire, though this is subordinated to an account of the life of a
wandering preacher as a possible model of asceticism.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
APPROACHING THE END OF THE

FIRST CHRISTIAN MILLENNIUM
I t is difficult to be clear about how far the end of the first C hristian mil-
lennium was feared or welcomed, or even noticed. The system of dating
years anno Domini-by the year of the Lord-was well established in the West,
though never became universal in the East, where chronicles were con-
structed according to the year of creation, the creation being reckoned as hav-
ing taken place about 5,500 years before the Incarnation of the Lord. The end
of the first millennium was then halfway through the seventh millennium;
perhaps there was another 500 years left. But there are events that seem to
mark the end of the first, or the beginning of the second, millennium: the
"conversion" of Iceland, the granting of crown and kingly status to the rulers
of Poland and Hungary, for example, especially if these latter events are seen
as aspects of Otto Ill's vision of a renewal of the Christian Roman Empire.
It also seems to be the case that monastic literature associated with Cluny is
full of a sense of foreboding as the tenth century progresses, though it must
be remembered that a sense of living under the shadow of, and in anticipa-
tion of, the age to come is of the very essence of monasticism. Whether
related to such fateful themes or not, there is a sense in which the tum of the
first Christian millennium, in both East and West, can be seen as a turning
point. It is with such considerations that we shall bring this section to a close.
The last years of the tenth century and the first years of the eleventh saw
the Byzantine Empire regain something of its former majesty, or, put another
way, saw imperial expansion that brought the Byzantine vision somewhat
closer to historical reality. This process was well under way during the reigns
of the two military "usurpers," Nikephoros II Phokas and John Tzimiskes.
This expansion took place on three fronts. First of all, several of the Greek
islands that had been subject to Muslim rule since the seventh century were
reclaimed by Byzantium: notably, Crete in 961 and Cyprus in 965. Secondly,

the Byzantines continued the advance east that was already taking place in
the ninth century. The Paulicians on the frontier around Tefrike had been
conquered and begun to be assimilated with the fall ofTefrike in 878, open-
ing the way to an advance into Armenia, which provoked the negotiations
between the Byzantines led by Photios and the Armenian Church that we
briefly looked at in the last section. In the course of the tenth century the
eastern &on tier of the Empire was pushed farther back, incorporating into the
Empire the Taurus mountains and extending Byzantine territory into north-
ern Syria, Antioch itself being taken by the Byzantines in 969. To the north-
east, the Empire absorbed Armenia, which made critical the questions that
Photios had struggled with in the ninth century, though to the Christologi-
cal questions that he addressed there were now added questions of liturgical
practice, notably the question of the use of unleavened bread in the
Eucharist, which was the Armenian practice, in contrast to the Byzantines,
who used leavened bread-an issue that was soon to be raised between the
Greek and the Latin Churches. Thirdly, in the course of the reign of Basil II,
the Bulgarian Empire was conquered and incorporated into the Byzantine
Empire. As a result of this conquest, the Bulgarian Church lost its patriarch
(and therefore its autocephaly}, and was ruled as part of the Byzantine
Church, with an archbishop subject to Constantinople. The conquest of Bul-
garia was a long, slow process, beginning in the reigns of Nikephoros and
John Tzimiskes. It was only in 1018, in the last decade of Basil II's reign-after
insurrection in Bulgaria and rebellions in Byzantium itself had been put
down-that finally Basil conquered Bulgaria and incorporated it into the
Byzantine structure of themes. With all this recovery of territory, the Byzan-
tine Empire came to embrace the whole northeastern comer of the Mediter-
ranean world, with the Danube forming its northern frontier.
This expansion of Byzantine territory should have secured power and
prosperity for the Empire; in fact, as we shall see, the Empire found itself
overstretched and these successes contributed to its decline in the eleventh
century. But temporarily they greatly strengthened the Empire, for the
Byzantine Empire was-and remained until the end of the twelfth century-
an Empire with an efficient fiscal system through which taxes on land and
subjects were collected. Through this system, the emperor disposed of
immense wealth, with the result that the emergence of the military aristoc-
Approaching the End ofthe First Christian Millennium
racy did not so much represent the creation of an alternative power base
within the Empire, as a seedbed for those seeking to seize the imperial throne.
On his embassy to the court of Constantine Porphyrogennetos already men-
tioned, Liudprand of Cremona witnessed the pre-Easter ceremony at which
the Byzantine courtiers received their yearly pay-"a strange and wonderful
sight," he calls it:
In the week before the feast Vaiophoron, which we call the Feast of Palms,
the emperor makes a payment in gold coins to his vassals and to the dif-
ferent officers of his court, each one receiving a sum proportionate to his
office ... The procedure was as follows . A table was brought in, fifteen feet
long and six feet broad, which had upon it parcels of money tied up in
bags, according to each man's due, the amount being written on the out-
side of the bag. The recipients then came in and stood before the king,
advancing in order as they were called up by a herald. The first to be sum-
moned was the marshall of the palace, who carried off his money, not in
his hands but on his shoulders, together with four cloaks of honour [as
Liudprand calls the skaramangia, the richly embroidered kaftan-like court
robes]. After him came the commander in chief of the army and the lord
high admiral of the fleet. These being of equal rank received an equal num-
ber of moneybags and cloaks, which they did not carry off on their shoul-
ders but with some assistance dragged laboriously away. After them came
twenty-four controllers, who each received twenty-four pounds of gold
coins together with two cloaks. Then followed the order of patricians, of
whom every one in tum was given twelve pounds of gold and one cloak
... After them came a huge crowd of minor dignitaries .. . Some of these
received seven pounds of gold, others six, five, four, three, two and one,
according to their rank. I would not have you think that this was all done
in one day. It began on the fifth day of the week at six o'clock in the morn-
ing and went on until ten, and the emperor finished his part in the pro-
ceedings on the sixth and seventh day. Those who take less than a pound
receive their share, not from the emperor, but &om the chief chamberlain
during the week before Easter. 1
Kings and emperors in the West disposed of nothing like so much wealth;
even Charlemagne scarcely approached it, and his wealth was derived, not
1
Antapodosis 6.IO (trans. Wright, pp. 2n-u).
from the relatively reliable source of taxation, but from the plunder and trib-
ute that were the fruits of his annual summer military campaigns. The estab-
lishment of kings and emperors in the West was a search for symbols of
authority, not the exercise, as in the Byzantine Empire, of an established
authority with access to readily available resources. Both Byzantine emperor
and Western monarch drew on traditional models of kingship: on the tradi-
tions-Hellenistic and otherwise-of divine kingship, on the biblical tradi-
tions of the anointed kings of the Old Testament, and on the power exercised
by a successful military commander with the trust and support of his armies.
In the West, however, claims to such traditions needed to be justified against
other nobles who, unlike the aristocracy of the Byzantine Empire, com-
manded resources and military power comparable with that of the king or
emperor. So the appeal to the traditions of anointed kingship of the Old Tes-
tament was translated into actual ceremonies of anointing with sacred oil by
archbishops and popes: a ceremony apparently first used by the Visigothic
kings. (There was no ceremony of imperial anointing in Byzantium until the
thirteenth century, by which time the Byzantine imperial office was con-
tested and a shadow of its former se1£)2 Other ways of invoking "such divin-
ity [that] doth hedge a king" included possession of a sacred relic or sacred
diadem, marriage into a lineage of undoubted regal or imperial standing,
even the cultivation of a regal bearing- Photios in his letter to Khan Boris lays
emphasis on the importance of stately bearing, dignified speech;3 Widukind
spoke of Otto I's "fiery glowing eyes which sent forth a gleam like a flash of
lightning. " 4
The Ottonians drew on all these means. Most important among them
was, perhaps, papal coronation and anointing, but a marriage with a scion of
the Byzantine imperial family was also much coveted and was achieved-if
perhaps not as signally as was hoped-by the marriage ofTheophano, John
Tzirniskes' niece, to Otto II in 972. Theophano was not a "purple-born"
l()n anointing as part of the inauguration ritual of a ruler, and on the place of anointing in the
Byzantine world, see Janet L. Nelson, "Symbols in Context: Rulers' Inauguration Rituals in Byzan-
tiwn and the West in the Early Middle Ages," in The OrthodlJx Churches and the West, ed. Derek Baker,
SCH 13, Oxford: Blackwell, 1976, pp. 97-n9; and D .M. Nicol,• K.aisersal.bung-. The Unction ofEmper-
ors in Late Byzantine Coronation Ritual," Byzantine and Modmz Greek Studies 2 (1976): 37--52.
3Photios, Ep. 1.674-703 (Laourdas-Westerink, I, p. 23; trans. White-Berrigan, p. 6o).
4 ~oted by Karl Leyser in his &le and Conflict in an Early MtdllVal Socury: Ollonian Sax01ry, Lon-
don : Edward Arnold, t979, p . 83.

Approaching the End ofthe First Christian Millennium
princess, nor was John Tzimiskes' claim to the imperial throne beyond the
charge of usurpation, but it looks as if Theophano brought with her some of
the aspirations of Byzantine court culture; Ottonian art is likely to owe some-
thing to Byzantine influence, though the influence of Byzantine art was
already oflong standing, and Byzantine and Carolingian art (of which Otton-
ian art was a continuation) had common roots in the art of Late Antiquity,
when the distinction between East and West was less meaningful, so that it is
difficult to be definitive about the question of influence. 5 It is likely, how-
ever, that the influence ofTheophano and the idea ofByzantine imperial rule
that she brought with her lay behind her son Otto III's ideas about an reno-
vatio imperii Romanorum-a renewal of the empire of the Romans. Otto's clos-
est advisers will have ensured that his ideal of a renewed Roman Empire
under the joint rule ofEmperor and Pope had a strongly spiritual dimension,
and also was inspired by the heritage of the East. His godfather and tutor was
a Greek monk from southern Italy, John Philagathos. Another Greek ascetic
was counted among his closest advisers: St Neilos of Grottaferrata. His other
advisers included St Romuald of Ravenna, St Bruno of Q!ierfurt and St
Odilo, abbot of Cluny, "the archangel of monks," and the Slav, St Adalbert
of Prague. Another was his tutor and friend, Gerbert, whose election to the
papal throne he secured in 999 and who took the significant name of
Sylvester II, recalling the fourth-century pope Sylvester, who was at this time
believed to have been a close collaborator with Constantine the Great and to
have baptized him. Under the joint patronage of Sylvester and Otto, Otto's
vision for Europe was to have been realized. We can see something of his
plans, as we have noticed above, in the granting of kingly status to the dukes
of Poland and Hungary in 1000 (or rnor), two countries that placed them-
selves under the authority of the pope. His premature death in 1002 put an
end to his plans, and there was no one to fulfil his vision in all its spiritual
depth. The eleventh century, as we shall see, was to see the birth of another
ideal for Europe, more exclusively based on a reformed papacy.
5
See Henry Mayr-Harting, Ouonian Book Illumination: An Historical Survey, London: Harvey
Miller, 1999 (originally published 1991), l, pp. 209-II, and the articles by Jacqueline Lafontaine-Dosogne
and H. Westermann-Angerhausen, in Adelbert Davies, ed., The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and !he
West at the Tum efthe Firsl Millm11ium, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 2II-JO, 244-64.
PART IV
AD I000-1071
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
INTRODUCTION
T he eleventh century saw the date that has come to be regarded as the
date of the Great Schism between Greek East and Latin West: 1054. The
events of this year, however-the mutual excommunications exchanged
between the recumenical patriarch Michael Keroularios and the papal legates
led by Cardinal Humbert-made no impact on Byzantine sources, which
ignore them, and in the West there does not seem to have been any sense of
final schism. It is only with hindsight that the events of this year have
assumed such significance as to warrant the revocation of the anathemas of
1054 by Pope Paul VI and Patriarch Athenagoras in 1965. The events of 1054
did, however, raise issues that have endured, which will be discussed in due
course. The eleventh century was important in other ways for the life of the
Church. In the West, the most important matter was the birth of the so-called
Papal Reform Movement (sometimes called the Hildebrandine, or Grego-
rian, Reform, after Hildebrand, who became Pope Gregory VII in w7.3). This
movement only had its beginnings in the period covered by this volume; it
reached its fruition in the final quarter of the eleventh century and in the
twelfth and, as the title of the sequel to this volume suggests-The Christian
East and the Rise of the Papary 1-is a major theme in that volume. The begin-
nings of the movement need to be discussed here, however, for it could be
argued that the most important element in the events of 1054 is to be found
in the attitudes of the papal legates: attitudes that were based on the princi-
ples of the Reform Movement. Closely bound up with the Papal Reform
Movement was the movement for monastic renewal that we see emerging at
the tum of the millennium, in which we find a new element introduced into
Western monasticism-or, an old element restored-namely the quest for soli-
tude given expression in the various forms of the eremitical life. This com-
1
Aristeides Papadakis, in collaboration with John Meyendorff, 1be Christian East and the Rise efthe
Papaq: The Church AD 1071- 1453, The Church in History 4, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1994.
mon inspiration is found in several of the key figures involved, notably Peter
Damian and Romuald of Ravenna-the Romuald we have already encoun-
tered amongst the spiritual advisers who encouraged the emperor Otto in his
rather different ideas of reform.
For the Byzantine Empire the eleventh century is at once a period of
decline and of splendour, which is not so much a paradoxical contrast as typ-
ical of Byzantium, in that very much the same mixture of political decline
and intense intellectual activity resurfaces in the fourteenth century. At the
end of Basil II's reign in 1025, the empire had attained its greatest expansion
since the rise of Islam and regained much of its power and wealth. Within
fifty years this had been squandered: in 1071, the terminal year of this book,
the Byzantine Empire suffered a double defeat-at the hands of the Seljuk
Turks at Manzikert in Armenia, where the emperor himself, Romanos IV
Diogenes, was taken prisoner, and at Bari in southern Italy, at the hands of
the Normans. The defeat at Manzikert opened Asia Minor to the Turks, and
the defeat at Bari spelt the end of the Byzantine presence in southern Italy.
This political decline was accompanied by courtly splendour in Constantino-
ple, and the cultivation of a remarkable intellectual culture. At the centre of
this intellectual revival was Michael Psellos, a controversial figure, sometime
courtier, sometime monk, who left a large body of writings-philosophical,
theological, literary and historical. In his history or Chronographia, covering
the reigns of the Byzantine emperors from Basil II to Michael VII (976-1078),
he sheds a valuable, though uneven, light on the Byzantine court, and his
own importance, which he tends to exaggerate. His philosophical and theo-
logical works have been comparatively neglected, save for the evidence they
give of heterodox, not to say heretical, inclinations-his immense learning in
the pagan Neoplatooists, and his fondness for astrology-though there are
now fine modem editions of many of them. 2 Michael Psellos was influential,
and the condemnation of John Italos in 1082 (beyond the scope of this vol-
ume) was doubtless intended to damage Psellos' memory, but the eleventh
century also saw another great writer, Symeon the "New Theologian," whose
life just overlapped with that of Psellos (Symeon: 949-1022, or perhaps
956-1036; Psellos: 1018-after 1081?). Symeon was a monk, a monastic reformer,
indeed more generally a spiritual reformer, a visionary and "mystic," a super-
Zfor details of these modem editions, see the bibliography.

Introduction 2 73
lative representative of what the Byzantines called the "inner wisdom," just
as Psellos was of the "outer wisdom." The eleventh century also saw a sus-
tained movement of Byzantine monastic renewal often called the ''Reform
Movement," associated with monasteries such as the Evergetis Monastery in
or near Constantinople, together with other monastic foundations in the
empire, as well as the beginnings of Russian monasticism in Kiev.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
MONAST IC DEVE LOPMENTS
A 11 the developments of monasticism we shall look at in this chapter

reach well beyond rn71; indeed in most cases all we can deal with
within the time limits of this volume are the beginnings of various move-
ments that flourished later. The new rhetoric about monasticism in the
West-what C.H. Lawrence has justly called the "quest for the primitive" 1-
found its fulfilment in the Cistercian movement, the creation of orders of
canons following the "Rule of St Augustine" ("regular canons"), and the pro-
vision for the eremitical life in the Carthusian order: all of which belong to
the period after rn71. Similarly, the principles of monastic reform manifest in
the regulation of the Evergetis monastery were taken up by others and
became a veritable Reform Movement in the late eleventh and the twelfth
centuries. The same is true for the history of the Caves Monastery in Kiev;
what we have is a body of material-the Paterik of the Caves Monastery-that
began to be put together in the thirteenth century, not long before Kiev was
sacked by the Mongols, that looked back over nearly two centuries of monas-
tic life (though the most typical form, the second Cassian redaction, was
compiled in 1462). But all these ventures began within our period, so it is
appropriate that we look at this half-century or so of new beginnings.
The Q!iest for Solitude

In the preface to her book The Desert Fathers, Helen Waddell says that "I first
came to the Vitae Patrum . . . not for its own sake, but in a plan I had of read-
ing for myself, with a mind emptied, what the ordinary medieval student
would have read, to find the kind of furniture his imagination lived among."2
1See Lawrence, Niedieval /tlfonasticism, pp. 149-73, on which much that follows is based.
2Waddell, 7be Desert Fathm , p. viii.
2 75
This collection of stories, mainly of the Fathers of the fourth-century Egyp-

tian Desert, had long presented a kind of golden age of asceticism, as it was
doubtless intended to do when first put together probably in Palestine or
Syria in the late fifth century. As men-and women-over the centuries sought
after the roots of the monastic life of asceticism, they had constant recourse
to these stories and sayings. Such recourse was not difficult; the manuscript
tradition of the Vitae Patrum testifies to their popularity, to the extent that, as
Waddell indicates, they formed the "kind of furniture" among which the
medieval student's "imagination lived." The same is even more evidently true
of the East, so that it is not in the least surprising that all the movements of
monastic renewal discussed in this chapter found their inspiration in what we
now know in English as the "Sayings of the Desert Fathers. "3
The impulse towards monastic renewal in the West at the beginning of
the new millennium looked back to the simplicity of what was thought of as
the early accounts of monasticism, a simplicity that the form of monasticism
promoted by the Carolingian and Cluniac reforms had failed to attain. In the
stories of the Desert Fathers there was to be found a singleness of purpose
about the pursuit of the ascetic life, a single-minded devotion to a life of
prayer. In truth, in looking at the lives of the Desert Fathers the medieval
readers probably saw in them the living out of a still older way of life, asso-
ciated with the Old Testament prophet Elias or the forerunner of the Lord,
St John the Baptist. Others looked back to the account of the way of life of
the apostles as depicted in Acts, who held all things in common and devoted
themselves to "teaching and fellowship, the breaking of bread and prayers"
(cf. Acts 2:42-47). Both examples seemed uncluttered compared with the
heavy burden of liturgical worship, and the need to look after the monastic
endowments, that had come to characterize even "reformed" Benedictine
monasticism. Indeed, the Rule of St Benedict legislated for a very different
life from that lived in monasteries that followed the Aachen decrees ; St Bene-
dict had envisaged a community of monks, living together as brothers, sup-
porting themselves by the work of their own hands and committed to
common prayer and the asceticism of living together. The search for a
reformed Benedictine practice, however, mostly lies beyond the scope of this
31be most accessible, though not entirely satisfactory, English translation from the Greek (Wad-
dell's selection is translated from the Latin) is that by Benedicta Ward SLG, "!be St{Yings ofthe Desert
Fathers: "!be Alphabetical Coll«ti<m, Cistercian Studies 59, Kalamazoo Ml: Cistercian Publications, 1975.
Monastic Developments 2 77
volume. The beginnings of this "quest for the primitive" were inspired by the
stark ideals of the solitary life, as depicted in the "Sayings of the Desert
Fathers."
Two men in particular catch our attention: St Romuald of Ravenna and
(as it happens) his biographer, St Peter Damian. Romuald was, as already
noted, one of the group from whom Otto III had sought advice and inspira-
tion. He was from Ravenna, born into a ducal family, who fled to the monas-
tery of Sant' Apollinare in Classe in Ravenna after his father had killed a man
in a dispute. His noble background is worth noting; most of those who fol-
lowed his path shared that background. Paradoxically, the search for lives of
genuine poverty was partly the result of the greater prosperity of the eleventh
century, for it was men from wealthy backgrounds who were attracted by the
stark asceticism of the Desert Fathers. 4 Romuald quickly became dissatisfied
with the lax standards of the monastery. He was looking for something more
like the lives he found in the Vitae Patrum, so he left the monastery in
Ravenna to live as a hermit, first in the Veneta, and later in the Pyrenees near
to the abbey of Cuxa. Eventually he returned to Italy and there in about 1022,
with the support of the bishop Teodaldo, he founded a monastery in the Tus-
can hills near Arezzo at Camaldoli. This monastery marked the beginnings
of the eremitical life in the West. Very much on the pattern of the Palestin-
ian lavras of the fifth century-or what Athanasios the Athonite had estab-
lished fifty or so years earlier on Mount Athas-he combined a coenobitic
monastery with provision for hermits in the mountainous crags higher up in
the ravine behind the monastery. The monastery became a place of training
for the eremitical life. Benedict had explicitly provided for such a pattern of
monasticism, comprising a coenobitic monastery with provision for hermits
who had proved themselves in the common life, but at Camaldoli there was
a much greater focus on the erernitical life than Benedict had envisaged.
Romuald was not the only person in search of a more demanding asceti-
cism than that provided for by monasteries on the pattern of Cluny. Another
experiment on much the same pattern is found in John Gualberto's founda-
tion at Vallombrosa. John, a Florentine, had begun his monastic life at San
Miniato, overlooking Florence. He found the regime too lax and for a time
Lived at Camaldoli, but eventually in his foundation at Vallombrosa set up a
4
See Alexander Murray's reflections on this in his &ason and Society in the Middle Agts, 2nd ed.,
Oxford: Clarendon P~ess, 1985, pp. 317-404 ("Part IV: Nobility and Religion").
Benedictine community of which the central purpose was a contemplative

life of prayer. Lay brothers were recruited to enable the monks to live a life
of seclusion from the world. Rather than seeing in the life of the hermit the
ideal of the contemplative life, Gualberto sought this ideal where Benedict
had found it: in a community of brothers, devoted to a life of prayer together.
Nonetheless, Gualberto's understanding of the Benedictine life marked a
change from the way it had been understood hitherto: chapter 73, the last
chapter of the Rule, instead of being treated as a mere concluding chapter to
the Rule, came to be regarded as a signpost to the real purpose of the Rule-
to lead the monk to "the loftier heights of wisdom and virtue," doctrinae vir-
tutumque culmina. It was such an understanding of the Benedictine Rule that
would inspire the reform of the Cistercians. 5
Another example of this search for the solitary life is found in Peter
Damian. An immensely talented and well-educated man, born, like
Romuald, in Ravenna, Damian early on reacted against his education and the
prospects it offered, and joined a community of solitaries living at Fonte
Avellana in the Apennines, a foundation that had been inspired by Romuald,
whom he revered without ever having known him, and whose biographer he
became. Damian is one of the first in the West to express his thirst for con-
templation in the language and imagery of the Song of Songs: a tradition that
was to receive rare celebration in the centuries that followed, pre-eminently
in St Bernard of Clairvaux and his homilies on the Song of Songs. Like John
Gualberto and even Romuald, Damian saw his understanding of monasti-
cism as a development of Benedictine ideals, only he regarded the Rule as a
kind of starting-point from which individuals might seek lives of greater
severity. He spoke of the Rule as a "great and spacious mansion, in which all
sorts and conditions of men may dwell," but within this mansion he spoke
to those who want "to scale the mountain-tops." 6 Damian became the
prophet of the eremitical movement, and founded more monasteries on the
model of Fonte Avellana. As at Camaldoli, there was a central house where
a very strict form of the coenobitic life was lived, the monks going barefoot,
5
1 owe this notion of "Rule 73 Benedictinism" to a stimulating seminar paper given by Heruy
Mayr-Harting, published as "Benedictine Holiness" in Holimss: Past and Presmt, ed. Stephen Barton,
London: T. & T. Clarie, 2003, pp. 26o,8. Mayr-Harting applied this notion to the seventeenth-<:entury
English Benedictine monk Dom Augustine Baker, but it is equally relevant to the eleventh century.
6 On the Pafecli.on efMonks7; in St Peter Damian, Sekcted Writings on the SpiritlJl11.Life, translated with
an introduction by Patricia McNulty, London: Faber & Faber, 1959, pp. 96, 98.
Monastic Developments 2 79
fasting most of the time and four days a week having a single meal of bread,
salt and water. Further up in the mountainous areas chosen for these monas-
teries were the caves in which the strict hermits dwelt, reciting the monastic
office alone, reading the Psalter, occupied in manual work and spiritual read-
ing (the lectio divina). The monastic office is, of course, intended for a com-
munity of monks, and thus includes greetings and responses: "The Lord be
with you (plural: Dominus vobiscum)-And with your spirit." Is the solitary to
omit these responses, as he is on his own? Damian wrote a treatise devoted
to this question, in which he insisted that the office is to be used as it stands,
and is justified because
the Church of Christ is united in all her parts by such a bond of love that
her several members form a single body and in each one the whole Church
is mystically present; so that the whole Church universal may rightly be
called the one bride of Christ, and on the other hand every single soul can,
because of the mystical effect of the sacrament, be regarded as the whole
Church.7
The solitary is then not alone, but united to the whole church; indeed, the
solitary life represents the deepest truth of the Church:
The solitary life is indeed a school of heavenly learning, a training in divine

arts. There all that we learn is God; He is the way by which we proceed and
through which we come to a knowledge of the highest truth. The her-
mitage is a paradise of delight where the &agrant scents of the virtues are
breathed forth like sweet sap or glowing spice-flowers. 8
It is then no surprise that, in the Paradiro, as Dante enters the seventh sphere,
the sphere of the contemplatives, named after Saturn, it is Peter Damian that
he encounters, mantled in divine light, in the silence of contemplation,
which Damian explains to Dante thus:
Thy hearing is mortal even as thy sight ... therefore there is no singing
here for the same reason that Beatrice has no smile. I have come down the
steps of the sacred stairway so far only to give thee welcome with speech
and with the light that mantles me; nor was it greater love that made me
7 The Book ofrrThe Lard Be with !vu" 5: in McNulty, Peter Damian, p. 57·
8Ibid., p. 19 (Mc ulry, p. 74).
swifter, for love as much and more bums up there, as the flaming shows
thee, but the deep charity which makes us prompt in service of the Coun-
sel that rules the world allots here as thou perceivest. 9
In her selection of translations from St Peter Damian, Patricia McNulty

discusses the sources of his spirituality-in first place, she sets the Apostle Paul
and the Western fathers,Jerome, Augustine and Gregory the Great; in second
place, the monastic writers, Basil, Benedict and Cassian; in third place, St
Romuald-and she adds, "There may possibly be a fourth: the influence of
contemporary Byzantine spirituality," 10 and she sketches in links with the
picture of Byzantine monasticism found in Niketas Stethatos' Life of St
Symeon the New Theologian, and the influence of St Neilos of Rossano, the
founder of Grottaferrata. The influence of the Life of St Symeon is difficult
to estimate, for, as we shall see, Symeon, a controversial figure in his own
time, seems to have had little immediate impact, even in his own Byzantine
world, but the possible influence of St Neilos is worth considering briefly.
Neilos was a Greek from Rossano in Calabria, born about 910 into a distin-
guished family. After a riotous youth, he abandoned the world (and his child)
for the monastic life, and came under the guidance of Phantinos the Younger
at his monastic settlement in northern Calabria. I I From the Lives of various
Calabrian saints of this time, we learn ofltaly' s "new Thebaid" -a revival of
desert monasticism, redolent of the Sayings of the Desert Fathers, with an
emphasis on the life of the hermit, supported by a coenobicic house: the pat-
tern of the old lavra, and also the pattern being established at that time at the
Great Lavra on Mount Athas by St Athanasios the Athonite (whom Phanti-
nos met in Thessaloniki towards the end of his life). At the beginning of the
eleventh century, in 1004, just before his death, Neilos founded the
monastery of Santa Maria di Grottaferrata ('IEQCX Mov'YJ -r~<; Keunrnt2leeric;),
just southeast of Rome. We have already met Neilos in Rome at the turn of
millennium amongst Otto Ill's spiritual advisers, who also included Romuald,
so it is not unlikely that the promotion of the lavriote ideal, which allowed
space for the eremitical life, of Byzantine monasticism in the Italian "New
9
Dante, Paradiso XXI, 61-'72 (John D. Sinclair's translation in Dante, Th, Divine Comedy, Ill.
Paradiso, London : The Bodley Head, 1939, pp. 305-7).
10
McNulry, op. cit, p. 47.
11
For Neilos and Phantinos, see the relevant articles in ODB, 2, pp. 450--51, 1453, 1646, and the
literature cited there.
Monastic Develnpments 281
Thebaid" and on Mount Athas, was an influence on Romuald's quest for the
solitary life, and through him on Peter Damian.
The Reform Movement in Byzantium

The beginnings of the Reform Movement in Byzantine monasticism are to be
found in the monastery founded by Paul Evergetinos dedicated to the "Benef-
icent Mother of God," the E>so,6xoc; Euceybtc;. We are extremely well
informed about this monastery, having not only the foundation document
(the foundation typilwn), but also the liturgical typikon, or Synaxarion, setting
out the liturgical arrangements of the monastery, and the collection of asceti-
cal texts, the so-called Synagoge, or collection, of "the divinely-tongued words
and teachings of the God-bearing and holy Fathers, gathered together from all
their divinely-inspired writing," or Evergetinos, a vast collection of stories and
sayings and excerpts from the ascetical tradition, something like a cross
between the Sayings ofthe Desert Fathers and the Philokalia ofthe Ho{y Ascetics,
collected and published by St Makarios of Corinth and St Nikodimos of the
Holy Mountain in 1782 (the year before the first edition of the Synagoge was
published in Venice). 12 What we do not know is where the Evergetis monastery
was, except that it was somewhere in the environs of Constantinople. 13
The monastery was founded in 1048 or 1049 by a certain Paul, a wealthy
man of Constantinople, on a suburban estate about two miles outside the
land walls of the city. Paul was the first superior for five years until his death
in 1054. The original monastery was a modest affair consisting of a few small
cells inhabited by his disciples. On his death, Paul was succeeded by Tim-
othy, one of his early disciples. During his period as superior, as the founda-
tion typikon makes clear (which dates from Timothy's period as abbot, and
was probably composed by him), the monastery was virtually refounded: the
community church was built, as were new cells for the monks; the monastery
12The Tbeotokos Evugetis monastery is the subject of a major research project, under the direction
of Margaret Mullett, at the University of Belfast, Nonhem Ireland. So far the following volumes have
been published: The 1beotokos Evergetis and Eleventh-century Monasticism, eds. Margaret Mullett and
Anthony Kirby, Belfast Byzantine Tens and Translations 6.1, Belfast 1994; Work and Worship al the
Tbeotokos Evergetis, ed. iisdem, BBTT 6.2, 1997; The Synaxarion ifthe Monastery ofthe Tbeotokos Evergetis,
trans. Robert H. Jordan, BBTI 6.5, 2000. The foundation typikon of the Evugetis monastery is trans-
lated in Byzantine lv!onaslic Foundation Doa,ments, II, pp. 454-5o6.
13 For a discussion of the location, see Lyn Rodley, "Evergetis: Where It Was and What It Looked
Like," in The Tbeotokos Evergetis and Eleventh-century Monasticism, pp. 17-29.

was provided with sacred vessels, books and icons, and endowed with land.
Timothy himself lived as a recluse in a hermitage attached to the principal
monastery (the monastery having a dependent house, a metochion, in the city
itself). What the foundation typikon relates is Timothy's second foundation
of the monastery, though there is no reason to suppose that Paul envisaged
anything very different. Paul's principal legacy to Byzantine monasticism and
the Church is his great anthology, the Synagoge.14
The Evergetis monastery is the first monastery to enshrine the principles
of what has come to be called the "Byzantine Reform Movement," the pur-
pose of which was to protect the monks &om encroachment on the inde-
pendence of the monastery and the monastic life it sought to foster. 15 This
was achieved by a series of provisions. First of all, the typikon provided for
institutional independence and self-government; the monastery was placed
under the protection of the Mother of God and under her the superior, a state
of affairs established by "chrysobulls of emperors now dead," and a solemn
curse was issued against anyone who sought to take control of the monastery
(typ. 12). 16 The Reform was therefore opposed to the institution of charistike,
whereby a layperson was appointed to look after the monastery's temporal
affairs, though the Evergetis typikon does not explicitly mention charistike-
diplomatically, as charistike was still used and defended by Patriarch and
Emperor throughout the eleventh century. The Reform was clearer about
condemning external control than being specific about how a monastery was
to be governed; the Evergetis typikon lays down principles, effectively making
the superior, in consultation with the leading monks, the ruler of the foun-
dation, and provides for succession by a combination of nomination on the
part of the superior and appointment after consultation by the leading
monks of the community (typ. 14). Another important matter was control
over admission to the community. After a century or so, during which monks
could be imposed on the community by the emperor, patriarch or charistikar-
ios, Evergetis insisted on a novitiate and careful examination of monks com-
14 Publisbed in 4 vols., 6th ed., Athens, 1993- An English translation is being prepared by the Belfast
project, just mentioned.

150n the Reform movement, see Byzanlint Monastic Foundation DoCJtmtnls, II, pp. 44r73, and for
the Evergetis monastery in particular the introduction to the translation: pp. 454--'71 (the translation
follows on pages pp. 472-5o6).
1•References to the foundation typikon are to tbe paragraphs as numbered in the translation
referred to in n. 12.
Monastic Devel.opments
ing already tonsured from another monastery (typ. 37); it also declined to
determine a set number of monks, so as not to have to accept unsuitable
recruits (typ. 23). The Reform also saw in coenobitic monasticism a more
robust protection against corrupt administration and asset stripping, and
therefore laid stress on the institution of the coenobium. Finally, the Reform
sought to restrict the privileges claimed by patrons; in the Evergetis typikon the
only trace left of such privileges is the provision of memorial services for
departed founders.
These were the general principles of the Reform movement, manifest in
the early typikon of the Theotokos Evergetis monastery, which in the later
eleventh and the twelfth centuries were to become widely implemented. The
Evergetis monastery itself embraced these principles with a certain radicalism,
reminiscent of the Stoudite reform of the ninth century. As a coenobitic
community, that is a community of equal monks, the Evergetis typikon was
hostile to aristocratic privilege, and strict about equality in food, drink and
dress, even in the case of officials of the monastery, the only exception being
in the provision of special food for the sick (typ. 17, 26). The principle of
poverty was taken seriously for the same reason: monks were to have no per-
sonal possessions, without the permission of the superior, who had the right
to enter the cells and confiscate unauthorized possessions (typ. 27). No ser-
vants were permitted. The monks also lived two to a cell, with an attempt
being made to pair the elderly with the younger, the educated and the uned-
ucated. Importance was attached to the performance of the monastic office,
detailed regulations for which were set out in the liturgical typikon. However,
there seems to have been a distinction between monks who lived in the
monastery and carried out the services, and "the more uneducated majority"
who performed various ministries both inside and outside the monastery (typ.
7). This "majority" included literate monks who served as administrators of
the monastery's dependencies and other properties, and other, illiterate
monks who held offices such as cellarers, bakers, cooks and muleteers. Cen-
tral to the spiritual life of the community was exagoreusis, the hearing of
"thoughts" by the superior, a task which he might delegate to others for the
"uneducated majority," if numbers become too great. This practice, described
in much the same terms as for the ninth-century Stoudites, established a spir-
itual bond between the superior and his monks. Such hearing of thoughts
might involve something more like formal confession with absolution, but it
was clearly broader in scope than this, enabling the superior to direct the spir-
itual lives of his monks. Also important to the spiritual life of the commu-
nity were the celebration of the Divine Liturgy and the reception of Holy
Communion. The Divine Liturgy was celebrated daily; Communion was
received three times a week by the "pure" and by others once a week or less.
The decision about how often to receive Communion lay with the superior,
not with the individual monk, but no monk should "think himself unworthy
of Communion without informing" the superior (typ. 7). Fasting was to be
carefully observed, but the rules laid down were comparatively lenient. The
monastery also assumed care for the poor and the sick: there was a daily dis-
tribution of food at the gate of the monastery, and provision for care of the
sick in the infirmary.
Accounts of the monastic life given in the typika, whether foundation
documents or synaxaria, are necessarily somewhat external; one only catches
glimpses of the inner ascetic life of the monk. In the case of the Evergetis
monastery, however, we have also the collection of ascetical material put
together by Paul Evergetinos, called the Synagoge or the Evergetinos. This gives
us a much fuller picture of the kind of reading expected of a monk. The Ever-
getinos is arranged thematically into a number of"hypotheses" or issues to be
considered: the very first "hypothesis" is "How it is necessary never to
despair, even if one has sinned much, but through repentance to hope in sal-
vation." To each hypothesis there corresponds a series of quotations from
ascetic literature: in the case of this first hypothesis, there are citations from
Palladios' Lausiac History, from the life of St Syncletike, again from Palladios,
from the Gerontikon (i.e., the Sayings of the Fathers), from a sermon of St
Amphilochios, from Blessed Paul the Simple, disciple of St Antony, from St
Ephrem the Syrian, from Abba Isaias, from Mark the Monk, and finally again
from the Gerontikon. The principal sources (arranged in order of frequency)
are: the Gerontikon, Ephrem the Syrian, Abba Isaias, Mark the Monk, Maxi-
mos the Confessor, Palladios, Gregory the Great (from the Greek translation
of the Dialogues by Pope Zacharias), Isaac the Syrian, Diadochos of Photike,
Barsanouphios of Gaza, Antiochos the author of the Pandects (a seventh-cen-
tury monk, whose Pandects are a compilation of patristic sources illustrating
passages from Scripture), and the Life ofSt Syncletike. 17 This selection is inter-
17Sec John Wortley, "The Genre and Sources of the Synagoge," in Tix Tbeotokos Evergetis and
Elevtnth-«nlury Monaslicism, p. 34 .
ivfon astic Developments
esting for several reasons. First, the prominence given to the Gerontikon her-
alds the fact that Paul's understanding of monasticism was rooted in the
desert tradition, even though his monastery had a suburban situation; we
recall that Paul and his successor Timothy lived as recluses. Most of the rest
of the principal sources belong to the same tradition: obviously so in the
cases oflsaias, Mark, Palladios, and Barsanouphios. Gregory the Great's Dia-
logues constitute a similar collection of material from sixth-century Italy.
Ephrem and Isaac represent the Syriac tradition in Greek translation: access
to Isaac being provided by the translation, mentioned above, made by two
monks of the Mar Saba monastery in Palestine in the ninth century, though
the "Ephrem" is the "Greek Ephrem" whose connexion with the great poet
and theologian of the fourth century is not at all clear. 18 Maximos the Con-
fessor and Diadochos of Photike represent a tradition that combines pro-
found intellectual reflection with the ascetic tradition. Paul's principle of
selection is both focused and catholic-flanking the Byzantine tradition with
Latin and Syriac sources. The work is arranged in four volumes: the first treat-
ing of the practical aspects of the life of withdrawal from the world, the sec-
ond of life in community and the threats to it, notably self-love (tptA.O:u,[a),
the third of the acquisition of the virtues, the fourth of union with God and
the means to gaining this-a typical Byzantine list, including quietness
(11auxicx), the love of God, the experience of dereliction, the nature of unceas-
ing prayer, the practice of lectio divina, the role of the intellect (vou<;), contem-
plation (0swe(a), grace, 0wAOyfo:, and freedom from passions (&mx0e:tcx). 19
Just a year before Paul's death, another Byzantine monk died on Mount
Galesios. This was Lazaros, whose life embraced virtually all that monastic
life had to offer in Byzantium and beyond. 20 A native of the M£ander val-
ley, he made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, lived there for several years, and
indeed became a monk there, belonging to various monasteries, mainly the
Monastery of Mar Saba, pursuing for a period the life of a hermit, only leav-
18 0n the "Greek Ephrem," see Archimandrite Ephrem Lash, "The Greek Writings Attributed co
Saint Ephrem the Syrian," in Abba: Tbt Tradition of Orthodo,ry in the Wist, eds. John Behr et al., Crest-
wood NY: SVSP, 2003, pp. 81-98.
19 For this summary account of the Sy11agoge, see Gregory Collins, "A Neglected Manual of the
Spiritual Life: The Synagogt of Paul Evergetinos,9 in Sobomost/Eastem Churches Review 12 (1990): 47-Jl·
20See The Life of Lazaros ofMt. Gakswn, An Ekvtnth-cm.tury Pillar Saint, introduction, translation
and notes by Richard P.H. Greenfield, Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation III, Washington DC:
Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1999.
286 GREE K EAST AN D LATIN WEST
ing after the destruction of the Church of the Anastasis (or the Holy Sepul-
chre) at the orders of the Fatimid caliph al-Hakim in 1009. He then returned
to Asia Minor, on the way visiting the "Wonderful Mountain" near Antioch,
where St Symeon the Younger had once been a stylite, eventually arriving
home, where he, too, became a stylite. After a few years there, he established
himself in a cave on the barren Mount Galesios. He progressed to a pillar.
Soon at its base, there grew up a community of monks attracted by his repu-
tation for sanctity, who also provided for him; the monastery was named
after the Saviour. Twelve years later he moved further up the mountain to
another pillar, called after the Mother of God, at the base of which another
community established itself. For some reason, he then moved again, to yet
another pillar, where there was established yet another community, called
this time after the Resurrection. After a few years, Lazaros, already a sick man
when he arrived at the pillar of the Resurrection, died, in 1053, by which time
he was probably eighty-six years old. He was, as one can see, a determined
ascetic, but he was also a considerable teacher, and a spiritual father with great
gentleness to others, if not to himself. He was, then, ascetic, pilgrim, stylite,
monastic founder, teacher and spiritual father: in these ways fulfilling most
of what the eleventh century might expect from a monk and ascetic. As well
as the three aforementioned foundations linked with the places where
Lazaros lived the stylite life, his steward, Gabriel, at some point sought to take
advantage of the good relations between the Galesian community and the
emperor Constantine IX Monomachos (emperor: 1042-55, whose accession
to the imperial throne Lazaros had prophesied) to establish an imperial
monastery of the Mother of God at Bessai, which would be free from claims
of the metropolitan of Ephesos. This monastery came to be a prosperous
monastery of some 300 monks, bigger and wealthier than the rest of Lazaros'
foundations put together. Despite, or because of, that, it never became
accepted by the rest of the Galesian foundations.
This tension is manifest in the Life oJSt Lazaros ofGalesios, written shortly
after his death, when there were several claimants to Lazaros' reputation, not
to mention those who had crossed this very determined man and regarded
him as a charlatan. The Life-the only source for our information about
Lazaros-sheds light on this struggle for his reputation, for it is itself part of
the struggle. It was written by Gregory, one-time cellarer at the monastery of
the Resurrection. For Gregory, Lazaros belonged to Mount Galesios and the
Monastic Developments
foundations there, despite the fact that other monastic foundations claimed
Lazaros as their founder, almost certainly with justice, not least the one at
Bessai, which had been founded under the imperial patronage. Q!iite apart,
then, &om the picture the Life gives of Lazaros as monk and saint, as we read
it, we see something of the problems sketched above more abstractly, con-
cerning in particular institutional independence, with which the Reform
movement was seeking to deal.
The Beginnings of Russian Monasticism: The Monastery of

the Caves in Kiev
After the conversion of Vladimir, Prince of Kiev, in 988-and maybe earlier,
after the conversion of Olga- monasteries may well have been founded in Rus-
sia, but we know nothing of them. The first monastery in Russia of which we
know anything much is the famous Monastery of the Caves-the "Pechersky
Monastir"-founded by a Russian hermit called Antony, perhaps as early as
1024 or 1025.2 1 Antony was a native Russian who had found his way to Mount
Athos and lived there as a monk. One day his abbot told him to go back to
Russia, and live the monastic life there, with the blessing of the Holy Moun-
tain. Antony obeyed and went to Kiev. There he visited the already existing
monasteries, but not feeling called to any of them, he settled in a cave on a
hill above the river Dnepr, just to the south of Kiev. Gradually a group of dis-
ciples gathered around him, and when they numbered a dozen, he left them
and went off to live as a solitary in another cave, having first appointed one
of his disciples as superior. As the monastery increased, a church dedicated to
the Dormition of the Mother of God was built above ground. In the early
years of the Caves monastery, the monks seem to have lived simply, provid-
ing for themselves by making sandals and cowls and selling them, and &om
donations &om visitors. The Paterik of the monastery proudly claims that
[m]any monasteries have been built by rulers and nobles, using their
wealth, but they are not like those which have been built by tears and fast-
21 For the early history of the C aves monastery, see Muriel H eppell, "lbe Early History o f the
Kievan Monastery of C aves," in Mullett-Kirby, The Tbeotokos Evergetis and Elroenth-«ntury Monasticism,
pp. 56-66, and her introduction ro The Paterik oj1he Kievan Caves M onastery, trans. Mu riel HeppeU, H ar-
vard Library of Early U krainian Literature, English Translations I, C ambridge MA: Harvard U niver-
sity Press, 1989.
ing, prayers and vigil. Antony had neither silver nor gold, but attained his
pwpose by tears and fasting, as I have said. (Paterik 7, p. 22)22
A new stage in the monastery was reached with the appointment of Feo-
dosij (Theodosios) as superior. He had arrived at the Caves monastery while
still very young. Antony had been initially unwilling to accept him, but Feo-
dosij persisted, and was eventually tonsured. He devoted himself to the asce-
tic life with zeal, and in 1062 was appointed superior at the unanimous
request of the monks and with the blessing of Antony. The monastery grew
still further under his leadership. Feodosij began to seek a monastic rule for
the monastery, and eventually adopted a version of the Stoudite rule that had
been drawn up by the patriarch of Constantinople, Alexios Stoudites, for a
monastery he had founded in about 10.34. This rule was imposed by Feodosij
with great strictness, and it is evident that its introduction met with resistance
from some of the monks. Like other later versions of the Stoudite rule, it is
clear that the Caves monastery made provision for the solitary life, so long
as the monks who adopted it had been properly prepared. The Paterik tells of
three eleventh-century monks who adopted the eremitical life against the
advice of the superior-Nikita, Lavrentij and lsaakij-of whom only Lavrentij
proved able to withstand the attacks of the demons. Under Feodosij coeno-
bitical rigour was preserved throughout the monastery, largely, it would seem,
because of his pastoral wisdom, but his successors found it more difficult,
and the tension between the eremitical and coenobitic ideals continued to
plague the monastery.
Our principal source for the early history of the Caves monastery is the
so-called Paterik, which we have already mentioned. It is a collection of thirty-
eight discourses, of very uneven length, about the founding of the monastery
and notable monks. The most reliable and extensive early material concerns
Feodosij (Discourse 8 is a Life of Feodosij and occupies about a quarter of the
Paterik), in comparison with whom Antony is a shadowy figure. The Life of
Feodosij was composed by Nestor, a monk who was received into the
monastery by Feodosij's successor, Stephen-therefore a near contemporary.
The very collection of this material into something called a Paterik is signifi-
cant. It evokes the title of the Greek Paterikon, which, we have seen, gathered
22
References are to the translation mentioned in the preceding note, giving the numbered dis-
course of the PalLrik and the page number ofHeppell's translation.
Monastic Developments
together the deeds and sayings of the fourth-century Desert Fathers, though
a closer parallel can perhaps be found in the collections of lives of the asce-
tics such as Palladios' Lausiac History and the History ofthe Monks ofEgypt (like
the Lausiac History an anonymous account of a visit to the Fathers of the
Egyptian Desert, though often attributed to Palladios in the Byzantine tradi-
tion), and John Moschos' Spiritual Meadow, which were called in the Slavonic
translation the Egipetsky Paterik (for the Lausiac History and the History of the
Monks ofEgypt), and the Sinaisky Paterik (for the Spiritual Meadow). Compared
with these ancient models, the monks of the Kievan Paterik seem prey to all-
too-human failings and sinfulness. Muriel Heppell comments on this "para-
dox," which she says "contains an important spiritual truth, for one thing that
nearly all the monks whose lives are recorded have in common is a steadfast
determination to 'try again' after every fall." 23 It is also true that these pic-
tures of human frailty serve to highlight the conviction, repeated throughout
the Paterik, that those who persevere and die within the precincts of the Caves
monastery will be saved through the prayers of Antony and Feodosij.
23 Heppell, Paterik, Introduction, p. 1.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
REFORM AND THE PAPACY
T he beginning of the new millennium saw population growth and eco-

nomic expansion-especially in the West. The threat of the Vikings had
disappeared; those who had settled in the areas once tyrannized by them had
become Christian, and even back in their homelands, as we have seen, the
process of Christianization was under way. Forests were cleared, and more
land put to the plough to provide for the increasing population. There was an
increase in trade; the eleventh century was a period in which many markets
were established. There were new villages, new churches, new monasteries (of
the last of which we have already seen something). The society that emerged
was a feudal society, based on the manor with its lands worked by serfs who
supported themsdves by farming their own lands and also cultivating the
lands of their feudal overlord. The unsettled conditions of the tenth century
had seriously weakened the central power of King or Emperor, and left some-
thing of a political vacuum, which was filled by the rise of a local aristocracy.
In each region a local lord would come to provide for his own people and for
local lesser magnates. The churches that were built, and paved the way for the
system of parish churches that were to become normal in the high Middle
Ages, were built by the local aristocracy for themselves and for their people,
and the local magnates retained a good deal of control over the facilities they
had provided; they appointed the priests, with the consent of the bishop, and
also laid claim to some part of the revenues such as tithes. We have already
encountered this system of what came to be known as Eigenkirchen or "propri-
etary churches." The local seigneury was also the fount oflocal law and order,
and the lords and knights maintained their own standing armies to enforce
their power. This meant that the threat of external violence was replaced by
fighting amongst the local magnates and their retainers. Young noblemen (and
they were mostly young) grew up to be horsemen, skilled at hunting and fight-
ing. Feudal society was riven by feuds, which were settled by armed combat.
GREEK EAST A.ND LATIN WEST
Just before the millennium there began a movement, promoted by

churchmen, to contain the violence of this feudal society. It became known
as the "Peace of God" movement, and sought to establish in a practical form
the peace that the Lord had given to his disciples (cf.John 14:27). It was prom-
ulgated by church synods, first in the south of France, whence it spread. Its
initial demands were that non-combatants-the clergy, women, children, the
aged and the "poor"-be granted a protected status, so that the fighting would
be limited to those who engaged in it. Churches, monasteries and ordinary
dwellings were likewise to be spared. Round about the tum of the millen-
nium, Abbot Odilo of Cluny became a powerful advocate of this movement.
As the eleventh century progressed, the demands of the "Peace of God"
movement developed, and led to the so-called "Truce of God" movement
that sought to outlaw fighting on Sundays and during periods of fasting, and
eventually led to a ban on fighting between Thursday and Monday and dur-
ing Lent. By the middle of the century the movement had lost steam, and
with the rise of the Crusades at the end of the century the warlike appetites
of the young noblemen found another outlet.
The "Peace" and the "Truce of God" movements provide an illustration
of the way in which at the beginning of the second millennium the Church
began to try to introduce Christian ideals into a society that, in its ruling
classes, was governed by the ideals of a warrior aristocracy. Another expres-
sion of the same ideal can be seen in Life ofSt Gerald ofAurillac by St Odo of
Cluny: Gerald is portrayed as a noble layman whose life was characterized by
justice, mercy, charity, devotion to prayer and to the Church. 1 A quite differ-
ent way in which the Church sought to influence the life of lay society was
through promotion of the ideals of Christian marriage.2
The principles of Christian marriage are fairly clear from the New Testa-
ment: marriage is a lifelong union of man and woman, forming the core of
the Christian family, although divorce may be permitted in limited circum-
stances ("for fornication": Matt. 19:9). The early Fathers, however, invested
most of their energies in promoting the ideal of virginity, and tended to treat
marriage as at best a permitted state. It is not at all clear how far the Church
was involved in the institution of marriage in the early centuries. St Ignatios
1See the Lift ofSt Gera/.d ofAurillac in St Odo efCluny, translated and edited by Dom Gerard Sitwell.
2 For what follows see Georges Duby, The Knight, tht Lady and llll Priest: Tbt Making ofModem Mar-
riage in MrdievalFrance, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1985.
Reform and the Papacy 2 93
speaks of a Christian couple marrying with the bishop's "consent,"3 and pre-
sumably blessing, but Christians seem to have adopted the pattern ofRoman
marriage with its distinction between betrothal and marriage proper, with cer-
emonies of prayer accompanying both. How the Church coped with the
invasion of nominal Christians following the endorsement of Christianity by
the Roman Empire is not clear, still less what happened in the West as the
Germanic tribes gradually accepted Christianity. It seems that the ceremony
of betrothal remained an occasion of prayer, while the marriage proper
became a celebration of sexual union. East and West came to differ over the
theology of marriage, as well as over the extent to which the Church had any
control in marital matters, as we have seen. In the East, marriage was a unique
union between man and woman; remarriage after the death of a spouse was
discouraged, a third marriage abhorred, and a fourth marriage forbidden. In
the West, the emphasis lay on the lifelong nature of the union: a widow or
widower was free to marry, with no limit as to the number of spouses. In the
East, the Christian understanding of marriage seems to have been accepted,
with even emperors courting censure if they breached it. In the West, the
imposition of Christian ideals took much longer. Attempts were made from
the Carolingian period onwards to encourage Christian ideals, but it was only
in the eleventh century that these attempts began to see any success, and not
until the thirteenth that they could be regarded as accepted. In practice, it
was a matter of forbidding divorce, forbidding marriage within the prohib-
ited degrees of consanguinity, and suppressing concubinage. It was not
through any success in promoting a Christian ideal of marriage (to which,
indeed, very few churchmen wei:e committed in the eleventh century) that
the Church succeeded in imposing its will, but through the control it came
to have, through the growth of the importance of law and legal procedure,
over claims to legitimacy. For children to be legitimate, and therefore to
inherit, they had to be born of a valid marriage, that is, one entered into by
a couple free to do so-both by being free of any other marital claim and also
by not being too closely related by consanguinity. As such matters came to
be settled by recourse to law rather than brute force, the Church found a
means by which it could insist on its standards of marriage.
In both these cases-the "Peace" and "Truce of God" movements and the
instilling of Christian standards of marriage-we can see an attempt by one
l]gnatios, Letter to Po!Jcarp 5-2.
part of the society, the educated clergy, to define and control the rest of soci-
ety. A more general expression of this same tendency can be found in the
notion that became popular in the eleventh century of the "three orders of
society": those who fight, those who pray, and those who work The first sur-
viving assertion of this principle is generally held to be by Bishop Adalbero of
Laon in about 1026. 4 As has often been remarked, the notion of the three
orders is an attempt by "those who pray" to define society in a way that high-
lights their own role, flatters the ruling class of "those who fight" and (as
Alexander Murray reminds us) keeps "those who work" in their place. It could
also be seen as a way of usefully conceptualizing a society in which earthly
rule, regnum, and spiritual rule, sacerdotium, united to rule society as a whole,
for which those "who worked" provided the necessary economic foundation:
a vision close to the dreams of a Christian Roman Empire that Otto III and
his friends had entertained in Rome at the turn of the millennium. 5
The attempt to reform society by instilling Christian standards of respect
for those who could not defend themselves and a Christian pattern of mar-
riage could be seen as ways of seeking to reform two of the orders of society-
there were not lacking programmes for reform of the other order of society:
"those who prayed." We have already seen such programmes in the various
stirrings of monastic reform, which certainly lay behind more comprehensive
plans for reform of the Church as a whole, the "Church" meaning in this con-
text the clergy. This scrutiny of the Church came with the new millennium
and focused on two matters: what came to be called the heresies of simony
and Nicolaism. Simony was the sin of Simon Magos, who, according to the
Acts of the Apostles (8:14-24), sought to purchase the gift of the Holy Spirit
with money and was rebuked by the Apostle Peter. The term came to be
applied (though only the West developed an abstract noun, simonia; in the
East it was known as "the heresy of Simon") to the purchase of the sacra-
ments, primarily to the purchase of ecclesiastical office. Under the system of
proprietary churches, it was normal to pay a "customary gratuity" to whoever
appointed to an office, and also to the ordaining bishop. Such a customary
gratuity was virtually institutionalized, and was found both in the East and
in the West. However, it had been regularly condemned in canon law for cen-
turies. Suddenly, it seems, in the eleventh-century West, simony came to be
4 See Alexander Murray, Rtaso,r and Society in tht M iddle Ages, p. 96, and brief discussio n: pp. 96--98.
5See abo ve, pp. 266- 67.
Reform and the Papary 2 95
regarded as intolerable. Partly this was because the system of proprietary

churches drew attention to the custom but, more important, because this sys-
tem involved payment "outside" the clergy/Church, that is, to a lay patron;
partly, also, it was because, with the greater wealth that came with the expan-
sion of the economy in the eleventh century, the payments came to be made
in cash, rather than being some kind of gift in kind, and a cash payment
seemed that much more blatantly "simoruac." Simony was, however,
endemic to the functioning of the Church; getting rid of it would pose all
sorts of difficult problems. Were those ordained by simoniac bishops truly
ordained? If not, then there must have been parts of the Church that had
long been deprived altogether of any sacramental ministry. The other
"heresy" was Nicolaism, a reference to "the works of the Nicolaitans" men-
tioned as a failing of the church of Ephesos in the Apocalypse (2:6). What-
ever this meant in the first century, in the eleventh in the West it meant the
existence of married clergy. According to the canons of the Western Church,
the clergy (sub-deacons, deacons, priests and bishops) were meant to be
unmarried, or if married, to live in continence. This was contrary to the
canon law of the Eastern Church, as we have seen above. 6 The practice, how-
ever, in both East and West in the tenth century was much the same: bishops
were expected to be celibate, but the lower clergy were generally married, that
is, it was generally married men who were ordained to the lower clergy, and
after ordination they continued to live with their wives and have children.
Whereas this was in accordance with the canons of the Synod in Trullo, it was
not in accord with the canons accepted by the Western Church (something
of which the Fathers of the Trullan synod were well aware). The purification
of the Church in the West involved the stamping out of both simony and
Nicolaism. The reason for this was precisely purification, or more exactly n·t-
ual purification. The aim was not that the clergy should live lives of single
simplicity-there seems to have been little interest in the inner lives of the
clergy at this stage-rather, that the clergy who served the altar should be free
from the defilement that came from money, cash, the medium of worldly
commerce, and from women. In the terms of the rhetoric of a later stage of
the reform, the aim was that "the Church should be catholic, chaste and free:
catholic in the faith and fellowship of the saints, chaste from all contagion of
6
See above, pp. _µ -32.
GRE EK EAST AND LATIN WES T
evil, and free from all secular power."7 For freedom from the cash nexus and
from intercourse with women also entailed freedom from the powers that
govern the world, which meant removing from church procedures any lay
involvement in clerical preferment. The three orders of society were to be
kept separate; any interference, in particular the interference of those who
fought in the concerns of those who prayed, was seen as contamination. But
it is significant that the failings of the Church were cast in language drawn
from the New Testament, for the urge for reform was also driven by a desire
to return to the apostolic ideal of the Church, especially as seen in the Acts
of the Apostles where the early Church-the community of believers-was
described as "of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things
which he possessed was his own, but they had everything in common" (Acts
4:32}. This apostolic ideal lay behind the longing for simplicity in the coeno-
bitic monastic life, as we have seen, and more directly lay behind the promo-
tion of reform of the pastoral clergy on the lines of regular canons later on in
the century. The image of Peter rebuking Simon and his eponymous heresy
also suggested that reform itself was an apostolic, indeed a Petrine, function.
Evidently, then, the Reform Movement had a variety of motives, but they
came together and became precisely a papal Reform Movement, as a result of
the idealism of a group of churchmen, whose history and association we shall
now pursue. Interestingly, this group just overlaps with the group of church-
men behind Otto Ill's dreams of reform. The link between the two groups is
to be found in Romuald and his biographer, Peter Damian. We have already
met Romuald as the founder of the Camaldolese order of hermits, and
Damian as another inspired by the same quest for the simplicity of solitude.
But Damian's Life of Romuald has nothing to say about this at all. Rather
Romuald is presented as a precursor of the ideals of the Reform Movement,
exposing simony and expelling unchaste priests. Later in his life, Peter
Damian, with some reluctance, found himself among a group of clergy in
Rome that sought to use papal power to reform the Church, and in the
process develop the very notion of papal power; his reluctance was due not
to any lack of enthusiasm for the reforms, but to his own longing to pursue
the solitary life.
7From Pope Gregory VII's last en cyclical, quoted by Colin Morris, The Papal Monarchy: The Wesl-
em Church.from 1050 to r250, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989, p . u5- Most of what follows is indebted to
Colin Morris's book.
Reform and the Papacy 2 97
In the earlier part of the century, the movement for reform was not cen-
tralized on the papacy at all; much of the impetus for the reform of the
Church came from the German ("Salian") emperors, Henry II (1002-24) and
Henry III (1039-56), their reliance on the imperial Church (the Reichskirche) in
the running of the empire giving them an interest in having a Church free
from corruption. It was only after the crisis of 1045-56 that the Reform Move-
ment became focused on the papacy. Before that the papal office had been
held by one or other of the great Roman family of Tusculum. In October
1044, the last Tusculan pope, Benedict IX, was expelled by the citizens of
Rome and replaced by Bishop John of Sabina, who took the name Sylvester
Ill. Benedict was soon restored, but in May 1045 he resigned in favour ofJohn
Gratian, who was at the centre of the reforming groups in Rome, and took
the name Gregory VI. Gregory VI was welcomed by Peter Damian as the
dawn of a new age. However, in 1046 Henry Ill visited Rome, probably to be
crowned emperor by the pope. He was welcomed by Gregory VI. It was
reported, however, that Gregory had secured Benedict's retirement by a pay-
ment of money, and was thus himself a simoniac. Gregory was set aside (it is
not clear whether he was deposed, resigned or was deemed not properly
elected) and replaced by a German who took the name of Clement II. He
promptly crowned Henry III and his wife, Agnes. Gregory went into exile,
together with his young assistant, Hildebrand. Clement II soon fell victim to
the Roman climate, and his successor, another German, Damasus II, survived
only a few weeks.
In 1049 Bruno, a relative of Henry III, attained the papal throne and took
the name Leo IX. A native of Alsace, Leo IX had been bishop ofToul in south
Lorraine and had already made a reputation for himself as an opponent of
simony. In the five years of his pontificate, we see the real beginnings of the
Papal Reform Movement. His programme for reform was not new-he called
eleven or twelve synods, which condemned simony and clerical marriage,
and reaffinned the validity of canon law and the necessity for the canonical
election of bishops-but he gathered around him a group of reformers, who
were to carry on his ideals. Some of this group he brought with him from
Toul-Humbert, a monk ofMoyenmoutier, who became cardinal-bishop of
Silva Candida; Hugh Candidus from Remiremont, who became cardinal-priest
of San Clemente; Udo, who became papal chancellor-others included Fred-
eric, archdeacon of Liege (also sometime papal chancellor, later Stephen IX),
GREEK EAST AND I.ATIN WEST
and the sub-deacon Hildebrand, who had returned to Rome after the death
of Gregory VI, and later became Gregory VII. Also in the wider circle of
reformers were the archbishops Halinard of Lyon and Hugh of Besanr;:on and
Peter Damian. But in addition Leo brought to the Reform Movement his
own remarkable charisma. Through synods and through great occasions like
the translation of the relics of St Remigius to Reims in 1049, Leo projected
himself as the voice of God calling his people to judgment. Although the
final years of his short pontificate were marred by his lack of success at deal-
ing with the growing Norman presence in southern Italy, after his death he
was quickly acclaimed a saint, his body being a source of many miracles. He
set the fashion for regarding reforming popes as saints, whose deeds and mir-
acles were worthy of record.8
The movement initiated by Leo IX, which was continued by his succes-
sors, not least Hildebrand as Gregory VII, goes beyond the limits of this vol-
ume.9 Of more immediate importance for this volume is the effect the Papal
Reform Movement had on the papacy itself. To start with, it created the very
notion of the papacy. As already remarked, to speak of the "papacy" before
the eleventh century is an anachronism, for the term-papatus in Latin-was
coined only then, apparently used for the first time by Clement II in 1047.
Formed on the analogy of episcopatus, it suggests that the papacy,papatus, is
a further order of ministry in the Church, transcending the episcopate. There
seem to be two notions entailed here. The first makes explicit something that
had a long history, namely that the Church of Rome exercised a primacy, pri-
matus, over the other Churches, a primacy that was not shared by any other
church. 10 This was defined more precisely. It meant that the Church of Rome
was the mother of the Churches, mater ecclesiarum, their head, caput, and
hinge, cardo (all claims made by Nicholas I in the ninth century). Peter
Damian advanced the idea that while all other churches have founders, Rome
alone was founded by Christ. Damian may have taken this to mean that St
Peter had himself appointed the patriarchs in the East and the bishops in the
West. The other notion entailed focuses these claims, not so much, as tradi-
8
In contrast, the Liber Ponefualis, which ends with Pope Stephen V /VI ( 885-91) rather records what
happened to Ihe Church ofRome during the yarious pontificates (synods, political events, ordinations,
building and rebuilding), rather than the lives of the individual popes themselves.
9lt is treated by Papadakis in Papadakis-Meyendorff, Christi.an East, pp. 17-67.
10Rome had never accepted canon 28 of the Synod of Chalcedon, which extended Rome's pri-
macy to Constantinople, nor canon 3 of Constantinople I, which it reaflinned.

Refonn and the Papaq 299
tionally, on the see of Rome as on the pope in person. The title universalis
episcopus, once rejected by Gregory the Great, is resurrected: the pope is not
just a bishop with universal jurisdiction, but is personally the ruler of the
whole Church. "Universal jurisdiction" might simply mean that Rome was a
final court of appeal in the Church, as Nicholas I had claimed. The notion
of universalis episcopus went further: the pope has become a pope for all Chris-
tians, with immediate, not just appellate, jurisdiction. 11 He is more than a
bishop; he is the pope. This personalization of papal power is unmistakable
in Gregory VII's Dictatus Papae (c.1076, but date uncertain): the twenty-third
heading asserts that a properly elected pontifex is indubitanter sanctus, indu-
bitably a saint.12
Leo IX was succeeded in 1054 by Victor II, another relative of the emperor,
who continued Leo's policy. He reigned for three years. On his death Fred-
eric of Lorraine, one of Leo's supporters, was elected pope and took the name
Stephen IX. He was a monk, the first to be elected pope for many years, and
proceeded immediately to strengthen the monastic element within the
Roman Church by appointing Peter Damian bishop of Ostia, his senior car-
dinal-bishop, and making Humbert his new chancellor. Stephen IX died
within a few months. By this time the Roman nobility who had lost control
over papal elections since the demise of Benedict IX had recovered suffi-
ciently to elect their own candidate, bishop John ofVelletri, who was installed
as Pope Benedict X. The reformers in Rome, however, were themselves now
in a position to challenge the Roman nobility and, with the support of the
Empress Agnes, they elected another prominent reformer, an Italian, whom
they installed as Pope Nicholas II in 1059. Benedict X was deposed as an anti-
pope, on the ground that he had been improperly installed as pope: Peter
Damian, who had the right to install him as senior cardinal-bishop, had
refused to do so. Under icholas II, three of the original group of reformers
came to prominence-Damian, Hildebrand, and Humbert-all of them
monks. All three were committed to the reform programme, though there
were differences between them, largely due to their different personalities.
11 Even this immediate jurisdiction is extraordinary: that is, ordinarily the Church is governed by
its bishops, but this ordinary jurisdiction i.s exercised oo behalf of the pope, who is always free to exer-
cise hjs immediate, extraordinary jurisdiction.
12
See Eric John, "Papal ism Ancient and Modem," in Robert Markus and Eric John, PaptU)I and
Hierarchy, London: Catholic Book Club, 1972, pp. 51- 108, here pp. 65-<>7.
Damian promoted the reform through his writings, and was sensitive to the
immediate pastoral problems that enforcement of the policy against simony
might produce. Humbert, on the other hand, was learned and a rigorist,
imperious in manner, something of which we shall see in the next chapter.
Hildebrand seems to have been somewhere in between.
The Reform Movement was primarily concerned with matters of clerical
discipline, but there was one issue of theology that was handled rather
brusquely by Cardinal Humbert: the condemnation of Berengar, archdeacon
of Tours, over his eucharistic theology. 13 It was a recrudescence of the issues
debated in the ninth century, which had continued to rumble throughout the
tenth. 14 ln a synod at Rome in 1059, Cardinal Humbert extracted from Beren-
gar reluctant assent to a crudely worded affirmation of belief in a physical
change in the eucharistic elements. It asserted that the change effected by
consecration took place in the realm of the senses (sensualiter). Away &om
Rome, Berengar attacked the formula he had been forced to accept, arguing
that it was not so much wrong as meaningless, full of internal contradictions.
The essential part of Berengar's confession reads as follows:
I, Berengar, . . . knowing the true and apostolic faith, anathematize all

heresy, especially that for which I am infamous: which seeks to maintain
that the bread and wine which are placed on the altar are after consecra-
tion only a sacrament and not the true body and blood [verum corpus et
sanguinem] of our Lord Jesus Christ, and cannot be touched or broken by
the hands of the priests, or crushed by the teeth of the faithful, in the realm
of the senses [sensualiter], but only in the sacrament. I consent to the Holy
Roman Church and Apostolic See, and profess that I maintain the same
faith concerning the sacrament of the Lord's table, as the lord and vener-
able pope Nicholas and this holy synod pass down as maintained by the
authority of the Gospel and the Apostles and confirm for me: that is to
say, that the bread and wine that are placed on the altar are, after conse-
cration, not only a sacrament, but indeed the true body and blood of our
Lord Jesus Christ, and that they are touched and broken by the hands of
priests and crushed by the teeth of the faithful in the realm of the senses
13 For wbat
follows see Henry Chadwick, "Ego Berengarius, • in idem, Tradition and Explmation, Nor-
wich: The Canterbury Press, 1994, pp. 33-6o (originally published in/TS NS 40 (1989): 414-45).
14
See above, pp. 146-47.
Refonn and the Papacy 301
and not only sacramentally, but in truth, swearing by the holy and
homoousios Trinity and by these sacred Gospels of Christ. 15
Berengar's claim that this confession is self-contradictory was largely

accepted, even by those who sought to maintain the authority of the Roman
synod. Controversy continued, including an exchange of views between
Berengar and Lanfranc, then on the point of moving from the abbey of Bee
to that of Caen. Although Lanfranc was keen to maintain the strong terms of
Humbert's confession, in controversy he found himself in agreement with
some of the points made by Berengar, especially Berengar's insistence on the
integrity of Christ's glorified body, which cannot be broken up into pieces
(whether by priestly fraction or the chewing of the faithful), and on the fact
that while Christ's glorified body is in heaven, yet in some sense we do
receive the verum corpus that came from the Virgin. Eventually, in 1079,
Berengar was again brought before a Roman synod sitting under Pope Gre-
gory VII and required to make a confession of his eucharistic faith, this time
phrased in markedly different terms:
I, Berengar, believe with my heart and confess with my mouth, that the
bread and wine, which are placed on the altar, are by sacred prayer and
the words of our Redeemer substantially [substantialiler] converted into the
true, proper and life-giving flesh and blood ofJesus Christ our Lord and
that after consecration they are the true body of Christ [verum Christi cor-
pus], which was born of the Vugin and which, offered for the salvation of
the world, hung on the cross, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and
the true blood of Christ [verum sanguinem Christi], which poured from his
side, not only by the sign and power of the sacrament, but in its own
nature and the truth of substance ... 16
Humbert's materialistic sensualiter has been omitted. There is the same

emphasis that the sacramental bread and wine are changed into verum corpus
et sanguis, identical with the historical body of the Lord, born of the Virgin,
lifted up on the cross, and the blood which was shed from his side, but the
insistence on the reality of the eucharistic change is now expressed in meta-
physical terms, invoking the notion of substance: substantialiter.
15 Oenzinger-Schonmetzer, Enthiridion Symbolarum, § 690.

16 Denzinger, § 700.
The story ofBerengar reveals both the determination of the papal reform-
ers, especially someone like Cardinal Humbert, to impose a clear standard of
belief, but also the power of theological reasoning to ensure that what was
enforced actually made sense. This case is particularly interesting in that it
shows how, contrary to much popular belief, the use of the language of sub-
stance in Western eucharistic theology, and in particular the term transsubstan-
tiatio, transubstantiation, was intended to affirm the reality of the eucharistic
change, while at the same time avoiding any crude materialism. As Henry
Chadwick comments:
There might be a touch of paradox in the suggestion that the doctrine of

a change of metaphysical substance emerged out of the necessity to avert
Humbert's materialistic and naturalistic interpretations of Eucharistic
change and reception, and that no popes contributed so much towards a
safeguarding of a truly spiritual Eucharistic belief as Hildebrand and Inno-
cent III ... That, however, is the most probable account. 17
What we have looked at in this chapter are but the beginnings of various
developments in the Western Church that reach their fulfilment in the fol-
lowing centuries. The vision of a Church "catholic, chaste and free" comes to
be more and more effectively realized. The issue of the freedom of the
Church-essentially a clerical freedom in which lay and secular come to be
identified, with fateful consequences-reaches a climax later over the matter
of lay investiture. Insofar as the Reform Movement was successful (and to a
large extent it was), the Church came to be understood as constituted essen-
tially by its clergy who sought to serve and control the society in which they
lived, a society understood as separate &om the Church. Such separation
entailed a clericalization of the Church and a secularization of the world, and
was too easily expressed in political terms, as if Church and normal human
society were two political entities, with their own laws and structures, exist-
ing side by side: a far cry from the Justinianic symphonia of ~cxmA.Ete< and tEQ:X-
1suµcx, regnum and sacerdotium, that had informed Otto Ill's vision of a
Christian society at the beginning of the century.
In other ways what we have looked at in this chapter foreshadows what is
to come in the West. It was no new thing for a churchman to be condemned
17
Chadwick, art. cit., p. 58.
Reform and the Papary 3°3
for heresy by a synod, but the papal synod of 1059 at which Berengar was con-
demned and forced to accept a confession devised by one of his accusers sug-
gests a centralized and heavy-handed control of Christian teaching, recourse
to which was to be increasingly sought in the future. Farther reaching, per-
haps, was the condemnation of Eriugena to whom Berengar had appealed,
mistakenly taking Ratramnus' work on the Eucharist for an authentic work
by the Irishman. Eriugena was not above suspicion, but his condemnation at
the Roman synod did his reputation no good. In another way, too, however,
the Berengar affair foreshadows the future, for recourse to philosophical cat-
egories, though scarcely new, was increasingly to mark Western theology in
the centuries that followed, culminating in the scholastic period. All this was
in the future, but what we have surveyed in this chapter suggests that in many
ways the early years of the new millennium marked a turning point.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
1054 AND THE "SCHISM"
The Events
In 876 a band of Vtkings began to settle at the mouth of the Seine under the
leadership of Rolf the Ganger, better known as Rollo, who had been exiled
by the Norwegian king. In 9rr, after some decades of plundering the inhabi-
tants there, Rollo led his band of warriors on an abortive attack on Chartres.
This led to a settlement with the French king, Charles the Simple, who, in
return for the Vikings' homage and promise to defend the region against
other Vikings, granted him the lands of the mouth of the Seine and the title
of Count of Rauen. Already the Normans, as they were to be called, had
established themselves in the region, marrying local girls. They were gradu-
ally becoming assimilated to the society of the local inhabitants, adopting
their language and religion; a year after the raid on Chartres, Rollo embraced
Christianity. Rollo and his descendants were given further grants ofland and
the region eventually became the duchy of Normandy, ruled by Rollo's lin-
eal descendants, powerful and not always loyal vassals of the French king.
The Normans prospered, and became hungry for land. This hunger was fed
at a political level by the conquest of England in 1066 under William the
Conqueror, Duke of Normandy. But before-and after-this the younger sons
of the Norman nobility, and their illegitimate offspring, sought land, posses-
sions and adventure elsewhere. In the twelfth century, the Crusades would
satisfy this need, but in the early part of the eleventh century, it was to south-
ern Italy that they made their way. Sicily and much of southern Italy had long
been under Muslim rule; part of the Byzantine emperor Basil II's reconquest
had restored southern Italy (Apulia-present-day Puglia, Basilica ta, Campania
and Calabria) to the Byzantine Empire. In the 1030s the Byzantines had made
an attempt to reconquer Sicily, but only recovered the eastern coast. Tradi-
tionally, this part of the world-Sicily and ''Magna Graecia," "Great Greece"-
-was Greek-speaking; it was Greek-speaking Byzantine Christianity that had

survived Muslim rule and Byzantine Christianity that was restored. However,
it had originally come under the jurisdiction of the pope, who had consider-
able landholdings there, but in the eighth century, as a result of the pope's
resistance to the imperial will over iconoclasm, the jurisdiction of this area
had been transferred to the patriarchate of Constantinople (along with the
area of the Balkans known as Illyricum). As we have seen, the pope's loss of
jurisdiction over these areas (and of revenue, too) had long been a bone of
contention between Pope and Emperor. The coming of the Normans dis-
turbed an already fragile situation. They established themselves throughout
southern Italy, building castles from which they plundered and then sought
to rule the region; later in the century they succeeded where the Byzantines
had failed in driving the Arabs out of Sicily.
The initial response of both Pope and Emperor to the Norman presence
in Italy was one of alarm. 1 Michael Keroularios, patriarch of Constantinople
from 1043 to 1058, sent a friendly letter to Pope Leo IX proposing an alliance
against the "Franks." Nothing came of that initiative. In rn53, both the Byzan-
tine and the papal forces suffered serious defeats at the hands of the Nor-
mans; Pope Leo was taken prisoner and held in Benevento. As they settled in
southern Italy, the Normans encountered Greek Christians following Greek
customs, different from the Latin ways. Tolerance was not a virtue much
respected by the Normans (nor by many others in the Middle Ages) : the
Greek ways were suppressed and Latin customs introduced. The cult of Greek
saints, for instance, was suppressed Gust as the Normans in England sup-
pressed the cult of many of the Anglo-Saxon saints), and devotion to more
mainstream Latin saints encouraged, though a few local saints were saved by
the efficacy of their miracles. One custom, however, sharply marked off
Greek from Latin, and that was the kind of bread used in the eucharistic
liturgy-leavened or unleavened-and there were other liturgical differences.
There began, in southern Italy of the eleventh century, a different kind of
1For the events of 1054, the bibliography is huge and growing. See, most recently, Axel Bayer, Spal-
tllng du Christen/xii, Das sogenannte Morgen/iindische Schisma von 1054, Beihefie zum Archiv fur Kul-
turgeschichte 53, Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 2002. See also Steven Runciman, The Eastern Schism: A Study
ofthe Papat;y and the Eastern Churches during the Eleventh and Twe!fih Centurus, Oxford : C]asendon Press,
1955, pp. 28-54 ; Henry Chadwick, FAst and \\lest: The Making ofa Rif t in lhe Cburch,.from Apostolic Times
11ntil tht Co11ncil ofFlorence, O xford University Press, 2003, pp. 200- 218; Mahlon H . Smith III, And Tak-
ing Bread . .. Cerulanus and the Az;yme Controversy ef1054, Theologie H istorique 47, Paris: Beauchesne,
1978.
m54 and the "Schism" 3o7
encounter between Greek East and Latin West, which was to become more
common over the next century or so. This was an encounter that affected ordi-
nary people, for it concerned what they did when they worshipped. Hitherto,
Latin and Greek practices had been geographically separate. Scholars-and
merchants, used to local differences-had known about various differences
between Eastern and Western Christians, but that was in the realm of theory.
Now the differences were on the doorstep; ordinary people became aware of
different customs and had to live with them, or not.
Although the pope had no love for the Normans, he could hardly object
to their imposition of Latin practices. Christians in the Byzantine Empire,
especially in the geographically closer, formerly independent Bulgaria, felt
very differently. The suppression of Greek services, and the replacement of
ordinary leavened bread in the Eucharist by the unleavened bread favoured
by the Latins, was an affront. The archbishop of Ohrid, the senior Bulgarian
bishop, Leo, wrote to John, archbishop ofTrani in Apulia, arguing that unleav-
ened bread (azyma in Greek) was not properly bread and that, therefore, the
Latin Eucharist was not a genuine sacrament; furthermore, the use of unleav-
ened bread was a Jewish practice, inappropriate for the sacrament of the New
Covenant. Leo's letter, at his request, was translated into Latin, Leo doubtless
expecting the Italian episcopate to endorse his arguments. Earlier on Leo him-
self had been one of the clergy of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, and was,
indeed, the first Greek-speaking incumbent of the see of Ohrid. It has often
been suspected that Leo's letter was written at the behest of Patriarch Michael
Keroularios-a charge explicitly made by Cardinal Humbert-but there is no
direct evidence that such was the case. News of the suppression of Greek serv-
ices in Apulia had, however, reached Constantinople, and the patriarch had
retaliated by closing some, at least, of the Latin churches there, which served
the needs of Western merchants from Venice and elsewhere.
These mutual recriminations threatened to upset the delicate negotiations
between Pope and Emperor to establish an alliance against the Normans.
Unfortunately, it fell to Cardinal Humbert, one of Pope Leo IX's close asso-
ciates, to formulate a reply to Leo of Ohrid's letter. Humbert we have already
encountered as one of the apostles of the Reform Movement, which was
beginning to get under way during the pontificate of Leo IX, and the oppo-
nent of Berengar, who called him a "stupid Burgundian." Before becoming
cardinal bishop of Silva Candida, Humbert had been archbishop of Sicily;
he was therefore familiar with Greek clergy and their ways, and was clearly
unimpressed. His reply to Leo deliberately avoided any engagement with the
question raised by Leo, or any other theological issue, and went straight to
what he regarded as the heart of the matter: the authority of the papacy.
Q!ioting extensively from the Donation of Constantine, he set out the popes'
claim as successors of St Peter to absolute supremacy in the Church, and con-
trasted the unblemished orthodoxy of the popes with the tarnished record of
the patriarchs of Constantinople (amongst whom he included, by mistake,
the monothelite Pope Honorius!).
Such was the inauspicious beginning that led to the dispatch of a papal
legation to Constantinople, consisting of Humbert, Frederic, the chancellor
of the Roman Church and later Pope Stephen IX, and Peter, archbishop of
Amalfi. On the way, at Benevento, they conferred with Argyros, the Byzan-
tine commander, or katepano, in southern Italy, a man of Latin sympathies,
who, during a five-year stay in Constantinople, had gained Emperor Con-
stantine IX Monomachos' gratitude for saving his life, and made an enemy
of Keroularios by arguing for the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist.
The legation arrived in Constantinople round about the time Pope Leo died
(19 April 1054), and was received with respect at the imperial palace. The papal
letter to the patriarch was delivered. Keroularios, discovering that the seal had
been tampered with, immediately suspected the hand of Argyros, and felt
that the letter could not be genuinely &om the papal hand. He began to fear
a plot against himself, engineered by Argyros and Humbert. The delicacy of
the political situation contributed to a state of affairs in which the patriarch
was marginalized, and became perhaps understandably paranoid. The papal
legates dealt directly with the emperor, who was anxious to preserve friendly
links with the pope, in the hope that he might then protect Byzantine inter-
ests in Italy. Humbert, aware of the emperor's anxiety, may well have felt that
there was no need to be sensitive to the patriarch. Sensitivity did not come
naturally to Humbert, and anyway he seems to have regarded Greek church-
men as inherently devious and untrustworthy. Keroularios was certainly no
meek priest: he had embraced the priesthood after being implicated in a con-
spiracy against a previous emperor, and the patriarchate seems to have been
an avenue for his thwarted political ambition. 2 His habit of wearing purple
20 n Keroularios, see also Michael Angold, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni
1081-r261, Cambridge University Press, 1995, pp. 22-27.
m54 and the "Schism" 3o9
shoes was thought to betray his aspirations to imperial power, and the way
he seized on Humbert's appeal to the Donation if Constantine to demonstrate
the nature of his own authority as patriarch of New Rome suggests that his
understanding of patriarchal power was not all that different from what the
Reform Movement claimed for the papacy. This impression of exalted
notions of patriarchal power is strengthened by the paradoxical way in which
he seems to have turned Symeon the New Theologian's high sense of authen-
tic spiritual authority to his own ends.
The controversy over unleavened bread expanded to cover othei: issues of
difference between Rome and Constantinople, particularly the issue that had
become important in the Reform Movement-the celibacy of the clergy.
Humbert also made clerical beards a contentious point, as well as what he
wrongly regarded the omission of the Filioque from the creed-as if it was the
Greek text of the creed that had been altered! But all these issues were sec-
ondary to what really mattered to Humbert: the acknowledgment by Con-
stantinople of the absolute supremacy of the papacy. Keroularios' own
autocratic tendencies allowed no room for any tolerance of similar tenden-
cies in Humbert.
Finally on 16 July 1054 the Roman legates arrived at Hagia Sophia early in
the morning, just as the Divine Liturgy was to be celebrated, and placed on
the holy table a bull excommunicating Patriarch Michael, Leo of Ohrid and
their associates. The bull tried to drive a wedge between the emperor and the
people of Constantinople on the one hand and the patriarch and his associ-
ates on the other. The emperor and the people were praised, while Keroular-
ios was accused of daily disseminating heresy, and a list of such heresies
followed: the absurdity of the Greek claim to be the true Church, alone dis-
pensing baptism and offering the eucharistic sacrifice, and the use of the title
"oecumenical patriarch" by the patriarch of Constantinople; treating Latins
as heretics ("azyrnites") and practising rebaptism; allowing clerical marriage
("Nicolaism"); deleting the Filioque from the creed; not allowing the baptism
of infants before the eighth day (and consequently consigning those who
died beforehand to perdition); forbidding Communion to menstruating
women; and repelling from the Eucharist clean-shaven Latins.3 The subdea-
cons tried, unsuccessfully, to return the bull to the legates, who threw it on
3 For an English translation of Humbert's anathema, see Geanakoplos, Byzantium, pp. 208-9.
JIO GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
the ground. Eventually the bull came into Keroularios' hands; he had it trans-
lated and reported to the emperor. The emperor recalled the legates, who had
already left the city. Even though they refused to explain their actions, the
emperor respected their standing as ambassadors and allowed them to depart.
Getting wind of what had happened, the people of Constantinople demon-
strated loudly in favour of their patriarch. The emperor formally allowed Ker-
oularios to anathematize the authors of the bull and solemnly to bum it,
which he did four days later, on Sunday 24 July, before the assembled synod
and in the presence of the people. Any hopes of an alliance between Pope
and Emperor against the Normans had evaporated, and with that-as we shall
see-the future of the Byzantine presence in Italy.
Michael Keroularios was careful in his response to the bull. He did not
excommunicate the pope. He knew that Pope Leo IX was dead, but was not
enough of a canonist to make anything of this by claiming that the legates
had exceeded their powers. He concentrated on Humbert's meeting with
Argyros at Benevento on his way to Constantinople, claiming that their plot-
ting together had poisoned the whole legation. Like Humbert, he listed the
errors of the Latins: the Filioque, insistence on priestly celibacy, use of unleav-
ened bread in the Eucharist, failure to offer proper reverence to relics and
icons; failure to avoid eating blood in accordance with the decree of the
Apostolic synod of Acts 15; encouragement of dean-shaven clergy; allowing
clergy to take part in war; inclusion of Tu so/us sanctus ("You alone are holy")
in the Great Doxology; use of episcopal rings; laxity in the Lenten fast; and
a coolness in referring to the blessed Vrrgin as simply Sancta Man·a, rather
than the synodically authorized 1beotokos or Dezpara-"Mother ofGod." 4 On
this basis, Michael appealed for support to the other Eastern patriarchs-of
Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem-especially to Peter III of Antioch. In his
response to Michael Keroularios, however, Peter deplored his inflammatory
tone, and argued that all his allegations were either matters of no importance
or misunderstandings. Different customs were no ground for refusal of Com-
munion ; Rome had a place of honour within the Pentarchy of the patriarchs,
which Peter upheld. Nor was Peter indifferent to the Roman claim that the
4 For this list, and other later lists, of Latin errors, see lia Kolbaba, Tbe Byzantine Lists: Errors efthe
Lalfns, Urbana and Chicago: Uruversity of lllinois Press, 2000. For an English translation of much oi
the synod's response to H umbert, see Geanakoplos, Byzantium, pp. 209-12.
1054 and the "Schism" 311
Petrine foundation of Antioch placed Antioch above Constantinople! For

the most part, the Latin errors were not a matter of contumacy, but were to
be put down to their rustic ignorance: they were barbarians and the poverty
of their language meant that they could not be expected to match the level
of conceptual accuracy found among educated Greeks (a form of condescen-
sion that was often to characterize the more conciliatory Greek opponents of
the Latins).
The Issues
The issue explicitly invoked in the events of 1054 was the question of the
Latin use of unleavened bread (ta azyma) in the Eucharist. This was a new
issue. It had not been mentioned by Photios in the ninth century; it had orig-
inally come up in connexion with the Armenians. As we have seen, from
the ninth century onwards, as the recovering Byzantine Empire expanded,
Armenians found themselves either living in, or in close proximity to, the
Byzantine Empire. The Armenians rejected the authority of the Synod of
Chalcedon and all the later Byzantine synods; the Byzantines called them
monophysites, that is, those who profess that the Incarnate Word possesses
only a single nature. The Armenians also used unleavened bread in the
Eucharist, though there is no mention of this matter in the ninth-century
exchanges involving Photios. The Byzantines, therefore, first encountered the
use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist among the monophysite Armeni-
ans, and not unnaturally assumed there was a connexion between this litur-
gical practice and their faith in Christ's single nature. One of the first to write
against the Armenian use of azyma was Niketas Stethatos. Niketas was a
monk of the Stoudios monastery, and had continued the traditions of that
monastery, not least in noisy criticism of the emperor Constantine IX
Monomachos' publicly keeping a mistress, for which he earned the epithet,
stethatos, "courageous." He was the biographer of Symeon the New Theolo-
gian, and like him a spiritual writer of some note. He also engaged in
polemic-against Keroularios, who had objected to the monk-deacons
(hierodeacons) of the Stoudios wearing liturgical belts, against the Jews, as
well as the Armenians, and against the Latins (though Humbert claimed that
he was won over by the Latins and became a good friend). Of his five-part
work against the Armenians, only the fifth part survives, which is on the ques-
tion of the azyma. 5 Although we are primarily concerned with the split
between the Greeks and the Latins, it is Niketas' arguments in this work that
we shall discuss, since it is the first example we have of a Byzantine discus-
sion of the azyma. Virtually the same arguments were to be deployed against
the Latins (save for the charge that links the use of azyma with the Christo-
logical heresy of monophysiticism, though many Byzantines suspected that
there must be something wrong with Latin Christology, since they used
azyma in the Eucharist).
Niketas' arguments begin with the fact that the Gospel accounts of the
Last Supper speak of the Lord taking bread (artos), not unleavened bread
(azyma). He then moves on to argue that the use of unleavened bread belongs
to the Passover meal of the Old Testament, not to the Eucharist of the New.
If you still participate in unleavened bread, it is clear that you are under
the shadow of the old law and eat &om the table of the Jews, and not from
the rational and living [table] of God, and what to us humans who believe
is the epiousion and homoousion [bread], as we are taught to request the peri-
ousion bread from above.
Niketas develops a play on the words epiousion (the "daily" bread of the Lord's
prayer), homoousion ("consubstantial," Christ being both consubstantial
"with us" in his human nature and consubstantial "with the Father" in his
divine), and perio1,sion ("chosen" or "special," mostly used in the Greek Bible
of God's "chosen" people) . The "daily" bread of the New Covenant, that is
the Eucharist, is homoousios with us and effects a union with Christ who is
homoousios with the Father: it is the "special" bread for the chosen people of
the New Covenant. "Those who partake of unleavened bread do not eat of
the 'special' bread, homoousios with us, of our Lord and Saviour Christ. For
unleavened bread is clearly lifeless (or 'soulless,' apsychos) .. ."-in contrast to
the "substance of our [human] dough," which is "ensouled" and is what "the
Word of God assumed and of which he became its hypostasis." With this play
of words, the argument is moving from being about the nature of the
eucharistic bread to the nature of the Incarnation; the one mirrors the other,
5
The text is in J. Hergeruoether, lvlom1111mta Grlllca aJ Photiztm ejusque historiam pertinmtia, Ratis·
bon: Manz, 18½, pp. 139-54 (despite Hergenroether's title this treatise seems to be directed only against
the Armenians). See Darrouzes, in Nicetas Stethatos, Opuscules tt Lettres, Sources Chretiennes 81, 1961,
p.nf
1054 and the "Schism" JIJ
the leavened bread of the Eucharist mirroring the "ensouled nature" that,
according to orthodox Christology, the Word assumed. 6 Advocates of
unleavened bread are both caught in the Old Testament, prior to the Incar-
nation, and betray a Christology in which the human nature that Christ
assumes is defective, lacking a human soul- in short the monophysitism
(identified as Apollinarianism) of the Armenians. Niketas introduces further
liturgical details into this argument. Unleavened bread is dead: it has no "liv-
ing power." But in Christ there are three living elements-the Spirit, water and
blood-all of which issued from Christ in the Passion, and are the three wit-
nesses of 1 John 5:8. The water and blood that came from Christ's side was
warm. Niketas sees here an allusion to the adding of warm water (zeon) to the
consecrated chalice in the Byzantine rite.
The living Holy Spirit abides in his deified body, eating of which in the
bread, changed by the Holy Spirit into the flesh of Christ, we live in him,
since we have eaten of the living and deified flesh .
Niketas then turns to the historical question of the Last Supper, arguing
hat as Christ died at the time of the sacrifice of the Paschal Lamb (as the
Evangelist John asserts), the Last Supper itself could not have been the
Passover meal, but a meal at which ordinary bread was used. He then returns
to the Christological issue, arguing that unleavened bread would symbolize
a human nature without a human soul, that is, the human nature of an Apol-
linarian Christ.
There are three strands to Niketas' attack on the use of unleavened bread:
first, the meaning of the liturgical act, which spills over into the questions
about the nature of the Christ revealed in the liturgical act; secondly, the con-
trast between the Old Covenant and the New; and thirdly, a historical ques-
tion about the Last Supper, which could include the historical question about
the celebration of the Eucharist. The historical question is complicated by the
contradictory accounts of the Last Supper in the Gospels. The Synoptic
Gospels are quite clear that the Last Supper was the Passover (Matt. 26:17;
Mark 14-:u; Luke 227-8); the Fourth Evangelist is equally clear that the Cru-
6The imagery of dough for the human bei ng and for the Incarnation of Christ is extensively used
by Andrew of Crete in his sermons on the Mother of God, som ething of which Niketas m ay well have
been aware (I owe the information about Andrew of Crete to a personal communication from Mary
Cunn ingham).
cifixion took place on the day before the Passover (John 18:28; 1r14). It is pos-
sible that these divergent traditions lie behind the Q!iartodeciman contro-
versy of the second century over whether the Christian Pascha should be
celebrated on the same day as the Jewish Pascha (14- Nisan) or the following
Sunday; at any rate the Q!iartodecimans appealed to the authority of the
Apostle John, 7 but there was no mention at this stage of the question ofleav-
ened or unleavened bread. It seems, indeed, that the early practice was to use
ordinary, leavened bread at the Eucharist. The earliest mention of the use of
unleavened bread in the West is by Alcuin, but the custom was for him no
innovation. The introduction of unleavened bread may have been primarily
practical: it is less likely to form wayward crumbs; it is easier to reserve for the
sick (leavened bread, if not baked to a biscuit, goes mouldy). The use of
unleavened bread may indeed have been intended to mark off eucharistic
bread from ordinary bread as something special (Niketas' assimilation of epi-
ousios and periousios may be an attempt to head this off).
Once unleavened bread was introduced, a powerful symbolism attached
to it, and Paul's words in 1 Corinthians found a new resonance: "Do you not
know that a little leaven leavens the whole dough? Purge out the old leaven,
that you may become new dough, just as you are unleavened. For Christ our
Pascha is sacrificed for us. Therefore, let us keep the feast, not with the old
leaven, nor with the leaven of evil and wickedness, but with the unleavened
bread of sincerity and truth" (1 Cor. 5:6-8). With the Latins, this text seemed
even more decisive, since the Latin text reads: "Do you not know that a lit-
tle leaven corrupts the whole dough? ... " Two systems of symbolism, focused
on the same liturgical act, developed, but they took their inspiration from the
stark contradiction ofleavened or unleavened bread. 8 The refusal, on either
side, to enter the symbolic world of the other could be presented as a funda-
mental apostasy. The Latins, with their unleavened bread, were Judaizing, or
shrinking from acknowledging the full humanity of Christ (an objection that
worked better against the Armenians); the Greeks, with their leavened bread,
were virtual Marcionites, discarding the Old Covenant, and rejecting Christ's
fulfilment of the Old Covenant in celebrating the Passover with his disciples.
7Cf. Eusebius, History ofthe Church 5-24-
80n the importance of symbolism in the dispute of the 112:Yma, see John Erickson, "Leavened and
Unleavened: Some Theological Implications of the Schism of 1054,Din idem, The Challmge ofOur Past,
Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1991, pp. 133---55.
Io54 and the "Schism" 315
As the different sides engaged in controversy, other issues emerged, relating

to the symbolic significance attached to other aspects of the eucharistic rite,
where the Latin and Greek rites had divergent practices: for instance the use
of zeon in the Byzantine rite, unknown in the West. Niketas, as we have seen,
sees in the warmth of the consecrated chalice a sign of the presence of the
Spirit, whose presence in Christ caused the blood and water that flowed from
his side to be warm; the Latins, on the contrary, saw in this emphasis on the
continuing indwelling in Christ of the life-giving Spirit a denial of the death
of Christ. 9 A further issue connected with the Eucharist raised by Humbert
was the accusation that the Greeks disposed of the fragments left of the con-
secrated elements by burying them. This seems surprising, for the custom was
long established in the Byzantine rite according to which the consecrated
bread was cut up and placed in the chalice for the Communion of the laity
(a ceremony Humbert was aware of and found repellent). One wonders if this
is not a misunderstanding of an unfamiliar rite on Humbert's part. In the
Byzantine rite a cube of bread, the lamb or amnos, is cut from the loaf, the
artos, and only the amnos is consecrated; the rest is distributed as antidoron.
The crumbs left over from the antidoron might well have been buried out of
reverence for the holy-but not consecrated-bread. Perhaps Humbert
thought that these crumbs were part of the consecrated amnos. 10
When Nicetas came to turn his attack on the Latins, as well as discussing
the question of azyma, he added older grievances against the Latins that went
back to Photios: Rome's Saturday fasts, and its insistence on priestly celibacy.
As we have seen above, as the controversy developed, Humbert aJso intro-
duced the question of the Filioque, in the belief that the Greeks had deliber-
ately omitted the phrase from the creed. By 1054, the question of the Filioque
had evolved to a difference between East and West both of doctrine and of
the text of the creed, but the use of a creed containing the Filioque was a very
recent innovation in the Church of Rome: it was only in 1014, at the corona-
tion of the German emperor Henry II, that the singing of the Nicene Creed
was introduced into the Roman liturgy, in Paulinus of Aquileia's version that
included the Filioque, and then only on Sundays and certain feast days. In
1054, the question of the Filioque was added more or less as an afterthought;
9
See Bayer, Spallung der Christenheit, pp. 91-92, with references.
10Both Chadwick, East and \!,est, pp. 207-9, and Bayer, Spallung du Christenheit, p. 88, take Hum-
ben's accusation at face value.
it was to be some years before the doctrine of the double procession of the
Holy Spirit became a major theological issue between East and West. 11
Eventually both Humbert and Keroularios added to the lists of errors on
the other side, but by this time both sides were simply presenting more and
more evidence that the other side had abandoned traditions that each felt it
alone preserved. Despite all this, the anathemas exchanged were personal.
Neither side claimed that the two halves of Christendom were in schism.
Humbert separated Keroularios and his supporters from the emperor and the
general body of Easterners, and anathematized them alone as purveyors of
heresy. Keroularios maintained that the papal bull of excommunication rep-
resented the views of the legates, and not the considered views of the pope.
The Significance of the Events and Issues

The "date" of the "Eastern" schism, from the point of view of the West, has
been pinpointed at 1054. The lifting of the anathemas by Pope Paul VI and
Patriarch Athenagoras in 1965 at the end of the Second Vatican Council after
their historic meeting the year before in Jerusalem on the 9rnth anniversary
of the exchange of anathemas has had the unintended effect of underlining
the importance of w54. But to the contemporaries of the event, and for many
years after, it did not seem that anything had changed in 1054. Tensions
between East and West were long-standing, and they occasionally flared up,
but for the most part Christians of East and West acted as if they belonged
to a common Cfficumene. This was particularly true, as we have seen, among
the monks, whose travelling took them from East to West and back again;
this continued after the schism, as is evident, for example, from the life of
Christodoulos, who founded the monastery on Patmos in rn88, after travels
in search of spiritual enlightenment that took him to Rome, as well as to the
Holy Land. The more technical question of the inclusion or exclusion of
the names of hierarchs in the diptychs read out during the celebration of the
Liturgy could be another measure of formal schism. Keroularios intended to
exclude the pope's name from the diptychs, but received no support from
this proposal from Peter, Patriarch of Antioch. Later in the century, the ques-
tion of the diptychs was raised by Pope Urban II, upset at the news that his
11
0n the question of the Filioq,u, see most recently Peter Gemeinhardt, Die Filioque-Kontroverse
r.oischen Ost- und Wtstkirche im Friibmittelalur, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2002.
w54 and the "Schism" 317
name was not included in the diptychs at Constantinople. A synod was called
in Constantinople by the patriarch Nicholas, which could find no evidence
for a formal schism between East and West. But the question of mention in
the diptychs was a long-standing bone of contention, often affected by polit-
ical questions (as during the iconoclast controversy, when the names of the
popes were regularly excluded), or difficulties of communication, as well as
on occasions such as the Acacian schism from 482 to 519 when East and West
divided over the reception of the Synod of Chalcedon.
The impression left by the sources is indeed that, save for a few isolated
voices in the West, the memory of 1054 faded fairly quickly. 12 In the East it is
hard to find any mention at all. None of the chronicles mention the events;
though, given that the Byzantine chronicles show little interest in ecclesiasti-
cal affairs, this is hardly significant. In his funeral oration for Michael Ker-
oularios, which makes mention-rare in Byzantine sources-of the events of
1054, Michael Psellos presents him as a passionate defender of Orthodoxy. 13
As already noticed, the home synod held in 1089 during the reign of Emperor
Alexios could find no formal record of any schism, though there were certain
canonical issues that needed to be settled. In was only during the union nego-
tiations that led up to the Synod of Lyon in 1274 that the quarrel between
Cardinal Humbert and Patriarch Michael Keroularios began to be seen as in
any way decisive. 14
The issue central to the encounter in 1054-the question of the use of
unleavened bread, azyma-in the eucharistic liturgy was an issue that could,
on quiet reflection, be peaceably settled. 15 It arose because in southern Italy,
Greek and Latin Christians found themselves living cheek by jowl after the
Normans made their presence felt; at such close proximity their different cus-
toms could not be ignored, and all that was invested in the different sets of
symbolism evoked by the Eucharist came into conflict. The issue seemed to
be beyond reconciliation, however, partly because of the heated context in
12See Bayer, Spaltung, pp. u3-16.

13 Funeral oration edited in C.N. Sathas, Bibliotheca Graeca IV, Paris: Maisonneuve, 1874,
pp. 303-87, and discussed by Spalter, pp. n5-r6.
14
See Bayer, SpalJung. p. m .
15As iketas ofNicomedia argued at the disputation between him and Anselm ofHavelberg held
on 10 April 036 in the church of Hagia Eirene in Constantinople. See Norman Russell, "Anselm of
Havelberg and the Union of the Chuiches," Sobomosl/Eastmz Churches Review 1:2 (1979): 19-41; 2:1
(198o): 29-41, and esp. 2:1: 35-40. See also Chadwick, East and West, pp. 228-32.
which it was raised-the closing of Greek churches in Italy and, in retaliation,

of Latin churches in Constantinople-and partly because, while the Greeks
appealed to tradition, the Latins appealed to authority: the authority of the
pope, which was called in question by the divergent traditions. At a time
when the issue of papal authority was a key part of the Reform Movement in
the Western Church, Greek practices that called such authority in question
(even though other traditions, such as married clergy, were even more obnox-
ious to the reformers) were to be opposed categorically.
Even though the events of 1054 have been given an historical significance
they scarcely warrant, 16 on a longer view the issues that were raised revealed
two things: both churches increasingly defining their lived identity in differ-
ent and apparently contradictory ways and also-more importantly-underly-
ing issues of authority that were not to go away.
16
The influence of th.is can be found in works of historians who often assume that m54 marked a
crucial watershed, for example, in Vlasto, Tiu Entry efth, Slavs.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
SP IRITUAL AN D INTE LLECTUAL

LIFE IN BYZANTIUM
"Inner Learning" and "Outer Learning"

The eleventh century saw a blossoming of intellectual culture associated espe-
cially with the name of Michael Psellos, the "consul of the philosophers."
Psellos is, in fact, its principal luminary, and in his writings, especially in his
Chronographia, he gives an account of the flourishing of learning in this cen-
tury, emphasizing his own central role in it. Before the century was out, how-
ever, there had been a rare collision between the proponents of the revival
and pursuit of classical or Hellenic learning and the Church: in the condem-
nation ofJohn Italos, the most brilliant of Psellos' p upils, at church synods
in 1076/7 and 1082, which led to Italos' being forbidden to teach and his being
confined in a monastery. This rare collision between what had come to be
called the "outer learning" and the "inner leaming"-that is pagan, "Hellenic"
philosophy, derived from Plato and Aristotle by way of Plotinos and the Neo-
platonists, and the wisdom of the Christian gospel, as preserved, especially,
by the monks-belongs in the next volume of this series, where it is duly
treated, 1 but the development of thought that led to that collision belongs
squarely in this volume and is the subject of this chapter. (It is likely that
political expediency provoked the final and decisive condemnation in rn82:
namely, the emperor Alexios I Kornnenos' anxiety to presen t himself in the
Byzantine world as a guardian of Orthodoxy in order to ameliorate the antag-
o nism he had provoked among churchmen by his seizure of church treasures
to replenish the much-drained imperial coffers.)2
The condemnation of John ltalos was sealed by the addition of the Syn-
odilwn of Orthodoxy- the first significant addition since its promulgation in
1See Papadakis-Meyendorff, Christian Eas1, pp. 176-79.
2See Angold, Church and Soa'ety in Byzanti11111, pp. 50--54.
843-of anathemas condemning Italos, and in particular any interest in the

teaching of ancient philosophers, especially Plato, as opposed to the study of
their works as a means of training the mind. Among the anathemas were the
following:
In general, on those who attempt to introduce any investigation or teach-

ing whatever into the ineffable Incarnate Economy of our Saviour and
God, and seek out in what way God the Word himself was united to
human substance and deified the assumed flesh in a certain manner, and
try to argue with dialectic reason about the nature and position of that
instituting anew, in a way beyond nature, of the two natures of God and
man: Anathema!
On those who profess to be orthodox but shamelessly, or rather blasphe-

mously, introduce into the Orthodox and Catholic Church the impious
dogmas of the Hellenes about human souls, and heaven, and earth and
other creatures: Anathema!
These were followed by various anathemas listing these "impious dog-

mas," called the "wisdom of the philosophers from the outside," some of
which are strongly reminiscent of the condemnations of "Origenism" at the
Fifth CIEcumenical Synod in the sixth century-transmigration of souls, denial
that our very bodies will be raised at the general resurrection, belief in a pre-
cosmic fall and the final restoration (&vcxxsqicxlcxiwmc;) of all-others of which
envisage philosophical doctrines associated with Platonism, such as the eter-
nity of the Forms or Ideas and of matter. Another anathema attacks those
who discredit miracles:
On those who do not accept with pure faith and a simple and undivided
heart the extraordinary wonders performed by our Saviour and God, and
by our Lady, the Mother of God, who purely gave him birth, and the rest
of the saints, but who try by sophistical demonstrations and reasons to
bring them into discredit as impossible, or misinterpret them in accor-
dance with how they seem to us, or understand them in accordance with
their own opinion: Anathema!
And a further anathema makes clear the acceptable limits of philosophical

training:
Spiritual and Intellectual Life in Byzantium 321
On those who pursue Hellenic learning and are formed by it not simply
as an educational discipline, but follow their empty opinions, and believe
them to be true, and thus become involved in them, as possessing cer-
tainty, so that they introduce others to them, whether secretly or openly,
and teach them as indubitable: Anathema/3
The reminiscences of the condemnation of Origenism make clear that this

condemnation was in part the recrudescence of an ancient antagonism
between the heritage of classical philosophy and the tradition of the gospel. It
is important to realize, however, that this antagonism is much less clear-cut
than it might seem. The anathemas cited envisage a form of Platonism, and
make specific mention of it. John Mauropo us, the teacher of Michael Psellos,
is famed among other things for poems beseeching God's mercy on Plato (and
Plutarch), because "both of them in word and character adhere closely to your
laws.:'4 But it was not only representatives of the "outer wisdom" like Mau-
ropous who revered Plato: St Athanasios had called him "that great one
among the Greeks," 5 while among the writings ascribed to the seventh-century
abbot of Sinai, Anastasios, there is a story which relates that it was the custom
of a certain learned Christian to curse Plato daily, until eventually Plato him-
self appeared to him in a dream and said, "Man, stop cursing me; for you are
merely harming yoursel( I do not deny that I was a sinner; but, when Christ
descended into hell, no one believed in Him sooner than I did. " 6
This ancient antagonism is undeniably part of the story of the eleventh
century, culminating in Italos' condemnation; but it is perhaps more fruitful
not directly to scour Psellos' and Italos' thought for remnants of pagan "outer
wisdom," but to focus on two striking examples from the eleventh century-
St Symeon the New Theologian and Michael Psellos. By considering how these
two men expressed their respective thoughts on the inner and outer wisdom,
we shall find a much more complex picture than that suggested by a stark
contrast. It is also worth recalling that much of the evidence we should like
to examine is lost, or glimpsed, as it were, by chance. 7 That there were schol-
ars interested in Christian antiquity in the eleventh century is evident from
3
Anathemas r, 2, 6, 7 against halos from the SynodilwnofOrthodo:,;y, in]. Gouillard, "Le Synodikon
d'Orthodoxie: Edition et commentaire," TrtJ1Jaux el Memoires 2 (1967): 1-270, here pp. 57 and 59.
4
Qioted by Nigel Wilson in his Scholars ofByzantium, p. 151 .
5
Athanasios, 011 the Incarnation 2 .
6
Anastasios of Sinai, Q}testions and Responses m (PG 89:J64C}.
7
1 know of no parallel for Christian scholarship to Nigel Wilson's survey of classical learning in
the fact that without the eleventh-century manuscript discovered by Philo-

theos Bryennios in the late nineteenth century, we should have no complete
Greek text of either of the "epistles" of Clement of Rome, and no text at all
of the Didache; it also contains one of only two manuscripts of the Epistk of
Barnabas. There was, then, in the eleventh century an unknown scholar with
an interest-unusual for a Byzantine-in the sub-apostolic period: whether he
was exceptional or the tip of an iceberg, we cannot know, but it suggests the
existence of circles of scholarly activity about which we know very little.
To build up a picture of the spiritual and intellectual life of the eleventh
century by means of a consideration of Symeon and Psellos invites other haz-
ards. Neither of them, we shall see, could be regarded as exactly typical: we
are viewing the century from the top of two exceptional peaks. Not only
exceptional in themselves, but also exceptional in relation to their times:
both awkward and controversial figures, who provoked conflict in different
ways. Nevertheless, to have two exceptional men must be regarded as a
bonus; we should not complain of an excess of light!
They were not exactly contemporaries. When Symeon died in 1022, Psel-
los was only a child of four. In 1052, however, Symeon was declared a saint
and his relics solemnly brought to Constantinople; for a few decades there-
after, during which period Psellos was an important figure at court, Symeon's
star shone brightly. In that sense they may be regarded as contemporaries.
The trajectories of their lives also bear comparison, as we shall see.
St Symeon the New Theologian

According to the generally accepted chronology, Symeon was born in 949, a
child of the provincial Byzantine aristocracy.8 In 960, when he was eleven, he
went up to Constantinople to begin his studies. Three years later, the young
Symeon (probably then called George) finished his studies, and briefly with-
drew into a monastery. Very shortly, however, Symeon was back in the world,
at the court, where he made good progress, eventually attaining senatorial
Byzantium in his Scholars of8y2.111ZUum, an acco.u.nt that, for the eleventh century, is distinctly cool.
SModem scholarship on S)meon began with Karl Holl, Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim Gtuchis-
chen Mond1t11m: Eine Studu zu Symeon du Neuen Theologen, Leipzig: J.C. Hinrichs'scbe Bucbhandlung,
iB98. Other works on Symeon published prior to the appearance of the critical edition in Sources Chre-
tiennes (for details of this and translations into English, see the bibliography) include J.M. Hussey,
Church and Learning in the Byzantine Empire867-1185, London: Oxford University Press, 1937, pp. 201-25,
Spiritual and Intellectual Life in Byzantium 32 3
rank. By 969, Symeon was a successful young man and rather a dandy. At that
point he began to visit a monk, Symeon Eulabes ("the Pious"), who gave him
spiritual works to read, among them the Spiritual Law of Mark the Monk
(fifth/sixth century). The relationship with his spiritual father, Symeon the
Pious, became more and more important to him, and was reinforced by a
vision, which he recounts twice-in Catechesis 22 and Ethical Treatise 59-the lat-
ter account making clear the importance of his spiritual father to his under-
standing of the vision. It was not, however, for another seven years, in
response to yet another vision (recounted in the two Acts ofThanksgi.ving),
that Symeon finally abandoned the court and entered the monastery of
Stoudios, where Symeon the Pious was now a monk.
As John McGuckin has pointed out, the dates in Symeon's unsteady
progress towards embracing the monastic life have an uncanny correspon-
dence with changes at the imperial court. Symeon arrived in Constantinople
in 960, the year after Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos' death and the acces-
sion of his son Romanos IL Symeon's fortunes faltered in 963, the year of
Romanos' death, and he briefly withdrew to a monastery-not at all an
unusual move for a courtier fallen out of favour. Q,iickly, however, his for-
tunes recovered, and he is back at court. With the assassination of Nikephoros
and the accession of John Tzimiskes, Symeon found himself unsettled and
sought out a holy man, Symeon the Pious. But he retained his position at
court under Tzirniskes, eventually becoming a spatharokoubikoularios ("sword-
bearing chamberlain," part of the emperor's immediate bodyguard). Tzimiskes'
and Basil Tatakis, Byzantint Philosophy, Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company Inc., 2001 (transla-
tion of French original published in 1949), pp. rn-20. Scholarship informed by the critical edition
began with Basile Krivocheine, Dans la /11mitrt du Christ, Gembloux: Editions de Chevetogne, 1980
(English translation: In tht Light cif Christ, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1986). See also K.T. Ware, "The Mys-
tery ofGod and Man in St Symeon the New Theologian," in Sobomost 6/4 (Winter 1972): 227-36; Hilar-
ion Alfeyev, St Symeon tht Nf!IIJ Thtologian and Orthodox Tradition, Oxford University Press, 2000; and
various articles by John McGuckio: "Symeon the New Theologian (d. 1022) and Byzantine Monasti-
cism,• in Anthony Bryer and Mary Cunningham, eds., Mollnt Athas and ByZAntine Monasticism, Alder-
shot: Variorum, 1996, pp. 17-35; "The Luminous VtSion in Eleventh-<:entury Byzantium: Interpreting
the Biblical and Theological Paradigms of St. Symeon the New Theologian; in Margaret Mullet and
Anthony Kirby, eds., Wom and Worship at Theotokos Evergetis, Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations,
Series 6, vol. 2 (Belfast, 1997), pp. 90-123; "St. Symeon the New Theologian (949-m22); Byzantine Spir-
itual Renewal in Search of a Precedent,• in R. W. Swanson, ed., The Church &trosptctiVt:, Studus in Church
History 33, Woodbridge: The Boydell Press, 1997, pp. 75-90. See also Alexander Goliczin, On the Mysti-
ne
cal Life: EthicaLDisrourses, III, Crestwood NY: SVSP, 1997, which is effectively a valuable mono-
graph on the saint.
9 And perhaps also in Catechtsis 16.
demise in 976 and the accession of Basil II, with his opposition to the provin-
cial aristocracy, spelt the end of Symeon's court career. He experienced his
definitive conversion to the monastic life in a final, violent vision. To affirm
this is not to cast any aspersions on Symeon's monastic vocation, but it does
remind us of Symeon's long-standing court connexions, and his aristocratic
background, and helps explain why, as a monk, he became so difficult for the
patriarch to handle.
Symeon's monastic vocation began at the Stoudios monastery. However,
the close link between himself and his spiritual father caused problems at the
Stoudios, aggravated doubtless by Symeon the Pious' reputation for some-
what outlandish behaviour-appearing in the baths naked, and mixing with
society's outcasts-such that many have seen in the elder Symeon some of the
lineaments of the "holy fool." 10 Symeon soon found himself in the Monas-
tery of St Mamas, where Symeon the Pious was allowed to remain his spiri-
tual father. There, Symeon tonsured the young man, who chose to be named
after him as a monk. In 980, the aged abbot of St Mamas died, and Symeon,
despite his youth, succeeded him.
As abbot of St Mamas, Symeon set about introducing monastic reform .
What this implied we shall discuss in detail later, but for Symeon the monas-
tery was an arena for spiritual asceticism. He expected his monks to commit
themselves wholeheartedly to the monastic life; he expected a degree of con-
scious participation that would eventually lead to a felt experience of grace
and the Holy Spirit. He also insisted on frequent receiving of Holy Commu-
nion-even daily. His stress on spiritual authenticity was unyielding: it was far
more important than sacramental ordination, and in the case of confession
he insisted that absolution of sins could only be granted by someone with
felt experience of the presence of the Holy Spirit. This was linked with his
reverence for his spiritual father, who had himself been an unordained monk.
After Symeon the Pious' death in 986 or 987, Symeon began to venerate him
as a saint, composed his Life, and a liturgical office in his honour, and also
had his icon painted. This promotion of his spiritual father as a saint ran
counter to the burgeoning claims of the patriarchate, which was beginning to
claim the sole right to recognize the cult of any particular saint as authentic.
10E.g., Alexander Golitzin, III, p . 251'. , but see Alfeyev, Sy meon, pp. 23-27. On the tradition of the
ho ly foo l-the sakJs or iurotfh:y-see, most recently, Seigey A. Ivanov, Hof, Fools in Byzantium and
Beyond, Oxford Unive rsity Press, zoo6 (which contains references to Symeon the Pious).
Symeon's enthusiastic reform of the monastery of St Mamas led to unrest

among many of the monks, who felt that unreasonable demands were being
made of them. In the mid-nineties, some thirty of his monks rebelled. The
unrest in the monastery and the disapproval of Symeon's promotion of his
namesake and spiritual father as a saint combined to fuel a campaign against
himself as abbot of Saint Mamas. The home synod declared against him in
the matter of St Symeon the Pious in 1003; there followed six years in which
Symeon's enemies sought his expulsion from his monastery. Finally in 1009,
the patriarch exiled Symeon from the capital. He was sent to the monastery
of St Macrina, said by his biographer to be in ruins, the other side of the
Bosphoros. Within a couple of years, Symeon's supporters had persuaded the
patriarch to lift his condemnation, which he did, but it was too late. Symeon
refused to leave the now-restored monastery of St Macrina, and remained
there until his death, just over ten years later, in 1022.
He is now known as "the New Theologian," but there is some uncertainty
as to the origin and meaning of this nickname. Perhaps originally it was just
"Symeon the New," i.e., "the Younger," to distinguish him from his spiritual
father; maybe, the title "New Theologian" was originally pejorative-the theo-
logian who introduces innovation, universally regarded by the Byzantines as
error. Eventually, however, it came to mean the "New Theologian," compar-
ing him with St John the Theologian, that is, the Apostle and Evangelist, and
St Gregory the Theologian, that is, Gregory of Nazianzus, the author of the
Five Theological Orations, thus raising Symeon to their rank, "theologian"
being used in the sense given it by Evagrios when he said: "If you are a theo-
logian, you will pray truly; if you pray truly, you will be a theologian." 11
Symeon's significance can be approached in several ways : there is his
monastic reform; his understanding of spiritual experience, especially as
revealed in his accounts of his visions; his teaching on the essential role of
the spiritual father, especially in relation to confession. Let us begin by look-
ing at his spiritual experience, especially the visions that occurred at crucial
points in his life. As noted, the initial vision is recorded twice in his works.
In both cases Symeon speaks in the third person, referring to himself as
"George," probably his baptismal name. The account in the Catecheses (which
in many ways mirrors the prophet Samuel's vision in 1 Kingdoms [1 Samuel]
3, especially the role of the priest Eli) reads thus:
11 Evagrios, On Prayer 61.
GREEK EAST AND LATlN WEST
While he was standing one day and saying the prayer "God be merciful to
me a sinner," more with his mind than with his lips, a divine brightness
suddenly appeared in abundance from above and filled the whole place.
When this happened, the young man was no longer aware, but forgot,
whether he was in a house or under a roof: for he only saw light on every
side, and he did not even know if he was standing on the ground. Yet he
was not in any fear of falling, for he did not think at all about the world,
or about any of the cares that normally absorb men's attention while they
are in the body. But he was wholly united with immaterial light and, so it
seemed, he had himself become light. Then he forgot the whole world,
and was filled with tears and with inexpressible joy and exultation.12
In the other account of this vision, in the fifth Ethical Treatise, the young
man reported his vision to his spiritual father (Symeon the Pious) who inter-
preted the vision for him. In response to being asked what he saw, he replied,
"Light, Father, so sweet, so sweet, that I cannot find any way of expressing it."
He then went on to say that his heart skipped and panted, and he was filled
with a great desire for the One he had seen, and he began to shed warm tears.
"That light appeared to me, Father. The walls of my cell immediately van-
ished and the world passed away, fleeing, as I thought, before His face.
And I remained alone in the presence of the light alone. I do not know,
Father, if this body was there, or ifl went out ofit: all I know is that I knew
nothing of my body. There was within me an ineffable joy, which is still
with me now, love and a great desire, so that floods of tears flowed from
me like rivers, just as you can see now."
And answering, he [the spiritual father) said, "My child, it is He."
At these words he saw him again and little by little became completely
purified, and in his purity became bold and asked him and said, "My God,
is it you?" And he answered and said, "Yes, it is I, God, who for your sake
became man; and behold I have made you, as you see, and will make you
God." 13
It is an account of a profoundly moving experience-an experience of

radiance penetrating to the core of his being, which melts in tears. But it is
12 Catechesi.s 22.88--100 (Bp Kallistos' translation).

13
Ethical Treatise 5-297-317.
Spiritual and Intellectual Life in Byzantium
also deeply traditional in its expression. In particular, it recalls the vision of

Karpos, recorded by Dionysios the Areopagite in his eighth epistle: a radi-
ance that seems to swallow up the walls of the cell, so that Karpos seems to
be in the open air, as George found the walls of his cell vanishing. 14 The
emphasis on tears is traditional, too, tears of joy-"a mourning that brings
joy," charopoionpenthos, as St John of the Ladder had put it. 15 To quote a con-
temporary of Symeon's:
0 tears of spiritual joy, better than honey or the honeycomb and sweeter
than any nectar! You who renew the minds lifted up to God with the pleas-
ant sweetness of a secret savour and water dry and wasting hearts at their
very core with the stream of heavenly grace! 16
That is from Peter Cardinal Damian, whose enthusiasm for the restoration of
the eremitical life we have already noticed.
The emphasis on experience was central to Symeon's understanding of
the Christian life. Those who claimed that the experience of the Spirit was
something that belonged to the apostolic age, to the early days of the Church,
as depicted in the Acts of the Apostles, were, for Symeon, simply betraying
their faith. At one point he speaks of "those who say that there is no one in
our time, living amongst us, who can keep the evangelical commands and
come to be in accordance with the holy Fathers." He continues, "[W]hat this
involves is first of all to be faithful and active in works-for through works
faith is shown forth, as the likeness of a face is seen in a mirror-then to be
utterly contemplative and at once to see God, in being illumined evidently
receiving the Spirit and through him beholding the Son together with the
Father. Those who say that this is impossible are not in the grip of any par-
ticular heresy, but of all of them . . ."17 This emphasis on experience mani-
fested itself in various ways. At the heart of his monastic reform, which met
with such resistance at St Mamas, was the conviction that faithfulness and
perseverance would be rewarded with felt spiritual experience: the monastic
way of life meant for each individual monk the search for the experience of
14 Cf. Dio n ysios the Areopagite, Ep. 8.6 (PG 3:uooA).

15 Ladder7; quoted by Bishop Kallistos, art. cit., p . 232.
16 Peter Damian, On the Perftction efM onks, u (trans. McNulry, St Peter Damian, Stlattd Writings,
p. ro8).
17
Catechesis 29.138-47.
GREEK EAST AND LATl WEST
the Spirit. Personal encounter with Christ in frequent Communion, the shed-
ding of tears of repentance and joy: these were not exceptional peaks, but
what every faithful Christian (or monk at least) should expect and strive for.
This experience was itself empowering: it paved the way for the vocation of
the spiritual father, the man (or woman, though there is little trace of women
fulfilling the role of spiritual counsellor in the Byzantine Middle Ages) who
from experience can become a spiritual guide to others. 18 It is evident from
Symeon's own story that these "others" were not just monks; certainly within
the circle of the court, laymen also sought out a spiritual father, and put
themselves under his guidance. But Symeon concentrated on the monks-on
his monks. As their abbot, he spoke to them regularly about the spiritual life,
the nature and importance of prayer, the experience of the Holy Spirit: the
catecheses and discourses that survive bear vivid testimony to this. It was
because of his spiritual experience that the spiritual father could act as an
intercessor with God for his spiritual children. Absolution was not the pre-
serve of the priesthood. As he puts it in his letter on confession:
It is neither to those in the habit of monks, nor to those ordained and

enrolled in the rank of priesthood ... that God has given the grace of for-
giving sins merely by virtue of their having been ordained. Perish the
thought! For these are allowed only to celebrate the sacraments (and I
think myself that even this does not apply to many of them, lest they be
burned up entirely by this service who are themselves but straw). Rather,
this grace is given alone to those, as many as there are among priests and
bishops and monks, who have been numbered with Christ's disciples on
account of their purity of life. 19
Furthermore, it is such spirit-filled individuals who, even in this life, are

saints, interceding for us before the throne of God, and who, after their
death, are to be venerated as saints, with an icon and services in their honour.
Symeon's forthright expression of his convictions would anyway have
probably been felt by many as a challenge to established authority, but his
specific challenge to the authority of the priesthood, especially in the matter
of confession and absolution, was bound to result in controversy and attempts
18 On Symeon's understanding of spiritual fatherhood, see HJ.M. Turner, St Symeon the New Theo-
wgian 11J1d Spirilllal Fatherhood, Byzantina eerlandica u, Leiden : E.J. Brill, 1990.
19Letteron Confession 13 (trans. Golitzin in Symeon, On tht Mystical Life, m, p. wo).
to suppress him. Symeon is, however, a paradoxical figure. He is exceptional

in the Byzantine world for his appeal to his own spiritual experience as the
ground of his authority. But however exceptional-and awkward-he was, he
represents the drawing together of authentic strands of the Byzantine, and
especially, monastic tradition. 20 We have already noticed that the accounts
of his spiritual experience are expressed in traditional terms. His emphasis on
the necessity of authentic spiritual experience for the exercise of the ministry
of absolution (which he sometimes extends to celebration of the Eucharist,
and even to taking of Holy Communion)2 1 recalls a theme not uncommon
in Byzantine monastic literature. In the letter of Dionysios' already referred
to, Dionysios comments with approval that Karpos never celebrated the
"holy rites of the mysteries" unless there appeared to him a "sacred and aus-
picious vision" during the prayers of the preparation, while John Moschos
tells a story of a monk who, when celebrating, "did not perceive the coming
of the Holy Spirit in the accustomed manner." 22 He is distressed and returns
to the sanctuary in tears. It transpires that the Holy Spirit had not descended
because the oblation had already been consecrated-by a lay monk who had
recited the anaphora over the oblations while he was bringing them to the
monastery! Clearly, the monk was accustomed to perceive the corning of the
Holy Spirit. There are stories of other monks also used to beholding the
descent of the Holy Spirit when celebrating: it was a mark of the great holi-
ness of the celebrating priest. 23 It is this tradition that Symeon represents. In
his own exercise of his spiritual gifts-as confessor and abbot-Symeon again
stands in a tradition. Despite his brief experience of the Stoudios monastery,
Symeon's practice of regular catechesis of his monks recalls no one as much
as St Theodore the Stoudite, and the influence that a monastic spiritual father
could exercise in court circles finds an echo in the case of St Maximos the
Confessor in the seventh centu.ry, and St Stephen the Younger in the eighth.
So far as the question of promoting the cult of the saints was concerned, it
seems to have been the patriarch who was departing from tradition in his
attempt (more or less contemporary with the assertion in the West of canon-
2
0'Jhis, and Symeon's indebtedness to the Byzantine monastic (Stouclite) tradition, is the main
burden of Alfeyev, SI Symeon.
21
See Hymn 19.159-65 (celebration of the Eucharist); Ethical Trealise ro.189-97 (reception of Holy
Communion).
22 Spiri11tal Meadmo, p. 25.
2.3Spiritual Meat!ow, pp. 27,150.

33°
ization as a papal privilege) to reserve the approval of the cult of saints to

himself.
The emphasis on spiritual experience is striking in the case of Symeon,
not because it is unparalleled in the Byzantine tradition-indeed Symeon
draws on earlier monastic writings that had emphasized the place of experi-
ence, notably the homilies ascribed to St Makarios the Great, and the writ-
ings of St Isaac the Syrian, that had entered the Byzantine tradition through
the eighth-century Sabaite translation already mentioned-but because this
long-standing feature of monastic experience becomes with Symeon a prin-
ciple the implications of which are worked out in a more general fashion. It
is a mistake, however, to give the impression that Symeon's writings are sim-
ply experiential outpourings. They express a theology that is thoroughly
informed by the Byzantine theological tradition, even though the influence
of this tradition is manifest not in explicit citations of the Fathers, but rather
in allusions to their ideas, many of which may have been mecliated through
the monastic office. When explicitly theological issues are raised, however,
such as how the Son is distinguished &om the Father (in Hymn 21, in response
to the accusations of Stephen of Nikomedia), or how the Son can say that
"the Father is greater than I," 24 Symeon shows himself thoroughly capable of
handling these topics.25
In his writings-his catecheses, discourses and hymns-one can discern
very clearly one who was, as Symeon himself put it, "an utterly crazy zealot
(~YjA.WTY)V µcxvtxwm-rov)," 26 a man whose passionate enthusiasm could both
attract and repel. He has an amazing gift for conveying his mess age in strik-
ing language, and-like John of the Ladder-makes very effective use of
metaphors. In the second of his three sets of"Theological, Gnostic and Prac-
tical Chapters," Symeon compares progress in knowledge and contemplation
of God to one who begins by looking at the sea, then wades into it, and
finally plunges in completely.
24Th is is a recurrent topic in the Byzantine theological tradition (possibly owing to its central place
in the third Theological Ora/ion of St Gregory the Theologian ), discussed earlier by Photios, and just
after Symeon's time by M icl:tael Psellos, before becoming a major issue in the rwelfth century under
the emperor Manuel I Komnenos.
25 Bishop Hilarion Al fe)'ev raises these points in his St Symeon, pp. 143-54 (chapter VI); and for
more general theological topics, see chapters VII and VJ)[ (pp. 155-90).
26 CaUchesis 21.139- 40.
One who stands on the seashore sees the limitless ocean of the waters, but
his gaze cannot reach as far as its edge, and he looks upon only a small
part. So it is with one who is counted worthy to gaze, through contempla-
tion, upon the limitless ocean of God's glory and to look upon it with his
mind: he does not see it as it is, but only so far as it is accessible to the
inner eyes of his soul.
One who stands on the seashore, not content with merely looking at the
waters, may also wade into them as far as he chooses. So it is with those who
are spiritual: according to the intensity of their desire, they can enter con-
sciously into the light of God, both participating in it and contemplating it
One who stands on the seashore, so long as he remains on dry land,
can look around on everything and gaze out across the ocean of the waters.
But when he begins to enter into the waters and to immerse himself
beneath them, the further he advances the less he sees of things outside.
So it is with those who become sharers of the divine light: the further they
advance into the knowledge of God the more deeply they plunge into
unknowing.
One who wades into the waters of the sea up to his knees or his waist
can see clearly everything that is outside the waters. But when he plunges
into the depths and becomes wholly submerged under the waters, he can
no longer see anything outside and he knows only one thing, that he is
entirely immersed in the deep. So it is with those who progress spiritually
and ascend towards perfect knowledge and contemplation. 27
The one who pursues the knowledge of God experiences, then, a movement
&om the kind of knowledge we can have by inspection, where we stand out-
side things and critically assess them, to a knowledge, better called "unknow-
ing" or ignorance, in which we know by being immersed in that which we
know: it is a presence, not something we can hold at a critical distance. In
being immersed in God, we abandon the comforting safety of the dry land,
and-as Symeon puts it, as he draws out the significance of his metaphor in
the succeeding chapters-"are frightened as we grasp the boundlessness and
incomprehensibility of what we see. "28 Furthermore, we swim best if we are
naked, and so Symeon comments:
n Theowgical, Gnostic and Practical Chapters 2.n-14 (Bp Kallistos' translation, slightly modilied).
28Ibid., 2 .16.
When the intellect is simple, or rather stripped naked (yuµ.voc;) of all

thought and, hidden in itself, it enters wholly into the simple divine light,
it cannot find anything else other than that in which it exists, so that it is
moved towards its comprehension, but remains in the abyss of divine
light, unable to see anything outside. For it is said, "God is light," and
indeed the supreme light, and for those who have attained this there is a
cessation of all contemplation.29
This direct, experiential appropriation of themes that more commonly

have ontological or epistemological import in Byzantine writers must have
been intoxicating to those who could take it. But they were probably very
few. The disciple, who kept the flame of Symeon's memory alight in the years
after his death, leading to the brief period of fame for the saint in the mid-
eleventh century when Symeon's relics were brought to Constantinople, and
Symeon himself venerated as a saint, was Niketas, a monk of the Stoudios
monastery. As we have seen, he gained his nickname, "Stethatos," through
continuing the Stoudite tradition of criticizing imperial sexual mores; he also
presents Symeon, in the Life he wrote as part of the rehabilitation of his hero,
as a thoroughly Stoudite monk. It is not unlikely that Symeon had some rev-
erence for the monastery of his beloved spiritual father, and his interpreta-
tion of the role of the abbot, or igumen, as the immediate spiritual father of
his monks recalls the example of St Theodore, the restorer of the Stoudite
monastery. But the opposition he encountered at St Mamas suggests that
Symeon's ways were not felt to be at all traditional (though Theodore, in
more peaceful times, might well have found his strenuous interpretation of
the monastic life not uncontroversial). However Niketas may have distorted
and domesticated the saint whom, in truth, he had only known briefly
towards the end of his life, it seems that his efforts were short-lived. 30 Not
until the hesychast controversy of the fourteenth century does Symeon again
become an admired figure of Byzantine monasticism, and even then it is not
clear how extensive a knowledge of Symeon the hesychasts had. St Gregory
Palamas, in his Triads in defence of the hesychasts, scarcely cites Symeon, and
seems to know the figure of Niketas' Life rather better. The work ascribed to
Symeon most popular among the hesychasts, the Three M ethods efPrayer, is a
29 Ibid., 2.17.
30 McGuckin in his articles argues strongly against trusting the evidence ofNiketas.
Spiritual and Intellectual Life in Byzantium 3.33
somewhat later work. However, the libraries of the monasteries on the Holy
Mountain provide evidence that many of the saint's works were known there
in the fourteenth century. 31
N iketas Stethatos
Niketas himself is a figure of some importance for the intellectual and spiri-
tual life of the eleventh century, though not as towering a figure as Symeon
himself. Born at the beginning of the century, he became a monk at the
monastery of the Stoudios in about 1020, and can thus have known Symeon
only briefly. Symeon during his lifetime requested Niketas to make copies of
his writings, and sometime after his death appeared to him in a vision, which
spurred on Niketas to put together an edition of his writings. Niketas
remained at the Stoudios monastery all his life, was ordained priest, and pos-
sibly, towards the end of his life, became abbot of the monastery. As we have
seen, Niketas wrote works of polemic, but he also wrote treatises on the soul
and on paradise, on the meaning of hierarchy, on the topic of the limits of
life, much discussed by the Byzantines, and three centuries on the spiritual
life (which was included in the Athonite Phiwkalia, published in 1782); sev-
eral letters also survive. An unpublished hypotyposir for the Stoudite monks,
composed by Niketas, gives valuable insight into the private life of prayer
expected of the monks in the Stoudios monastery.32 Niketas displays his
learning more obviously than Symeon, and shares many of his mentor's spir-
itual themes, not least the emphasis on the experience of the divine light, and
the importance of finding a spiritual father. In other respects he seems very
different from Symeon, not least in the importance he gives to the concept
of hierarchy. Symeon's stress on authentic spiritual experience tended to
qualify the notion of hierarchy. In contrast Niketas elaborates the structures
based on hierarchy, finding in the hierarchy of the Church on earth a close
reflection of the heavenly hierarchy: to the highest rank of the celestial hier-
archy, the Thrones, Cherubim and Seraphim (in that order, the reverse of
what we find in Dionysios the Areopagite), there correspond patriarchs, met-
31See Krivocheine in his introduction to the Callchtm (SC 96, pp. 63-145) and Darro uzes in his
introduction to the Chapitres theologiqu1s, gnostiques et pra1iqU£S (SC 122, pp. 38-45).
32 See Dirk Krausmi.iller, "Private vs. Communal : Niketas Stethatos's Hypotyposis for Stoudios, and
Patterns of Worship in Eleventh-<:entury Byzantine Monasteries," in Work and Worship at lhe Theololws
Evergetis, eds. Margaset Mullett and Anthony Kirby, BBTI 6.2, Belfast 1997= 309-28.
ropolitans and archbishops; to the middle rank in heaven, Lordships, Powers

and Authorities, correspond bishops, priests and deacons; to the lowest rank
of Principalities, Archangels and Angels-sub-deacons, readers and monks.
The parallel hierarchies are united in their song: the highest celestial rank
chanting "Blessed is the Glory of the Lord in his place!" corresponding to the
chant of the highest earthly rank, "Blessed is the kingdom of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit, now and for ever and to the ages of ages!" -the
opening acclamation of the Divine Liturgy. The middle rank chants in
heaven the angelic song of Isaias' vision (there, specifically the song of the
seraphim!), "Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth, the whole earth is full of his
glory," to which the middle rank on earth replies with the sanctus of the
Divine Liturgy: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord of Sabaoth, heaven and earth is full
of your glory. Hosanna in the highest! Blessed is he who comes in the name
of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!" While the lowest rank, both in heaven
and on earth, sings: "Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia."
Michael Psellos
As we have already seen, the principal-and certainly the most attractive-
source for the history of the eleventh century is the Chronographia of Michael
Psellos. 33 It is, however, quite unlike most other examples of this genre (usu-
ally called Chronicle or Chronography in translation), including those that over-
lap with Psellos' own work: the chronicles ofKedrenos, Skylitzes, Attaleiates
and Zonaras. Byzantine chronicles were generally organized on an annalistic
pattern, that is, on a year-by-year basis, and generally read more like imper-
sonal compilations, which, for the most part, they are, though occasionally
the chronicler interposes his own ideas, or even his own person. Psellos'
Chronographia is quite different. It is arranged by the reigns of the emperors,
from Basil II (~q6-rn25) to Michael VII (rn71-8), and is not in the least imper-
sonal: even in the brief first book on Basil II, mostly covering a period before
Psellos was born, his own slant is manifest in his remark on the emperor's
intellectual philistinism. 34 As the history develops, we hear a good deal about
33
Critical edition: Cbronographia: lmperalori di Bisanzw (Cronografia), ed. Salvatore Impellizzeri
with Italian translation, 2. vols., Vicenza: Mondadori, 1984: English translation by E.R.A. Sewter, Four-
tan Byzantine Rlikrs, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1966.
34
Chro11ographia 1.29-30 (Impellizzeri, l, pp. 40- 44; Sewrer, pp. 43-45).
Spiritual and Intellectttal Life in Byzantium 335
the intellectual life of his times, and his own place in it. 35 Psellos comes over
as a man conscious of his own intellectual worth, inclined indeed to exagger-
ate it, but also with an irritating habit of apologizing for putting himself
forward. The humility seems quite false, and the egotism pervasive: his first
reaction to the news of the accession of Romanos IV Diogenes was "instant
consternation. I could not conceive what would become of me"! 36 Such self-
conscious vanity is not at all attractive, and has led to a tendency to read
behind the lines of his defensiveness about such matters as astrology and
horoscopy. Psellos does indeed boast of his prowess in these matters, while
at the same time asserting that his interest is purely intellectual, and that he
does not believe that these practices have any validity (and though he did not
practise as a doctor, he boasts an expertise surpassing that of the court doc-
tors in his account of the final illness oflsaac Komnenos).37 So, after his men-
tion of Michael V's court astrologers, he comments, "I myself have some
knowledge of the science, a knowledge acquired after long and diligent
research, and I have been of some assistance to many of these men and
helped them to understand the planetary aspects. Despite this I am no be-
liever in the theory that our human affairs are influenced by the movement
of the stars."38 The temptation is not to take such disclaimers at face value,
but to see Psellos as indeed someone who dabbled in such occult practices,
and indeed more than that: as one who bad considerable learning in such
occult wisdom, to the point of being more committed to pagan wisdom than
Christianity. 39 This impression can be reinforced by reading in a similar way
his account of his embrace of the monastic life in 1054. He says that people
35
For Psellos' appreciation of classical culture, see Wilson, Scholars, pp. 156-79, and for his philos-
ophy, see Tatakis, Byzanliru Philosoplry, pp. u9-69, and Perikles Joannou, ChristliciJe M etaphysik in
Byzanz, I. Die flluminalianskhre des MiclJatl Psellos 1mdjoa,mes ltalos, Studia Patristica et Byzantina 3,
Ettal: Buch-Kunstverlag, 1956. Scholarship based on the new critical edition of PseUos is in its infancy.
For details of the edition, see the bibliography.
36
lbid., 7.b.7 (lmpellizzeri, II, p. 326; Sewter, p. 348).
37
Ibid., 7.74~2 (lmpeUizzeri, II, pp. 274~2; Sewter, pp. 322-30).
38Ibid., 5-19 (lmpellizzeri, I, p. 206; Sewter, p. 133-34); for his knowledge of horoscopy, see 6.a.2
(Impellizzeri, I. pp. 164--66; Sewter, p. 266).

3
91his is the position taken by most scholars, e.g. G. Ostrogorsky,J.M. Hussey and implicitly by
A. Kazhdan in his article in ODB. In his The Argument ofPsellos' Chronographia, Leiden: Brill, 1999, A.
Kaldellis argues a much more sophisticated version of this thesis-depicting Psellos as a kind of Byzan-
tine Machiavelli and Voltaire rolled into one-much of which I find compelling and aU of it interest-
ing. There seems to me, however, to be another side, which is worth consideration; this I have outlined
in my own treatment of Psellos here.
expressed astonishment that I should hurriedly abandon the brilliant rep-

utation so painfully acquired, just at the moment when I had overcome
the jealous machinations of my rivals, and tum to the more divine life. The
change was due partly to an innate longing which I had experienced &om
my earliest years, and partly to the complete metamorphosis in political
affairs.40
A typical reaction is that ofJ.M. Hussey: "[t]he real reason is obviously

to be found in the weakness of his position at court .. . There is certainly
nothing in Pseilus's character or actions to suggest that he had always longed
for the monastic life .. ."41 It is certainly true that Pselios was soon back at
the imperial court, but it is perhaps significant that he is known by his monas-
tic name, Michael (and not his baptismal name, Constantine). Maybe his
return to court was as an "elder," geron, the name he told the patriarch John
Xiphilinos he counted greater than any reputation for ''Hellenic wisdom . . .
or that of the Chaldaeans or Egyptians, or any other ineffable knowledge." 42
There is no question that Psellos was enormously learned, and that this
learning extended into regions of pagan learning, and furthermore, probably,
that his knowledge of Neoplatonism and its religious sources was something
that Byzantium had not seen since the pagan Neoplatonists died out after the
closing of the Platonic Academy by Justinian in 529. This is certainly the
impression Psellos wants to give. At one point in the Chronographia, he gives
an account of his education: how this began in his twenty-fifth year (i.e.,
about 1043), that he mastered not only rhetoric, but also philosophy, the
study of which "was moribund as far as its professors were concerned, and I
alone revived it, untutored by any masters worthy of mention." His philo-
sophical studies covered Plato and Aristotle, and then Plotinos, Porphyry and
Iamblichos, and then the "mighty harbour of the most amazing Proklos,"43
through whom he approached metaphysics by way of the study of mathemat-
ics. Psellos remarks on his accomplishment in both rhetoric and philosophy,
but rates philosophy more highly, "which hunts down the natures of beings
and sets before the mind ineffable contemplations," and comments that he
is able to "brighten a philosophical discourse with the graceful arts of rheto-
40Ibid., 6.191 (Impellizzeri, 11, pp. 138- 40: Sewter [modified], p. 254).
41J.M. Hussey, Church and learning, p. 67f.
42
Ep. 175, to John Xiphilinos (Sathas, 5.451).
43 Chronographia 6.38 (Impellizzeri, I, p. 284; Sewter [modified], p. 174).
Spin·tual and Intellectual Life in Byzantium 337
ric." 44 He then goes on to introduce "another philosophy, transcending this,

fulfilled by the mystery of our Word," which has a dual natrne, both capable
of rational argument and derived from divine and inspired knowledge (a dis-
tinction reminiscent of that found in Dionysios the Areopagite's ninth let-
ter).45 It is this, he claims, to which he now devoted his studies, "following
the great fathers in what they brought to light, and also himself introducing
something to the divine fulness." This little boast provokes him to profes-
sions of modesty, and leads him to protest that if anyone were to praise him,
let it be not for his extensive reading, but "because I drew my small measure
of wisdom from no living fount: the sources I discovered were choked up,
and I had to open and cleanse them myself Their waters, too, were hidden
in the depths and only brought to the surface after I had expended much
energy."46
These claims are probably broadly true: Psellos was learned, and though
his style can be obscure, it can also be extremely graceful. The great Roman-
ian scholar, Nicolae Iorga, once remarked that "Psellos forged a new language,
oflong and noble phrases, a language which is by turns moving and delicate,
laden with words long forgotten, words with imposing resonance, which he
knew how to use with erudite pretension, as if they were part of his everyday
speech."47 As to where his heart lay, his clear fascination with Neoplatonic
philosophy and the Chaldaean and Egyptian wisdom on which it pretended
to draw (and maybe did) clouds the issue: it is difficult to be so fascinated
without some commitment. Nonetheless, he always protests that the inner
wisdom transcends the outer, and perhaps it is worth attempting to take this
at face value. The last few decades has seen a transformation in the accessi-
bility of Psellos' works. On the one hand, some works once confidently
ascribed to him-notably his work On the Activity of Demons-are no longer
thought to be his, while with the publication of nine volumes, so far, of his
works in a new critical edition Psellos presents a somewhat different face to
the world. Studies of Psellos utilizing this new material are in their infancy,
but at first glance what we have now renders Psellos' own self-assessment
more credible. We have much greater evidence of his engagement in Chris-
44 Ibid., 6.41 (Impellizzeri, I, p. :z88; Sewter, p. 176).

45 Cf. Chronographia 6.42 (lmpellizzeri, I, p. :z88) with Dionysios, Ep. 9.1 (rm5D).
%Chronographia 6.42 (Impellizzeri, L p. :z88; Sewter, p. 177).
<1Qpoted by Basil Tatakis, in his Byza11tine Philosophy, p. ,µ (from Byzantion 2 [1925]: 270).
tian theology, and while there is no question that he had unparallel~d knowl-
edge of the outer wisdom, some of the more compromising works {especially
De operatione daemonorum) can now be discounted.
It is evident from what we have seen so far that Psellos valued both the
outer wisdom and the inner wisdom, and saw no necessary contradiction
between them: they are both concerned with truth, but the inner wisdom
with the deeper truth, revealed by God, especially in the Incarnation. Among
the works now published is a collection of poems, written by Psellos presum-
ably as mnemonics for his pupils, mostly in political verse (i.e., with a line of
fifteen syllables, usually iambic, with a stress on the penultimate syllable).
Many of them are on theological topics-on the inscriptions of the Psalms,
on the Song of Songs (an epitome of Gregory of Nyssa's homilies), on Chris-
tian doctrine, on the church synods, on the "Nomocanon" (a summary, or
list, of the ecclesiastical canons). Others are on grammar, rhetoric, medicine,
on one or other of the parables. There are court poems, including a lament
at the death of Constantine Monomachos' mistress, Skleraina (in sharp con-
trast to Niketas' denunciation of the relationship), a couple of liturgical
canons (including one for Holy Thursday), and various epigrams and puz-
zles. One of these is worth glancing at: that on Christian doctrine.
Receive the foundation of our doctrines:

a concise and synoptic outline.
Know God, the lord of things both corporeal and incorporeal,
timeless, without end, the sustainer of all things,
incorporeal, invisible, formless by nature;
the essence (ousia) incomprehensible, but apprehended in his
activities (energeiaz),
one and three in himself: one in essence,
three in bypostases, and, if you like, in persons. 48
Psellos goes on to expound the doctrine of the Trinity, and then affirms the
Incarnation:
The Son alone was incarnate at the end of the ages

and assumed our nature from the Vugin,
essentially, not relatively, by nature, not in appearance,
48 Poema 3 (de doginate), lines 1-8 (ed. Westerink, Poemala, Stuttgart & Leipzig, 1992, p. 68).
as He wished, taking flesh endowed with intellect and soul

from the pure blood of the all-sacred Virgin,
and was united to this hypostatically, without confusion,
and became human, being God by nature. 49
With great care, Psellos distinguishes hypostasis and ousia, and sets out the
Orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation, introducing further technical terms,
which he defines, such as enypostatos and energeia, and concludes:
With all of these, know that as the incarnate Word

assumed our flesh in becoming incarnate,
he was called a curse, receiving a blessing,
and died as man, being immortal by nature,
willingly undergoing death on the cross;
He rose on the third day, breaking up Hades,
then he was received up into heaven in glory,
whence he will come with the Father and the Holy Spirit
righteously and yet with loving kindness to judge everyone.
1bis is a summary of theological thought
and utterance, Master, about the economy ... 50
And with a few more lines he draws the poem to an end. The structure of the
poem is recognizably credal, filled out with the precisions of synodal Ortho-
doxy. In this, it parallels the structure of St John Damascene's On the Ortho-
tUJx Faith, to which it bears a close resemblance in many of its terms. Another
of Psellos' summaries of doctrine is his De omnifaria doctrina, "on all kinds of
doctrine." This is very closely parallel to the form in which PseUos is most
likely to have known the Damascene's work: namely, as a work probably
called "One Hundred and Fifty Philosophical and Theological Chapters,"
that is, the hundred chapters of On the Orthodox Faith, prefaced by the fifty
chapters of the textbook of logic (the Dialectica).51 For De omnifaria doctrina
begins by defining the technical language used in theology (hypostasis, nature,
enypostatos, homoousios, union, distinction, relation), then introduces the doc-
trine of the Trinity and the wonderful exchange between God and human
49 Ibid., lines r9-25 (ed. Westerink, p. 69).

50Ibid., lines 83--93 (ed. Weste.rink, pp. 71-72).
51
See Louth, Stjohn Damascent, p. µf.
34° GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
kind that took place in the Incarnation, then going back to our knowledge of
God, leading into the doctrine of creation, angels, human beings, the nature
of intellect and soul, the relation of soul and body, the virtues, the nature of
evil, space, time, fate, eternity, the five senses, astronomy, meteorology, med-
icine, agriculture, and ending with the return of the soul to God. 52
Psellos then stands in a recognizable Byzantine tradition of theology,
which the Damascene epitomized in the early eighth century. This sense of
a tradition is hardly surprising-Psellos spoke of himself as "following the
great Fathers," echoing the words that preface the Chalcedonian Definition-
and the nature of the tradition becomes still clearer when we look at the two
-volumes of theological works recently edited. These works-the largest group
in Psellos' ceuvre-are immediately recognizable as "questions-and-answers,"
"difficulties" (ambigua or aporiaz), such as we find earlier in Maximos the
Confessor or in Photios. They are concerned to elucidate difficulties raised
by passages in Scripture-what is meant by Wisdom building a house in
Proverbs 9:1 (opusc. 7), or what is meant by Wisdom being "created" in Prov.
8:22 (opusc. 10), difficult verses in the psalms (opusc. 4, 18, 34-37, 73, etc.), on
the meaning of &ex~ ("beginning") in John I:I (opusc. 75)-or in the Fathers,
especially Gregory of Nazianzus (see below), but also Basil the Great (opusc.
6) or John Klimakos (opusc. 30), or in the liturgical texts-passages from John
Damascene's canon on the Transfiguration and Kosmas' canon for Holy
Thursday, as well as the K;yrie eleison (opusc. n-13)-or theological problems, for
instance why humans can change from evil to good, but angels, once fallen
into sin, cannot (opusc. 29). That summary is based on the volume edited by
Gautier; in the other volume the questions are mostly about passages of
Scripture, with a handful of problems from Gregory of Nazianzus. The
prominence of Gregory of Nazianzus-Gregory the Theologian-is striking,
but not unexpected: we find the same in both Maximos and Photios. Gre-
gory's renown as "the Theologian" made the clearing up of puzzles and prob-
lems in his homilies (and also occasionally in his poems) imperative.
Gregory's third Theological Oration (or. 29) is a recurrent concern for Psellos-
there are a couple of series of problems on this homily (opusc. 20-24, 53-59,
but also 3, 16, 107)-as is the sermon on Epiphany, or. 38 (opusc. 64, 86-97), but
several other sermons raise problems (or. 1, 21, 31, 3.3, 39-45). All in all, 68 out
52 Michael Psellos, De Omnifaria Doelrina, ed. L.G Westerink, Nijmegen: Cemrale Drukkerij N.V.,
1948.
of the 1I4 opuscula edited by Gautier discuss problems raised by Gregory's

homilies, and 5 out of the 45 edited by Westerink and Duffy. What Psellos
very often does is take a problem and elucidate its philosophical background
by drawing on his immense knowledge of those he once calls "the first and
blessed philosophers" (opusc. 69), by which he means Plato, Aristotle, the
Orphic hymns, the Chaldaean Oracles, and the Neoplatonists, especially
"the philosopher from Lycia," that is, Proklos. Sometimes it is not clear what
purpose is served by this display oflearning, but not infrequently it leads him
to a theological discussion in which he expounds skilfully the apophatic
nature of theology, or the way in which the Incarnation of the Word of God
brings about the deification of humankind. 53
Psellos' reverence for Gregory the Theologian is also manifest in his pan-
egyric on the saint. 54 Psellos' fust claim for Gregory is that he is a model of
all the stylistic virtues. Whereas other orators excel at one style or another-
and here Psellos displays his learning (or perhaps pretensions to learning) by
citing various rhetors of late antiquity-Gregory excels at them all. This Psel-
los puts down to the divine origin of his gift; it was certainly not achieved by
the usual method of imitation. Psellos explains why Gregory excels:
For my part, every time I read him, and I often have occasion to do so,
chiefly for his teaching but secondarily for his literary charm, I am filled
with a beauty and grace that cannot be expressed. And frequently I aban-
don my intention, and neglecting his theological meaning I spend my
time as it were among the spring flowers of his diction and am carried away
by my senses. Realizing that I have been carried off I then love and take
delight in my captor. And ifl am forced away from his words back to the
meaning, I regret not being carried off once more and lament the gain as
a deprivation. The beauty of his works is not of the type practised by the
duller sophists, epideictic and aimed at an audience, by which one might
be charmed at first and then at the second contact repelled-for those ora-
tors did not smooth the unevenness of their lips and were not afraid to rely
53
0n Psellos' interpretations of Gregory the Theologian, see Enrico V. Maltese, "Michele Psello,
Commentatore di Gregorio di N azianzo: Note per una lettura dei Theologica," in Syntksmos: Studi in
onore di Rosario, vol. 2, Catania, 1994, pp. 289-309.
54
See A. Mayer, "Psellos' R.ede iiber den rhetorischen Charakter des Gregorios von Nazianz/ in
Byzantinische 'Z.eitschriji 20 (19TI): 27-100 (text on pp. 48-6o}, and Nigel Wilson's discussion in his Schol-
ars ofByzantium, pp. 169--72.
on boldness of diction rather than skill. But his art is not of that kind, far
&om it; instead it has the harmony of music. 55
Psellos goes on to compare Gregory's words to precious and semi-precious

stones and their various qualities, arranged by the saint with the skill of the
jeweller, and compares Gregory to various orators whom he mentions who
have the gift of selecting ordinary words and arranging them with other words
so as to bring out their beauty. Gregory does this in a way that seems not in
the least artificial: "I cannot trace the means by which his extraordinary beauty
of style is regularly achieved; I merely sense them, the experience cannot be
rationally explained. But when I trace his methods and establish them as the
cause of his excellence, I see other sources from which grace flows into his writ-
ings." These sources include sentence structure and the use of rhythm. The
theological content of Gregory's sermons is never obscured; the use of rhythm
prevents monotony, and what he has to say is ornamented by his wide read-
ing. Psellos returns to the point of Gregory's ability to adapt his style, and
claims for him pre-eminence in the genre of panegyric. He closes by wonder-
ing why, despite the great clarity of his style, Gregory seems to need explana-
tion by commentators, amongst whom Psellos numbers himself
Psellos then stands in a tradition of theological reflection that focuses on
a meditative consideration of problems in the Scriptures, the Fathers, and the
liturgical texts. It is a long tradition, characteristic ofByzantine theology, and
characteristic, in particular, of what one might call the "lay" tradition of
Byzantine theology (or what Podskalsky has called the "humanistic" tradi-
tion). 56 Within this tradition Psellos is an exceptionally bright star, who seems
to have recovered much lost learning for his own age and his posterity. 57 This
recovered learning seems to have led to a collision with the Christian tradi-
tion safeguarded by the Byzantine Church, as we saw at the beginning of this
chapter. This collision should not, however, lead us to exaggerate the contrast
between the outer wisdom, in which Michael Psellos was so expert, and the
55Wi]son's translation.
56See Gerhard Podskalsky, Von Photios zu Bessarion. Der VoTTang humanislisch gepriigter Theokigie in
Byzanz und derm bkibmde Betkutung, Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2003.
57See John Duffy, "Reactions of Two Byzantine Intellectuals to the Theory and Practice of Magic:
Michael Psellos and Michael Italikos,» in Herny Maguire, ed., Byzantine Magic, Washington DC: Dum-
banon Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1995, pp. 83-97, esp. pp. 83-86; and idem, "Hellenic Phi-
losophy in Byzantium and the Lone Mission of Michael Psellos," in Katerina Ierodiakonou, ed.,
Byzantine Phikisophy and Its Ancient Sources, Oxford : Clarendon Press, 2002, pp. 139--)'6.
Spiritual and Intellectual. Life in Byzantium 343
inner wisdom, which Symeon characterizes. Nor, furthermore, should it lead

to an appraisal of Byzantine theology that sees a transposition taking place
in Byzantine theology at about the end of the period of the cxcumenical syn-
ods from doctrinal and exegetical theology to a theology concerned much
more narrowly with the spiritual life. For the doctrinal and exegetical tradi-
tion continued, though it was more the concern of the cclay" tradition, or at
any rate the non-monastic tradition. Furthermore, the relationship between
this "lay" tradition and the monastic spiritual tradition was much closer than
is often supposed. Psellos chose to be known by his monastic name-scarcely
evidence that it meant nothing to him. Symeon was not unaware of the theo-
logical concerns, especially the Trinitarian questions, with which Psellos wres-
tled. Symeon and Psellos did not belong to entirely separate worlds. Both of
them seem to have entered the monastic life after disappointment at the
imperial court-though with very different results. The status of geron, for
which Symeon made such claims, and which he exemplified in his own life,
was the status to which Psellos professed to aspire.
The issue that provoked the collision between the outer and the inner wis-
dom concerned the stature of Plato, and those who claimed his mantle. The
anathemas against John ltalos condemn various Platonic doctrines and allow
the study of Plato simply as an intellectual exercise. But in reality the issue was
not as simple as that. Although any belief in the pre-existence or transmigra-
tion of the soul was clearly incompatible with Christianity, it is equally clear
that the tradition of Christianity inherited by Byzantium, especially as found
in the Cappadocian Fathers, was deeply indebted to Platonism, and to the Pla-
tonic doctrine of the soul. The language of the spiritual and the intelligible
was taken over by Christians, and the understanding of the relationship of the
soul to the body, as expressed in the doctrine of the passions-ideas central to
the ascetic tradition, which cherished the inner wisdom-was at almost every
tum dependent on ideas stemming from Plato. In truth, the division between
the inner and outer wisdom only superficially separated different groups in
Byzantium, and these groups were more likely defined in political terms, than
in terms of their belief. The traditions of the inner and outer wisdom were
intricately entangled : both sides claimed the word philosophia for themselves,
and Psellos knew both meanings and made use of them both. The division
represented by the clash of inner and outer wisdom was contained by, and
penetrated to the depths of, the Byzantine soul.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
TURKS, NORMANS AND

THE COLLAPSE OF THE
BYZANTINE EMPIRE
I n Byzantium, it seems, there was often no correlation between intellec-

tual pre-eminence and political stability. The last century of Byzantium
(the "long century" 1300- 1453) was both a period of remarkable cultural
achievement 1 and a period marked by civil war and an inexorable decline
ending in the extinction of the Byzantine Empire with the fall of Constan-
tinople in 1453. Similarly with the eleventh century: the spiritual and intellec-
tual brilliance we have seen something of in the last chapter accompanied,
and to a large extent contributed to, the political decline that led to the
defeats of the Byzantine forces at Bari in Italy and at Manzikert on Lake Van
in Armenia in 1071-defeats that changed the fortunes of the Byzantine
Empire forever. Tiiis cultural renaissance may be seen as contributory to the
political decline insofar as the cultural splendour was an aspect of the court
culture ofByzantiurn. The beginnings of this period of cultural eminence can
be traced back to the time of Photios,2 and it continued through the tenth
and eleventh centuries into the twelfth, even under the reign of an emperor
such as Basil II, who, as Psellos confessed, "paid no attention to men ofleam-
ing; on the contrary he affected utter scorn- towards the learned folk, I mean.
It seems to me a wonderful thing, therefore, that while the emperor so
despised literary culture, no small crop of orators and philosophers grew up
in those times.'' 3 The tension that Psellos notes here became institutionalized
lSee the complementary studies: St~ en Run ciman, Ybe l.Ast Byumtine Renaissance, Cambridge
Uni"·ersity Press, 1970; Donald M . Nicol, Church and Society in the Last Cmturies of Byzantium, Cam-
bridge University Press, 1979.
zs ee above, p. 16o. See also Cyril Mango, "The Revival of Leaming," in idem, Ybe Oxford History
ofByzantium, Oxford University Press, 2002, pp. 214-29.
1Psellos, Chronographia r.29 (lmpelliz.reri, I, p. 42; Sewter, p. 44).
345
in the period after the death of Basil II, something Psellos seems to hint at
when he adds that, whereas in those days scholars pursued learning for its
own sake, they "nowadays ... consider personal profit the first reason for
study." For after the death of Basil II, the court came under the influence of
the court bureaucracy, dominated by men of learning, and the tension we
have already noticed in the tenth century between the emperor and the grow-
ing military aristocracy became in the eleventh century a struggle between a
civil aristocracy of the capital and the military aristocracy of the provinces.
Basil II died in 1025, leaving the empire to his brother who had theoreti-
cally co-reigned with him: Constantine VIII. Constantine died after three
years, leaving three daughters: Eudokia, a nun, and two younger women
(though by no means young), Zoe and Theodora, who jointly became em-
presses. Zoe promptly married Romanos Argyros, the prefect (eparchos) of the
city, who thus became emperor. Zoe was already fifty when she married
Romanos, and he soon lost interest in her. During his time as emperor, how-
ever, he gave in to pressure from the aristocracy (both civil and military) and
abolished the laws that had been passed by Romanos I and reinforced by
Basil II that made the "powerful" (dynatm) responsible for the additional tax
on peasant holdings that had been abandoned. This seriously weakened the
tax revenue of the empire. Zoe, deprived of Romanos' attentions, fell in love
with a peasant's son from Paphlagonia, called Michael, whom she married
after Romanos' death in his bath in 1034. Zoe's encounter with Michael had
probably been arranged by his brother John the Orphanotrophos, one of the
court eunuchs, who became the power behind the throne. During Michael
IV the Paphlagonian's reign, the civil bureaucracy retained its power and priv-
ileges. As Michael's health declined,John the Orphanotrophos sought to pre-
serve his power by making his nephew, Michael Kalaphates (the "caulker," so
called after his father's occupation), Zoe's adopted son; as such he succeeded
Michael N on his death in 1041. Michael V promptly turned on his uncle,
and sent him into exile. He then banished Zoe to a nunnery. The loyalty of
the city population to the Macedonian dynasty was stirred up by the bureau-
cracy and the Church, and Michael V was deposed and blinded in April 1042,
barely four months after he had acceded to the throne. He was replaced by
the two imperial sisters, who reigned together for a few months. Such was
their mutual hatred that within three months, it was decided that the sixty-
four-year-old Zoe should marry again, this time to Constantine Monoma-
Tt,rks, Normans and the Collapse ofthe Byzantine Empire 347
chos, who became emperor in 1042. He reigned until his death in 1055, when
he was succeeded by Michael VI, a weak member of the military aristocracy.
It was only in 1057 that the power of the civil bureaucracy was broken, when
Isaac I Komnenos came to the throne with the support of the powerful patri-
arch, Michael Keroularios. The thirty years of the ascendancy of the civil
bureaucracy had been a period o f prolonged weakness for the Byzantine
Empire, despite the splendour of its court culture. Basil II had left the empire
with a well-stocked treasury. Romanos' yielding to the aristocracy over the
matter of taxes seriously weakened the empire's finances. This was aggravated
by the repeated rebellions of the period-almost every year-in which the
armed forces, and the money spent on them, were destroyed to no purpose.
The resultant decline in the military forces of the empire led to increased
dependence on mercenary forces, with a further drain on already depleted
resources. Such financial weakness was further aggravated by the profligacy
of the court. To quote from Michael Psellos:
As I have often remarked, the emperors before Isaac exhausted the impe-
rial treasures on personal whims. The public revenues were expended not
on the organization of the army, but on favours to civilians and on mag-
nificent shows. Finally, to ensure that after their death the funerals should
be more impressive and the interment more extravagant, they made ready
monuments of Phrygian or Italian marble, or of Proconnesian slab.
Houses were then built round them and churches lent them sanctity.
Groves were planted, while parks and meadows encircled the whole area.
Then, as they had to enrich their places of meditation [asketeria] (the name
they invented for these buildings) with money and possessions, they not
only emptied the palace treasury, but even cut into the money contributed
by the people to the public revenues. Nor were they satisfied with the pre-
sentation of a mere sufficiency to their places of meditation-we had bet-
ter call them that. The imperial wealth was divided into three parts: one to
pay for their pleasures, another to glorify their new-fangled buildings, and
a third to enable those who were naturally lazy and made no contribution
to the balancing of the nation's budget to live in luxury and bring dishon-
our on the practice and name of virtue, while the military were being
stinted and treated harshly. 4
4Psellos, Chronographia 7.59 (Impellizzeri, II, p. 252; Sewter, p. JII).

The triumph of the military aristocracy inputting Isaac Komnenos on the

imperial throne was short-lived (though ultimately the Komnene family was
successful in rn81, when Alexios I became emperor and inaugurated a dynasty
that was to last for a century): in two years, Isaac was himself deposed by an
alliance between the Church and the civil bureaucracy, which placed Con-
stantine X Doukas on the imperial throne. The ascendancy of the civil party
at this juncture was disastrous; it precipitated another decade during which
the military aristocracy sought to seize control of the imperial throne at the
expense of defending the empire against imperial threats. These threats were
now increasingly dangerous.
The internal state of the Byzantine Empire had always been to some extent
a function of what was going on in the great Eurasian plain to the north and
east of the Empire. There, one group after another gained ascendancy and
presented a threat to the Empire. The imperial administration had gained
experience over the centuries and was adept at dealing with these changes,
sometime by directly defending itself against them, more often by a negoti-
ated peace or by playing off one group against another, or a combination of
these policies: none of these options was cheap, but the empire had managed
for centuries. Sometimes, too, chance-or to the Byzantines the hand of prov-
idence-intervened, as in 1064, when the tribes of the Uzes (before whom the
Pechenegs had fled into the Empire), driven before the advancing Cumans
(to the Slavs, the Polovtsy), poured into the Balkans and wreaked such havoc
even as far south as Greece that, according to the Byzantine chronicler
Attaleiates, "the entire population of Europe thought of emigrating": a threat
that was suddenly removed by a devastating plague. As the eleventh century
progressed, however, two new threats emerged, one from the movements of
tribes in the plains and the other from quite a different direction: the former
was the Turks, the latter the Normans.
We have already encountered the Normans, so let us deal with them first.
The Normans, we have seen, were increasing, and many of them-mainly
younger or illegitimate sons-had invaded the territory of the Byzantine
Empire in southern Italy. To start with, as we have seen, the Normans were
regarded as a threat not only by the Byzantines, but also by the pope, and in
the 1040s attempts had been made to forge some sort of alliance against
them. Whatever else the events of 1054 meant, they represented the defeat of
any such alliance against the Normans by Pope and Emperor. After the death
Turks, Normans and the Collapse ofthe Byzantine Empire 349
of Leo IX in ro54, his two successors both sought help from the German
emperor in their struggle against the Normans, but Nicholas II reversed this
policy and sought an alliance between the see of Rome and the Normans.
This was cemented at a synod held in Melfi, the capital of Norman Apulia,
at which he invested Richard of Aversa with the principality of Capua and
Robert Guiscard with the duchies of Apulia and Calabria and the lordship of
Sicily. In return, the Normans pledged fealty to the apostolic see and prom-
ised the pope military assistance. The synod also legislated against clerical
marriage. At a stroke the pope regained control over southern Italy; the papal
patrimonies were restored and the region returned to the ecclesiastical juris-
diction of Rome-at least in theory, but soon in practice, too. The Normans
now fought for the pope against the Byzantines and the Arabs. They accom-
plished what the Byzantines had failed to achieve: the expulsion of the Mus-
lim Arabs from Sicily. The restoration of papal jurisdiction meant the
introduction of Latin rites and customs, though there remained Greek Chris-
tians in Sicily throughout the Norman period, and beyond. The Normans
also sought to establish themselves in the lands they had been granted by the
pope in southern Italy, and in April 1071 Robert Guiscard completed his con-
quest of southern Italy by seizing the city of Bari. With that defeat the Byzan-
tine presence in Italy, which had been re-established by the emperor Justinian
in the sixth century, finally came to an end. The Normans of southern Italy
looked across the Adriatic to the Balkan territory of the Byzantine Empire. It
was not long before their thoughts turned to the invasion of the Byzantine
Empire itself
To begin with, the Byzantines scarcely realized the threat posed by the
Seljuk Turks. It is from a Syrian historian, Matthew of Edessa, not from a
Byzantine chronicler, that we learn of the first invasion of the Byzantine
Empire by the Turks in part of Armenia that had been incorporated into the
Empire. In Matthew's words:
In the beginning of the year 465 [= 1016-17] a calamity proclaiming the ful-
filment of divine portents befell the Christian adorers of the Holy Cross.
The death-bringing dragon appeared, accompanied by a destroying fire,
and struck the believers in the Holy Trinity. The apostolic and prophetic
books trembled, for there arrived winged serpents come to vomit fire upon
Christ's faithful. I wish to describe, in this language, the first eruption of
35° GREEK EAST AND LATIN WEST
ferocious beasts covered with blood. At this period there gathered the sav-
age nation of infidels called Turks. Setting out, they entered the province
ofVaspurakan and put the Christians to the sword ... Facing the enemy,
the Armenians saw these strange men, who were armed with bows and had
flowing hair like women. 5
Who were the Seljuk Turks? After the break up of the great Turkic empire
in Mongolia, one of the groups ofTurks, the Oghuz Turks, established them-
selves on the northeastern borders of the Abbasid Empire. It was from these
that the Seljuks were descended. They had settled within the Abbasid Empire
and converted to Islam, and initially remained on the borders defending the
Abbasids against their pagan fellow Turks. They were increasingly drawn into
the troubled history of the Abbasid Empire and were eventually enlisted by
the increasingly powerless Abbasid caliph in the task of reuniting Islam under
the banner of Sunni orthodoxy. The Seljuk Turks now faced the problem of
whether to remain nomadic warriors, supporting themselves by pillage and
seeking pasturage for their flocks, or to become part of the sedentary Middle
Eastern society. A compromise presented itself in the form of becoming part
of the Islamic Empire of the Middle East, but indulging in raiding in the
Christian states to the West-Armenia, Georgia and Byzantium. The internal
weakness of the Byzantine Empire made such raiding a relatively easy option,
and as the eleventh century advanced, the Turks made increasingly deep raids
into Byzantine territory. Eventually the situation became so serious that on
the death of Constantine X Doukas, his widow, Eudokia, agreed to marry a
Cappadocian general, Romanos Diogenes, who became emperor on I Janu-
ary 1068. He at once sought to combat the Seljuk threat, but disintegration
in the East had gone too far, and in an engagement with the Turks in the sum-
mer of 1071, the Byzantine army was defeated, partly owing to the disloyalty
of Andronikos Doukas, a member of the court party in Constantinople, and
Romanos was taken prisoner by the Turks. Not since Nikephoros I, more than
two and a half centuries earlier, had an emperor been defeated and captured
in battle. The Turkish leader, the Sultan Alp Arslan, soon released Romanos,
in return for a ransom, annual tribute and the return of Turkish prisoners.
5 0!Joted from Matthew of Edessa by S. Vryonis in his The Decline ofMedieval Hellenism in Asia
Mi,wr and the Process oflslamizalion.from the Ekventh through the Fifiunlh Cmtury, Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1986 (first published 1971), pp. So-81. Much that follows is based on Vryonis.
Turks, Normans and the Collapse efthe Byzantine Empire 351
Whether knowingly or not, the sultan's action contributed to Byzantium's

problems, for when news of the emperor's capture reached Constantinople,
Michael, his wife's son by Constantine Doukas, was raised to the purple:
power was once again in the hands of the court faction. The release of
Romanos unleashed civil war, ending with Romanos' surrendering himself
with a guarantee of personal immunity to his stepson, Michael Doukas. The
promise of immunity was immediately broken, and Romanos had his eyes
put out with red-hot irons. He died soon after of his dreadful injuries. The
struggle for power in the capital left the rest of Anatolia open to the Turks,
who gradually established themselves throughout the region. Although the
Byzantines were later to win back much of Anatolia, the defeat at Manzikert
marked a watershed: henceforth the Byzantine Empire would be a shrunken
image of its former self, focused on the capital and its hinterland. Though
something of a recovery was achieved by the Komnene emperors, beginning
in 1081, the history of the Byzantine Empire moved into a new stage, facing
an inexorable encroachment &om the East by the Turks, first the Seljuks and
later the Ottomans, and driven to seek help from its Christian neighbours to
the West-help the price of which was submission to the authority of the see
of Rome.
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INDEX
Aachen, Aix-la-Chapelle xi, 73£, ro7f., Alp Arslan, Sultan 350

131, 139, 218-20, 276 alphabets 175
Aaron of Cologne 250 Cyrillic 173, 175, 188
Abbasid Caliphate 4, 55, 64, 66, 163, Glagolitic 173, 175, 187-89
209-rr, 230, 254,350 Amalar of Metz 202£
abbesses 7 Amandus 7
abbots 19, 72, 103, ro8, II4, 120, 220, 224, Ambrose 102
236,252 Ammianus Marcellinus 77
Abramios, monk of Mar Saba 165 Amphilochios oflkonion 31
Acacian schism 317 Amphi]ochios of Kyzikos 160
Adalbero ofLaon 294 Anastasios, Patriarch 54, 57
Adalbert 247-52, 267 Anastasios I, Emperor 48£
adoptionism 7 Anastasios of Sinai 44, J2I
in Spain 143£ Anastasis, Church (Holy Sepulchre) 25,
Aeneas 149 27, 44,286
J'Ethelburh 17 Anastasius III, Pope 212
JEthelthryth 7 Anastasius the Librarian 168, 186
Afinogenov, Dmitry 170 Anchialos 55
Agatho 15, 79 Ancyra 31
Agnes, Empress 297, 299 Andrew of Crete 27, 201, 313 n.
Agnus Dei in Western liturgy 35, 83 Andiew the First-called Apostle 169,
Aidan 17, ro2 170 n .
Akathist hymn 198 Andronikos Doukas J50
akribeia (in application of canons) 37 Angelar 187
al-'Abbas, uncle of Muhammad 55 angels 44, 62, 1~, 202, 228, 334, 340
al-Hakim, Fatimid caliph 286 Angilbert 87
Alberic 222 Anglo-Saxon 4, 7, 14, 16-19, 225, 306
Alcuin 70, 74, 81, 143£, 314 Anna, Basil II's sister-in-law 257
Aldhelm 19 Annals ofSt-Bertin 168
Alexakis, Alexander 51 n., 84 n., 85 Annals ofFulda 244
Alexander, brother of Leo VI 212 anointing of kings 68, 142, 246, 266
Alexander, Paul J. 22 n. and see kingship
Alexandria 33, 75 Anskar 6,178,242
Alexios I Komnenos J17, JI9, 348 Antioch 2, 19£, 24, JI, JJ, 75, 207
Alexios Stoudites, Patriarch 288 Antony of Kiev 287-89
Ali, Muhammad's son-in-law 55 Antony the Great m, 227
All Saints, Feast of 223 apocrisiarii 38, 83
All Souls, Commemoration of at Apollinarianism 38, 134, JI3
Cluny UJ aporia, ambiguum, genre of 160
apostolic authority 76, 169f., 246 Bardas 158

apostolica sedes 76 Bardas Phokas 257
Apulia 305, 307, 349 Bari 1, 272 , 345,349
Aquitaine n9f., 222 Barnabas, Epistle of 32.2
Arabic-speaking Christians 23, 163-66 Baronius 207
archbishops 15-17, 71, 186, 266, 334 Barsanouphios, monophysite n5
architecture, church 195 n., 208 Barsanouphios of Gaza m
Arethras of Caesarea 162 Basil I 138, 170, 172, 186
Argyros, Byzantine katepano 308, 310, 346 Basil II 2, 207, 212f., 2.14, 2.33, 239, 252, 257,
Arianism 38, 67, 134 264,272,324,334, 345-47
aristocracy 14, 70, 79, 105, 231, 266, 291, Basil Lekapenos 213
322, 324, 346 Basil the Great 31, 53, rro, u5-17, 125, 184,
military 215, 230, 346-48 2Il, 230, 280, 340
warrior 18of., 292 Baume 219f.
Aristotle, Aristotelian 26, 129, 319, 336, 341 Beatus ofLiebana 143
Armenia, Armenians xvi, 2f., 2.7f., 30, 33, Bede 2, 4, 7, 17-20, 97, 2.25, 241, 251
36, 39, 47, 55, n9, 136, 164, 175, 189-91, Bedouins 23
2.07, 230, 2.64, 2.72, 3rr, 312 n., 313f, 345, Beleknegini 252
349 Belgorod 258
Armenian language and alphabet 3, 175 Belisarius 1
Arnulf ofBavaria 188, 244 Benedict II, Pope 79
art 3, 8, 35f, 44, 2.67 Benedict III, Pope 168
Artabasdos 54, 83 Benedict IV, Pope 207
Asot 190 Benedict IX, Pope 297
Asparuch, Khan 29, 179 Benedict X 2.99
astrology 33;( Benedict Biscop 18, 19
Athanasios of Alexandria 2.6, 31, 2.27, 32.1 Benedict of Aniane 6, 74, 95, IOI-8, n6f.,
Athanasios the Athonite 2.36-40, 280 139, 218-20, 224, 276
Athanasios the Camel-Driver 20 Benedict ofNursia 101 n ., ro2-4, 115f.,
Athenagoras, Patriarch 271, JI5 2.20,2.25f.,276-78,280
Athens 2.61 Benedict, Rule of 14, 102, ro5-7, 115, 2.19f.,
Athas, Mount 6, 2.19, 235-39, 2.80, 287 224, 276, 278
Attaleiates 334, 348 Benedictines 14, 82, 217
Augustine of Canterbury 17 Benjamin ofTudela 138
Augustine of Hippo 18, 102., 144f., 150, Berengar of Tours 148, 300-303, 307
194, 2.80 Bernard of Clairvaux 2.23, 278
Auzepy, Marie-France 59, 154 Bemo 219f.
Avars 45, 69, 12.1 bishops 13f., 32-33, 46, 57, 63, 71, 123, 194
az;yma, see Eucharist Bithynia 126
Blachernai 132, 197
Baghdad 55, 66, 158, 2.29 Blair, John 14 n.
Bakay, Komel 2.52 Bogomils 8, 135-37
Balsamon 31 Bohemia 176, 178f., 2.43-48
barbarian kingdoms 13 Boleslav I 245, 247f.
Barber, Charles ;r n. Boleslav II 247
Bardanes Philippikos 21, 4?f. Bolesfaw 248-50, 252
Index
Boniface 176f., 24-1 Chalke Gate and Icon of Christ 48, 49,
Boris, Khan, later Tsar Michael 159, 123
179-89, 214, 242, 245, 266 ChaJJcidiki 235
Boris the passion-bearer 246 charistike 234, 239, 282
Boi'ivoy 244 Charlemagne 2, 64, 67, 69-74, 8of., 83,
British Church 17 87f., ½, IOI, 106f., 119, 121, 139, 173, 177
Brown, Peter 46, 117 Charles Martel 68
Brubaker, Leslie 170 n. Charles the Bald 149
Bruno of O!ierfurt 267 Charles the Simple 305
Bryennios, Philotheos 322 Chartres .305
Bulcsu harka 251 Chazelle, Celia 144, 146
Bulgars, Bulgaria 2, 6, 9, 29, 55, 63, 12If, Cheitmar r79
167, 176, 179-89, 207, 214, 229f., 233, Chemigov 258
242, 252(, 264 Cherson 15, 47, 172f., 25.3, 257
Bury,J.B. 213 Childericb III 68
Chios 29
Caesarius of Aries 14, 101 chrismation, differences over 184
Ca:saropapism 117 Christ 2.3
Calabria 49, 61, 81, 85, 87, 280,305 Christ as Lamb, not to be depicted 35, 83
Camaldoli 277 Christodoulos of Patmos 316
Cameron, Averil 5 n ., 44 n . Christology 84, 264, 312f.
canon (liturgical text) 27, I14, 156, 201 in iconoclast controversy 56-58
canons (and canonesses) mef, 107, 275 terminology, see hypostasis, physis,
cantores 223 prosopon
Capitulare adversus synodum 87 Chrodegang of Metz 10~, 224
Cappadocia 229-31 chrysobulls 210, 238, 282
Cappadocian Fathers 26,194,343 Church of the East 23f.
Cardinals 167f. Cistercians 3, 217, 275, 278
Carloman, brother orPepin 68 Claussen, M.A. 104 n.
Carloman, son of Pepin 68, 69 Clement II, Pope 297£
Carolingian Empire 6, 8, 19, 41, 64, Clement of Ohrid 176, 187£
67-74, 101-8, 218, 229 Clement of Rome 172f., 244,322
Carpathians 253 Clovis 67
Carthage 1, 31, 32 Cluny 6, 207, 217, 219-27, 247, 263, 276
Carthusians 3, 217, 275 coms 30,141
Cassian, John 14, 102, 28o Columba 17, 102
Cassiodorus 102 Columbanus 14, 102
Cathars 8, 137 Connor, Caroline 231
"Cathedral" liturgy 201 Constans II 15, 20
Cathedral schools 74, 105, 140 Constantine, antipope 80
Cavadini,John 143 Constantine I, Pope 38, 47
Cave monasteries 227, 229 Constantine II, Patriarch 154
see Cappadocia, Kiev Constantine IV 29
celibacy of the clergy 32, 315 Constantine V 54-61, 65£, 95, m9, m,
Ceolfrith 18 128,170
Chadwick, Henry xv, 302 his Peuseis 55£ , 129
Constantine VI 6o, 63f., 85, 109, 120 Damascus 21, 55, 66

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos 208f., Damasus, Pope 15, 76f.
212, 214, 251, 253f., 257, 264,323 Damasus [l 297
Constantine VIII 213, 346 Danes, Denmark 178, 242
Constantine IX Monomachos 286,308, Daniel the Stylite 227
310, 338, 346f. Dante 279f.
Constantine X Doukas 348, 35of. Danube 2, 29
Constantine ofNakoleia 45 deaconesses 32
Constantine Silvanus ofMananalis 30, Demetrios 30, 44, 158, 244
79, 136 Denys of Paris 13rf.
Constantine the Great 5, 25, 246, 257, 267 and see Dionysios the Areopagite
Donation of CQT/.<tantine 169, 3o8--9 Desert Fathers ror, III, 228, 275, 281
Constantine the Philosopher, see Cyril, diadem, royal 246, 252
apostle to the Slavs Dictatus Papae 299
Constantinople 4, 5, 44, 47f., 51, 6o, 76, Didacht 322
r96, 199, 253£, 257 Diehl, Charles 7 n.
patriarch(ate) of ro, JJ, 95, 154£, 167, Digenis Akritas 230
169-71, 191, 309 Diocletian 5, 154
Synod (712) 21 Dionysios of Alexandria 3r
Synod (870) 186 Dionysios the Areopagite 26, 131£, 140,
Constitutio Romana 8of., 168, 170 156, 162,327,329, 333,337
Contreni, John 41 Dionysius Exiguus r7 n.
convem 223 Dnepr 253, 258, 287
Coptic 3, 24 Dobrava 248
Corbie 147, 178 Dominican order 217
Corinth 261 Donation efConstantine, see Constantine
corpus mysticum, meaning of 146f. Dorfmann-Lazarev, Igor 191
Corrigan, Dame Felicitas 207 Dorotheos m, 05
Corvey 178,247 Dragrnira 245
Cosmas and Damian 44 Drogo Sacramentary 148
Cracow 250 Dublin 18
Crete 229, 159, 261, 264 Dunstan 225
Crimea, see Cherson Dura Europos 43
Cross 5, 21, 5of., 53, 128 Durham 177
Crucified Christ 146
Ctesiphon 51, 55 Easter 16, 17 and n., 18, 1.25
Cumans 348 economy (canonical principle) 37f.
Cuthbert 18, 177£ Edmund 246
Cuxa 277 Egypt 4, 4
Cyprian 31 Eigenkirchen 194, 215, 291
Cyprus 22, 29f., 259, 264 Einhard 74
Cyril, apostle to tlie Slavs 162, 172-74, 187 Eirene 7, 6o-65, 70, 85, 109, 06, rr9, 153
Cyril of Alexandria 26, 31, 141, 191 Eklnga 50
Elias, Prophet 276
Dadisho 24 Elipandus ofToledo 143
Dagron 246f. Elvira, Synod of 32
Index 37 1
Ernesa 4 Filioque 84f., 86, 99, 142, 16of., 167,171,

England 16-19 184-86, 309(, JI~
Englezakis, Benedict 30 n. Fletcher, Richard 242
Ephesos 169 Fleury 105, 222
Ephesos, Robber Synod 36 florilegia 21, 26, 51, 62, 84
Epidauros 261 Flusin, Bernard 25 n.
Epiphanios, Sicilian deacon 61 Fonte Avellana 278
Epiphanios of Constantinople 169£. Formosus of Porto 185
Epiphanios of Salamis 44, u9 Formula of Reunion (433) 191
Erickson, John H. 38 n. France 8, 215
Eriugena 145, 148-52, 303 Franciscan order 217
Esbroeck, Michel van 36 n. Frankfurt, Synod of 87, 97, u8, 131, 139
Esztergom 252 Franks, Frankish Empire, Francia 10, 67,
Ethelwold 225 69,86
Ethiopic 3 Frederic of Liege, see Stephen IX
Euboea 261 Freeman, Ann 87, 142
Eucharist, eucharistic doctrine 7f.,
46-49, 300-303 Gabriel, Lazaros' steward i.86
Eucharistic symbolism 34-f. Gabriel, Magyar m issionary 251
frequent (daily) communion 225, 324 Gallican liturgy 199(
nature of Passover meal 313f. Gangra 31£.
in relation to iconoclasm 57£., 62 Gardner, Alice 108 n.
use of leavened or unleavened Garland, Lynda 7 n.
bread 36, 306- 9, 3n-18 Gaudentius 249
use of uon (warm water) 313, 315 Gaul 13£.
Eucherius of Lyon 97 GeJasius, Pope 200
Eudokia, Constantine X's wife 350 Genesios 208, 228, 235
Eudokia, daughter of Constantine Gennadios of Constantinople 31
VIII 346 George of Cyprus 58
Eudokia, wife of Leo VI m George the Synkellos 154
Euphrosyne, nun (Theophilos' Georgia 27£., 350
stepmother?) 126( Georgian language and alphabet 3, 175
Eusebios of Caesarea 24, 44, 58, u9 Gerald of Aurillac 292
Euthymios 235 Germanikeia 55
Eutychianism, See monophysites Gerrnanos I 49, p, 58, 82, 154, 169, 202
Eutychius, exarch of Ravenna 82 Gerrnigny-des-Pres 90
Evagrios 26,325 Geza 247, 251£., 255
Evergetis monastery 229, 273, 275, 281-85 Ghent 225
exagoreusis (monastic) f4, 283 Gisela 252
Glastonbury 225
False Decretals 169 Gleb 246
fasting 33, 36, 182, 184 Gniezno 248(
on Saturday 184, 315 God&ed 221
FelixofUrgel 43 Gorazd 176, 187
Feodosy of Kiev 288( Gorze 104, uef.
Fertile Crescent 4 Gottschalk 145£., 160
Great Lavra, see Athos, Athanasios the Hellenism 153, 162

Athonite Hellenization 9, 172, 187
Greek 24 Henry I 247
Greek (Byzantine) chant 18 Henry II 250, 297,315
Greek fire 48 Henry III 297
Gregorian chant 18 HenryIV 226
Gregorian Reform, see Papal Reform Henry VIII (of England) 55
Movement Henry of Bavaria 251
Gregory, bishop ofNeocaesarea 61 Heppell, Muriel 289
Gregory, cellarer of Galesios z86f. Herakleios 20, z8, 47, 51, 138
Gregory II, Pope 48, 79, 82, 130 heresy 7f., 15, 38f., 134-36
Gregory III, Pope 78, 82, 130 Herrin, Judith 7 n., 88 n.
Gregory V, Pope 224 Hiereia, Synod of 40, 5ef, 59, 61-63, 86,
Gregory VI, Pope 297f. 97,123,127
Gregory VII, Pope J, 226, 271, 297-99, Hierissos 235
JOI Hierotheos 251
Gregory of Nyssa 31,150, 152,338 Hilarion of Olyrnpos 228
Gregory the Great, Pope 16, 46, 79, 84f., Hild 7
200, 280, 299 Hildebrand, see Gregory VII, Pope
his Diakgim 79, 105 Hildebrandine Reform, see Papal Reform
Gregory the Illuminator 27 Movement
Gregory the Theologian 26, 31, 140, 162, Hilduin 131f.
170, 325, 34o-43 Hincmar ofReims uu-48, 168f.
Gregory the Wonderworker 31 Hindu Kush 4
Griffith, Sidney 165 Holy Communion
Gulf of Finland 253 frequent communion 324
Gyula 251 how to receive 34.
Holy Land 25, 27, 138, 197,285
Hadrian, African monk 16, 19 Holy Mountain, see Athos
Hadrian, Emperor 137 Holy Roman Empire 70, 97, 207, 209,
Hadrian I, Pope 38, 46, 61, 69f., 80, 8Jf., 215f., 244
87f., 143 Holy Spirit, experience of 324-30
Hadrian II, Pope 174 Honorius, Pope 9, 4f., 3o8
Hadrianum 87 Horos, of Hiereia 58, 61, 86
Hagar, Hagarenes 23 Horos, ofNicaea II 62(, 86
Hagia Sophia 127, 132, 134, 20of. Hosios Lukas, see Luke of Steiris
dedication of apse mosaic 134 Hrabanus Maurus 145
hagiography 28, 44, 59, 95f., 105f., 169 Hugh Candidus 297
Halinard of Lyon 298 Hugh of Besan~on 298
Hamilton,Janet and Bernard 8 n. Hugh of Cluny 220, 223(, 226
Harald Bluetooth 255 Humbert of Silva Candida 271, 297,
Harald Klak 178 299-302,307-rr,34-17
Harun al-Rashid, Caliph 64 Hungary 247, 250-52, 263, 267
Hatfield, Synod of 15 Huntington, Samuel P. 3 n.
Helena 25 Hussey, J.M. 336
Hellas, theme 46, 48 hybrid 218
Index 373
hypostasis, physiJ, prosopon 26 Jacob ofEdessa 24

employed in iconodule theology 130 Jacobites 20, 23, 25, 164
James, Liz 7 n.
Ibas of Edessa 14-1 Jarrow-Monkwearmouth, monastery
Iceland m, 241-43, 263 of 18
iconoclasm 8, 41-62, 65f., 82-91, 95, 97f., Jerome .z8o
Il9, 122-33, 152, 156 Jerome ofJerusalem 45
different impact in East and West 42, Jerusalem 25, 33, 137f, 163, 199, 201
83f., 86, 128 Jesuit order 217
icons, and cult of 9, 21, 42-45, 198f. Jews, Judaism 21, 36, 45, 13?f, 176, 254, 256
blessing {anointing) of 46 ji:qa 21
distinction between proskymsis Joan, "Pope" 207
expressing latreia or timi 45, 53, 87 Job, monk 156
schetike proskynesis u9 John, Apostle and Theologian 152, 169,
and women 66 314,325
idiotae 223 John VII, Pope 38
idolatry 49, 52, 55, 87 John VIII, Xiphilinos, Patriarch 336
Ignatios, Patriarch 159, 171, 186f. John XI, Pope 207, 221
lgnatios the Deacon 155 John XII, Pope 207, 248
illiterati 223 John XIII, Pope 248
Illyricum 49, 61, 81, 85, 88, 186f., 306 John Damascene 21-23, 26£, 49, 51-54, 58,
image, conceptions of 52, 55 85, 89, 127, u9, 153, 162-63, 190, 201,
imagination, role of 130 339£
Imperial claims 50, 53£, 58, 71 John Gratian, see Gregory VI
Imperial cult 50 John Gualberto 277
Incarnation 53, 62, 66, 134, 338f. John Hazzayaz 24
Incle 107 John Italos 272, 319-21, 343
India 24 John Maron 24
Inquisition 8 John Mauropous 321
Investiture controversy 226 John Moschos z89, J29
loannikios 155 John of Antioch 191
Iona 102, 177 John ofDalyatha 24
lorga, Nicolae 337 John of Gaza m
Ireland 4, 17-19 John ofRavenna 168
lrminsul 73 John ofRila 233f.
Isaac I Komnenos 335, 347 John of Sabina, see Sylvester III
Isaac of Nineveh {the Syrian) 24,165,330 John of Sinai (Klimakos) rn, 327,330,340
Isaias, monophysite n5 John of Synnada 45
Ishmaelites 23 John ofTrani 307
Islam 4, 5, 41, 66, 254, 256 John ofVeUetri, see Benedict X
Christian attitude to zzf. John the archcantor 18
Christians under 20- 28 John the Baptist 44, 276
fsleifi- 243 John the Grammarian 122£, 132, 156£, 161
Italy 48 John the Merciful 22
John the Orphanotrophos 346
Jacob Baradaeus 23 John Tzimiskes 208, 213, 263£, 266,323
Jordan of Poznan 248 Lapidge, Michael 16 n.

Joseph, abbot ofKathara 63, no, n6, 120 Lateran chancery 78, 80, 84
Joseph ofThessaloniki, brother of Lateran Synod 9, 15(, 22, 77
Theodore of Stoudios 12of., 156 Latin 3, 13, 73f., 140, 167, 175
Joseph the Hymnographer 201 Laurence (Sava) 187
J ulian ofHalicamassos 191 Lawrence, C.H. 275
Julian the Apostate 138 Lazaros of Galesios 285-87
Justin II 44 Le Coz, Raymond 22 n.
Justinian II 29f., 36, 38, 46f. Leander of Seville 143
Justinian the Great r, 156, 189, 336 Lebanon 21
Lech, River 251
Kaich 244 Lemerle, Paul 139
ha/am, Christian 165 Leo II, Pope 200
Karelia 253 Leo III, Emperor 41, 48-51, 6of., 65[, 79,
Kassiane 156£ 8rt., 95,128
Kazhdan, Alexander n7 Leo III, Pope 2, 64, 69£., 71f., 80, 85, 138,
Kazimierz 250 142
Kedrenos 334 Leo IV 60
Kells 177 Leo V n6, n9, u2f., 126(, 129, 131, 133, 156
Kelly,J.N.D. 207 Leo VI "the Wise" 161, 187, 208, 2rrf.
Kenneshre 24 Leo IX, Pope 297-99, 306-10, 349
Khazars, Khazaria 47, 172, 179, 2j4 Leo Choirosphaktes 16rf
Khusrau II 20 Leo of O hrid 307, 309
Kiev 97, 253-59, 273 Leo the Deacon 153
Paterik of 288£ Leo the Great, Pope 77,200
Pechersky Monastir (Caves Leo the Philosopher 158f., 162
monastery) 259, 275, 287-89 Leontios, Emperor 46f.
kingship, notions of 68, 9of, 216, 246f, Leontios ofNeapolis 21£, 45
266f. Lerins 14, IOI
kneeling 34 Leroy, Julian n3
Knowles, David 14 n., 225 Liber Pontifical.is 16, 83, 88
Kolbaba, Tia M. 37 n. Liber Vitae 223
Kolobos 235 libri. Carolini, see Opus Caroli Regis
kontakion 4, 156 Lindisfame 1?£, 96, 102, 177
Konya, Sultanate of 2 "linguistic filter" 3, 9
Kos 29 Lithuania m
Kosmas the Melodist 27, 201, 340 liturgy 9
Kotsel 174, 179 Liudprand of Cremona 209(, 265
Krum, Khan 122, 180 Ljudrnila 245
Kufic script 211 logic 26
Kyros of Alexandria 28 logothete 5
Kyzikos 29f. Lombards 2, 14, 69, 78, 83, 222
Lord's Prayer 19
Lambert, Michael 8 n. Louis the German 173, 180
Lan&anc 301 Louis the Pious 80, 101, 107, 131, 156
Laodicea 31 Lubac, Henri de 146£
Index 375
Luke of Steiris 229, 231-34, 259 Mazovia 250

Lund 243 McCormick, Michael 6 n.
Lupus of Ferrieres 145 McGuckin, John 323
Luxeuil 102 McNulty, Patricia 280
Mediterranean 5
Macedonian dynasty 207 Melfi 349
Macedonianisrn 185 Melingoi 262
Macon 219, 224 Melkites 20, 21, 28
Magdeburg 248£ Menas 44
Magnaura school 159£ Merovingian 2, 67f.
Magnus the Martyr 246 Mesopotamia 22
Magyars 177, 218, 250-52 Messalianism 135, 137
and see Hungary Methodios, Apostle to the Slavs 172-76,
Mainz 247 187,244
majuscule 6, 96 Methodios, Patriarch 126, 131-33, 136, 155,
Makarios of Corinth 281 17of.
Makarios the Great 330 (Ps-)Methodios of Olympus 22
Malalas 189 Meropa 124
Malmesbury 19 metropolitans 15
Manichees, Manichaeism 21f., 39, 53, 135f. Meyendorff, John 3, 9, 28 n., 29 n., 77,
Manzikert, battle of xv, r, 272, 345, J5I 141 n., 145 n.
Mar Saba, monastery of 27, 16ef, 237, 285 Michael I Rhangabe 122, 136
Marcionites 314 Michael II the Amarian 124, 126, 131
Maria, wife of Constantine VI 63, no Michael III 132, 171, 173, 180, 186
Maria Lekapena 215 Michael IV the Paphlagonian 346
Mark the Monk 323 Michael V Kalaphates 335, 346
Maro 24 Michael VI 347
Maronites 21, 23f. Michael VII Doukas 272,335,351
Marozia 207 Michael Keroularios 271, 306-rr, 3r6f., 347
marriage law 3ef, 72, mf., 292£ Michael Lachanodracon 59
married clergy 31f., 184, 318 Michael Maleinos 229, 236
Martin I, Pope 9, 81, 168 Michael Psellos 272,317,319, 321£, 334-43,
Martin ofTour5 14, 101, 178, 220 345-47
Mary of Egypt 44 Michael the SynkeUos 126, 156, 163
Marzawi, Persian chronicler 255 Michael the Syrian 163£
Maslarna 48 Mieszko 248f., 251, 255
matter 53 military ideals, compatibility with
Matthew ofEdessa 349f. Christianity 182f., 245
Maurice 20, 153 millennium, end of 263
Ma.ximians 25, 28 minuscule 6, 96, 162
Ma.ximos the Confessor 14 n., 25f., 28, mission, missionary activity 7, 72f., 96f.,
15072, 160, 164, 168, 195, 202,329, 167, 171-89, 216, 241-62
34of. rnoechian controversy 64, rro, 125
Mayeul 220 Moissac 224
mayor of the palace 68 Mojmir 179
Mayr-Harting, Henry 14 n. Mommsen, T. 213
monastic reform, renewal 7, 95, 101-17, Neocaesarea 31

140, 217-40 Neoplatonists, Neoplatonism 272, 319,
monasticism, monks .3£, 14, .33, 42, 19.3, .3.36f.,J41
195, 215f. Nestor of Kiev 288
antipathy of Constantine V Nestorios, Nestorians 23, 39, 55, 59, 134,
towards 59f. 141
coenobitic III-13, 218, 227, 237f., 283 New Justinianopolis 30
eremitical III, 218, 227, 237, 28o New Rome 5, 29, 131
idiorrhythmic 218 and see Constantinople
lavriote III, 218, 227, 280 "New Thebaid" 28of.
in Palestine 24, 27 Nicaea, church in 127
"Reform Movement" 273, 281-87 Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed 84,
worship in 114£., 223-26 99f., 142
monenergism 15, 20, 77, 1.34 icholas, Stoudite monk 124, 156
Mongols 275 Nicholas I, Pope 159, r68f., 171, 174,
monophysites 23, 25, 39, 134, 189f. 181-84, 189, 298
monotheism 2.3, 51 Nicholas H, Pope 299,349
monothelitism 9, 14f., 20, 23, 25, 77, 1.34 Nicholas III, Patriarch 317
Monte Cassino 102, 105, 222 Nicholas Mystikos 210f., 212, 214f.
Moravia 173-76, 178f., 187,228,244 Nicolaism 294--96
Morris, Rosemary 218 Nikephoros (son of Constantine V) 60,
Moses 71, 152 63
Mother of God, see Virgin Mary Nikephoros, Patriarch 56, 59, 95, n6, n9,
Mount Athas, see Athas, Mount 122f., u6f., 129, 132, 136, 153f., 156, 169,
Mount Auxentios 228 17of.
Mount Galesios 286 Nikephoros I 64, 106, n9-22, 172, 180,350
Mount Helikon 2.32 Nikephoros II Phokas 212f., 229, 231, 236,
Mount [da 228 238-.39, 261, 263-64, 323
Mount Ioannitza 2.32 Niketas Stethatos 280, 3n-15, .333-34, 338
Mount Kyminas u8f., 2.36 Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain 281
Mount Latros 228£ Nikon the "Metanoeite" 241, 259-62
Mount Olympos 109, 228, 2.35 Nino 27
mountain, place in monasticism 228 Noble, Tom 78, 142
Mu'awiya 29, .36 Noirmoutiers 177
Muhammad 4, 5, 18 Normandy 242,305
multi-culturalism of Byzantine Empire 3 Normans 2, 97, 253, 298, 305-7, 348f.
Murray, Alexander 294 Northumbria 17
music 4 "Northumbrian Renaissance" 18f.
Muslim, Christian relations with 20-23, orway 2II, 242f., 246
164f. Novgorod 25.3
nutriti 223
Napoleon 70
Naukratios 114, 124 oblates, child 103, 108
Naum 176, 187f. see nutriti
Neilos of Grottaferrata 267, 280 Obolensky, Dimitri 256
Nemesios ofEmesa 26 Odil 220,224,267,292
Index 377
Odo 220-22, 292 Oswald, King 17

"CD:cumenical Patriarch," title 85 Otto I 248, 254, 266
see also Constantinople, patriarch(ate) Otto II 208
of Otto III 216, 249f., 252, 263, 267, 277, 280,
recumen.ical synods 25, 31, 84, 88 and n., 294,296
u3, 132 Ottomans, Ottoman Empire 4, 351
(in order by date of council) Ottonian dynasty 207
Nicaea I (325) 31, 75
Constantinople I (381) 31, 76 Pachomios Il4
Ephesos (431) 20, 31, 36, 135 Pactum Ludovicianum 80
Chalcedon (461) 20, 31, 36, 76, 84, 189, paganism, pagan practices 34, 43, 258
r9r,3r7, 34° Palatine Anthology 209
Constantinople II (553) 9, 84, 135, 141 Palestine 14, 163, 201
Constantinople III (680-81) xv, 1, 9, 15, Palladios 289
21, 28f., 47, 84, 320 pallium 15, 71
Qyinisext (69c-92) (also, Synod in and see archbishops
TrufkJ) 13, 30-39, 4.sf., 83, 135, 190, 219, Pannonia 174f., 178f.
2 95 papacy 8, 9f., ref, 75-81, 95, 167-71
Nicaea II (787) 46, 61-03, 66, 83, 85-87, papal immunity (for Cluny) 220, 224
97, 109, m, 123, u8, 131, 139, 41, 170, Papal Monarchy 10
197, 2[9 and see Papal Reform Movement
Ohrid 18ft. papal patrimonies (patrimonies of St
oilwnomia, contrasted with theowgia 162 Peter) 49, 61, 79, 81, 85, 87, 1z8
see also economy Papal Reform Movement 2, 10, 42, 226,
"'oikonomia of the saints" m 271, 296-300
Olaf Haraldsson 246 papalus 75, 298f.
OlafTryggvason 242 Paris 87
Old Testament 22, 68, 89-91, 216, 246 Paschal I, Pope 83, u5, 131
Oleg 255 Paschasius of Corbie 147-49
Olga of Kiev 248, 254-56 Passau 178
Olopan 24 passion-bearers (strastoterpsz) 246
Olov Skotkonung 242 Patarenes 8
Omurtag, khan 122 Patriarch, Bulgarian 215
Opus Caroli Regis 87- 89, 139, 142 Patriarchs, Pentarchy of 33, 57, 76, 182
opm Dei ro6f., 221 Patrikios, monk of Mar Saba 165
Orange, Synod of 145 Paul, Apostle 15, 26, 246, 260, 280
Oratiorian order 217 Paul N 60
order, monastic, notion of 217, 226 Paul VI 271,316
Oriental Orthodoxy 37 Paul Evergetinos 28cf., 28ef
Origen 26 Paul of Populonia 185
Origenisrn 26, c35, 32of. Paul the Deacon 74
Orkneys 246 Paulicians 8, 30, 39, 135-37, 191, 230
Orthodoxy 14., 26, 30, 37, 98, 169,319 Paulinus of Aquileia 74, 143, 315
Triumph of 42, 98, u6, 132-34, 198, 235 Paulinus of York 17
Oslo 243 Peace of God 292
Oswald 225, 246 Pechenegs 251, 25ef
Pelagianism 135 Porphyry 26, 336

Peloponnese 232 Poznan 248
Pepin 42, 6&f., rn6 Praetextatus 77
peregrinatio 4, 102 Prague 245, 247
Peres, Marcel 200 predestination, predestinarianism 135,
Peri, Vittorio 38 n. 144-46, 147
Pericopes ofHenry II 148 Preslav 188
periphery 3, 19 Pribina 179
persecution 21, 42, n6, u4-26 processions, litwgical rn5, r95f.
Persia, Persians 4, 20, 23, 45 Proklos 336, 341
Perun 255, 258 pronoia 239
Peshitta 24 Provence 14
Peter, abbot of St Sabas 85 Prudentius of Troyes 145
Peter, Apostle rn, 15, 26, 50, 76, 142, 169, Pythagoras 158
294",308
Peter, arch priest of St Peter's 85 ~disha 24
Peter, Bulgarian tsar 215, 233 Q!iartodecimans 17 n.
Peter Damian 272, 277-81, 296-300, 327 Q!ieen of Cities 5, 29
Peter of Alexandria 31 and see Constantinople
Peter of Amalfi 308 Quinisext Synod, see cumenical synods,
Peter of Antioch 31of., 316 Quinisext
Peter of Pisa 74 Q!ir'an 23
Peter of Sicily 136
Petronas, brother of Bardas Caesar 1&9 Ratislav of Moravia 173, 244
Pbilokalia ofthe Holy Ascetics 281,333 Ratramnus of Corbie 145,147,303
Phokas 20 Ravenna 1, 15, 47, 78, 79, 82
Photios 134, 158-62, 170-p, 181, 183-87, Refonnation, Protestant 147
189-92, 2n, 253,264,315, 34of., 345 Regensburg 179, 244, 251
Pilgrim 251 Regularis Concordia 225
pilgrimage 15, 196f., 231 Reichenau 103, 145, 251
and see peregrinatio Reichskirche 215, 297
Pirenne, Henri 5 Reims 298
Plato, Platonism r35, 159,319-21, 337,HJf. reines-meres 7
Plato of Stoudios 64, 109, no, I2of., 155 relics of saints 15, 21, 49, 58, 77, 105, 196,
Pliska m, 187-89 246
Plotinos 319, 336 Remigius 298
Plutarch 321 renaissance 6f., 74, 95£, 139
Podskalsky, Gerhard 342 Ca10Iingian 139-52
poetry 4 "Macedonian" 152-62, 208
Poland 176, 247-50, 263, 267 Republic of St Peter 78, 81
Polovtsy, see Curnans Rhodes 29
Polyeuktos, Patriarch 213 Rhomaioi 20
Pomerania 250 Richard of Aversa 349
Poppe, Andrzej 257 Robert Guiscard 349
Porphyrogennetos 257, 266f. Robert the papal legate 249
meaning of 213 Rollo (Rolf the Ganger) 305
Index 379
Roman Empire 13, r9, 6?£, 75 Serdica 31, 76

Romanos I Lekapenos 138, 2o8, 2u-14, Serenus ofMarseiJle 46, 84
233,346 Sergios, Patriarch 45
Romanos II 212, 231, 233, 323 Sergius I, Pope 35, 38, 83, 200
Romanos III Argyros 346 Sergius III, Pope 207, 212
Romanos IV Diogenes 335, 35of. Severns of Antioch 44
Romanos the Melodist 4, 156 Sherborne 19
Rome 14-16, 20, 33, 38, 42, 75, 173, 175, Sherrard, Philip xv
196, 199, 351 Sicily 29, 49, 6r, 8r, 85, 87, 305-7
Greek monks in 15£ Sigan-Fu stone 24
Synod (731) 49, 131 Sigfrid 242
Synod (863) 186 silence, monastic 221
and see papacy Silesia 250
Romuald of Ravenna 267,271,277£, z8o, Simon Magos 294£
296 simony 294-96
Runciman, Sir Steven 161 Sinai, monastery of the Burning Bush 112
Rus' 6, 97, 253-59 Sirakawan, Synod of 19of.
Russia 2, 24 Siricius, Pope 76
Russian Primary Chronick 254-58 Sklaviniai rr9, 171£
Skleraina 338
sacramentaries, Gregorian, Gelasian 200 Skylitzes 334
Sahak III of Armenia 36 slaves in monasteries rr3
Sahas, Daniel]. 22 n. Slavonic liturgy 173-'75, 187
S. Cecilia 83 Slavs 9, 29, 45, 96, 167, r77-8o, 194, 262,
S. Macrina, monastery of 325 348
S. Mamas, monastery of 3zef., 327, 342 Smyrna 29
S. Prassede, church of 35, 83 Socrates 26
S. Vitale, church of 35 Song efRoland 69
saints, cult of 46, 49, 58, 194, 196-98, 306 Song of Songs 278, 338
see also relics, icons Souda 209
SS. Cosma e Damiano, church of 35 Spain 4, 7
sakellarios 5 Sparta 262
Sakkoudion, monastery 109, rr3-4, 228 speliote 227
Salzburg 175, 178£, 251 spiritual fatherhood ll4, 324-28
Samaritans 21 and see exagoreusis
Saracens 23, 218 Spyridon 22
"saracen-minded" 49 Spytignev 244
Saxony, Saxons 72£, 176£, 243 Stachys, legendary first bishop of
Scandinavia, Scandinavians 6, 97, 167, Byzantium 169
176-78, 241-43, 253 Staurakios 122
Schism, Great 9 stauropegion, stauropegic 240
Sclavinia, name of Poland Stephen, archbishop ofBulgaria 188
Scriptures 4, 17- 19, 22, 103 Stephen, son of Geza 247
Second Coming of Christ 23 Stephen Il (III), Pope 68
Seljuk Turks, see Turks Stephen IV (V) 80
Sepphoris 43 Stephen V (VI) 176
Stephen IX (X) 297,299,308 Tarasios 61-63, 85, ao, 133, 153f., 169-71
Stephen of Bostra 45 Telanissos 44
Stephen of Hungary 249, 252 Telerig 180
Stephen of Kiev 288 Ten Commandments, invocation ofby
Stephen ofNikornedia 330 iconoclasts 49f.
Stephen the Deacon 59, 154f. Teodaldo 277
Stephen the Protomartyr 154 Tervel, Khan 47, 1&0
Stephen the Younger 59, 154f., 2.28, 329 Thaddaios, Stoudite monk uef
Stoudios, monastery of St John the Thangbrand 242
Baptist 65, 3n, 324, 332f. Thebes 261
Stoudite reform and influence 109-16, Theodora, daughter of Constantine
218, 237, 283, 288 VIII 346
srrategos 5 Theodora, ikephoros II's sister 213
Strobilos 228 Theodora Oustinian II's wife) 47
stylite 227 Theodora (fheophilos' wife) u7, 132,
Subiaco 102 c57f, 171, 246
Sueones, see Swedes Theodora the Elder 207
Theodora the Younger 207
Suetonius 74
Theodore Abu Qmah 163-65
Sullivan, Denis 259
Theodore Graptos 126, 156f.
Sulpicius Severus 74
Theodore ofMopsuestia 141,201
Svatopluk c76, 244
Theodore of Stoudios 6, 10, 63-66, 95, 98,
Svyatoslav 254[, 257
mr, 1o8-17, n9-27, u8-31, 136, 153£,
Swedes, Sweden 6, 17&, 242£
201, 2.28, 237,330,332
Sylvester I, Pope 267
Theodore of Sykeon 44
Sylvester II, Pope 207, 252, 267 Theodore of Tarsus (Canterbury) 1Jf., 19
Sylvester III, Pope 297 Theodoret ofKyrrhos 141
Symbatios, son of Leo V 122 Theodosians 23
Symeon (Titus) 39 Theodosius, patriarch of Alexandria 23
Symeon, son of Boris 188[, 214f., 229 Theodosios III, Emperor 48
his lzbomik 189 Theodosios ofEpbesos 57
Symeon of Durham 19 Theodosios the Great 5
Symeon Stylites 44, 227 Theodote 63, 64, m9£
Symeon Stylites the Younger 227, 286 Theodotos Kassiteras, Patriarch u3
Symeon the Fool 22 Theodulf of Orleans 74, 88--91, 141
Symeon the New Theologian 272f., 280, Theoktiste, mother ofTheodore the
J09, 3II, 322-33, 343 Stoudite 155
Symeon the Pious 323-26 theologia, contrasted with oikonomia 161f.
Synagoge, or Evergetinos z8r£, 284£ "Theophanes Continuatus" 209
Synagogue,Jewish 43 Theophanes Graptos 126, r56f.
Synesios of Cyrene 162 Theophanes of Sigriane (the
Synodikon ofOrthodoxy 65, 133, 319f. Chronicler) 44, 48, 59, 6ef, 95, u9,
Syria 55 172
Syriac 3 Theophano, wife of Leo VI 246
Syrians 23 Theophano, wife of Otto II 208, 266[
Szekesfehervar 252 Theophano, wife of Romanos II 212f.
Index
Theophilos, Emperor 126f., 132, 15ft. Utrecht Psalter 148

Theophilos I of Alexandria 31 Uzes 348
Theophylact, metropolitan of Kiev 258
Theophylact, Patriarch 251 Vahan, Armenian bishop 191
Theophylact Simocatta 95, 153 Vallombrosa 277
T7Jeotokos, see Virgin Mary Varangians 253, 255, 257
Thera, Therasia, Cydadic Islands 48 Venice 173, 175(, 307
Thessaloniki 30, 44 Versinikia 122
Thietmar 247 Vesteinsson, Orri 242f.
Thomas, Apostle 143( Vezelay 224
Thomas of Claudiopolis 45 Victor II, Pope 299
Thomas the Slav u6 Vigili us 141
Thor 255 Vikings 97, 176(, 218, 222, 225, 229, 242,
Thorgilsson, Ari 242 253, 291, 305
Three Chapters, condemnation of 9, 141 Vll"gil of Salzburg 179
lllfee Orders of Society 294 Virgin Mary 5, 44f., 48, 58f., 89, 127, 132,
Tiberios II (Apsirnar) 47 135, 197f., 229
Timothy I of Alexandria JI feasts of 197
Tunorhy Evergetinos 28:rf. maphorion of 197
Toledo, synods of 15, 42 Visigotlis 2., 142
Toumus 177 Vitae Patrum 275-'77
tradition 42f., u3 Vitalian, Pope 16
Tragos 237 Vitus 245, 247
trilinguism, problem of 17ef. Vivarium 102
Trinity, doctrine of 16of., 339 Vladimir (towns) 258
Trisagion 36, 190 Vladimir, prince of Kiev m , 255-58, 287
theopasdute addition 36, 190 Vladimir, son of Boris 188
Truce of God 292 Vlasto, AP. 245
Trullan Synod (in Trolio), see cumenical Vojtech, see Adalbert
synods, Q!iinisext Vratislav 245
Trypanis, C.A. 156
Turks 233, 348-51 Waddell, Helen 140, 207f., 275(
Turov 258 Wallace-Hadrill, J.M. 88 n., 90, 97
typi.kon (monastic foundation Wallis, Faith 18 n .
document) II2, 229 Wenceslas (Vaclav) 244-47
Wends 167, inf., 249 n.
Udo 297 Whitby 17
Umar, emir of Melitene 189 Widukind 266
Umayyad Caliphate 4, 41, 49, 55, 66, 163 Wilfud 14
ofCorduba 2 William of Aquitaine 219f.
uncial, see majuscule William the Conqueror 305
Unger of Poznan' 248 Willibrord 176
unrversalis episcopus, title for pope 299 wisdom, inner 162, 273, 319-22
Uppsala 243 outer 135, 162, 273, J19-22
Urban II, Pope 316f. Wolfgang 251
Uspensky Gospels 153, 156 Wollasch, Joachim 217
women 7 Zacharias, Pope 68, 79

Wood, Ian 7 Zoe, Empress 346
worship, in parishes r95f. Zoe Karbonopsina 161, 21If., 214
Zonaras 334
Yaropolk 255
Yazid II, caliph 49

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THE CHURCH IN

Previous Series Editors

Greek East and

ST VLADIMIR'S SEMINARY PRESS

All Rights Reserved

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

1. The Church at the End of the Seventh Century 13

2. Iconoclasm: First Phase and Aftermath 41

3. The Church in the West 67

PART II: THE NINTH CENTIJRY

5. Monastic Reform in East and West IOI

The Triumph of Orthodoxy 132

8. Pope, Patriarch and Christian Mission 167

9. Changing Patterns of Worship 193

PART III: THE TENTH CENTURY

ro. Introduction 207

11. Monastic Renewal 217

12. Christian Mission 241

13. Approaching the End of the First Christian Millennium 263

14. Introduction 271

15. Monastic Developments 275

16. Reform and the Papacy 291

17. ro54 and the "Schism" 305

18. Spiritual and Intellectual Life in Byzantium 319

1. Illustration to Psalm n5 of the Utrecht Psalter, which dates from AD 820-

n. Emperor Otto receives the homage of the nations. Gospels of Emperor

In the 1980s, Father John Meyendorff planned a six-volume history of the

Perhaps a word of explanation is needed about this volume called, in accor-

BBTT = Belfast Byzantine Texts and Translations

CCCM = Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, Tumhout:

CCSG = Corpus Christianorum: Series Graeca, Turnhout: Brepols, 1977-

CSS = Cistercian Studies Series, Kalamazoo MI: Cistercian Publications

DOP = Dumbarton Oaks Papers

Imperial, Unity= John Meyendorff, Imperial Uniry and Christian Divisions.

]TS = journal of Theological Studies

SC = Sources Chretiennes, Paris: Le Cerf, 1943-

SCH = Studies in Church History

SVSP = St Vladimir's Seminary Press

ZKG = Z-eitsch-riftfiir Kirchengeschichte

As the Byzantines regained power and confidence, they experienced a

Greek liturgical poetry-and perhaps liturgical music-was deeply indebted to

genuine military competence in the emperor that could not be reliably

presence in ninth- and eleventh-century France, about predestination again

a fact of great importance to St Theodore of Stoudios, and in the wake of that

THE CHURCH AT THE END OF

History n, Cambridge University Press, 1995.

6Bede, Falesiastical Hirtory 4 .2.

provoked cultural creativity of a high order, manifest especially in the so-

body of learning, focusing on the understanc:ling of Christ revealed in the

bishop of Neapolis, near modem Limassol in Cyprus, is mainly known for

the Upper Orontes.

cedonian Church in the Middle East in this period. Although non-Chal-

East, stood up to the Christological compromises of Emperor and Patriarch

This massive work of recapitulation and epitome of the patristic tradition

12 SeeMeyend orff, Imperial Unity, pp. 102- 9 .

Danube, and eventually founded a Bulgarian Empire that remained a threat

century canonist Balsamon, it has been called the Q!iinisext (Fifth-sixth, in

resort to fortune-telling, or "so-called cloud-chasers, sorcerers, purveyors of