CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020
| Author | Adashinskaya, Anna |
|---|---|
| Title | Ktetor: Practices of Ecclesiastic Foundation, Sponsorship, and Patronage in Late Byzantium and Balkan Slavic Countries |
| Summary | My dissertation is devoted to the practices of ecclesiastic patronage on the Late Medieval Balkans (from the late 13th century to the mid of the 15th century). It attempts to define the ktetoria as a total social phenomenon manifesting itself in various aspects of Byzantine and Slavic Societies (such as flows of capital, land accumulation, state ideology, rhetoric, literacy, archival techniques, visual artistic expression, self-representation of individuals, and many others). It approaches this phenomenon by regarding the actors (patrons, founders, sponsors, benefactors), their motives, actions, and objectives, and their recipients, the ecclesiastic institutions and communities of believers. This approach enables me to look at the patronage through the eyes of the medieval practitioners of the ktetoria, and to understand the ways this practice functioned in the Medieval societies. For the practitioners, the pious patronage encompassed three forms of benefactions: a foundation of an ecclesiastic or philanthropic institution; endowment with lands, land income, or other goods; and donation of precious objects. Consequently, I regarded these activities not as separate customs but as components of one tradition of pious giving to ecclesiastic institutions and I approached this tradition through the in-depth analysis of case studies based on charters, church inscriptions, and votive portraits. The first chapter of the dissertation deals with the overview of the approaches to the patronage studies and the problems associated with them. It covers such problems as research on Byzantine and Slavic foundation law and traditions, theory and practice of gift-giving in the medieval Christian countries, the understanding of relations between the patronage and royal authority, as well as the representations of patrons and their meaning. Besides the Introductory chapter, the dissertation is divided into two parts encompassing the examinations of foundation activities and gift-giving practices, described broadly. This perspective facilitated the comparison between these two pious activities and the terms applied for their description by the medieval sources. Thus, the second chapter aims at the typology of private ecclesiastic institutions in Byzantium and Medieval Balkan countries. It takes a closer look at a wide range of privately-established ecclesiastic institutions whose size and purpose varied greatly, from the small household chapels to great hermitic monastic communities. It comes to conclusion that all these foundations can be divided into two predominant types: family institutions and hermitic communities. A family institution was meant for daily services, celebrations, burials, commemorations, and retirement of the members of one family and preserved certain ties with the profane world surrounding it. On the contrary, as a case study of Hosios Leontios of Monembasia and his monastery demonstrated, a hermitic institution was founded by a group of persons connected with spiritual ties who separated from the world and tried to achieve the spiritual perfection. The intentional seclusion and focusing on religious matters allowed to these monasteries to gain spiritual capital from the members of lay society and, therefore, to receive financial support from various external sources. The third chapter focuses on patterns of ecclesiastic patronage, namely, it defines the use of the titles of the first and second ktetor as well as the modes of collective patronage. The studied material proved that the Byzantines and Balkans Slavs didn’t differentiate between the initial founder and second and/or secondary founders of various types. The status of ktetor could be transferred or shared in several ways: through hereditary lines; because of the ties of respect, apprenticeship, or friendship; for the political benefits received by foundations; due to a shortage of funds; by the appointment of a Patriarch etc. In this paradigm, ktetoria became a denomination for financial sponsorship and patronage, protection, but also preserved its initial meaning of (re)foundation, (re)construction and (re)building. Due to various social and political motives the acts of ktetoria could be undertaken as a group effort, by several persons in association as well as consecutively. In such groups one or several persons were the initiators and/or leaders of the patronage deed which was emphasised by the means of iconography and rhetoric. The fourth chapter juxtaposes various images depicting the secondary ktetors, namely, the sponsors presented as supplicants and the portraits of the founders’ children included into the votive compositions. In both cases, the depicted figures had a smaller measure of participation than the main founders, but their social status differed. If the secondary ktetors, depicted as small-scale figures or commemorated in additional inscriptions, were either the successors of the initial ktetor or the minor economic sponsors, the children participated with their future inheritance in the foundation. Moreover, the depiction of children was applied as a communicative tool: this way, the portraits demonstrated the succession in the inheritance of economic and political rights and preserved the memory about the family’s status and wealth. The fifth chapter deals with the exclusive rights of the founders in the opposition to that of the sponsors and patrons, and investigates two problems, related to the church dedication and the mentioning of political authorities in the dedicatory inscriptions. Thus, founders used the ecclesiastic institutions under their patronage for the shaping and promotion of their public images whereas the act of foundation itself was regarded as a reflexion of the founders’ identities, religious belief, personal hopes, political affiliations, economic might, family position, and social achievements. The choice of spiritual patron for a foundation was one of these identity matters that, as the case study of the Hodegetria’s churches proves, depended on the pious believes and political motives of the commissioners. More precisely, such circumstances as a desire to imitate the arrangements of the capital or an acquisition of a personal replica of the famous icon could influence the selection of the dedication. On the other hand, the references to the wordly authorities in the church dedicatory inscriptions can be perceived in the context of changing political landscape on the Late medieval Balkans. Though the reasons of the rulers’ names inclusion in the dedicatory texts could vary from political and economic opportunism to the expression of true loyalty, the ruler-reference formula demonstrated the political affiliations of the founders and their places in the networks of power. The second part of the dissertation focuses on the sponsorship as a practice of making investments, imperial as well as private, into already existing monastic institutions. The sponsors were interested into the establishment of spiritual bounds with and the assurance of commemorations at venerable, famous institutions. For the sake of the remembrance rituals, the donors passed their patrimonial properties, money and expensive artistic gifts (manuscripts, icons, textiles, liturgical objects) to the monks. Thus, this part of the dissertation compares several social groups of the donors: royalties, aristocracy, private persons, and women; it also analyses how the economy of salvation, i.e. endowment against the commemorative prayers, functioned in rhetoric and the negotiation of agreements between private persons and monasteries. Relying on the case studies of the imperial donations to the monasteries performed by the Serbian Tsar Stefan Dušan, the sixth chapter investigated the ways in which the landed donations given to great monasteries changed the economic and political situation in the regions of Macedonia and Thrace. Moreover, it demonstrated how the donor’s political position during Byzantine civil wars, the Serbian coup d’état and the Byzantine-Serbian conflicts shaped their choice of monastery for commemoration and their family ties. As the Serbian ruler enriched foundations which assisted in the promotion of his legitimacy (primarily, the Slavic monasteries, the Menoikeion and Vatopedi), many of the Serbian noblemen and Greeks, loyal to Stefan Dušan, followed his example while making their benefactions. Thus, the conquest of Macedonia by Stefan Dušan changed the property landscape, as the Tsar generously granted new possessions to the monasteries supporting his political claims. And the rhetoric of his donation deeds accommodated not only private concerns and expression of individual piety, but also the political concepts and propaganda messages. The seventh chapter regards the donations to monasteries made by nobility and members of lower classes, from average bourgeoisie to the wealthy peasants. The documents issued by the members of nobility attested their attention to the commemorative rituals and rites, necessary for the salvation of the donor’s soul. Sometimes, this rhetoric could be merely a cliché masking real economic motives of a donor or a recipient. More often, however, the relations of patronage established stable connections between noble families and certain monasteries, arranged functioning communication networks between monks and laymen, and created a diverse market of commemorative services, being the subject of negotiations between the noble donors and the monasteries. At the same time, the members of the rich peasantry and village priesthood had the appropriate legal status, authority and means to become the minor donors of the ecclesiastic foundations. Their reasons for patronage seemed to be both, pious and practical. As a donation could be a way to pay respect to a monastery, to assure future commemoration and/or burial place as well as to become a member of a brotherhood or to receive a life-long adelphaton. Consequently, practically all classes of the Balkan societies were involved into the performance of the pious land offerings to ecclesiastic institutions, to the degree of their economic possibilities. The next chapter analyses the complex relations between the Orthodox theology of the Afterlife, the diversification of commemoration rituals, and the economy of salvation, regarding the commemorations as commodities bought by the economic investments. Thus, under the influence of the Purgatory polemics with the Latins, the Orthodox theology formulated the concept of the intermediary judgement and regarded commemorations performed by the living as a measure to improve the conditions in the Afterlife. This intellectual development led to the rapid growth of commemoration demands and the establishment of exchange relations between the foundations and the individuals (gifts for commemorations). During the 14th century, one can observe the diversification of commemoration rituals and funerary services having different ‘prices’ for the donors. The strong demand for different modes of remembrance made the descriptions of the rites, inserted into the transfer agreements, much more detailed and diverse. The growing number of requests led to the development of private liturgical commemorations that could be performed in the subsidiary monastery spaces. However, as the memorial services occupied the increasing amount of liturgical time, the Memorial books were developed to range the donors in a certain hierarchy. Moreover, the content of these Memorials and their entries conflicting with the policies of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate proved that the members of the monastic communities could manipulate the commemorations, including or excluding some names at their sole discretion. The final chapter of the dissertation addresses the modes of female gift-giving and patronage and juxtaposes the rhetoric of donation and the actual mobile gifts, made by the noble Byzantine and Serbian ladies to important monasteries. Female rhetoric of piety had several distinctive features: it always contained references to the male kinsmen of the commissioners (sons, brothers, father, husband, etc.) and/or their marital status. The writings of female authors/commissioners reflected their ambiguous position in the Byzantine society, as the women of the late Byzantium and Serbia had political and economic power but felt sinful being actively involved in the social matters. Though, formally, their writings display the narratives of submission and humbleness, women actively participated into the composition of the text of deeds. Among the donors and founders of the Byzantine Empire, Serbian state, and the Orthodox territories under the Ottoman rule, widows were the most active participants and their gifts displayed a complex of ideas, connected with the preservation of familial memory, pointing out to their social status and keeping the spiritual ties between family generations. Non-royal nuns were more active on the Byzantine territories but rarely appeared as sponsors of ecclesiastic art in Serbia, while the Serbian royal ladies were equally active patrons as their male counterparts. This two-partial study helped me realize that the ktetor and ktetoria were umbrella terms covering a wide range of pious activities, such as the establishment of a foundation, the donation of properties or expensive gifts to ecclesiastic institutions, the restoration of a church or a monastery, and the performance of a patron who became a representative and protector of the foundation. Consequently, the title of ktetor was applied to various categories of benefactors, sponsors, and patrons, who exercised material support and administrative assistance to an ecclesiastic institution. Regarding the development of patronage practices in the Slavic and Wallachian Medieval states, I came to conclusion that this expansion of meaning of the word ktetor led to the appearance of a concept associating the imperial political power, inheritance of the Byzantine ideology, and symbolic leadership in the Orthodox world with the involvement into the patronage over monasteries of Mount Athos during the post-Byzantine period in Serbia and Wallachia. On the other hand, placing various strategies of patronage and endowment in the framework of the reciprocal gift-giving and gift-responding relations, I demonstrated that the monasteries and churches received the benefaction in exchange for various commemorative rites, advocating services, and petitioning prayers, and that these pious rites turned into “commodities” having their own market value. However, the donation/patronage motives were not limited to church rituals; the established foundations as donations to God, the texts of charters accompanying the transfer of assets, and the material gifts themselves became the means for expressing the complex system of medieval social being which included personal image, as well as a status in community and political position. Thus, in my opinion, these three components joint together, i.e., political motives, community organization, and individual representation, became the moving force behind the practices of ktetoria. |
| Supervisor | Ziemann, Daniel; Klaniczay, Gábor |
| Department | Medieval Studies PhD |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2020/adashinskaya_anna.pdf |
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