Francis of Assisi as a Hesychast: Byzantine Conceptions of Sanctity in Bonaventure's Legenda Sancti Francisci (original) (raw)
Jesuit Sanctity: Hypothesizing the Continuity of a Hagiographic Narrative of the Modern Age
Journal of Jesuit Studies
The introduction to this special issue provides some considerations on early modern sanctity as a historical object. It firstly presents the major shifts in the developing idea of sanctity between the late medieval period and the nineteenth century, passing through the early modern construction of sanctity and its cultural, social, and political implications. Secondly, it provides an overview of the main sources that allow historians to retrace early modern sanctity, especially canonization records and hagiographies. Thirdly, it offers an overview of the ingenious role of the Society of Jesus in the construction of early modern sanctity, by highlighting its ability to employ, create, and play with hagiographical models. The main Jesuit models of sanctity are then presented (i.e., the theologian, the missionary, the martyr, the living saint), and an important reflection is reserved for the specific martyrial character of Jesuit sanctity. The introduction assesses the continuity of th...
Alice-Mary Talbot, ed., Byzantine Defenders of Images. Eight Saints' Lives in English Translation
Speculum, 2002
In this second volume of the Dumbarton Oaks series Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation, as in the first, Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation, Alice-Mary Talbot capitalizes on the benefits of a unifying theme to produce a wonderfully useful volume. The eight saints' lives in this volume are divided evenly between the first period of iconoclasm (726-87), inaugurated by the Byzantine emperor Leo III, and the second (815-43), inaugurated by Leo V the Armenian. The contents of the two parts are very disparate in length and nature, however. Four brief notices from the Synaxarion of Constantinople (24 pages) represent the four saints of the first period: Theodosia of Constantinople (synaxarion for 18 July, Bibliotheca hagiographica Graeca [BHG] 1774e); Stephen the Younger (28 November); Anthousa of Mantineon (27 July, BHG Auctarium 2029h); and Anthousa, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine V (12 April). By contrast, the second period is represented by extensive documents of diverse character: the life of Patriarch Nikephoros I by the repentant Ignatios, deacon and skeuophylax of the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople (BHG 1335, 102 pages); the anonymous life of Sts. David, Symeon, and George of Lesbos, in fact a composite of multiple sources about historically unrelated figures (BHG 2163, 102 pages); the life of Ioannikios by the monk Peter (BHG 936, 97 pages); and the life with encomium of Empress Theodora (BHG 1731, 22 pages). The editor attributes this imbalance to the paucity of hagiographical sources about the first period, the fact that no accounts were actually written in the first period, and the fact that a new edition of the Vita of St. Stephen the Younger, the major extensive hagiographical text pertaining to the first period of iconoclasm, is currently in press. The four short pieces from the Constantinopolitan synaxarion representing the first period of iconoclasm capture the retrospective assessment of the controversy that prevailed in the capital in the tenth century. They introduce the reader to the iconodule traditions that sustained the opposition to iconoclasm in the documents from the second period, while their editors' introductions place those later documents in perspective. The historical material provided in the introductions and notes are rich in reference to current research, bringing out the role that women played in resistance to iconoclasm and providing critical perspective on such issues as double monasteries and the persistent tensions between monastic leaders and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The four pieces representing the second period of iconoclasm offer very different contributions to this volume. Elizabeth Fisher's introduction to the Vita of Patriarch Nikephoros I (758-828) is a little gem of historiography, accounting for the bitter hostility evidenced in the Vita between Nikephoros and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, on the one hand, and, on the other, the Stoudite monks, who ought to have been his allies in their common opposition to iconoclasm. Fisher steers us through a labyrinth of political issues, including the elevation of Nikephoros, a layman, through a series of rapid ordinations to the patriarchate at the behest of Emperor Nikephoros I and over the objections of the Constantinopolitan Stoudios monastery; revocation of the earlier excommunication of a loyal courtier who had divorced and remarried contrary to canon law, again over the objections of the Stoudite monks; the emperor's exile of the Stoudite leader, Theodore, in the fourth year of Nikephoros's patriarchate; and Nikephoros's opposition to double monasteries. On the literary side, Fisher relates the remarkable overview of the Byzantine curriculum in higher education and the Socratic dialogue between the patriarch and the iconoclast emperor Leo V, both embedded in the Vita, to the ornate and archaic literary style of this work, preparing the reader for the Homeric allusions and vocabulary scattered through the text.
Descending from the Throne: Byzantine Bishops, Ritual and Spaces of Authority
2017
Author(s): Rose, Justin Richard | Advisor(s): Alexander, Michael; Johnson, Sherri F | Abstract: Descending from the Throne studies the how medieval and contemporary Byzantine bishops used thrones in monumental art, ritual and text to craft spaces of authority. Constantine the Great and his successors crafted Constantinople innovatively drawing upon the tradition of Rome and Jerusalem to make the imperial city a space of civil and sacred authority.Drawing upon the tradition of the Great Church, Hagia Sophia, in Constantinople, medieval bishops innovated art, text and ritual to stabilize authority in their local circumstances. This dissertation will consider the work of Demetrios Chomatenos, Archbishop of Ohrid and rival of the Despotate of Nicaea for the patriarchal title following the Latin occupation of the Fourth Crusade. Drawing from his years as a canon lawyer in Constantinople, he innovatively crafted a space of legal authority in the upper narthex of Sveti Sophia in Ohrid to p...
International Conference Mendicant Orders in the Eastern Mediterranean: Art, Architecture and Material Culture (13th-16th c.) Nafplion (Greece), 19-23 April 2017
The excavations carried by Cecil L. Striker and Doğan Kuban in the nineteen sixties and seventies revealed that the Kalenderhane Mosque was part of the monastic complex of the Virgin Kyriotissa. The vita cycle of Saint Francis and some other finds suggest that the church was used as a Catholic Church during the Latin occupation. The mysterious cycle of Saint Francis has attracted scholarly attention since its discovery. Scholarship mainly focuses on four aspects of the cycle: establishing its historical setting, patronage and dating; identifying the scenes in the cycle and their links to contemporary and later mural and panel paintings and cycles of Saint Francis; stylistic associations of the cycle with other works of art and, in particular, with a group of thirteenth-century Crusader manuscripts; and, lastly, the choice of Byzantine vita format for the fresco cycle. The ensemble of various Eastern and Western components in the program is a less discussed and researched aspect of the cycle. It is commonly considered to reflect the mid-thirteenth-century climate of the ongoing negotiations for the union of the Greek Orthodox Church and Latin Catholic Church. The quite unusual importance attributed to Greek Church Fathers, depicted twice the size of the central figure of Francis and in a prominent location framing the cycle, is generally interpreted as a reference to the identification of the common origins of the Latin Church and Greek Church and the parallels between Franciscan spirituality and Byzantine monasticism. However, in this paper, I will argue that the joint presence of Western and Eastern elements and some overlooked particularities of its iconographic program may also lead to a different reading. This new interpretation of the Saint Francis cycle goes far beyond the attempt of the mendicant order to legitimize the sainthood of their recently canonized founder and requires reconsideration of its context against the backdrop of the ongoing negotiations of power and ideology in the post-Crusades Mediterranean.